Chicana Painter Criselda Vasquez Says ICE Detained Her Father

Chicana painter Criselda Vasquez said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained her father, who served as a muse for her work, in an Instagram post dated April 3. In an April 13 email, Vasquez said he was racially profiled and detained on Tuesday, March 31, after being pulled over near a neighbor’s home, and that the family has since confirmed which detention facility is holding him; she added he has lived in the United States for more than 40 years. A GoFundMe linked through her social media raised nearly $68,000 toward an $80,000 goal within 10 days to cover lost wages and legal fees. Vasquez’s 2017 painting “The New American Gothic,” a reimagining of Grant Wood’s American Gothic (1930) featuring her Mexican immigrant parents holding cleaning products and a hoe, was acquired by the Lucas Museum for Narrative Art in Los Angeles in 2021. The family has not publicly named Vasquez’s father, and Vasquez described him as a devoted husband, parent, and grandfather whose sacrifices influenced her figurative painting practice.

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