gipsófila // baby’s-breath.

intergenerational digital storytelling as a public art praxis

(multi-modal) archive as praxis

Lease: A contractual agreement between a tenant and a landlord.

A lease is not typically seen as an endearing artifact. It doesn’t typically give you feelings of nostalgia or longing. Leases are less about feelings, family histories, or roots, and more about legally binding agreements, contracts, and expectations. But when my mother and I were on the phone one Tuesday evening, her call regarding the loss of my family’s first lease activated immense feelings of loss. My family immigrated to the United States in the 1980s from México. My mother, father, abuelita, and older sister, crossed la frontera and were left near San Diego without a guide of where to safely go next. The tragic and triumphant genesis of the Barrales’ in the United States is the root cause of this longing for history, artifacts, and preservation. And perhaps because I don’t see my family in the “conventional” archives, I’ve also joined those who are cultivating alternative and multi-modal forms of archival praxis.

babysbreath by Wendy Barrales

I have a deep nostalgia for the music and culture of the 1980s because of my family’s origin story in this country. Despite coming into the world at the end of that decade and getting to experience very little of it firsthand, I am often transported to vivid memories of my parents barely speaking English, but knowing every word of Stevie Wonder’s, I Just Called to Say I Love You. I can still recall the mustache and hat logo of the Barrio Music cassette tapes that my family would listen to - full of salsa and oldies. I feel incredibly attached to everything from that time period: Cabbage Patch Dolls, Aqua Net hairspray, y las canciones de Los Bukis, that still bring my mom to tears. This nostalgia is poignant yet healing and grounding. And yet, it also keeps me longing for my roots. It makes me feel anxious. It makes me feel like I'm losing my history -- like part of myself is untethered. Like part of myself doesn’t know quite exactly where it belongs. Like I'm reaching for a phantom limb. I know something was there. I can feel it but can’t make out its shape. I only feel its absence. Or perhaps I remember what it feels like, but can no longer see it or fully describe it since it's no longer part of my physical ecosystem...

So, when my mom and I are catching up on that Tuesday evening, and she tells me that many papers, including our first lease, are missing, I sob internally. When I sit down to talk to a colleague about my work, and the lease comes up, I sob. And when I think about my niece who is just weeks old, my nephew who is 10, and my potential future children, grandchildren and descendants, I sob. It’s not just about the lease. It’s about the moments that tell the world we existed. We were here. The lease has become much more than an economic contract—it is a symbol of our existence as a formally undocumented Mexican family, and first generation in the United States.