Andean Peoples 3

In early 2023, as Indigenous people were rising up for their human rights in my home country, Peru, I was reflecting on the significance and power of marginalized people calling out centuries of colonization. That unprecedented moment in history inspired me to create this series.

I grew up in a Peruvian immigrant family, raised by my mom from Lima, my Afro Peruvian father and grandmother. Their experiences gave me a lens into racism in Peru. I went to Peru for the first time at age 2 and didn’t return until I was 15. Yet by then, so much of my identity was shaped by Xicanx (Chicanx) culture in California. Growing up in Oakland, I was also shaped by cholo culture and by the radical, political movements of the Brown Berets and the Chicano Movement.

I also studied in Mexico City and lived there with some relatives when I...