Favianna Rodriguez’s artwork challenges the idea that white, elite men can or should shape how all of us understand the world. “We need to present a multi-dimensional view of who we are,” says Rodriguez, who serves as the executive director of CultureStrike. “We have to create the content that reflects our stories.”
The woman closest to the door looks like a shorter, younger version of my aunt Eurydice, if Eurydice had been born Mexican and not Georgia Negro. She’s got the same sly slit of an eye-shape as me. Same thin mouth, always near laughter. She’s got none of Eurydice’s material weight. None of them appear to. They waft like holograms before the line of washers, O after O after O, gazing at me now as though I am less substantive even than a hologram, bodiless, an intimation of cool air in an open door.
Omar sat in the front seat of the maxi-taxi minivan with his face puffed-up like a country crapaud. He was pissed. He’d been pissed when he left his mother’s house in the quiet, turtle-watching village of Matura about an hour ago, and he was pissed now as the maxi neared the bustling hub of Pleasantview Junction.
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