My name is Angelina Jeronimo, and I am a senior in high school. The piece I have presented is called “Alma Nacida de Patrimonio,” the translation meaning “Soul Born from Heritage.” This art piece is specifically an homage to what it feels like to come from two different cultures and how, as a child born to immigrant parents, you neither feel that you belong here nor there.

The medium I worked with to create this art piece is acrylic. My choice for using this medium was that I wanted to pay respect to folk art commonly painted on artisan products from my country, El Salvador.

This art piece was specifically born from life experiences, what I felt best represented me, and the places I came from. The bird depicted is called “El Torogoz,” which is the national bird of El Salvador and represents the freedom and resilience of Salvadoran people. The two flowers in the bird’s mouth are the “Californian Poppy’’ and “El Flor de Izote,” which are both flowers that represent the places that I come from and how I will always carry both of my cultures with me. I hope that through this artwork I can connect with children born to immigrant and refugee parents who, at times in their lives, have never felt that their hearts belong to one place but instead to the places that have shaped them as people. When creating this art piece, I had a hard time deciding whether to add a landscape background due to feeling insecure about the simplicity of my piece. However, in the end, I decided that I didn’t want anything distracting from the bird, since it’s the main subject of the piece and represents the themes I explored, which were environment, immigration, and adversity.