Date of Submission

Spring 2024

Academic Program

Photography

Project Advisor 1

Laura Steele

Abstract/Artist's Statement

My mother is from Ecatepec, Mexico. My father is from Jaloxtoc, Mexico. I was born in Manhattan, New York in 2002. In 2005, I moved to Mexico with only one of my parents, and spent my early years growing up in the municipality of Ecatepec in the state of Mexico. I would end up leaving Mexico when I was in the 3rd grade of elementary school, and began to fully immerse myself in America.

Once in the States, in order to communicate via telephone with my mother, father, and other relatives in the United States, I would initiate this ritual by dialing “7”, “1”, and “8”. To communicate with the rest of my family, those who live in Ecatepec, I would begin this ritual with now only, “5”, and then, another “5”. Since I can remember, these have been the figures, the symbols that have represented this accessible form of communicating with my family, and before with ancestors who are no longer here.

I am interested in the silent dialogue that occurs between these symbols and those who give them meaning, those who carry them across. Similarly to others, my parents emigrated to the United States. And in that journey, they brought certain things from their home with them. As my parents go through this journey, so do the symbols they have carried here. Some don’t make it. Some look different. Those who don’t make it stay back. They won’t necessarily disappear. Maybe not yet. But as we grow older, so do these symbols. And so do the people who gave them value to us. What happens to them? What happens to these symbols? What happens to Us?

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