Interactive Installation

Materials: Laser cut bandana, Central Valley dirt, Farmworkers’ attire, ganchos (clothing pins), buckets, cement, silver metallic spray paint, wire, two poles, fruit picked from a farmworker, Bluetooth speaker. 

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Song: Te Juro Que Te Amo by Los Terrícolas

     This installation honors the invisible labor of farmworkers those who are too often overlooked despite their essential role in putting food on our tables. I was raised in the Central Valley by Mexican parents who began their American lives as farmworkers, and I draw from my personal history to confront viewers with the reality and dignity of this labor. The piece features a laser cut bandana and clothes suspended between two poles, grounded by cement filled buckets, and real fruit picked by local farmworkers. Central Valley dirt covers the base, while a Bluetooth speaker plays Te Juro Que Te Amo by Los Terrícolas a love song that echoes gratitude, grief, love, and sacrifice.

This is not only an offering to those who work the land but also a direct message: the fruit you consume is born from the hands of the unseen. The strawberries and grapes arranged atop the buckets in their packaging reflect how you, the viewer, would find them in grocery stores reminding us that behind every neatly packaged product is a human being in the heat, in the cold, doing the labor most people choose not to see.