Our stories hold memories, love and power. Immigrant Made is our first ever zine, featuring short essays and poems written and illustrated by immigrant writers and artists! We are the writers we have been waiting for. We know delight and joyful resistance. You won’t want to miss this!
Jasmine Parish Moreno was born and raised in the great city of Houston, Texas. From herIranian to Mexican heritage, she’s learned to take pride and inspiration from her surroundings and experiences which led her to have an interest in all types of art, ranging from museum classics to local graffiti. Her piece in the UWD Zine was her first creative writing endeavor. She wanted to create something that captured both her personal childhood, and the shared essence of the immigrant experience; the struggles, the triumphs and our encounters with “the Great American Dream.”
Blanca Bañuelos Hernandez is a proud fronterista, artist and community advocate from Juarez México, currently residing in Tiwa territory (Albuquerque). Leading from an abolitionist perspective, it is important for her to be as unapologetic as possible through her work, using her art as an act of resistance and as a healing balm, helping undocumented people understand the importance of traditional medicines and their connection with the land. She believes in the importance of people writing their own history in their own words and creative ways and in nurturing one’s art for self and communal growth. For Bañuelos, it is important that people see themselves beyond the oppressive labels and narratives the system has given their community and to challenge and change those narratives.
Stefani Davila is a sophomore student majoring in business administration at theMiami Dade Honors College. Stefani deeply values community service, volunteering and serving as photographer for Fundación Jóvenes Contra el Cáncer in Ecuador and as a member of United We Dream. She currently serves as Co-Editor in Chief forUrbana Literary & Arts volume XV, and is the founder and president of Meraki Youth, an organization dedicated to community service, acts of kindness and more.
Born in Barcelona, Spain to Ecuadorian parents, Lucy Galarza, follows a musical legacy six generations strong. She is a songwriter, poet, composer, and producer. She completed her undergraduate studies at The City College of New York in 2017 with support from the Sphinx MPower Artist Grant and a scholarship in honor of National Heritage Fellow, Ilias Kementzidis. She lives and works in Norwalk, CT with ConnecticutStudents for a Dream.
Rubén is a non-binary, Chicanx artist whose work and writing explores identity, place, futurism, and nature, among other themes. They work primarily through poetry and performance, but venture into flash fiction, essays, and multi/mixed media arts production, as well. They are a member of Las Imaginistas, an artist collective based in Brownsville, Texas, and a co-founder of the Cicada WritersCollective. They are a self-proclaimed trickster, a proud shit-talker, a humble gardener, and on occasion, a maker and practitioner of magic.
Dani is a digital artist and first-generation immigrant from Quito, Ecuador. Having immigrated to the D.C.metropolitan area at the young age of 7, she strives to be an example of how two cultures can blend and harmoniously exist within one person, evidenced by the intangible passion and spirit of her blended heritages to steadfastly do what she loves. Her work is abstract, entertaining, open-minded, and aims to parade the internal human experience that cannot be communicated with words.
Lucinda, who also goes by La Morena, is a visual artist and cultural organizer who is claiming her Native and Mexican roots and activism through her work. Her murals focus on the power of community, current political issues, healing as well as the inspiration and guidance of her ancestors. She has shown in severalGalleries and Museums across the U.S. and has worked alongside civil rights non-profit organizations such as ACLU of Arizona, ACLU Nationwide, and Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA). She has launched her own project called “Colors of La Comunidad” and continues to use her activism to serve local communities.
Samantha is a 3D Designer who also works in graphic design, illustration, and interactive arts. Her personal digital work explores the rituals, culturally specific objects, and environments that influence her Haitian-FilipinaAmerican diaspora identity and personal memory. Samantha’s clients and experiences include Eva-NYC,10011.co, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Combo NYC, and Google Summer of Code under theProcessing Foundation. She also co-founded Close Isn’t Home, an online platform to share narratives, info and resources for Black and Indigenous people and people of color interested in 3D design and interactive art.
A first generation Bengali immigrant, Art Twink grew up drawing critters they thought up to comfort themselves and their friends, and that mission continues to this very day. For Art Twink, art is for creating community and safety in a world that offers very little of either. After 6 years of working in graphic apparel design they now illustrate for children’s books such as My Rainbow by DeShanna Neal and Trinity Neal and are currently working on My Paati’s Saris by Jyoti Rajan Gopal. They carry on the tradition of telling stories that inspire, validate, and comfort people and creatures in hard times as a trans artist of color.
Wimym Andrea Liu Ye is an artist based in the L.A. area working on paintings and sculptures.Her experiences as a Chinese-Ecuadorian immigrant has led her on a journey of self-exploration (at times identity crisis), immense pride, and self-love. As such, Wimym’s art evokes her experience of living under this concoction of perspectives, intertwining different art styles, colors, and patterns into bold and saturated visuals. Her art reflects a day-to-day life that seems dislocated yet functions as a complete and natural organism.
Eunsoo is the founder of the comic Koreangry and a former DACA recipient who immigrated from SouthKorea at the age of 13. She has worked as a color stylist on popular kids shows like Nickelodeon’s Pinky Malinky and DreamWorks TV’s Archibald’s Next Big Thing. Through Koreangry she seeks to dispel harmful narratives about Asian immigrants and women and explores and critiques South Korean history and pop culture within the U.S.
O.K. So, you’ve read through the stories and feasted your eyes on the artful accompaniments of our first-ever Zine! Now let us know what you thought in our guestbook!
Leave us a comment sharing the one line from a poem that just hit different and got to you. Let us know of the colors in a drawing that reminded you of the cobalt blue cookie tins filled with sewing supplies or vibrant oranges of marigolds on your family’s altar. Did it inspire you to write your very own haiku or essay? Pretty please bless our guestbook with it.
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