Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
30” x 40”
Stretched canvas
Acrylic | Pencil
In the reading I have done on my history, I came across many different books that highlighted the descriptions that Spanish colonizers and the U.S. Government officials used to describe Puerto Ricans in official documents dating back as early as the 1950s. We were described as “savages”, an “inferior race”, “feeble-minded”, and a former Harvard Medical Professor, Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, wrote to a colleague,“ they are beyond doubt the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere”. I look at this Indio, and I see me. I see similarities in our eyes, I imagine his skin, a beautiful tone of brown slightly darker than mine, from being out in the sun working the land. I imagine him slender, maybe a dad taking care of his family, or possibly a protector of the village, a provider for others. I imagine that his life goals and my life goals are not that different. I see a part of me, and when I look closer, I see glimpses of every one of us.
30” x 40”
Stretched canvas
Acrylic | Pencil
In the reading I have done on my history, I came across many different books that highlighted the descriptions that Spanish colonizers and the U.S. Government officials used to describe Puerto Ricans in official documents dating back as early as the 1950s. We were described as “savages”, an “inferior race”, “feeble-minded”, and a former Harvard Medical Professor, Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, wrote to a colleague,“ they are beyond doubt the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere”. I look at this Indio, and I see me. I see similarities in our eyes, I imagine his skin, a beautiful tone of brown slightly darker than mine, from being out in the sun working the land. I imagine him slender, maybe a dad taking care of his family, or possibly a protector of the village, a provider for others. I imagine that his life goals and my life goals are not that different. I see a part of me, and when I look closer, I see glimpses of every one of us.