"This installation was created to celebrate the life of four of my ancestors – two sisters, married to two brothers, whose tragic stories have been shared orally (as well as in the book Stolen Heritage) for generations, since the time of their deaths to the present. Their names are Trinidad de la Garza and Genoveva De La Garza, grand-daughters of early Tejano politician Manuel Becerra, who were married to Juan Elias Lozano and Miguel Lozano, respectively.

As part of an ongoing series of ofrendas, Ofrenda (Will & Testament) marks a pivotal moment in the artist’s spiritual evolution, her journey toward inter-generational healing, and the dawning of deep self-knowingness developed from the pursuit of ancestral connection.

This work acknowledges the deep erasure of cultural identity and ancestral connection that confronts assimilation. This ofrenda marks an effort toward reconciliation and healing from the tragedy of systematic disenfranchisement common among, (though not exclusive to) Tejano families and their descendants, and investigates the cultural practices and rituals lost to political turmoil in landscapes made waste to manifest destiny.

Pride in cultural and ancestral inheritance, in terms of Tejano history, is itself an act of resistance. The effort made to reconnect to ancestral lineages and to embrace the cultural practices of our ancestors defies the established systems of oppression and segregation which predicated the immense loss of lifeways, language, and land we’ve known in the Texas “boderland” condition.

Further, this work is made with the assertion that the existence of an American “of color” in America implies the heavy erasure of cultural and ethnic identity and ancestral connection. 

This project is created in the spirit of the pursuit of cultural inheritance, pride, and reclamation, and the artists’ personal hopes for the future.