"Where are you from? In this time, you have the option to choose where you want to belong. It is a huge privilege that allows us to go farther away than a physical place or a racial identity. We can build an identity based in our vision of a better world, a new trans-cultural "American Dream". But to do that we have to accept what we are and what we have been. In my case I am woman, I am Latina, I am immigrant, I am Yta. I have to deal with old things from the past: the violence, the absence of hope, the death. Here we have a new pallette with new names. Along with the stamp on my passport, I am stamped "minority". People presume so much from skin color or heritage, and they all guess differently. I don't blame them. I believe that now identities are a personal option, more tied with the place where you call "home" and why. I am trying to move forward, in a effort to participate as a individual in a collective idea of a country, because we can. This is what my art is about: dreams and nightmares of a future that are began to taking form. And I am not the only that I feel in that way; the young people especially, share the same hope. I am an storytelling, with a watchdog noise and an artistic vision. My I can say that because my background (literature and journalist), that enrich my strong technical formation in visual arts (drawing, sculpture and comics). I was born and raised in Venezuela, but I already belong to San Francisco, my home. If you want to know more about me, just visit: http://ytaelena.com