Ni De Aqui Carpetas
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THEY TRIED TO BURY US, BUT THEY DID NOT KNOW WE WERE SEEDS

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They Tried to Bury Us, But They Did Not Know We Were Seeds is an installation that holds both memory and resistance, centering a mirror that once belonged to my mother, its surface laser-engraved with the work’s title so that language and reflection become inseparable. Surrounding it are elements of Central Valley dirt and resin-formed ice, slowly melting, invoking a quiet but deliberate reference to ICE and the systems that attempt to erase and displace. Yet within this tension, water emerges, and from it, flowers alive, rooted, and insistent occupying a gallery space that was never meant for them. Their presence is not passive; it is a refusal. They bloom where they are not expected, where they are not welcomed, carrying the weight of survival and the force of resilience.

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ARTWORKS FROM THIS INSTALLATION

REFLEJOS

THEY TRIED TO BURY US, BUT THE DID NOT KNOW WE WERE SEEDS 

NI DE AQUÍ, NI DE ALLÁ

TODO LO QUE BRILLA 

FOTOS Y RECUERDOS

SPEAK ENGLISH! 

NO TE OLVIDES...

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No Te Olvides De Tu Cultura is an immersive installation that constists of seven artworks created from family photo archives, inherited objects, and sculptures modeled after my childhood home, a space built to hold memory, to be seen, and to be recognized as a site of healing and safety. Created during a period of deep isolation in San Francisco, this work became a way to return home when I could not physically be there, grounding me in the only thing that sustained me: my family, my culture, and the act of making. The installation parallels my mother’s life and my own, her journey from being born and raised in Mexico to coming to the United States as a wife, a mother, a farmworker, and a cannery worker, and the disorientation she feels when returning to a Mexico that has changed, mirroring my own sense of displacement moving between the Central Valley, Mexico, and San Francisco. We exist in a constant in-between, where belonging is never fixed, and this work lives in that tension. At its core is the quiet, persistent act of creation as survival: my mother’s intricate doilies and my photographs, sculptures, and installations become parallel languages of endurance, care, and expression. By bringing hay and dirt from the Central Valley into the space, filling it with the scent of home and the sounds of Mexican music, I invite the body to remember what the mind tries to hold onto. This work bridges past and present, honoring the labor, sacrifice, and resilience embedded in my family’s history while confronting the generational trauma shaped by discrimination, racism, and sexism. It is an offering, a reclamation, and a declaration that our stories, our labor, and our culture are not only worthy of being preserved, but of taking up space fully, unapologetically, and with love.

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NO TE OLVIDES DE TU CULTURA 

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