[Untitled]

Artist Statement 

I started this piece when I was 15 years old, the same year that my grandma from Mexico passed. It took me about 19 hours to create and about 8 more after to finish. I wanted to show what I had left of her, an apron, owl jewerly, a cross, a bracelet and an empty vase. The apron was given to me when I was just 13 to help her clean her house in Guadalajara Jalisco. I at the age of 13 was taught to clean and cook by her while the men in the house didnt help. When she got cancer and was blind, with kidney failure she was still cleaning and cooking. Once she passed the family broke apart. This piece is to honor strong and powerful cultural woman are. We see our mothers in ourselves and fight to break the pattern that has been passed down to us. We will leave our daughters more than a duty, more than a life that was not given to us nor our mothers.  

She gave me jewelry of owls, my favorite animal. A ring and a necklace. The bracelet was the last thing she gave to me before her passing and the vase and rosario were from her funeral.  

I see this piece as being the cultural ties that first gen students are left with. I created a piece that represented what my grandma from mexico left me, what I remember her by and why it is a reflection of how we as first generation woman perceive and receive our role in a culture that betrays us but demands us.  

What does it mean to be a first-generation college student? 

To be first gen is to understand the life that my parents were given and to know that their dreams were sacrificed so that I can have my own. It is to see life through their eyes and understand and forgive the customs that were forced on them and love them as they love me.