In September, the Texas Department of Public Safety released a video on social media showing state police removing a yellow, blue, and red flag from a small island in the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas. The border community has been a focal point for Texas governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star and its deployment of armed soldiers and police to apprehend and detain asylum seekers. Many people arriving are from Venezuela, which is in political and economic turmoil. In its social media post, DPS alleged that “illegal immigrants decided to claim a Texas island by placing a foreign flag—that was quickly taken care of by our DPS Tactical Marine Unit.”
The DPS post about Venezuelan migrants quickly fed into the right-wing media echo chamber, which dehumanizes and portrays people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border as invaders.
The flag, however, was neither Venezuelan nor placed there by a migrant. Instead, it was part of a public art piece created by Roberto Marquez of Dallas, a self-taught artist who has painted murals and created art pieces around the globe.
For Marquez, 61, it was not the first time he’d had his art destroyed by law enforcement or had his work misunderstood. Marquez made his living in real estate in Dallas before devoting himself full-time to art in 2018. Not content with drawing on his own personal experiences, he’s instead inspired to work in some of the globe’s most troubled areas. “I’m like a journalist,” he says. “I want to see what’s happening with my own eyes.”
Marquez has traveled with migrant caravans in Mexico, painted a mural inspired by Picasso’s Guernica on a bombed-out Ukrainian bridge, and created public art pieces at the sites of several mass shootings in the United States. “I’m not drawn to the easy or comfortable,” he says. “I had too many years of that, and I don’t have any more time to waste. I want to test myself.” An immigrant who moved from Mexico to the United States as a young adult, Marquez often comes back to the themes of migration and displacement. The Border Chronicle caught up with the artist on his drive back to Dallas from Eagle Pass.
Why did you decide to travel to Eagle Pass? And did you already have an idea in mind for an artwork before you arrived there?
There’s a lot being said about the migrants arriving there. That they’re “dangerous” or that they’re invading the country. But there’s something else that needs to be told. What I think is that these people need help. Without ever having been to a place, people make their conclusions from far away. That’s why I like journalists, because they go to the place to see what is happening and collect as much information as possible to fully understand. That’s what keeps me going. When you ask me, ‘Why did you drive from Dallas to Eagle Pass?’ it’s because I feel it’s my duty to witness those situations, especially when it’s painful, when it’s people in trouble.
Maybe as an artist I can do something. And it’s a tiny thing compared to everything that’s going on. But they can tell me their stories, and I’ll take my paintbrush and do something with the canvas to tell that story. Sometimes they are angry, sometimes they just want to cry, and I cry with them. And while I’m there, I get to see all the corners, at least from my perspective.
Before I arrived, I had my sketch ready. I was there for four days. I went to Shelby Park and tried to find a light pole or something straight that I could staple my canvas to. But I couldn’t find anything, so I switched to plan B, which is installation, which I sometimes combine with performance, meaning sometimes I’ll erect a cross, you know, to send a message. And when I’m building what people call a flag, there’s a lot of questions. What kind of message am I trying to send? Even the migrants, they asked me, why the flag? And I told them I’m an artist, and I use works of art to send messages and provoke people by making them think deeper.
What kind of message were you trying to send?
I built two crosses, one larger, and then a smaller one representing spirituality and all the other people we have lost along the border. The yellow, red, and blue flag with its colors resembles the flags of many South American countries like Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. People were saying, “Oh, that reminds me of my flag. I am from Colombia.” Or “It is almost like Venezuela, but it doesn’t have the semicircle of stars on it.” People interpret it the way they want to. Then I added a message: “You call me invader. And I call you brother.” The migrants helped me carry it and install it on the island.
We only had a chance to put it up for, I don’t know, maybe an hour or less. And then the CBP and DPS officers knocked it down.
Does the work you create at the border often get destroyed?
They always destroy my art pieces. They’ve been doing it for years. Last year in El Paso, my son and I met a woman, she and her family had just crossed the river, and they were cold and shivering so we had them get in our truck to warm up. She told me a story about what she had witnessed while they were crossing through the Darien Gap. She said she was traveling with a group of Haitians, and someone began to chase them. They had to run in different directions. Soon they came upon a woman and her baby, and they had been killed. She wondered about the husband and what had happened to him. Later, she heard he had hung himself from a nearby tree after finding his family dead. He couldn’t handle it. I told this woman, “I’m going to paint your story.” I had these panels attached to the fence on the sidewalk next to the Sacred Heart Church. The church had already said it was OK, but the police came and said people had complained and that I needed to remove them. There were more than 100 migrants there on the sidewalk, and I stood up and asked, “Are my paintings bothering anyone here? If you want me to leave, raise your hand, and I’ll leave right now.” Nobody raised their hand. I went to sleep that night, and the migrants took turns looking after the paintings, but the police came the next morning with a trash truck. I received a call from one of the men at the shelter who was keeping an eye on the paintings. He asked, “What should we do? They’re taking them away.” But there wasn’t anything we could do.
You meet people in these very intense situations. Does it have an impact on you emotionally? What does your family think about your work?
I come from the streets. I don’t have a diploma. My son told me, “Why don’t you take an art class?” But I’m 61 years old. I don’t want to waste any more time. So, I thought, I’m just going to go with the basics. I spent 25 years building up our real estate business. And I have three sons and a daughter. They run the business now, and it’s worked out fine. I wanted to be an artist all my life, and now I’m finally getting to do it. My wife, sometimes she’ll go with me, but Ukraine was hard. She didn’t want to go, and she worried about me because it was dangerous. But they’re accepting that this is my profession now. When I started in 2018, I was very nervous. That’s why I chose to make it difficult for myself. That way it was a test. If I thought it was too hard, then I could just go home back to my old life. But now I’m more confident. I decided that if I’m going to do this. I’m going to do it all the way.
And yes, it is difficult. I am a very sensitive person, and when I see people cry, I cry too. But I see it as my duty to bear witness and show solidarity with the people who are suffering. All I want to do is to tell their story through my work.
Read more: Read More