I love the simple poetry of this piece by
Ana Teresa Fernandez, "Borrando La Barda" in Tiajuana, Mexico. Fernandez is originally from Tampico, Mexico and has completed her BFA and MFA at San Francisco Art Institute. Her work explores stereotypes of over-sexualized Latina women, but also exploitation of manual labor connected with Mexican immigration to the US.
"For a woman born in Mexico, the border is a powerful symbol. Projecting a future in the north, Ana Teresa Fernández’s own journey—crossing the Tijuana-San Diego border to study and build her career— mirrors the route north taken by millions of women who have come from southern and central Mexico to work in the maquiladoras and make a better life for themselves and their families. Thus, the border is a site of utopian possibility. Yet, at the same time the border wall is an aggressive reminder of the violent subjugation of Mexico through the instruments of NAFTA and the Merida Initiative and resulting drug war
Erasing the border, then, reminds us of the power of utopian visions, of dreams and the imagination.
I was delighted when, late in the afternoon, a jogger came running from far down the beach and told us that he thought for a moment that part of the wall had come down.
The twinkle in his eye said it all. Someday this wall will fall." - Jill Holslin
