I Have A Name: An Open Letter to Shepard Fairey

“I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me…”  – Gloria Anzaldúa

Dear Shepard Fairey,

My name is Aura Bogado. Remember it. The fact that you have chosen, on more than one occasion, to incorrectly describe an exchange we had several years ago provides an opportunity for me to set the record straight; and it should result in an opportunity for you to move beyond your self-victimization. Although you assume I am Mexican, I am Argentine. Although you assume I am someone else’s nameless property I am my own human being. And although you assume I am a young, dumb girl, I am intimately close to what I write and talk about.

Instead of using my name in your book, “Obey: Supply and Demand”, you refer to me instead as an artist’s girlfriend when you describe an email I sent you about a decade ago regarding a parody you created of Che Guevara (although I remember it instead as a public exchange we had at a gallery). In your book, when you describe me as “an outspoken Mexican girl”, you write that I said that I referred to Che as “my compañero”, and that I felt that you were desecrating my culture. You then go on to explain that “Che wasn’t Mexican, he was Argentine.” It’s baffling that you would write that, as it is widely known that Che is considered a “compañero” throughout Latin America, including Mexico.

Suddenly, two years later, you tell a very different account of the conversation. In an interview published in the March/April 2008 issue of Mother Jones, you talk about me in this way:

“I met a girl who was Mexican, who got totally in my face about my parody of Che Guevara’s image, which was based on the fact that it’s already been really exploited to the point that it’s become somewhat meaningless. And she was like, ‘You desecrate my companero.’ I was like, ‘For one thing, he wasn’t Mexican; he was Argentinean …’ It’s like me saying that you insulted someone from Europe and I’m of European descent. It’s such a stretch. She wasn’t in the mountains with Che eating squirrels. It’s just ridiculous.”

I have to credit the fact that you do have one thing right in your latest tirade: I was never in the mountains with Che eating squirrels. Other than that, you are dead wrong. That brown girl whose name you seem to forget is not Mexican. That brown, nameless girl was instead born and raised in Argentina. That girl’s father is a Communist who survived the atrocities of a brutal dictatorship. That girl has a brother who lectures on Guevarismo – a political teaching of communism derived from Che Guevara that focuses on radical social change through armed struggle. That girl grew up hearing story after story about El Che, and although she is not a Communist, she learned at an early age where Che was from and who he represents to her people. That girl is me, Aura Bogado, and it’s no stretch to state that I never turned to you to learn my Che 101 – that would be ridiculous.

My apologies: did I say you only got one thing right in your rant? It seems I left something out – you mentioned that I said that you desecrate Che. I will write now what I said then: your work disrespects icons of color. That is what I remember about our conversation, I was trying (and obviously failed) to explain the way in which you culturally appropriate the images of icons of color, like Che and others, for capitalist gain. That was the crux of what I talked about. You never schooled me about where Che was from – his nationalities (we sometimes consider him Argentine and Cuban, not to mention that he was an Internationalist) never came up when we talked; yet somehow, nearly a decade later, something about the event just seems to stick with you. It seeps into your book, it seeps into your interview. I can only hope that an accurate account of our conversation will seep into your consciousness as well. As an artist, you are not forced to agree with my interpretation of your images – but as a human being, you should be held accountable to tell the truth. Good luck with that one.

Sincerely,
That Brown Girl (also known as Aura Bogado)