And Taste the Dirt Below

Twenty-six years ago, my parents immigrated to the United States. As a child, I would imagine my parents’ odyssey through rudimentary terms: walking, loving, and bold. Through the years, however, I’ve managed to contextualize the reality of our situation and now use words such as treacherous, lonely, and fearful. When asked, my father replays the moment his group lay flat on their stomachs, hiding from an oblivious ICE officer who sat nearby. My mother recalls trekking through knee-high mud in an Arizona desert, thousands of miles away from her home in Acapulco, Guerrero. My sister, on the other hand, can’t remember much–she was only five years old at the time.

And Taste the Dirt Below is an ongoing project that focuses on my family and their history of being undocumented to discuss the migrant experience in the United States. Working low-paying restaurant jobs, rarely leaving the house, and witnessing our family and friends’ deportations characterize our American story. And through it all, society holds its gaze, judging and debating over them. Set within the confines of my childhood home, this project unfolds within the sanctuary it provides–a refuge emblematic of the countless undocumented immigrants grappling with their own stories across the nation.