Objects of mestizo memory

Abstract

This visual essay explores the relationship of racialization and family archives based on an inquiry into my Guatemalan father’s collection of media artifacts. The media objects include VHS tapes, photographic prints, and legal documents. All of the images presented are from my father’s media archive, and they are presented in relation to a series of textual reflections. These reflections are drawn from my own experiences producing oral histories with my tía Marta in Guatemala, my father’s reflections on his archive of media objects, and a review of colonial texts that elaborated the descriptions of ethnoracial categories related to “mestizaje” in Central America. Taken together, this image-based and textual exploration presents the reader with an opportunity to reflect on the contingent, fraught, and open-ended process of racialization, as well as on moments of foreclosure where boundaries of ethnoracial identity are demarcated and reified. The essay meditates on ways that utterances and dialogue about family archives constitute sites of racialization. There is a corresponding video essay featuring my father’s narration along with his interaction with his archive at the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwPmMwBJc-k .