Art, Art History and Design, School of
First Advisor
Walker Pickering
Second Advisor
Dana Fritz
Third Advisor
Sandra Williams
Date of this Version
5-2022
Citation
Aldana, Eddy Leonel. 2022. "me tengo que ir".
Abstract
In Spanish, me tengo que ir means “I have to go.” “I have to go” as in go home, or back to one’s home country. As in leaving home for the unforeseeable future, hang up the phone, or pass away. me tengo que ir is also the name of a song by Adolescent’s Orquesta — a song about love, loss, and heartbreak over time that was always played at family parties when I was growing up.
In me tengo que ir, I use world history and personal memory to examine my family’s place within the Guatemalan diaspora. Diaspora is defined as the movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland. Existing within the diaspora implies loss, displacement, and emigration because diasporas exist as a result of colonization, nationalism, and in the case of the Guatemalan diaspora, U.S. intervention. From the United Fruit Company’s imperialist business dealings in Guatemala to the Guatemalan civil war, and from my parents’ migration to my mom’s deportation, these events have shaped and negatively affected generations of Latin American families.
Advisor: Walker Pickering
Included in
Art Practice Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Latin American History Commons, Other Arts and Humanities Commons, Photography Commons, United States History Commons
Comments
A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College of the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Fine Arts, Major: Art, Under the Supervision of Professor Walker Pickering. Lincoln, Nebraska: May, 2022
Copyright © 2022 Eddy Leonel Aldana