Oscar Garay
Region: Pacific Coast
Throughout my life, I have lived in the predominantly Latinx city
of Los Angeles. However, growing up, I attended private schools
with few students of color and even fewer Latinx members.
Every morning, the school bus ride teleported me from familiar
cityscapes to foreign suburbia. As a consequence, I was ostracized
and misrepresented, because my peers’ perceptions of Mexicans
were misguided by the media and their limited authentic
experiences with people of Mexican descent. In order to cope with
the pain of ignorant slander and racism, I turned to art as a tool of
expression. Each one of my works is attached to a memory of the
commentary I received about my culture: “Is your dad a cholo?”
or “You must come from a farming family, huh?” Messages like
these fueled my drive to educate my school community on the
true experiences and realities of being a Mexican American.
Therefore, my work is an examination and critique of the implicit
biases and stereotypes surrounding Mexicans in Los Angeles and
in America at large.
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