this is a flag. there is no wind., 2021

The following is an excerpt from my senior thesis:

There are some things I will always pledge allegiance to: brightly colored yarn, my grandmother’s yerba buena plant, and pupusas revueltas. I pledge allegiance to overdue library books, Lisa Frank stickers, and gaudily colored bandanas. I pledge allegiance to myself, through and through. My most authentic expression of myself is centered in joy.

Flags have always been a double-edged sword: their vibrant, bold declaration of belonging both intrigued and haunted me. As a child of diaspora, I struggle to figure out where my body fits between 3 countries: America, El Salvador, and Mexico. I wanted my identity to fit neatly into the field of a flag, for it to be a stationary reference point I could always return to. I struggled to trim and tailor my personage to fit one flag, one cultural identity and history. 

In my thesis, I explore the ways in which I declare the malleability and nepantlan nature of my identity by re-dreaming the classic structure of a flag into a new vessel of change. I’ve woven this flag to assert my independence from any monolithic interpretation of who I am. The flag transforms the classic image of the flag, brutish and imperialistic, into something soft and juvenile. By rejecting the rigid structure of the flag, I’ve learned that my identity is tender and forgiving. I mold and redefine my identity beyond the constraints I formerly placed upon myself. I burned Mercator projection maps into cyanotype and manipulated the fabric to form ambiguous figures playing with a star. The fabric is cut to the shape of the figures, thereby distorting the maps into unrecognizable patterns. The figures take the place of geographical points, thereby breaking the predetermined boundaries and borders enforced by the maps. The figures are posed in the flag dancing with elation, inviting the viewer to celebrate and belong to something in motion.

Although I will never be able to pinpoint a place and say I came from there and wave its flag, through my work I free myself by illuminating my resilience and piecing together my personal sovereignty. I fly my love & hope like flags and declare I am from here.