Documenting the Undocumented: A Q&A With Julio Salgado
Art by Julio Salgado.
From comic strips like Good Immigrant, Bad Immigrant in the Los Angeles Times and illustrations like Homoland Security, artist Julio Salgado has been creating illustrations and storyboards documenting the realities of immigrant life in the United States for more than 20 years. His art draws on his intersectional identities and uses humor to demonstrate the absurdity and hypocrisy of the country’s immigration system.
After studying art and later transferring to Long Beach City College to pursue journalism, Salgado integrated lessons from his education into his career as an artist. Inspired by journalist Gustavo Arellano’s weekly column “Ask a Mexican,” Salgado creates relatable art that doesn’t sugarcoat what immigrants go through.
Recently, I spoke to Salgado to learn more about his journey as an artist, the fear of having the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protection removed, and how the current political climate affects his work.
Intervenxions staff edited the following interview for clarity and concision.
How did you get into the world of activism art?
I have been drawing since I was a little kid. But it wasn’t until I joined the school newspaper that my political opinions began to develop in a more tangible way. I could draw and make my opinions heard. When I transferred to Long Beach City College as a journalism major, I used the student newspaper to voice my opinions, especially as an undocumented student of color. I was highly outspoken but in a careful way. It was still the early 2000s. and not everyone was out as undocumented in that way.
Julio Salgado. Courtesy of Julio Salgado.
With multiple intersections of your identity—as a queer man, an undocumented immigrant, a person of color—how does your identity influence your artwork?
In a weird way, those things used to bring me a lot of shame. Society sort of politicizes you with the things they say about you, and you get pushed to really be like, “Hey, there's more to me than the stereotypes you hear in the media.”
One of the things that you learn in journalism is this idea that you can't be subjective. Am I going to be biased if I write about undocumented folks? Am I going to be biased if I write about issues of being queer? But I realized white people write about white people all the time, so why can't I do the same? Why can't I, as an undocumented immigrant, write about issues that are affecting undocumented folks, because who knows undocumented immigrants’ stories better?
I started telling the stories of immigrants like myself and interesting people I met, but my whole idea was that immigrants do amazing things for society and this country. We need to highlight the things we bring in–not just data that says immigrants are good for the economy but actual personal stories.
I do that to this day. My goal is to continue to push out their stories, especially right now when we're being told to be quiet and afraid. But I'll be damned if I stop and not continue to tell the stories of my communities.
Has your undocumented status ever affected the opportunities you’ve received as an artist?
Of course. After I graduated college, I remember applying to a couple newspapers, and they were just not hiring people at the time. I think trying to get a job now is hard, especially when you’re in a creative field. I always tell folks, “If you’re going to get into a creative field for the money or the fame, you’re getting in for the wrong reason.” You really have to love your work as a creative because it’s tough. When I didn’t get calls back from newspapers, it never really stopped me. There are a plethora of ways to share your work. I continued writing blogs. I started sharing my artwork on Facebook. Eventually, opportunities came from that.
Art by Julio Salgado.
While not exclusive to Donald Trump’s administration, there is more open, negative sentiment against people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ communities within the U.S. today. How has increased anti-immigrant, anti-trans, and anti-queer legislation impacted your work?
As a political cartoonist, it’s giving me something to draw about every day. There's material every single day. I open my phone and I read the news as someone who deals with the consequences of a lot of Trump’s executive actions.
As someone who has been living on DACA now, someone who has been living with the fear of DACA being taken away, it's nothing new. I've been dealing with this forever. The difference is that there is a person with too much power, and I'm not talking about Trump, who is sort of guiding society down a very dark path. And it scares me. It scares me not just as an undocumented immigrant with DACA, but it scares me as a person, as a human being, the way we are turning against each other.
I try to document my community with my art, point out how ridiculous some of these political messages sound, and I try using humor to show that. Maybe that's not always the best way, but for my own mental health, I'll make a drawing, and I'll just post it. It makes me feel a little less anxious because it's out of my system.
Art by Julio Salgado.
With everything going on politically and economically, what have you been working on recently?
I try to balance both my mental health and being an activist. There's the reactive art I do when I hear something in the news and I'm like, “Oh brother, this would be funny to make a cartoon about.”Then, there's the art that goes deeper into telling stories about my community. There’s a comic strip I did for the LA Times, titled Good immigrant, Bad immigrant, and it's basically a lot about me and my life as an undocumented immigrant. I named my comic strip Good Immigrant, Bad Immigrant because of this idea that we, as immigrants, can only be those two things. When in reality, as human beings, we are many things. The difference is that immigrants are not allowed to make mistakes. If we make a mistake, that could mean deprivation to a lot of us.
It's an honor and a privilege to be able to make sense of these things through art and have other people read the work that I do or share the artwork I make. It makes me feel like I'm not the only one thinking this. A lot of us are thinking this way, and my art is just my way of adding to that conversation.
What hope do you feel like queer people and queer immigrants should hold on to? How can we uplift one another when the current administration is trying to keep us down?
It's scary, but what I say to the people who came before us is: There was a time where a lot of gay men died during the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the government did not do much for them because we were seen as disposable. We have to learn from what our people did because even though that was happening, the queer community was fighting back. They were organizing. They were telling stories. They were fighting for the rights we have now. But they were also celebrating, having parties, spreading joy.
That's what I'm doing. It's not all darkness. There is hope for happiness. I got married last year, and I was very happy, and I celebrate it. There are many ways we can celebrate by existing. The fact that I get to breathe another day, I feel privileged for that.