Vanessa Leal | Turn Me Blue: Self-Portrait in Mexican embroidered Cloth | Oil and Paper Collage | 2006

Artists Statement
Who Are You?  The question I dread.  I have been called everything from Japanese to Mexican.  Neither is accurate.  People come up to me out of the blue and question my identity, like it is their right to know.  The question first is: what nationality are you?  Followed by: where were you born? And do you speak Spanish? My secret is, sometimes I don’t want the person asking to know.  Sometimes I say I was born in Minnesota, so all the questions won’t follow. And I don’t feel guilty.  I get the feeling some people only want to know so they can file my identity in a labeled box, tossed in the back of their mind, glad to get it all figured out. I feel like they want me to wear the appropriate “clothing” so they can figure me out. I can tell when someone asks and is genuinely interested, then you can’t get me to shut up about myself.  Because I love who I am and I love my family. 
I was adopted from Guatemala, I do not speak Spanish fluently, I do not know who my birth mother is, maybe I will visit Guatemala later in life, I could have Spanish and Mayan ancestry but I do not know for sure.  My parents are in an interracial marriage, my father is Chicano, and my mother is Swedish/German. I am as Latino as my father and as German as my mother. I am all that my family entails and proud of my Guatemalan background. So when my mother tells me I am Swedish, I smile.