Emily Hinojosa

“Soy un amasamiento. I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of light, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings.”

-Gloria Anzaldúa, “La conciencia de la mestiza,” 1987

Borders, and thereby divisions, defined every aspect of my life. Everything in my mind existed in high contrast, on extreme and opposing ends. Good or Evil, Home or Alien, Happy or Depressed. This instinct to divide made my existence a constant battle. I would categorize every facet of myself, demonize the bad and praise the good. Fighting, fighting, fighting. I wanted to be good, to be happy. I needed to eradicate the evil. But I am the evil, I am sin, I am my shadow. But a shadow cannot exist without light, so I am also the good and holy. An amalgamation, I am all of it. But simultaneously none of it. Because these divisions and labels, these borders, are not real.

Emily “Ryo” Hinojosa is a Chicanx, nepantla artist based in Brownsville, Texas. She uses a wide range of visual mediums to explore her psychic and political landscape in order to unravel the byproducts of life in the borderlands. The work engages in themes of duality, gender, religion, liminality, and the ephemeral. Through her work she aims to address and heal painful aspects of the human condition; to shine a light on the shadows.

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