Photojournalism from the US-Mexico border currently emphasizes stark, divisive images: walls, fences, surveillance devices, border patrols, “coyotes,” and crossing migrants. Yet some of the most compelling artwork dealing with this region attests to several generations’ worth of cross-border familial relationships, personal identities that carry markers of both countries, and hybrid cultures that meld influences from the United States, Mexico, and farther south in Latin America. This more complex work demonstrates how border residents have resisted being defined by the border and its conflicts, concentrating instead on a de-territorialized notion of home, along with a sense of self that often transcends both nationalism and gender politics.
More recently, artist Ronny Quevedo has captured the transgressive implications of cholo and pachuco wearing a series of works that outlines sewing patterns for clothing of this type in gold leaf on muslin. One piece from the series, titled pachuco, pacha, p’alante (2019), draws inspiration from the artist’s mother, a seamstress in the Bronx after the family migrated there from Ecuador. The delicately patterned cloth traces the templates used to create a suit. The loaded cultural significance of the garment is suggested by the shining gold leaf, which endows the building blocks of the ensemble with baroque brilliance. The patterns themselves, with the inscribed measurements and dotted lines tracing each piece, evoke medieval illuminated manuscripts. Yet the markings may also be read as a revolutionary roadmap: the p’alante of the title is a common activist slogan, translating as “onward.”
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