Yuyi Morales: Dreamers

Yuyi Morales’ immigrant story incorporates a range of symbols that carry personal meaning. Dreamers reflects her admiration for creativity in its many forms, particularly in the work of craftspeople who bring beauty and utility together in their art. Embroidery and needlework, which she learned as a girl, appears on the cover and pages of the book, created both by hand and by computer. Though she came to the United States with few possessions, the backpack in her images represents the many talents, traditions, and memories that she and other immi-grants take with them. The lush forests of Xalapa, her home city, where it rains almost every day, are represented by orchids and other colorful flowers; skeletons are playful reminders of the joy of being alive; and dogs are ever-faithful compan-ions. An erupting volcano symbolizes the artist’s mission and passion, and a heart within an eye her unique way of seeing. Swallows, bats, and monarch butterflies appear throughout the book, because like their human counterparts, they make the long, tiring journey between distant countries and continents. In creating her book, Morales brought ink drawings, paintings, photographs, and collage elements together digitally by scanning them and then manipulating them in Photoshop to achieve her aesthetic and narrative goals.