Years ago, before I started creating art, I saw El Paso artist Zeke Peña's comic Funkterra about military surveillance and war crimes on the border. In part of the comic, Zeke depicts abandoned border patrol vehicles with cracked windows propped up on cinder blocks. Corn stalks grow through one of the vehicles, while in another, a cart selling elotes has been set up. In Zeke's words, "It may seem futurist or prophetic but it's not. These things have been happening but the veil of myth has been pulled. Our communities have endured and survived for generations."
These images stuck with me over the years, and I always wanted to do a print exploring the past, present and future contexts of the Juárez/El Paso border region where my family is from.
On March 27, 2023, migrants from Central and South American countries that were being held at Estancia Provisional de Ciudad Juárez protested the conditions of their detention by setting fire to mattresses in their cells. Although the shelter was supposed to be temporary, with México's own laws claiming that migrants shouldn't be held for more than 36 hours, investigators later found that some migrants had been detained for weeks or over a month, with no idea of when they would be released.
40 men were killed and 27 more were injured in the fire. In the aftermath of the fire, migrants were blamed for their own deaths, and President López Obrador stated that the migrants were protesting their impending deportation. Investigations later found that corruption was rampant throughout the facility and the guards were reported to be extorting detainees. On the day of the protest, men had been heard yelling for basic needs such as food, water, and toilet paper. Surveillance footage in the facility showed guards fleeing from the fire while leaving migrants still locked up in their cells. The protest sparked a greater scrutiny of the treatment of migrants in detention centers in México as well as the United States' role in demanding México enforce an uncompromising immigration policy.
My grandfather's family's roots trace to a town called San Francisco de Conchos in Chihuahua. In 1645, indigenous peoples of the area organized with other nearby towns to revolt against the Spanish missions that had been used as destructive tools of colonialism in the region. Conchos people killed two missionaries and burned down the church in the town. The revolt was part of a series of uprisings over decades in the region, and the burning of churches as protest in México has continued into the present day.
In my print, I placed plants native to the Chihuahuan desert - sotol and agave - as symbols of resistance amidst the injustices that have existed there due to colonialism, classism, racism, and colorism, through militarization, surveillance, profiling, degradation, harassment, and brutality by police, US military personnel, border patrol, and ICE. As Zeke said, the land and the people of the desert have survived and will continue to resist regardless of whatever a border or regime may try to dictate. The past is now and the future is now.
_____________________
I'm Maya Salcido White, an artist from California and Texas. Participating in QAP for the first time in 2019 was my introduction to visual art and launched a passion for printmaking, which has grown into a drive to find more ways to make printmaking and other art forms accessible to artists of all ages. Along with 5 of my friends, I took part in creating Colectiva Libre, a collective that offers free art workshops to the community and encourages people to create as a form of political and self-expression.
In addition to queer ancestry, I also use art to explore my connection to queerness through my Mexican American culture and family’s homelands in the Chihuahuan desert border region. Aside from linocut printmaking, I've also explored risograph, spray paint, murals, photography, archival work, and wheat pasting. @lagrimaya
