Ep. 162 - Subversive Cartography

For as long as humans have been able to write, they’ve made maps.

Sometimes maps show paths to the sacred. More often, they depict borders and boundaries, becoming tools of exclusion and control.

Not so for Sandy Rodriguez, a third-generation Chicana artist based in Los Angeles.

Her work, made with traditional indigenous paper and pigments, offers a pointed alternative to the map of the United States of America as we know it.

On this episode, Rodriguez speaks with Commonweal’s Claudia Avila Cosnahan and Griffin Oleynick.

She shows how the land—la tierra insurgente—can rise up and resist the violence carried out by ICE and the Trump administration against our immigrant neighbors.

Plus, Commonweal Senior Correspondent Heidi Schlumpf delivers a roundup of the latest Catholic news.

For further reading:

Claudia Avila Cosnahan on the siege of Los Angeles

Nicole-Ann Lobo on Chicana artist-activist Yolanda López

Alejandro Anreus on the Hispanic Society Museum and Library