Impermanent Origins

“I am not Mexican” and “I do not speak Spanish.”

These are statements that I often find myself stating with grief or resentment and stem from my attempt to abide by the American standard of ‘normality’. The statements echo how acculturation seems to act as an eraser of generational identity in the hopes of improving my social mobility. These feelings can be further described as Racial Melancholia, a proposed psychoanalytic theory by Anne Cheng, which explains the constant disconnection between one’s racial identity and that to which one is assimilated towards.

This body of work mimics Racial Melancholia, in which I utilize anthotypes, a process which produces unstable images that are formed from organic pigments. By selecting plants commonly associated with Mexican-American culture and vegetation, I offer an exploration of my heritage, and apply the pigment as an homage to the neglected side of my identity. The ephemeral quality of these images parallels the divide that is created by the growing generational divide. In line with personal loss of culture, I am utilizing images from my family’s collection which contained limited details, and even to my grandparents, only bear little information.

Much like Racial Melancholia, the images are crafted through the bleaching of pigment and crafts a stark contrast that causes a rift between shadows and highlights, and imitates the struggle of resolution as the color eventually equalizes. Through presenting these unstably archived photos, I invite the viewers into an exploration of social conformity; in impermanent origins and my own attempt to reclaim them.