America

I just read an article called "Recapturing History: The (Un)Official History in Contemporary Latin American art. It covers five Latin American artists and how they discuss their histories. It delves into the issue of  history being written by the "winners". These Latin American artists, through their art, discuss history from their perspective. For example, one artist examines the history of California, and challenges the perspective that it was ever "discovered". There were people there before and the Padres who opened missions all over California while destroying the Indian Civilization. The artist that made this marquee sign, his point is that America is not just the United States. It makes me think of the book The People's History of the United States. I only read the beginning, but it is interesting how in elementary school, it is presented to us as the "discovery" of America was the beginning of a grand adventure and we don't hear much about the bloodshed and atrocities. This makes me want to start getting into political art. What sort of political art does somebody from a privileged background like me make political art about? I feel constant guilt, knowing that I have nice things at the expense of slaves in other countries. I feel guilt as a student, that I am in a generally accepted condition of consumption and high learning. Ahhhh.....