Midst the Wonders We Have Made
May 2025
“Midst the Wonders We Have Made” was a group show at the Chicago Art Department bringing together artists across Chicago who highlight working people as their subjects or inspiration. The show emphasized workers at the margins of the mainstream labor movement including day laborers, the undocumented, BIPOC, the un-unionized, and more. The show was dedicated to the memory of Joe Hill, Swedish immigrant, musician, cartoonist and leader of the International Workers of the World who firmly believed in the power of art to move the masses. For a visual recap of the show, visit contributing artist’s Sarah-Ji’s album here.
El Caminante
May 2025
“I worked as a day laborer organizer in 2022 with Latino Union in Chicacgo. One of the most common stories day laborers shared was that of being picked up for work at a corner stop, only to be abandoned at the work site with no pay and no way home. Many of these workers were picked up by contractors and taken miles out of the city and into neighboring suburbs. They all had no choice but to walk back.” - V
The text reads:
The One Who Walks
Wages stolen.
Tossed aside mid gig.
Still he stands, his guide his God.
His only option,
continue gambling with his life.
La misma porqueria
May 2025
“On my last day as an organizer with Latino Union, a young Venezuelan migrant called us to let us know that their friend had just violently assaulted at the Home Depot on 47th by security. We immediately went to the Home Depot after that call and discovered he had not only been assaulted in the Home Depot parking lot, he was also assaulted inside the Home Depot. This is where I may have to say he was ‘allegedly’ assaulted by off-duty police and Home Depot Staff. Litigation is pending. Read more on similar stories here.” - V
Strawberry Fields / Campos de fresas
May 2025
Nothing is real. / Nada es real.
Los químicos queman
May 2025
In the 1920s, teenage girls were employed to make wristwatches, more specifically to coat the watches with a newly discovered glowing substance known as radium. The deadly hazards of radiation poisoning would not become [widely] known until after the painful deaths of many young wristwatch makers.
Today, chemical regulations in the workplace remain lax. OSHA does not have specific regulations for hotel cleaning chemicals. It has, instead, a “Hazard Communication Standard” that states how employees are informed about the hazards of all chemicals, including those used in cleaning products.
The title reads: The Chemicals Burn
“But I am still…a rebel”
October 1, 2021
The Womxn’s Labor Leadership Symposium 2021 is a celebration of Womxn across the country doing groundbreaking work in the movement for worker justice. A legacy project of the Berger - Marks Foundation, I was proud to have been an award recipient in 2015 and honored to create the illustrated award for the inaugural WILL Empower Awards. For the illustration, I chose to honor legendary womxn in labor, Lucy Parson and Karen Lewis. The full quotation is taken from Lucy Parson and reads “Oh, Misery, I have drunk thy cup of sorrow to its dregs, but I am still a rebel”. The illustration is one taken from a photo of the late Chicago Teachers Union President, Karen Lewis.
"Que Chola”
March 2019
The National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque opened the “Que Chola Exhibition” on Friday with pieces by artists from New Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas, Colorado, and Chicago. These pieces will be a part of the exhibit that runs through August of 2019.
“El Entender” for Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology
Published Summer 2018
In May of 2018, Professor Frederick Luis Aldama of the Ohio State University did a call out to his network of Latinx Comic artists and Sol-Con exhibitors for submissions to a one of a kind comic anthology of uniquely Latinx stories. I was lucky to be a part of that call out and a part of the graphic history preserved in Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology. “El Entender” is a two page comic illustrating my own process towards understanding my mother, our relationship, and the ways in which I eventually discovered our peresonal life journey’s were more similar than we thought. This remains one of my favorite comics to date.
