After first meeting Xochil Xitlalli a downtown Vegas art event at the end of 2021, I had the great pleasure of meeting her again more recently to talk about her art.This interview expands on how Xochil and so many others over the years, have inspired me to think through the term Latino.
Erika Abad: So, how do you feel about the word “Latino”?
Xochil Xitall: I'm not a fan of the word Latino, and this is for me personally. I've gone through phases of how I feel about the word in my current phase. It's not the word I use to identify myself. I do realize that some people are okay with that term. Personally, I do not identify as a Latino or Latina unless I'm forced to select between Box A or Box B.
To me, Latino is very colonial. It erases a lot of identity and culture from all of the different groups, reducing them to a checkbox where we don't all fit under, but we're forced to be. It diminishes our identity. In a country where we're already diminished so much and then we continue the self-diminishing of ourselves, shrinking and contorting ourselves to fit into that box.
I also understand that sometimes that's only box that we fit into—especially as Indigenous folks from outside of the US we are not able to register as Indigenous in the U.S., there is no Federal recognition for us. It's almost like I have to pander my identity to both non people of color and people of color who don't understand the complexity and layers of identities of people who are living in diaspora and outside of their homelands.
EA: Your answer reminds me of a conversation I had about DNA tests. DNA does not tell us who loved us or when love entered our lineage and, in some cases, when it left. I feel like that connects to what you were saying in terms of what gets minimized and diminished because it is a question of love and belonging. Shifting, gears, how did you get into your creative practice?
XX: One of the reasons I started making art was out of anger and there's so much art in the world, and when I started making a lot of art maybe 12-15 years ago, there was even less people of color artists and even then less Indigenous art, specifically highlighting Indigenous cultures in Mexico [producing art] in the U.S. Some of the things that really inspired me to make art was to continue to share stories of my Indigenous culture that I wasn't exposed to until I was almost an adult.
That really angered me—why didn't I know this? Why didn't I know my mother language? Why don’t I know my cosmology? Why don't I know my stories? So that's really what fueled a lot of my art, is to continue to share those things that have been, I don't want to say lost to time, but they almost feel like they've been hidden in a box.
Cracking the box open has exposed me to such a fulfilling and deeper understanding and connection to people, the land, the universe, understanding and my place in it. I want to make sure people who grew up like me as a first-generation person, living outside of our homelands, that we don't forget those parts of where we come from because they're so important, we have lost so much including parts of our identity, and we need to know who we are because when we don't know our identity, Then we're forced to check these boxes—Hispanic and Latino—because we don't know who we actually really are, if you have lived your life, only being told who you are.
EA: As I'm listening to your response. I'm also thinking about how I got my PhD because I wanted people like me to know who they were and where they come from, and I wanted to ensure that, as complicated as it is that Western institutions of formal education have records of our existence, of our resistance and our everyday lives—I wanted the next generations to know that we were here and that we built things, and that we created things because there is beauty in the resilience and in the vulnerability, and in the persistence in the face of all of our communal struggles…and as I say that, I remember you telling me you’re not what people would call formally trained, so how did you learn painting and sculpting?
XX: I think it was a sheer stubbornness. To this day I refused to watch a YouTube video on how to do something. Indigenous people have been some of the most innovative people. We've made dye out of bugs, built amazing structures, and are master astronomers. I’ve convinced myself, maybe delusionally, that I can just innately channel how to do things and that's kind of how I've done it. Trial and error.
I don't have any formal training and I always say that. I think I've told you before, I don't really consider myself an artist, I consider myself more of a storyteller, I don't ever aim to be an artist who can replicate something like a copy machine, those artists who do, do realism. That's not what I aspire to do. I'm aspiring to continue our cultural stories and to teach and inspire people. So, it's been again more out of sheer anger and stubbornness that I want to make sure that these things don't get forgotten, especially in the age of the Internet. We have so much disinformation of our culture out there.
EA: Yes, that is true. In my break from social media, I feel like I'm starting to listen more and listen better and be more fully present with folks because I'm less saturated with information I must filter and correct. What have you been working on recently, and is your work in any shows now?
XX: This past spring, for the art show, “Forward,” curated by WoCAF (Weaving Our Cultures), I loaned them a Día de los muertos altar, and a paper mâché piece.
Those two pieces are very intertwined. They have a lot of symbolism with the butterfly, the butterfly represents for me a lot of things, transformation, migration patterns of my ancestors, also, the connection of this this realm, and the realm beyond ours.
I am working on painting the feminine symbols of the deities like Mayahuel, and Coatlique, which are both associated with the Earth, and continuing those parts of our cosmology stories that tie into our calendar system.I will be releasing a new coloring book once I complete all of the Deities that are tied into the calendar system.
EA: On seeing your altar and the papier-mâché series depicting the three evolutionary stages of a monarch butterfly, I found that they extend the conversation of “Punk” Skinbyrd Coyolxauqui (2020) and The Wound (2018) from “Two Cultures, One Family.” The running theme across the four pieces is healing intergenerational trauma. How does painting and sculpting these forms of transformation across generations heal you?
XX: Specifically, with the Punk Coyolxauhqui, I love that piece so much because it's really an expression of rebellion. I've always been very rebellious against everything. I remember in fifth grade asking my mom, why do we check the Hispanic box on my emergency contact from for school, although I didn't grow up immersed in my culture, I knew then we were not Hispanic. As I got older, I grew up into a punk rock kid who was angry, angry at the government, angry at colonialism, angry at my parents, angry at everything. I think that anger is healing in a way, because there's no fear of calling out things that people don't dare to question, like our identity, capitalism, colonialism, sexism; like why are the boys in household sitting on the couch chilling while the girls are cooking and cleaning and just challenging a lot of those norms and gender roles and once you do that, you give permission for other people in your family to do the same.
I'm also the oldest child and cousin in my family, so when my little cousins see me doing what I'm doing, I have a Mohawk, I don’t believe in Catholicism, I’m riding a skateboard, I’m punching guys in a mosh pit, I was a vegan, I have a girlfriend, I’m going to protest. I’m not adhering to normal gender roles. In fact, I’m doing the exact opposite. I’m going to loudly challenge all these rules. So, it gives permission for people, like my little brother, my cousins to do the same. To challenge those things. I think that's very healing, in aa way, for me to see and them to experience less sexism. I feel like some of my little cousins, especially the girls, at a very early age were interested in feminism and even in veganism, but more importantly they were questioning the norms. Especially as queer folks, both my brother and I are queer and that alone rattled our Catholic family. We still deal with homophobia in our family, but most of our family has accepted us for who we are. Their acceptance goes back to challenging these old outdated systems and gender roles, and by extension the religions that are not culturally ours but were forced upon us.
Even when I look back toward the past to an eight-year-old me challenging the systems, getting kicked out of catechism for asking questions that the nuns can’t answer and refusing to accept things simply because they were passed down, or because they were tradition.
I’d like to think, whether they want to admit it or not, my refusal to accept traditions makes my family question them too.
Xochil Xitlalli is a two-spirit artist who grew up in Azusa CA. Xochil's family is Otomi / Mixteca from Guerrero, Mexico. Xochil works across a range of mediums, including acrylic on canvas, clay, jewelry, paper maché, textiles, upcycled found objects, and mixed media. Xochil is on Instagram: @xochilart
Comments