“Do not let them take away your power.
Do not let them take away your democracy.”

– Barack Obama
August 19, 2020

In The state of California, Latinos, predominantly Mexican Americans, make up close to 40% of the population, yet suffer 50% of Covid-19 infections. This disproportionate share of infections out of the state population is due to the large number of “essential workers” of Mexican descent that comprise the work forces in agriculture, meat processing, urban service sectors, including in the hospitality and medical fields, and the garment industry. Mexican Americans provide most of the unskilled yet essential labor in the nation’s most populous state and pay billions in state and federal taxes.

In the meat processing industry alone, over 1,400 workers in California have been infected, as a result of the President’s April 2020 executive order meant to “solve the liability problems” for big business, which was issued during the previous height of the pandemic in California. One Los Angeles garment manufacturer has had over 300 positive cases in one factory.

When forced to face the issue by the media, federal government agencies have said “they are taking steps to address unsafe workplaces.” The Republican majority in the Senate has presented another liability clause to benefit business to be included into the next government financial relief package, along with reduced unemployment benefits, and a reduction in Food Stamp benefits for families that rely on the SNAP program. The needs of immigrants have been deliberately excluded from any relief aid.

Recent attacks by the president take aim at an accurate constitutional count in the census along with attacks on the voting rights of all minorities, not just Mexican Americans.

Human Rights are not negotiable.

Essential workers should be treated as essential for producing fresh produce for the country, processing the meat for the country’s tables and restaurants, preparing food for the nation’s restaurants, sewing clothing and PPE, cleaning and disinfecting hospitals, restaurants, hotels, delivering goods, and providing maintenance for vehicles, homes, and businesses.

Forcing vulnerable “essential” workers to choose, either to continue to work in unsafe and unsanitary conditions for below minimum wage or lose their livelihoods during this pandemic amounts to profiteering from the indentured servitude of brown indigenous people of America, a systemic practice that dates to the arrival of the first white Europeans to the Americas, it is no less than 21st century slavery.

Juan Rojas Aguilar
Descendant of Mexihcah
July 22, 2020

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said in the same speech. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” 
2015

“I will build a great, great wall on our Southern border.”
2015

“So we’re going to build a wall and it will be a great wall.”
2016

“With Mexico being one of the highest crime Nations in the world, we must have THE WALL.”
2017

“You can’t come in, our country is full.”
2019

“Many of these illegal aliens are living far better now (in camps) than where they came from. If they are unhappy, just tell them not to come to this country.”
2019

“They hate our country. If you hate our country you can leave.
Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?”
2019

I have consistently tried to keep my self involved in the important issues that shape our lives. By doing so I add an important voice to the public discourse.

Of course, I have and continue to be opposed to the use of social media, since its inception, on the principal that while it offers social connectivity to billions of its users, I have had questions as to its prudent use. Social media connects users across all boundaries. It also allows users to cross all moral boundaries. 

The revelations that have surfaced widely since 2016 about its misuse have only added to my initial suspicions of these open forms of mass communication that function by placing so much power in the hands of a few, with no oversight or accountability. Free of responsibility, the media has been subjugated as a tool for spreading fear, ignorance, hatred, fraud, and profiteering. This is the United States of America.

My art is about the experience, about touching the real world. I still spin records, shoot film, read books, garden, split firewood. I drive a capable used vehicle. I chose to remain very analog and connected to the earth, I don’t facebook, instagram, or twitter.

I have worked on this particular project for the past couple of years. From a research phase, to experimentation with material, to location scouting, to the photography, and the photograph itself; through each phase, it has taken on greater significance as I look back at my parents’ path, which is the same as all American citizens, and work to shape the future of the world for my kids and grandkids. 

Since its founding, this country has stood as a light shinning in the darkness of human rights violations. The image of the Unites States of America was crafted as a Roman goddess, a champion and defender of the oppressed. 

A burnished gleaming monument, bathed in rich patina, standing at the seaside gate through which millions of refugees have entered this land seeking freedom. The gilded image has stood in all of its glory and pomp, lauded with grand proclamations. The truth is, for centuries this country has been built on a foundation of violence and crimes against humanity.

That reality has never been more apparent than today. “The greatest celebration this country has ever seen” comes with the greatest of prices, in the lives of innocent children seeking asylum from that grand lady, waiting, torch held high lighting the way to freedom.

We are all migrants, every American should take the time to reflect on their lives, histories, and the legacy they will leave behind.

Therein lies the greatness.

Juan Rojas Aguilar
July 20

This is a somber moment in the history of our country, one that must result in meaning and change. A man’s last breath was violently taken from him in front of the world. At this time entire nations of America’s native people are threatened with extinction. In some desolate part of the country, children of the indigenous Americas are incarcerated behind concrete and steel, away from their parents. Recently, weapons of war were brandished in an attempt to silence the voice of the people.

Black Americans, Mexican Americans, the descendants of the Americas, Asian Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, all people of color, have been subjected to systematic human rights violations since the first Europeans set foot and began a ruthless subjugation of this land.

With the United States of America mired on a rudderless course and recoiling from the yet another in a long list of racial crimes, we must seize the moment to reset on a steady course. A course based on principal. A government that boasts of human rights violations against its people is not great, it is a sign of decline and darkness.

A government of the people, by the people, for the people dictates that black lives matter, brown lives matter, all lives matter.

As the world openly rebels in response to the history of atrocities committed against black people, and all people of color, in this country, we need to focus the light of truth on those with authoritarian aspirations, presently in this government, that propose to wield absolute unchecked power.

Where are the thousands of children? Who protects the unalienable rights of indigenous nations? In this country founded on enslavement and genocide against people of dark skin, it is time to address the abuse of power and the countless systematic crimes committed in the name of freedom. What else is hidden in America’s darkness?

Use your voice. VOTE.

Juan Rojas Aguilar
June 6, 2020