Award winner retraces "cultural roots"
Rumsey-Scholarship winner Amy Luraschi's experiences in Mexico influence her art work

By JENNIFER LEWANDOWSKI
Reporter Contributor

Although Amy Luraschi traveled to Mexico with her parents when she was a young child, she says she never really "experienced" the Third-World country that was the home of her mother's family. But as the recipient of the 1999 Rumsey Scholarship-the most prestigious scholarship awarded to an undergraduate in the Department of Art-the UB senior was able to return to Mexico this past summer to retrace her "cultural roots" and document the trip through photography.

Luraschi set out on a week-long journey to learn about the living and working conditions of individuals employed by the maquiladoras-the Spanish word for factories-in Matamoros, Mexico, which "are U.S.-owned and managed, but employ strictly Mexican labor," she says.

A student in the Photography Program in the Department of Art, Luraschi traveled to Mexico with the New York State Labor Religion Coalition, based in Albany, and the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, based in San Antonio, Texas. The groups, which advocate better working conditions in the maquiladoras, travel to cities along the border where these factories are located and talk with employees, both current and former, about their struggles. Luraschi says she spent time in the colonias, or shanty towns, where factory employees and their families live.

"Their houses are made out of pallets and cardboard, and wood and cinderblocks," she says, adding that cinderblocks are considered a "status symbol" in the colonias. Luraschi says being in the colonias is "like going from the future to the past."

She describes the colonias as overpopulated, with homes built on the same land as the industrial parks where major corporations such as Trico, Ford, Sony and General Motors employ people to work in their factories for the equivalent of 75 cents per hour. Sadly, she says, "most of the things are being made with really cheap labor for the benefit of the United States."

While Luraschi relished the chance to revisit Mexico, the trip was a conflicted one.

As a Mexican-American, she says she was unsettled by what she saw, a feeling complicated by the fact that her father is employed by Delphi Harrison Thermal Systems in Lockport, until recently owned by GM, and her uncle helped set up a maquiladora.

"GM, which is exploiting the Mexican heritage, also is supporting me to go to college," she adds.

Management in both the United States and in Mexico-not the factory workers-is to blame for the current working conditions, she points out.

"(The management) isn't living in Mexico because they know how bad it is," she says, noting that management-level employees often are enticed to relocate to the maquiladoras with offers of plush new homes.

And the factory workers, Luraschi says, are in a tough spot.

"They can't just quit and get another job. There aren't any other jobs. They can't choose not to work (because) they don't have a welfare system," she says. "They just don't have a big enough voice to make a huge difference."

Luraschi captured the poverty and struggle of the Mexican laborers and their families in a recent exhibit of her work, titled "Crossing the Line." The show, which was held in the Art Department Gallery in the Center for the Arts, included several mixed-media exhibits inspired by her visit, as well as two 3-foot-by-5-foot mural prints of the colonias.

The exhibit, she says, was based on the "notion of going too far-the extravagance of cultural misconceptions and radical stereotypes."

The notion is embodied in her work, particularly in her piece "Contracting for Services," which featured 100 burlap dolls, made by Luraschi and her mother, mounted on a wall while an audiotape, titled "How to Effectively Communicate with Your Spanish Speaking Housekeeper," played on a loop.

The point of the piece, she says, was to illustrate the contrast between the living conditions of the maquiladora management versus that of their employees living in the colonias, and the ways in which differences in status enforce stereotypes.

"You're being confronted by the image this tape creates-the person you're talking to-at the other end of the tape," she says.

Another of her works-"Cultural Hybrid"-uses a grenade with a funnel at the top containing a non-authentic, brand-name salsa to illustrate what Luraschi says is the fuel for stereotypes and a potentially explosive situation between cultures.

The process of putting together the exhibit, which featured six installations, has strengthened her current work and helped her gain focus, she says.

"Now I have a real foundation for my work," says Luraschi, who plans to enroll in graduate school. "I've been to the border and experienced it firsthand."