About the exhibit:
Featuring artwork by César Miguel Rivera Vega Magallón and Alexa Vasquez, this exhibition will highlight the experiences of undocumented queer immigrants that migrated to the U.S. as children and came of age in the country. As undocumented queer immigrants, they experience a double marginalization in which they must navigate both xenophobic and homophobic violence. Their queer identities marginalize them within undocumented immigrant communities, who frequently hold homophobic beliefs. Similarly, their undocumented status excludes them from many queer communities, who are often opposed to undocumented immigration despite their otherwise liberal politics. Consequently, undocumented queer immigrants cautiously and strategically choose how and when to be out about their sexuality and/or immigration status. While this double marginality undoubtedly positions undocumented queer immigrants as one of the most vulnerable communities within the immigrant population in the U.S. and the country writ large, many undocumented queer artists are also using their lived experiences to politically empower their communities.
Read more from curator M. Lilliana Ramirez and the artists here.
About the artists:
Alexa Vasquez is a trans woman of color and child migrant from the state of Oaxaca in Mexico. She is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus in painting, writing, and fashion. Her work is autobiographical, poetic and political and her visual artworks are inspired by Oaxaca, by the experience of a migrant longing to make it back home. Her writings are memories of growing up in an immigrant household, leaving home, transitioning, and exploring trans womanhood.
César Miguel Rivera Vega Magallón is a queer, formerly undocumented, Mexican poet and an advocate for migrant, refugee and returned/deportee rights. Born in Huentitán el Alto, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México, they resided in Northern Los Angeles County for 25 years before self-deporting back to Guadalajara in 2018. Their poetry and prose focuses on migration's spiritual and psychological tolls and on the loose threads of the colonial tapestry. Their self-portraiture attempts to visually establishes clandestine, forced migration to the broader legacy of colonialism and imperialism.
Admission/Cost: $0 - $10
Location:
Oceanside Museum of Art
704 Pier View Way
Oceanside, CA
Dates and times:
From May 25 to October 6, 2024
Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays & Sundays - 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Fridays - 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM
