Kathya Landeros, Main Street Laundromat, Eastern Washington, 2012, Archival pigment print, 20 x 24 inches, Courtesy of the artist.

Artist Statement

Within my family narrative there are many tales of generational migration and of hardworking kinfolk who emigrated from Mexico to the United States in search of work (my great-grandfather worked and died in the copper mines of Arizona; my grandfather was a Bracero, part of a bilateral government sanctioned agricultural work program; and my grandmother and parents worked as farmhands in California’s Central Valley). This has led to my interest in visually exploring Mexico to U.S. migration from the perspective of longstanding communities, specifically in the American West where my family and many other Latino immigrants have settled, and continue to do so, due to the history and ongoing presence of agricultural work.

Exploring this history of economy and labor is central to this photographic work titled West, which documents Latino communities in the American West defined by an agricultural economy and a Latino immigrant population. Photographs from this project have been made in towns such as Arbuckle, California and Brewster, Washington where the Latino population is integral to the economic and cultural vitality of these places dominated by an agricultural industry. In working on this series of photographs, my aim is to offer a counterpoint to the traditional views of the American West, to include Latinos within this photographic narrative. And, perhaps, at a time when immigration has become such a contentious issue, these photographs may also serve as a reminder of the contribution immigrants have made, and will continue to make, to the development of this nation.