I do not use “revolutionary” lightly. Frida became a member of the Mexican Communist Party in the 1920s and remained a staunch anti-imperialist all of her life. That history made the sick irony of seeing her art consumed as the latest bauble in a billionaire art collection all the more disgusting, another sad sign of a decaying capitalism that transforms everything it can into lifeless commodities.

Frida’s indigenismo asserted both her pride in being Mexicana and a challenge to the Yanqui imperialism that had robbed México of its northern territories and endeavored to impose its cultural values on the Mexican people, artists included.

That stance made Frida Kahlo a fierce inspiration to thousands of artists throughout Mexico and América Latina. She also inspired generations of Chicana artists in the United States. They saw in Frida a woman unafraid to acknowledge her pain, her vulnerability, and her rage. She depicted all these sides of herself in her art, especially in her myriad self-portraits that captured not only the experience of having had polio as a child and suffering horrible injuries later in life, but also the patriarchy of Diego Rivera, her longtime lover and a serial mujeriego.

As a young Chicano activist in the 1970s, the works of Kahlo, Rivera, Siqueiros, and other Mexican artists had a powerful influence on my political development and my lifelong devotion to the freedom and self-determination of the Chican@ people. My admiration for Frida had absolutely nothing to do with the commercial value of her works. So maybe then you can understand why I went totalmente asco when I heard that some gachupin billionaire now has his grasping hands on Diego y Yo.