Temporal Borders: Cruzando Painting

This is an oil painting on canvas, “Cruzando” (English Trans.: Crossing), by artist Juan J. Hernandez. This piece is part of the artist’s Gallery #1: The Immigration Series, of which the intent was to provide a universal and humanitarian reflection on the experiences of immigrants. For my work, I liked this painting because it demonstrates the way migrants experience immigration systems. Time is often portrayed as a linear progression. For many migrants, time spent waiting within the immigration system for legal status can feel like an endless line as reflected in this painting with the goal, “destination,” being legal status or naturalization. The time migrants spend in a host state and how long they wait for legal status is treated differently by states. As demonstrated in the piece, some migrants—whose paths are lighted in the painting—may be recognized by states and be on the “right path” towards citizenship; whereas, others waiting in this line—those living in the shadows as those painted blue in this piece — may be excluded from state recognition through legal-status granting policies like amnesty or more recent programs like the U.S. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). States often do not value the time these excluded migrants spend waiting or the ways in which they contribute to their host communities. Though all these migrants are waiting for a similar destination of legal status, their experiences of time and, in particular, their time spent waiting in the immigration system may be very different.