Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Publication Title

Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies

Volume

10

Issue

1

First Page

33

Last Page

47

Abstract

At the age of seven, I was smuggled across the United States border. My parents’ desperate choice to move our family to the United States was for economic and safety reasons. Above all they simply wanted to give their child better opportunities. The result of that initial journey is a regulated and uncertain future imposed upon physical bodies.

My practice currently focuses on the authority given to paper objects over the people they document. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ refusal to recognize one's humanity within the country has forced 750,000 undocumented people to prove their existence and movements via receipts, report cards, Facebook posts, and mail. Without state-issued identification, young undocumented immigrants rely on ephemera as evidence of our lives within the United States through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Specifically, my recent works make use of maps, envelopes, seemingly everyday materials discarded after having fulfilled their purpose.

In my work, I choose cutting paper and other surfaces as a primary technique because it evokes the crafts and customs taught to me as a toddler in Oaxaca, Mexico, where these skills are still used to celebrate festivals and to mourn the dead. I cut and rearrange maps, paintings, and prints to portray what or who has too often been forgotten.

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