Mi Vida Loca. Religione e identità nel tatuaggio e nell’arte cholo

Used in the 17th Century by the Spanish conquistadors to refer to a mestizo, the term cholo was adopted in the 1960s by young Chicanos—residents of the United States of Mexican origins—to denote a lifestyle marked by street crime and gang affiliation. The cholo subculture is characterized by a peculiar visual identity that emerges through tattoos and other vernacular forms of artistic expression, based on an iconography that associates references to the Catholic religion with symbols of the so-called vida loca, including clown faces, Pitbull dogs and firearms. The most recurrent Christian iconographic motifs are the Virgin of Guadalupe—a symbol of devotion and identification of all Spanish-speaking peoples in the United States—the passion of Christ, crosses, votive offerings and hands joined in prayer. A particular case is that of the Santa Muerte, a pre-Columbian Mexican deity with a skeletal body and dressed as a saint of the Catholic religion, whose cult has recently re-emerged. Borrowing tools from art criticism as well as cultural and post-colonial studies, the article explores the Christian symbolism of the cholo tattoo and its function as an instrument of identification, belonging and resistance to American culture, with references to the production of artists such as Gusmano Cesaretti, Estevan Oriol, Mister Cartoon, Chuco Moreno, Dr. Lakra, Mike Giant and Tamara Santibañez.