by Justin Akers Chacón · Published March 28, 2020 · Last modified April 22, 2020
Here in Washington State farmworkers are being asked to continue working. On the east side of Washington where the majority of farms grow apples, cherries, and pears, there are currently about 5000 workers that have come through the H2A visa program. That number is supposed to go up to over 20,000 when they reach peak harvest. We have seen just how exploitative this program is to workers.
by Justin Akers Chacón · Published March 26, 2020 · Last modified January 19, 2022
The global capitalist economy has quickly stumbled into recession, a process already unfolding before the COVID-19 pandemic came into full view. The effects of the spreading virus have led to rolling closures and shutdowns to large swathes of different international economies, inducing a full-blown crisis that is now breathlessly impacting people across the world.
by Justin Akers Chacón · Published March 16, 2020 · Last modified January 19, 2022
Somewhere another dimension perhaps oil and water mix effortlessly and we can hold them both at once land, theirs
is ours now, is stateless somewhere another stateless dimension perhaps red earth is free.
by Justin Akers Chacón · Published March 1, 2020 · Last modified January 19, 2022
You ask yourself what is that?
Es una mezcla de la cultura Africana y Mexicana.
I come from a linage of former African slaves that arrived on the shores
of Veracruz along with Cortez para la conquista.
Against All Odds is a VR experience that focuses on creating empathy by means of light, sound, and a minimalist approach to materiality. The user experiences this world from a child’s perspective as they attempt to escape from a holding facility, only to walk into a hate speech rally and be followed by menacing, faceless figures. This VR piece embodies the narrative of “children in cages” in an effort to expose the user to an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe at the U.S. Texas border that is fueled by the hate rhetoric of the current U.S. administration.
by Justin Akers Chacón · Published January 31, 2020 · Last modified January 19, 2022
La semana pasada, el ejército Mexicano, actuando como policía fronteriza, atacó a cientos de civiles migrantes indefensos, la mayoría de los cuales son de Centro Américanos, con spray de pimienta, matando al menos a una persona y arrestando a más de 800 personas que buscaban asilo.
Nosotros, MeXicanos, nacidos o con raíces en México, viviendo en los Estados Unidos, denunciamos el uso de violencia militar por parte del gobierno de Estados Unidos y de México en contra de migrantes inocentes. Además, rechazamos los esfuerzos de Estados Unidos para controlar y militarizar las fronteras de Centroamérica, por medio de acuerdos ejecutivos con México, Guatemala, Honduras y El Salvador, que van en contra de la política de movimiento libre que existía anteriormente entre estos países.
by Justin Akers Chacón · Published January 23, 2020 · Last modified January 19, 2022
El capitalismo norteamericano se ha transformado en dos realidades superpuestas, y aun así totalmente contradictorias para el capital y el trabajo. En ninguna parte es esto más evidente que observando lo que ha sucedido entre los Estados Unidos y México en las últimas tres décadas. A través de los auspicios del estado, sus dos principales partidos políticos y sus homólogos menores a través de las fronteras nacionales, la clase capitalista de los Estados Unidos ha transformado la región en una economía singular para el capital sin fronteras.[1]
by Justin Akers Chacón · Published January 13, 2020 · Last modified January 19, 2022
North American capitalism has been transformed into two over-lapping, yet starkly contradictory realities for capital and labor. Nowhere is this more apparent than through observation of what has taken place between the United States and Mexico over the last three decades. Through the aegis of the state, its two major political parties, and its junior counterparts across national boundaries, the US capitalist class has transformed the region into a singular borderless economy for capital.
Integration in this form has been accomplished through what are mischaracterized as “free-trade agreements” (FTAs). These were imposed under authoritarian conditions. Freedom was conspicuously absent when FTAs were dictated to the Mexican people during economic crisis as conditional in exchange for emergency loans. These “structural adjustment programs” required by outside entities such as the International Monetary
This drawing is a celebration and honoring of *all* forms of labor that I created for International Workers’ Day. By “honoring,” I mean that we must advocate for laws and policies that allow us to work with dignity and safety. On October 12, 2019, the Hard Rock construction project collapsed in New Orleans, killing three workers and injuring many more. Workers had been warning management for time that labor conditions were unsafe. One worker who spoke out about the collapse to news media was deported to Honduras recently. His name is Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma and he has lived in the United States for almost 20 years. He has a family here. He has a life here. He has dreams too. Always, but especially now, we must fight for working conditions that allow us to realize our dreams and do not punish us for demanding just treatment.
These prints were created in support of undocumented folks as well as being a criticism of the United States. Amerikkka has spread fear, weapons, corruption, and violence across the world, creating conditions that force people to risk their lives to escape in search of survival. Folks migrating to the United States continue to live in fear and are being persecuted, put in cages, and killed. As an artist and a formerly undocumented person, I create art that helps undocumented folks heal and calls for their protection and for solidarity with their fight. I will never stop fighting for the safety, happiness, and rights of undocumented people.
