more thoughts on place and identity

Hog butcher for the world, Tool maker, stacker of wheat, Player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of big shoulders. Carl Sandburg, “Chicago,” 1916

The el tracks
encaustic mixed media
7×5 inches
Urban Dialogue collaboration with Angie McMonigal

This is the latest piece that I created in collaboration with Angie McMonigal, using her urban photographs. She wrote a post over on her blog that shows the original photos, which is really interesting to look at. Two different visual people, two perspectives, two different media…brought together to create something entirely new.

She had a series of photos taken from inside the el, outside of the el, and of the tracks and I just loved them all and knew that I wanted to do something with them. (By the way, yes, it’s formally the “L tracks”, but I’m being stubborn and sticking to “el tracks” as that’s how I think of it in my head and spell it when I do have to spell it out. I love the el. In college it was my freedom of leaving the confines of campus and getting into the city. When you’re riding it, you just feel Chicago. Of course, there were times when I hated that I had to take the el. In the middle of January waiting for a train really sucks. Or when you’re squished like sardines and you have to elbow someone to get out of your way to get off at your stop. Or when there’s a really bad smell and you’re pretty sure you know what it is, but don’t really want to think about it. Or there was that time when I was heckled by someone on how long it took me to figure out a clue on a crossword. That was irritating. But pretty funny, now that I look back on it.

Using her photos and actually looking back at my own work where I use my photos, I really have been thinking about how my thought process behind my works dwells often on themes of “place” and “identity”. I’ve been thinking lately- why?

Why does it matter to me? Why am I always thinking about place/identity? Is place intertwined with identity? If you feel rootless, then what does that do to your ability to self-identify? Why is this something that I think about a lot?? And I started to go back in time and recalling that throughout my life I have always felt like an outsider of some sort. Not belonging to any one place.

I am a daughter of immigrants, one from the Philippines and the other from Central America, who made their home in Maryland. I am of mixed ethnicity- mestiza they would call me in both of my parents’ countries of origin. I identify myself as American. This is where I was born and raised and that is what I am. When I am among filipinos, I am not considered filipino. When I among latinos, I am not that either. And here, in the United States, while not rare, my face is a curiousity of sorts. My first memory of being asked what I was or where I was from can be traced back to probably when I was 6 years old. And I am still asked those questions to this day. It doesn’t bother me…but it is something that say, my husband, being Irish American descent through and through, never has to deal with.

stranger: Where are you from?
me: Maryland
stranger: “No, where are you REALLY from?
me: oh uh, right outside of Washington, D.C.
stranger: no, no, WHAT are you?
me: oh, you mean, my ethnicity?!

Repeat several hundred times with several variations throughout my life and you get the gist. I mean, wouldn’t you start to feel like an odd duck?! It doesn’t get me mad, or offend me, people are just curious and sometimes don’t know how to phrase things the right way. And to be completely honest, sometimes people were offensive, but whatever. Luckily those didn’t happen all that often. But I started thinking that this repeated exchange has definitely influenced me in terms of how I identify myself and why it is has always been in the forefront of my brain.

One day I would really love to immerse myself in this theme- of identity of first generation mixed asian/hispanic female in America. One day…