The “Lotería” of Life: The Art of Lana Suomala

When I first saw Lana Suomala’s artwork I could find no information on the artist. Since the topic was based on the Mexican “Loteria” (a form of bingo), I figured the artist was Hispanic. However, when I met the artist herself, I was surprised to find a Caucasian mom and teacher was the creator of such evocative work. In the same style a teacher would, she walked me through her exhibit and taught me through her artwork.

The idea for her artwork stemmed from the massive Immigration and Customs (ICE) raid in Postville, Iowa (a small town with a population of 2,300) on May 12, 2008, which made national news. With black hawk helicopters flying above them, 900 heavily armed operatives and personnel from 11 other agencies shackled and detained one fifth of Postville’s population. Since Suomala’s sister lives in Iowa, she was familiar with the area and became intensely interested by the plight of the town’s people, the undocumented immigrants, and the American citizen children who were ripped from their families and left behind.
Lana explained that the concept of using the Mexican “Loteria” actually came from a comment made by a translator at the hearings. He told Lana that penalties to the immigrants (many of whom claimed that they received false social security numbers from the employers in many cases) were based on a “lottery” of sorts; the luck of the draw. If the social security number corresponded to a real person, the penalty was greater. However, the “chance” involved in the game of Loteria, as well as in the journeys and experiences of the immigrants arrested in Postville permeates the art in many other ways. The 36 handmade felt images are broken up into four categories: Children of Poverty, The Journey, The Raid, and Connections.
I was instantly drawn to the colorful hand sewn 9 X 12 felt images which were reminiscent of children’s art school projects. Upon closer inspection, however, the images were more troubling and thought provoking. In the category of “Children of Poverty” there were images depicting the sort of “choices” (if one can call them that) that are available to impoverished families and children in 3rd world, poverty stricken, and often corrupted countries such as: malnutrition, prostitution, illiteracy, infant mortality, narco-trafficking violence and living in squalor. It isn’t hard to understand why so many people facing these “choices” choose to play the game of chance and venture to the US. As Lana put it, “Which one of us wouldn’t do whatever we had to do to save our children?”
The Journey category was filled with images of danger or struggle like dealing with coyotes (which many of the Postville detainees still owed money to and who could take mob-style paybacks for non-payment with the families of detainees back in their countries of origin). Some images showed the chances immigrants took by taking the, mostly walked, journeys into the U.S. and the corpses in the deserts of those who failed. Others showed planted fields in the U.S.; fields of opportunity for work. Through her interviews with detainees of the raids, Lana was told about ads placed in publications in Mexico and Guatemala advertised jobs in Postville, Iowa—and continued to be posted even after the raids (no American company has taken responsibility for posting these ads to date).
Lana told me that, like many of her art pieces, they are based on stories of real events—like the 17 year old boy she met who lost his hand and inspired one of the more disturbing images showing a child working with a missing hand, cows hanging above him like piñatas and their guts spilling out over his head like candy. I noticed that children were a central figure in many of Lana’s pieces. Ironically, close to this piece is another, showing detainees shackled together—as they were whenever they were transported to the “National Cattle Congress” building at the Waterloo fairgrounds – a place meant for cows like those the workers had been processing at AgriProcessors in Postville. Lana shared that these detainees (some 289 of them) were processed “assembly line” style in 72 hours and then disbursed to prisons across the country and far from support or family and friends.
Another piece showed a little girl crying in bed surrounded by Guatemalan worry dolls; signifying the many children left parentless, on both sides of the borders and worried sick for loved ones and themselves. Lana also depicted the effects on the community like the pieces that showed a closed business (after the raid dozens of thriving businesses were closed when their owners were jailed); and the empty schoolhouse with forlorn and bewildered children (the community of faith and people of Postville raised money to bring in the required psychological treatment to help the children (both Anglo and non) to deal with the post-traumatic stress caused by the raids.

One of the detainees wrote that after being transported from one jail to another over a period of many months, he was held in a windowless cell in Benton County saying, “One could go crazy without ever seeing the sun.” The sun, “El Sol,” a typical and recognizable Loteria card, is another one of the pieces depicted in Lana’s art under the “Connections” category. It, like many of the other pieces in the Connections category are those things we share, like the sun. We all share the same sun; we share the need for food and shelter; we share the need to support our loved ones and we all share a love for our children.
Whatever you think of the immigration situation in our country, the work of Lana Suomala is beautiful, heart wrenching, evocative, and, perhaps more importantly to her—as the teacher she is —educational. She told me with a wide smile, “I feel privileged to tell their stories.” Lana’s art is currently showing at Atomic Coffee in Moorhead (16 4th St. S.) until October 1st, but I hope to see it elsewhere (places like the Plains Art Museum, The Rourke, The Spirit Room) where more people can appreciate the immense impact and beauty of her work. Lana Suomala can be reached for comment and upcoming showings at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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INFO:

What: “Loteria” by Lana Suomala
When: Now - Oct. 1
Where: Atomic Coffee in Moorhead
Cost: Free