Sandra C. Fernandez (born 1964)
CAUTION: Dreamers in/on sight, 2013
Screen print, chine collé, and thread
22 x 30 inches

Sandra Fernandez’  print stands as witness to the persistent human exchanges that characterize the border between Mexico and the United States. On a background from a United States Geological Survey map of the El Paso Port of Entry (with Ciudad Juárez to the south or at the bottom of the map), youthful faces, caution signs, and a blood red milagro of a bird underscore the tireless movement of people across national boundaries in this sprawling metropolitan area.  Each face diminishes in scale as the young people distance themselves from the border. The milagro, hanging from a thread, suggests flight and its color warns of danger. One black cautioning cartouche, like a highway advisory, depicts a group of three (perhaps mother, father, and child) crossing the map’s borderline between Juárez and El Paso. Another cautionary cartouche, far from the border, encloses three academics or graduates with their diplomas (perhaps the “dreams” from the title of the work) in hand. The map lays on top of a mestizo document, the Codex Mendoza, a 16th century Aztec pictographic manuscript–annotated in Spanish and written on European paper–that provides information (perhaps for a Spanish colonial audience) about Aztec customs and ideology.

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