Benvinidos a tus suenos
“Gracias por regresar mi suerte despues que me lo robaron.”
In the series Small Platicas, she shares her experiences of meeting people over serving coffee at her local airport. These experiences served as a reminder that gratitude, empathy, intent, and compassion go a long way in making someone’s day.
So Much Change Gouache on Watercolor Arches Hot Press Paper: I always find myself opening my wallet and gutting it out. I find I do this most of the time because I’m trying to pay for something or to help someone out. In my iconic little Texas wallet is a mix of pesos and dollars. This illustration is my wallet which I always have with me stuffed with the essentials: a twenty dollar bill, fifty pesos, a two dollar bill, a few dollars and some coins. I don’t know how it all fits in there, but it does. This past Spring, a man asked me if I accepted pesos and I replied with, “No, I don’t.” He responded he wanted to exchange in order to buy something. I told him I couldn’t exchange through my job, but I could exchange with my personal money. For three hundred pesos he traded me a twenty dollar bill. With those twenty dollars, all he did was buy a two dollar water bottle. He showed me that he had a two dollar bill he could have paid for the water bottle with, but he didn’t want to use his lucky two dollar bill. “That two dollar bill is the reason I meet people like you.” His words moved me. It reminded me that what we put out there comes back to us. Gratitude and generosity are everything in this world.
Bienvenidos Gouache on Watercolor Arches Hot Press Paper: The TSA flags welcome you at the airport as you take one more step towards your next goal. It’s a strange array of patriotic flags which greet you after you’ve been interrogated by TSA about what you may or may not have with you. There is a strange frustration I often see with TSA officers as they water down questions to be understood in English and in a time crunch. I find it interesting these flags are barricaded. I think they represent the obstacles people face as they arrive in this new country, all the little things people have to decide on and do to move forward. These flags represent obstacles. Welcome to obstacles.
Disposable Income Gouache on Watercolor Arches Hot Press Paper: Cinco pesos. The unwanted. Disregarded. Disposable. People often don’t know what to do with their five pesos. I often tell people to keep them as relics. A reminder of what they’ve experienced. Sometimes they do and sometimes they tip me with them. Gracias! Muchisimas Gracias! Either discarded with carelessness, kept with intent, or gifted to me, these are the ways I see Cinco pesos used. When they are gifted to me, sometimes along with a nickel, I know it is with an intention, however naive, to help me because I helped them. Maybe I taught them something, or they were just appreciative to have someone listen to them, or maybe they just felt treated like a human being. Cinco pesos is always given with empathy and intention.
Gracias Por Regresar Mi Suerte Gouache on Watercolor Arches Hot Press Paper: Thank you for returning my luck. Who would have thought two dollar bills would be such a conversation starter. Inherited. Collected. I grew up with my dad showing me his collection of two dollar bills and one dollar coins. These US currencies seem rare but are actually quite common. For some reason, mainly in immigrant households, two dollar bills are a source of luck. One time, while working the cash register, I had run out of bills and asked the customer if they were okay with a two dollar bill and some quarters. “Yes! Yes of course,” this Columbian man replied. He was so ecstatic to get a two dollar bill. Previously he had a two dollar bill which had gotten stolen and another time he had lost one. “This is the third one and it has come back to me! Thank you for returning my luck to me.” Another time a young Colombian boy, about 15, was headed to New York with his mom and sister. He tried to give me a two dollar bill to pay with and I responded with, “No, keep that, it’s lucky.” I started to painfully help him count out two dollars in coins. “I’ll never use it, ” he said and put it carefully away in a different part of his wallet.
The American Dream Gouache on Watercolor Arches Hot Press Paper: I remember waiting for TSA and watching a father tell his little girl to stand in front of the TSA American flag. He had his little girl hold up their nation’s flag of Haiti. She was probably no more than two or three. A toddler with hair in cute little pom poms, holding the flag over her face, up as high as she could hold it. Her father took her photo. Forever remembered. I wanted to take her photo too, but instead, I drew it and wrote down my feelings for them in the moment, happiness for them in their goals of achieving their dream. Later that day I got to converse with the man when he came by the coffee stand. He was in awe that me and my co-workers knew English and Spanish. I explained how we live on the frontera, the border, and we are bi-cultural, bi-racial, and bi-lingual. “I think being bilingual is so beautiful,” he said. “I look forward to being bilingual one day.”
Disney Dreams Ink on Watercolor Arches Hot Press Paper: Christmastime and Summertime. Family vacations. People have all these exclusive, cute, unnecessary Disney merch, as they go and come from Disneyland. Decked out with backpacks and hats and little Disney suitcases, families live out their dream of going to Disney for the first time. Sometimes it’s their first time on a plane! Due to new affordable, low cost, flights. What a beautiful opportunity to experience the sky on a budget and the wonderland of dreams. Sometimes they are accompanied by people who have the privilege to go to Disney multiple times a year, a dream taken for granted. And in the same space, is the American Dream.