Since 2009, I have been dedicated to creating an interdisciplinary body of work that chronicles my family’s history in the U.S. as it transitions from immigrants to first-, second-, and third-generation Mexican Americans. I explore our collective identity at the intersection of race, language, class and labor as a way to further grapple with notions of assimilation. My research begins with collecting familial oral histories and documenting tacit assimilation patterns I believe unique to being raised in rural Wisconsin. While large format color portraits and still lives re-imagine intergenerational narratives of transition and push back on stereotypes, to-scale reproductions of colloquial family imagery address the poetic gaps and overlaps of collective memory. In my series ‘the labor of language’ I focus on personal experiences related to the private and public use of Spanish and English. Further inspired by research in linguistics, I create ironic sculptures and performances that engage with mundane and derogatory terms found in oppressive language ideologies to address notions of ethnic authenticity. In my series ‘the language of labor,” large-scale installations and sculptures commemorate my family’s history of manual labor in the U.S. dating back to the Bracero Program. Embracing the element of repetition often found in manual labor, I collect, subtly transform, and compose discarded blue-collar tools and materials as a way to address notions of visibility related immigrant labor in the U.S. Together these congruent bodies of work articulate a commonly overlooked set experiences that often inform the American immigrant identity.

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email me : yanez (dot) lazcano (at) gmail (dot) com