Women Giving Birth to Themselves: Liminal Motherhood and Liberation in the Work of Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz and Frida Kahlo

This paper utilizes a mujerista interpretation of Frida Kahlo’s artwork in order to complexify mujerista images of motherhood. The first section is an analysis of the motherhood-related language that Isasi-Diaz uses in her book Mujerista Theology. The second section provides a brief biographical sketch of Frida Kahlo as we explore a set of her paintings referred to as “anti-nativity scenes” and how these anti-nativity scenes contribute to the mujerista project of liberation due to their reimagining of the role of mother, their symbolic naming of the self, and their location in lo cotidiano. The final section explores how placing the work of Frida Kahlo and Isasi-Diaz into conversation can create an expanded and empowering conception of motherhood that addresses the embodied liminality of Latina women. This gives legitimacy to the varied experiences of Latina women, liberating their real, everyday experiences from the category of the unimportant.