Liberation for Our Families

Liberation for Our Families

The following image displayed here is titled is “Liberation for Our Families.” I’m posting it to give a little context as to why I created it. Simply put, I am sick and tired of how the media, government, popular culture, and people who do not know us Central Americans perpetually portray us as either the victimizers or the victims. It’s as if we are only good for killing each other, or weeping, or suffering, or dying. This narrative gives us no voice, and no way to guide the conversation in way that explains how we arrived at this place in history. When even artists who are supposed to be allies can only imagine us as creatures in cages or behind bars, it only reinforces the monstrous animal rhetoric of Trump.

I’m done. This image is my challenge to that whole rhetoric. We are not victims. We are rebels. We are fighters. We are people who in the middle of our struggles for liberation, we still found time to dance some cumbia. The outsiders only know us through the monochromatic eyes of the oppressor, but we are full of color. We are life itself. And we will fight back. Personal title for this piece, “Fuck Your Cages!”

I would like to thank fine people at the The Salvadoran American Leadership & Educational Fund (SALEF)for the opportunity to create this piece. SALEF, in collaboration with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law are raising funds to provide legal aid and services to children separated from their parents. Please consider donating what you can

https://www.crowdrise.com/o/en/team/defend-the-children