Reflejos is a nine-part installation composed of laser-engraved acrylic mirrors, each carrying a word or phrase drawn from lived experience; language directed at me, my family, and my community. These statements: “Wetback,” “Go back to Mexico,” “You Mexicans are criminals,” “Speak English!”, exist alongside more insidious remarks like “you are being too combative” or “you need to change your facial expressions.” Together, they expose a spectrum of violence, from overt racism to coded, everyday policing of identity.
The mirrors are not passive surfaces, they return the gaze. As viewers approach, they are confronted not only with these words, but with themselves embedded within them. The discomfort is intentional. It asks: have these words been spoken to you, or have you spoken them? Where do you stand in relation to this language?
Reflejos exists in dialogue with They Tried to Bury Us, But They Did Not Know We Were Seeds, extending its meditation on resilience and survival. If that work speaks to endurance, Reflejos confronts what must be endured, the accumulation of language that attempts to define, diminish, and displace. Unlike spectacle or illumination, the absence of light in this work is deliberate. The words are not elevated, not glorified. They sit in quiet refusal, stripped of authority. They are present, but they are not powerful.
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