Mexican American Masks: The Art of Joel Hernandez
Joel Hernandez.
Masks have played a central role in Mexican art for centuries, from Aztec warriors adorning jaguar and eagle masks during battles to more contemporary uses in Día de Los Muertos celebrations or Lucha Libre spectacles. The mask can be used to embody a different persona or to disguise our true selves from others. For queer Mexican American artist Joel Hernandez, masks can unravel the part of ourselves that often lies hidden.
“We are all wearing masks all the time,” Hernandez said. “I had to wear several masks growing up, whether it was trying to act more Mexican or American, or even having to hide the fact that I was gay. I had to put on different faces depending on the situation.”
Growing up in the border town of Nuevo Laredo in Mexico, Hernandez admired the vibrant art that surrounded him during his childhood, from the colorful piñatas at the local market to the dynamic traditional attire worn by folkloric dancers during parades and festivals.
When his family immigrated to the United States, Hernandez said he gravitated towards art as a way to communicate through the culture shock of having to navigate a foreign environment. His first art medium was photography, which allowed him to express himself through images.
Portrait of the artist’s mother
“Photography allowed me to manipulate reality,” Hernandez said. “Through the process of layering negatives on top of each other, I was trying to create my own reality. It was a way to control what was happening around me since I was struggling to navigate the culture shock of living in a new place.”
Through his photography, Hernandez expanded his artistic medium since he would also style the clothing of his subjects and paint the background of each scene. For the portrait of his mother, he said he wanted to capture an intimate moment of daily life.
“I love being able to say something without having to say it,” Hernandez said. “I want to capture various emotions through my art, whether it’s anger or feelings of nostalgia.”
Transitioning from photography to the three-dimensional art of papier-mâché was a natural progression for the artist, as he describes his current art medium as another form of expressing emotions and feelings that continue to permeate through his work.
“Through my work, I hope that someone that grew up with a similar upbringing can relate and bring out those feelings that I’m trying to invoke in them,” Hernandez said. “It’s a way of saying you’re not out there by yourself—we’re all part of this new tribe.”
Hernandez classifies his work as “modern folk art” or “city dwelling folk art” since he draws inspiration from walks through his neighborhood and the diversity of people that inhabit a large urban center, many of whom are marginalized and erased.
When his family immigrated from Mexico to the United States, Hernandez remembers how his parents attempted to reassure the young artist that a move to the U.S. would mean a better life. As a kid growing up watching classic American cartoons in Mexico, his parents told him moving to the U.S. would mean they would be living near Disneyland, the happiest place on earth.
“I had no idea Disneyland wasn’t in Indiana,” Hernandez said with a laugh. “But that was part of the illusion. It was the pursuit of the American dream: the fantasyland where dreams come true.”
After graduating with his bachelor’s degree, Hernandez left Indiana and moved to Los Angeles, a city with a significant Mexican immigrant population. One day, while walking down Hollywood Blvd past the glitz and glamour of the tourist attractions, he remembers seeing a Latino man taking a smoke break with his Mickey Mouse hat off, which reminded him of the American dream his parents had and how Disney was used as the symbol of that American dream.
However, for Hernandez, the irony of being an immigrant in the land where “dreams come true” is contrasted by the reality of the immigrant worker behind the mask of that fantasy/dream, who is erased behind a façade that hides the fact that immigrant labor makes that American Dream a possibility.
By combining human and animals into a hybrid mask, Hernandez is highlighting the way in which Mexican immigrants are often seen as inferior, a perpetual foreigner who is excluded from taking part in the American dream.
“Many tend to see Mexicans as work animals, but we are people, there is a person and story underneath that mask,” Hernandez said. “We deserve to be seen and respected.”
Although he uses his work to highlight the hidden lives of immigrants, he also uses his art to celebrate the tenacity and resilience of Mexican immigrants in the U.S., who despite all obstacles, continue to thrive and succeed to carve out their own version of the American dream for themselves.
“We are here working hard,” Hernandez said. “You may see us as these work animals, but we are still here living our own personal dreams.”
Growing up as an immigrant while having to learn a new language and coming to terms with his sexuality, Hernandez said he learned to hide behind a mask to hide some of the internal struggles he had to deal with, which instilled in the young artist a fascination with being able to portray multiple expressions with masks that can be worn and then easily removed.
Whether it’s an expression of sadness or happiness, Hernandez said he wants his art to give people the possibility to transport themselves into those feelings and embrace them. He confesses to keeping some of his artwork around specifically because it invokes a particular feeling in him.
“They’re reminders of our humanity,” Hernandez said. “The masks are a way of unburdening myself, as if I’m taking it off my own body. It’s a process of letting go and trying to understand this moment through a tangible object.”
For the Día de Los Muertos inspired skulls that he creates, the artist said his interpretation of the traditional Mexican mask is reimagined to reflect his atheism. Growing up in a traditionally Catholic household, he believed his sexuality would exclude him from going to heaven.
Hernandez begins every art piece with an emotion or feeling. As an observer, he said he likes to absorb his surroundings, whether it’s a conversation he overhears on the bus or a song that ignites a certain feeling within him.
“Music is definitely a big influence in my work,” Hernandez said. “Listening to some of my mother’s favorite ranchera music is like therapy. Sometimes a song can trigger a specific emotion within me, and I feel the need to get it out. That’s when I start creating.”
The artist will then begin to mold the clay, which he describes as the hardest part of the process since he doesn’t yet fully understand what the end result will be.
“When I’m sculpting, I like to treat it as a journal,” Hernandez said. “When I get in there, I can lose myself in my train of thought. Like a journal, you know how it’s going to start but you don’t necessarily know how it’s going to end. Through the process of creating art, different emotions may arise that you might not have expected but you just go with it.”
One of his most recent works is a reflection on the COVID-19 pandemic, which combines fragments of news clippings and headlines of the pandemic to highlight the influx of misinformation that dominated the public discourse at the time. A little angel and devil wearing masks of the other, provides a stark commentary on the duality of the conflicting information.
As the artist continues to evolve his work, he said his projects are now getting bigger. Although he started off making small masks, now he’s creating larger masks to reflect the complexity of what he wants to say in his work.
“There’s people that tell me that my work has helped them through some tough times,” Hernandez said. “It’s not easy trying to figure out who you are, especially when you have a lot of things on top of it: gay, immigrant, new to a city, in love or heartbroken—so many things out there that I hope people feel connected with my work.”
“Not everyone has a community,” Hernandez said. “I felt like I didn’t have a community for a long time, but I’m slowly learning how to find that community here. I hope with my work people feel like there’s a community out there for them. We may not be connected, but if we were in the same village, we would be dancing around the same fire.”
Jorge Cruz is an incoming PhD student in Chicano/a Studies at UCLA and received his master’s degree in Latin American Studies from Cal State LA. His research explores queer representations in Latinx art. He was also a summer intern at the Latinx Project.