Our leading question while we worked on this exhibition was: What is identity? More specifically, what does it mean to be Mexican-American? 

Our work is a way to celebrate our community and bring attention to both the positive and negative aspects of our identity. As we began to make our collection of works, we received a lot of questions from others to explain the context of our work. Often, we found ourselves having to over-explain for those that weren’t Latinx or Hispanic, while those who were, were able to immediately recognize and relate to our work and experiences. 

For that reason, our show is titled “Con Ojos Nublados.” This translates to “With Cloudy Eyes.” This is not only a reference to the emotional turmoil of our mixed identity, but also to those who don’t understand a lot of the shared experiences of immigrant communities. With this show, we’ve been able to explore the word “identity” through our personal experiences with our relationship to labels such as: Mexican-Americans, Latinas, Hispanic, Chicana, and many more that we fall into. Our work speaks about the duality of our identities and the struggles of our community, as there is this constant push and pull in being both Mexican and American. Natali’s work hopes to speak about the feeling of belonging in their community but constantly feeling displaced and underrepresented in different institutions. Alondra’s work also aims to call attention to some of the struggles that Mexican-American communities face, while simultaneously integrating recognizable pop culture elements like “La Loteria” and popular street food.