De dónde soy (Where I'm From) is a community mural conceptualized and painted with Latinx participants from the student organization La Causa, residents of Newport House, and students from the Spanish Department at Amherst College.

 

The central concept of this mural is Pan-latinidad.  One of the ways this was included in the mural was with the phrase Suma Qamaña, which translates to convivial living. This was visually translated by representing the act of cooking together. Cooking creates and keeps alive the bonds that unite us with our beings, cultures, and ancestry. The mural highlights crops such as potatoes, tomatoes, avocados, corn, and cocoa, foods originating in America, which, through colonization, impacted the cuisines of the entire world.

 

On the other hand, we have the landscape, the space to which we belong and relate. At the center of the mural is a landscape that alludes to Amherst, the place where this community is located. From there, a game between light and shadow unfolds reflecting the diversity of the Latin American landscape: the encounter of the mountains with the city, the favelas, communes or barrios, the desert, the beach and the highest peaks where snow is also found. These landscapes are left behind when migrating.

 

Integrated into the landscapes, in the shadows, the silhouette of the map of Latin America and the Caribbean is formed. It is “horizontally” positioned because that was the worldview that the indigenous people of South America had. This way, the hierarchical nature with which the world is represented on maps today is questioned.

 

Finally, the mural ends with a scene of students making protest signs that alludes to the history of struggle of the Latin community in Amherst. From these, a poem written by the students comes in and out, which reflects the feeling of being Latinx in the diaspora.