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William Cruz, El Salvador, Illegal
C Print, 86 x 116 cm, 2004 |
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The American Southerner (El Sureño Americano)
The American Experience is the one that U.S. citizens live, who belong to a consumption culture, inside a vicious circle that makes them work harder to consume more. This experience has been promoted since the mid fortys until today by the media and works as a form of seduction to aquire comfort and luxury by working all day long. However, is an experience created by americans and when it crosses their country ´s borders becomes in the American Dream.
The idealized imagery that comes from the United States like their Hollywood movies, spacious car ads truly exponents of the “American way of life” and a series of images that showed The United States of America as a place where all the dreams come true, arrived with a strong visibility to Latin American countries, making a call for migration and search for better opportunities.
“The American Southerner” makes reference to the people that belongs to countries located at the south of America (America considered as their country by U.S. citizens), and that decide to cross the border between Mèxico and the United States looking for personal achievement, however when they arrive, they find something very different inside an foreign culture. This research collects some life experiences of these “southerners” that decided to cross the border, leaving behind their home country to become illegal immigrants that only want a true change in their lives.
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