Esvin Alarcón Lam
Map of Chinese Immigration to Central America’ (2022-2025) is a drawing of a 19th-century map of Cantonese migration to the Americas, done in embroidery with my mother. It is a copy of the unconventional map drawn by a Cantonese man. Carlos Li Wong settled in Nicaragua, and his drawing not only describes his journey, but also a collective history of so many people who migrated from Canton to Central America. The act of copying it, in addition to reproducing it, creates a bridge between the present and a past time, between generations that seem untouched, but whose memory persists. On the other hand, it is also a historical manuscript, a document of labor, and a cartography that goes beyond the Western logic of dividing and orienting oneself in the world.
