ARTWORK ANALYSIS

Nadie es Ilegal by Dayana Camposeco is a digital photograph that plays with society’s and the viewers’ expectations and assumptions about immigrants. The photograph’s setting is the now-closed Starway Flea Market in Wilmington, NC, where the artist used to work with their aunt. Two circular clothes racks are positioned behind the central figure, and patchy green grass is underneath her with a blue, cloudy sky above. The figure in the photograph is a seated woman wearing a gray mask made to look like a depiction of a space alien. The title of this piece translates to “no one is illegal” in English, which refers to the hurtful phrasing that the United States government uses to classify immigrants who live in the country without official authorization. Often, the phrase “illegal alien” is used to describe this classification of people in official government and news documents. Camposeco skillfully makes this phrasing and its use ridiculous with the depiction of an ordinary, American scene of a casually dressed flea market vendor juxtaposed with her wearing a costume space alien mask. The government and news agencies who use language like “illegal alien” and other similarly offensive epithets aim to make immigrants seem like outsiders who are so different from ordinary Americans that they do not belong in this country. Through Nadie es Ilegal and other photographs from their series on the Starway Flea Market, Camposeco reveals the absurdity of not only using this language to describe immigrants but also of the mindset that causes political leaders and reporters to position people as non-human beings.