A space to be heard
Yamilett Farias Chaidez first encountered the exhibit in the pages of the Los Angeles Times. The article described how artists were using their work to generate support and funds for immigrants targeted by I.C.E. raids. In one image, visitors entered an installation through a doorway decorated with brightly colored piñatas. It was modeled after the mercaditos in Los Angeles, where the presence of federal agents had begun to thin the crowds.
For Farias Chaidez, that image became a point of inquiry. It also became a way of understanding her own life.
"My research examines how Southern California Latino artists are creating spaces for
immigrant communities to reclaim cultural identity, mourn shared losses, and find
hope for the future,”
she says. "I wanted to explore how we create visual sanctuaries for immigrants in
a society that rarely makes space for them."
As a double major in political science and Chicano/Latino studies at UC Irvine, her research treats art as a corrective, a way of returning detail to lives often reduced to stereotype.
“Southern California Latino artists are retelling immigrant stories in ways that reveal our full humanity," she says. "We are far more than what the media portrays. It's important that we show what immigration actually is, not the image others want to project."
Latino art, she argues, is restoration as much as expression. These artists are returning complexity and self-determination to communities whose stories are routinely told by others.
Inheritance and direction
Farias Chaidez traces that understanding to her family. She is the oldest daughter of two parents from Mexico and the first in her family to attend college in the United States. Her family’s story has shaped her sense of purpose.
"Everything my family sacrificed to give me and my siblings a better life shaped who I am and pushed me to grow, personally and academically," she says.
Education, in her household, was never just about grades or ambition. It was about finding purpose and meaning. It was tied to what her parents had worked hard for and everything they themselves had been denied.
"I grew up being told that education is something no one can take from you," she says. "My mom went to college but was never allowed to use her degree. That broke her heart. That’s why she pushes us to do what we love."
Familiar ground
Farias Chaidez arrived at UC Irvine as a political science major, guided in part by an early interest in law. But in her second year, in a Chicano/Latino studies course, she found an academic community that reflected her own experiences.
"My first Chicano/Latino class was the first time I'd been in a room full of people with shared experiences," she says. "Political science is my path toward becoming an attorney, but Chicano/Latino studies is where I feel safe to speak from my own experience."
That sense of alignment deepened in her research seminars, where she worked closely with assistant professor Génesis Lara and professor and chair Glenda Flores in the Chicano/Latino studies department.
“In the past year, I have seen Yami combine her interests in art and Chicanx activism into a fantastic undergraduate research project,” Lara says. “Her dedication, her creativity and her passion for the Latinx community make her a standout student and leader. I am so happy for her and know that there will be more achievements to come!”
That dedication shaped the pace of her college years. She often took on heavy course loads, sometimes enrolling in 20 units in a single quarter, while also working part-time, interning at law offices, being active in pre-law student organizations, while completing her degree in just three years. Twice a week, she makes the 90-minute drive from Riverside County, structuring her schedule around time as much as coursework. Yet within that intensity, she found moments of meaning that kept her connected to the research and to the people behind it.
"My research seminars have been some of my most memorable moments at UCI," she says. "I cried at the end of both quarters. Crying doesn't come easy to me, so that showed me just how comfortable I felt."
Carrying the work forward
Farias Chaidez is studying for the LSAT and plans to apply to law school for fall 2027, with the aim of becoming an immigration attorney committed to providing free legal services to immigrants.
As she approaches graduation, the demands of her collegiate journey haven't dulled her appreciation for the experience. If anything, they've deepened it.
"It's been busy, but I genuinely appreciate these years," she says. "I'd choose UCI again without hesitation. Even the commute never felt like a burden. I think that says something."
What she found at UC Irvine mirrors the question at the center of her research. The gallery entrance, decorated with piñatas, may not register as fine art. That’s probably the point. For Farias Chaidez, the mercadito was less an aesthetic choice than a philosophical one. The image stayed with her and continues to shape the work she’s building. It signaled who the space was for. The familiarity became an invitation. People entered and recognized something of their own lives.
That recognition is not limited to galleries. Farias Chaidez encountered it in her Chicano/Latino studies courses as well, where the room reflected her back. What she found in art, she also saw in her own education. A space can do more than contain a story. It can affirm that the story belongs there, and that it always has.
-Jill Kato for UC Irvine School of Social Sciences
-pictured: Yamilett Farias Chaidez with her family.