Poema Para Mami: Missing You

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

This is a mixed media collage by Juan Sánchez to memorialize his mother. The overall collage is bordered in black. Along the left and right vertical borders are two red lines framing the collage. The background of the collage is black and gray images of a woman’s upper torso with her bare breasts exposed and her face covered with a faded blue/gray Puerto Rican flag, as representations of vulnerability and U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico. Centered within the collage and near the top is an imperfectly rectangular-cut white, floral lace pattern. At the center of the lace is a black and white photograph of the artist’s mother’s calves and feet, wearing worn, open toe sandals while standing on cracked pavement. Underneath the image is a poem written by Sánchez on paper with pencil. It has multiple erasure marks and uses past and present tense. The handwritten poem reads: [Your sad eyes always radiates(d) / smiles.

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