I AM A MEXICAN, Wood, Fabric, and Collage, 2016
In collaboration with Erick Medel and Karina Monroy

I am a Mexican was a collaboration between two other students and myself to explore the complexities of identity and culture. We were interested in what culture was and how it not defined by boundaries. We shared our stories, collectively and individually. We expressed our own associations with what it means to be a Mexican. In our lives we have navigated between public presumptions and personal understandings of Mexican identity. In claiming this space through our personal experiences, we hope to offer that same navigation between the public and the private.

We questioned how stereotypes do and preconceived notions of “Mexicanness” define our own personal associations with the word and label “Mexican”? How have we grappled with, embraced, assimilated to and resisted these stereotypes imposed by the colonial mindset of an Anglo-dominated society?

This installation is not a definite answer to these questions, it is the exploration of these questions.