J. Leigh Garcia
J. Leigh Garcia’s “El Sueño Americano,” a take on the American Dream.
In one of J. Leigh Garcia’s screenprints, the patron saint of immigrants, Toribio Romo, stands in the desert atop a hill of two-gallon water jugs, surrounded by coyotes. Romo, a Mexican priest murdered in 1928 by government agents, has become a mythological figure among some immigrants who believe he helps guide them to safety in the dangerous, often deadly, journey through the desert on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Garcia, 24, is a Houston native whose grandparents illegally crossed the border in the 1940s. Raised predominantly in white culture, she is learning more about the other half of her family tree as she creates images that call attention to issues affecting undocumented immigrants.
“Every day, I’m impacted by [my grandparents’] decision to be here. I’m trying to use my privilege as an educated, half-white woman to stick up for [immigrants],” says Garcia, who is pursuing her masters in fine arts at UW-Madison.
Garcia’s work is one half of the exhibition ¿Quiénes somos? (Who Are We?), on display in the Overture Center’s Rotunda Lobby Gallery through Oct. 15.
The other featured artist is Evelyn Galindo, a native of El Salvador who relocated to the United States in the 1980s with her family — refugees from a 12-year civil war that ended in 1992. Galindo, 41, researches how people remember the Salvadoran War through visual art, creating murals and drawings as she finishes her doctorate in UW-Madison’s Spanish and Portuguese department.
Evelyn Galindo
Evelyn Galindo’s stray dogs of El Salvador.
Several of Galindo’s drawings with India ink on paper feature the stray dogs of El Salvador. These roaming canines are homeless and placeless, a situation that echoes the lives of Salvadoran refugees. “[The dogs] see us, they see the war; they’ve been here the whole time. I started thinking of them as a silent witness,” Galindo says.
The show comes at a time of uncertainty for many immigrants and children of immigrants. President Donald Trump recently announced that he would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program which provides legal protection to some people who were brought into the country illegally as children.
“Our political climate right now is very heavy and tense and there’s a lot of discrimination that [immigrants] are up against,” says Garcia. “I hope that my art would beautify the immigrant experience and [show] that they’re valiant and brave individuals for making the decision for their families. They go through a lot that we don’t think about and that we take for granted.”
Galindo adds that art can help people come together during divisive times: “People use art as a way to talk about their own life, not just focusing on the differences, but also realizing they have a lot of similarities.”
¿Quiénes somos? (Who Are We?) is part of Overture’s Latino Art Fair of Dane County, which runs from 5-9 p.m. on Oct. 6 Gallery Night. The art fair is followed by a ticketed concert by the Grammy-winning group La Santa Cecilia.
