Revolution

One of my favorite exhibitions I saw the other day at the National Museum of Women in the Arts was a collection of letters that Frida Kahlo and her mother wrote to one another while Frida was traveling with her husband Diego Rivera in the United States during the early 1930s. I think she led a fascinating life--so passionate about the things she believed in, especially opportunity and equality for everyone, not just the wealthy.

I discovered a few years ago that Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacan, Mexico, in 1907. There is a good chance my Grandma Jan was living there at the same time. My grandmother was born in Saltillo, Mexico, in 1905 and soon after, her Presbyterian missionary parents moved the family to Coyoacan to run a mission school. I wonder if Grandma Jan and Frida ever walked past each other on the street. Maybe they even knew each other.

Grandma left Mexico when she was eight, about three years after the Mexican Revolution broke out, and headed to Palo Alto, California, where she graduated from high school and then Stanford University. Like Frida Kahlo, she was passionate about the things she believed in, especially opportunity and equality for everyone. I can't imagine she wasn't shaped by some of the same forces Frida Kahlo was shaped by, growing up in the throes of revolution.

Grandma Jan at a monastery in Mexico, February 1980

When I was 16, my parents and I traveled to Mexico with my grandmother. We made a pilgrimage to Coyoacan and found the place where her family lived and worked. Grandma always told lots of stories about her childhood there. I was most entranced when she talked about the secret hole in the wall of the courtyard that she and a friend used to exchange letters and other treasures.

I don't doubt that her stories and the legacy of her Mexican childhood has shaped me, especially the passion I have for working toward a world in which everyone can enjoy opportunity and equality.