Born in Venezuela, Oscar B. Castillo is a Brooklyn-based photographer who showcased New York City immigrants in different parts of daily life in a public art project titled “New York Proud”. In his photographs and the public installation of them, he highlights immigrant labor and their contributions to our city that might otherwise go overlooked or undermined. Among the 25 portraits he took, some include Marie Rose, a fruit vendor from the Ivory Coast, and Antonio, a bus driver from Honduras. There’s a specific photograph art piece where Castillo complied 12 different portraits of NYC immigrants on one collage, captioning each portrait with their name, profession, and country of origin. He quotes NYC immigrants and writes it out on the poster, saying “I visited other cities, and knew I could only live in one.” and “The endless opportunities to grow as a person”. By emphasizing immigrant labor, Castillo points out his message of hoping to inspire empathy and understanding across our city for the many contributions of labor in different aspects of NYC.

* Something else interesting: Yumi Heo’s “Q is for Queens” art installation in train stations ! I didn’t make the assignment about her because the artwork isn’t about issues related to immigration, but rather showcasing the beauty of the many different cultures, festivals, and landmarks that we have in the Queens borough, thanks to immigrants. It’s worth noting and the stained glass artwork is very beautiful and can be found across three subway stations along the 7 train in Sunnyside and Flushing.

The artist that I would like to talk about is Oded Halahmy. 

Oded is a visual artist that is an immigrant. He was born in Iraq to an orthodox Jewish family and eventually moved to New York City. His art is influenced by his immigration, exile, and leaving Iraq behind. In 1951 he had to leave Iraq and move to Israel because the Jews were facing a lot of persecution and restriction. I relate and love the work of Oded because my family had to go through a very similar situation, so his art feels closer to home than many others. He finally came to New York City, a place that was a native land to him and struggled which is represented in his art. His artwork reflects his life and the memories he has of Iraq and struggle yet build of his new life here in America. In most of his pieces, his Iraqi – Jewish identity continues to stay connected to his culture and art no matter where he lives. 

In this artwork, there are many blocks stacked on top of one another that all have different resemblances. But as a whole I view it as a balancing act. There are things to take away from America, things from his culture and religion as well as Iraq itself, but he’s trying to balance it all, learning to keep that balance sustained and learning about his new life as well. It’s hard to be an immigrant and Oded shows that through his artwork. 

Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera is a Cuban artist and activist who was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1968. As the daughter of a Cuban diplomat, she spent her childhood moving between countries and became accustomed to constant displacement. Coming from a background of constantly witnessing political unrest and oppression of free speech in her home country, the center of Bruguera’s creative career became exploring the relationship between activism and art, with an emphasis on political power and social justice. Additionally, Bruguera’s constant movement in childhood exposed her to the beauty of various world cultures and ways of life, which later encouraged her to create much art concerning immigration.

In 2011, Bruguera, along with the Queens Museum, started the Immigrant Movement International (IMI) in Queens, NY, a community-based project that aimed to work with New York City’s immigrants firsthand, document their experiences, and then later address issues such as political representation and access to education and healthcare. This advocacy was done by combining real human experiences with various art mediums to foster public awareness and social change. This way of creating art is known as “Arte Útil,” which translates to “useful art,” because it involves real, pressing topics and leaves a lasting impact on the political and social landscape.

One example of Bruguera’s work is titled Monument to New Immigrants in Pennsylvania, and it features a clay, human-like structure that represents an immigrant child. It was made featureless to represent immigrants of all ethnicities entering the US and having a very similar experience. The monument was also made out of unfired clay, which left this structure to wither away with changing weather. This portrays how America sometimes strips immigrants of their identities through assimilation and forces them to start completely new lives.

Born in Mexico City, Mexico, Dulce Pinzón is a famous Mexican artist whose photography is heavily influenced by themes of immigration, nostalgia, and questions of identity. Her artwork is so touching and exceptional, to the point where Forbes Magazine named her “one of the 50 most creative Mexicans in the world” and Vogue Magazine identified her as one of the “8 Mexican female photographers who are breaking through a global level.” Her artwork speaks to millions of immigrants across the United States, especially her photography collection from 2006. In her collection “The Real Story of Superheroes” Pinzón captures photographs of immigrants in New York City dressed as superheroes while working their jobs. Most of the people she captured were immigrants from the same place as her: Puebla, Mexico. Her artistic choice of depicting everyday hard-working people in New York as recognizable superheroes puts an emphasis on how important immigrants are to the backbone of society. She made this collection of art to pay a sense of tribute to hard workers who largely go unnoticed for their sacrifices and labor in this country. In the picture above we can see “the Hulk” working to stock grocery stores with shipments; in another picture I listed below we can see a man dressed as “the thing” working in construction. In her artwork Pinzón sets to humanize immigrants; by showcasing that they are more than just statistics or stereotypes, they are real people who forget their own needs every day for a better life and are the reason society can properly function. Babysitters, construction workers, and food delivery workers— they all play a significant role in a stable society and should be commemorated for it. But Pinzón doesn’t just stop there; she takes it a step further to display just how heroic the subject of her photos truly are by stating in the caption of her photographs how much money they send back home to relatives. By doing so she cultivates a new level of nuance that urges audiences to see the never-ending selflessness our heroes have to offer. In essence, Pinzón captures photographs of courageous men and women to pay homage to the true heroes of the city that manage to survive unfair labor and forfeit their comfortableness to help both their communities—whether that be back home or the home they have learned to survive in.

This cartoon addresses the Chinese Exclusion Act and the broader reluctance to accept Chinese people into the country, though more specifically here it’s about America’s stance toward China as a nation. The banner reading “400 Million Barbarians” depicts Chinese people as barbaric, and this is reinforced by the contrast between the sword and the gun, since the gun represents advanced technology and industrial development while the sword feels primitive by comparison, showing that Americans viewed Chinese people as less advanced than themselves. You can also notice the truck Uncle Sam is riding in, which says “Progress,” and it’s contrasted with the dragon, which I think is also meant to show that the Chinese aren’t as advanced. The setting even reinforces this, since the two are stuck on a narrow mountain ledge with cliffs on either side, so there’s no room to pass or go around one another, and this traps them into a standoff where someone has to yield, fitting the caption “Someone must back up” and making the confrontation feel unavoidable rather than something that could be worked out. The “Force if Necessary” label also stands out to me, and it points to the issue that Americans feared the Chinese so much that they thought it was okay to threaten force, fear as in fear of them taking jobs, resources, or influence, and not wanting to back down or compromise. The mountain setting adds to this fear driven framing too, since the steep cliffs and stormy sky make the moment feel dangerous and high stakes, almost like a frontier standoff, which makes Uncle Sam’s aggressive stance seem more justified within the cartoon’s own logic.