Who Are You?
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.
Creative Arts
Abuelo’s truck
“Babe, what time are your parents coming?” Julian says to me while leaning over my shoulder from the side of the bed, his dark wavy hair falling over his big brown eyes.
He’s been up for two and a half hours already, fed our two cats and a dog, made us coffee, and a to do list for the day. He lays down next to me and waits for me to wake up.
“Too early.” I say half asleep, scrunching my face to the light. “I need to text my dad.”
They are coming at 10am, as in, five minutes away. I brush my teeth and we head down, get in the car and say our hellos.
“Hola Juan. Hola Yka” says Julian as he gets in the car.
“Yo tambien tengo sueños”
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.
Keep families together/Cages are cages
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.
Support all undocumented youth
This print was 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.
De nopal y espinas
“Nopalito de mi corazón, quiero besarte pero mis labios no saben cómo recibir tu amor.” (Little nopal of my heart, I want to kiss you but my lips do not know how to receive your love.)
I open my artist statement with a line of prose written by spoken word artist, Chris “L7” Cuadrado, because his vision sparked intrigue in me. I want to dig deeper about the ways in which a person, especially as one who self-identifies as Xicana, navigates their relationship with others and how they sustain their well-being in a white supremacist capitalist Imperialist hetero-ableist Patriarchy. The imagery or symbol that is of interest to me and in my work is the cactus, as a Mexican cultural symbol, and the human body. This body of work illustrates the human body as a site of oppression and the mind as a site of resistance to systems of patriarchy.
Mother nature is on fire
This piece reflects how there is mass forest fires occurring everywhere, especially in the Amazon Forest. I read an article about if more of the forest were to burn, it won’t be able to recover and will continue to die. The woman is center is suppose to be a native woman, who are often the leaders for environmental movements and for reclamation of indigenous land. Her hair is the smoke from the forest of the earth burning.
Servin’ em up
Among the bum rush for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination bid, Latinx, Chicanx workers should be reminded that Julián Castro isn’t their friend, nor does he represents their class interests. The Democratic Party along with Republicans are parties of the bosses that hold up workers in a circus and spectacle of blackmail every few years, exchanging one mask for the other. Nowadays the mask has dropped, for the true ugly face of American capitalism is embodied in the Trump administration and that makes Democrats worried. In such a racist climate, workers must unite against the system as a whole cause if they do not, no matter what social movement for change that will exist–every 4 years it stops and dies at the ballot box for the Democrats. ¡Cuidado Compa!
