On the hot and humid afternoon of May 10, 1974, in Dallas, Texas, my mother, Dolores, known to everyone as Lollie, visited with my great-grandfather Juan Sosa, who went by the anglicized name of John. My mother brought John his lunch as he lay bedridden from illness and age. She told him that she was pregnant and going to have a daughter. He cried, perhaps realizing he would never see the baby, and with tears in his eyes said, “How wonderful, mija.” She left the room, and when she returned shortly after to pick up his tray, he had passed away. I was born four months later. Although I never knew John, I always liked to imagine his last encounter with my mother and felt connected to him through that story.
When I was invited to guest edit this issue on Latinx photography, the first pictures that came to my mind were not the many artworks and documentary images that I have had the fortune of working with as a curator, but rather the personal photographs that have helped me piece together the story of my family’s history as Latinos
