Making Work Visible

Work a while 10–9
Summer smoothies, Splatter
Cries the dirty flies

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Living in America undocumented for twenty-two years have left me with many goals, and dreams unfulfilled. Ineligible for many opportunities, often overworked and underpaid obtaining legal status and more importantly documentation has been a fixation since childhood. Documents for me have mutated. Taking on lives of their own these documents became fantasies of what could have and should have been. Success, identity, life’s basic necessities like this print has merge into one.

This American Life Take Seven, is one of six collections of objects, and documents including journal entries, pay stubs, rent receipts, w-2’s, WIC vouchers, Social Security cards, hammers and a banana which I have Xeroxed and enlarged. These every day tools symbolize an identity and a life deferred.

Although no longer undocumented, a fragmented American dream still plays a supporting role in my identity and overall role in society. As a member of a nation filled with dreamers, workers, immigrants, and visionaries my hope is that this document serves a testament of one who was once nameless.