EP. 009 - ERNESTO

Hecho Con Ganas.

Indigenous. Artist. Culture Worker.

ERNESTO YERENA 'SOY INDIGENA'

Age: 32

Location: Los Angeles, California

My work is a rebuttal to what I feel was missing in my childhood. I come from a loving family. My mother and father worked hard to create a wholesome environment for us. I always felt loved and protected inside our home. I didn’t feel that same kind of love from society. I didn’t see myself in history books. I didn’t see myself on television. I identified most with Black television shows and hip hop because they were the closest thing I had to representation.

I create work to fill in that void. I don’t want kids who are growing up now to have those missing pieces. A lot of my work is about reclaiming my indigenous ancestry. I’m on the land of my ancestors, but that’s never acknowledged by the American government. There’s a reason for that. Colonizers came, took our home, and now they’re the heirs to it. The owners. Or at least, that’s what they want us to believe. They want to erase our history.

Make Humanity Great Again.

Capitalism goes against the indigenous way of living in harmony with Mother Earth. It’s all about the raping and pillaging of resources in exchange for industrial progress. Most people go with the flow. They say,well, this is how it is. My job as an artist is to saythis is how it is now, but it’s not how it has to be. As an artist, I have the responsibility to reimagine society. Culture changes before policy. I’m not a politician. I’m a culture worker. I work with the intention of shifting the paradigm. I work with the spirit of my ancestors to not just fill in the missing puzzle pieces, but to design a whole new puzzle.