Our national mythology—our shared stories—binds us as a people. But where do these narratives intersect with personal histories? How does collective memory reconcile itself with individual truth? Within this choreographed chaos, I focus on laborers—documented and undocumented workers cast as mythic figures—who represent themes of identity, labor, and social unrest. The tools of their trade, symbols of modernity, are both replaced and fortified by pikes, halberds, and long axes.

Work i(s/n) Progress, looks at labor history as a core part of the Pan-American story. Through it, I’m trying to understand my own family’s story of migration and labor and our place in the ever-evolving definition of American History.