![]() ![]() ![]() While speaking to the current political climate, Tonatiuh’s work is also a timeless reminder of the dignity inherent to labor and the laborer. The direct and brief narrative reveals Tonatiuh’s background as a picture book creator, with pages formatted much like a child’s read-aloud, but the earth-tone coloring and use of flattened perspectives and long scrolling arcs of action evoke ancient Mixteco codices. The plot is a staunch, if short, ode to the power of collective labor, as Juan is recruited to and ultimately leads the fight for better wages and visibility for immigrant workers of many different nationalities. ![]() While the experience of undocumented workers in America is most often told via hard-hitting, dry reportage with occasional attempts at melodrama, this comic is both inventive in form and (darkly) humorous. ![]() Since then, he has worked with “no papers,” underpaid and unknown (“You don’t know our names but you’ve seen us”), laboring seven days a week and living in miserable poverty. Laid out in an accordion-fold format, Tonatiuh’s slim but big-hearted graphic novella is narrated by Juan, a Mixteco-speaking man who crossed from Mexico to America while a teenager. Tonatiuh’s lean and elegant fable plots a memorable map of one man’s immigration experience. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |