Resisting the Allure of Innocence. Texas Observer. August 26, 2021.
Christina Maria Patiño Houle’s reimagination of the photograph of the Texas Rangers and the dead Mexicans. Patiño Houle puts herself in the positions of the Rangers on horseback and the dead Mexican men on the ground. By claiming the image as her own, Patiño Houle mutes the destructive power of the original photo, asserts her existence as a descendant of the land, and reclaims narratives about the borderlands away from those that bolster white supremacy and toward those that reflect the resistance and survival of BIPOC people, families, and communities.