WHAT IS YOUR IMMIGRATION STORY?
My Dad is from New Orleans. My mom's side came from Nicaragua and Mexico. They came during the dictatorship. My Great Grandpa basically knew that if they didn't leave, they were going to incarcerate him or kill him. So, they fled to New Orleans because they had heard that there was a community of Latin Americans here. So, they felt that there was some sort of hope for us to kind of build a future here. So, my grandma came here and then my grandpa came from Mexico, and they met at a random party here and they kind of moved back to Mexico for a while during the 50s and 60s and they came back here to New Orleans and had my mom and her siblings.
WHAT DOES YOUR CURRENT JOURNEY LOOK LIKE?
I feel very proud of my family and where I come from and just growing up and being able to partake in all these cultural exchanges and going back to Nicaragua because I go there once every two years or so to visit my maternal family. It's interesting because a lot of the conflict that's going on in Nicaragua is also happening again. And a lot of it has to do with US intervention, unfortunately, which happens in a lot of countries. But some of my cousins actually came here and moved here during 2018 and we were able to help them build a life here. So, it's been this really beautiful exchange of family, memory, history between these two places. I'm pretty involved in the community here as well as far as immigration and whenever there's events or protests going on I feel pretty involved, and all my friends are very much involved as much as they can be.
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What are your hopes for the future?
During the current circumstances it's pretty depressing but I think as much as we can fight for as much as we can to have people have their rights to be here especially in Louisiana we have one of the highest incarceration rates for immigrants and they're in very rural areas so they don't even have access to get a lawyer to go there. So, my hope is obviously that this administration changes and that people have the right to be here especially when they're being taken away and jailed in El Salvador. But I do really feel hopeful because I feel like everyone is trying to make the future better. It's not just one-sided and we definitely have a lot of people working hard to change and to protect our rights. I just feel really proud to be from a family of immigrants. I feel like my life would be so different if they didn't come here. Obviously, I wouldn't be here because my parents met here, but I just feel really really connected to my roots and a lot of my artwork is about my family history and how these two places connect. It's a part of who I am.
