The father of Chicana artist Criselda Vasquez, also her muse for portraits, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to an announcement she made on Instagram. “My father and one of his workers were detained by ICE while simply on their way to work,” Vasquez shared on April 3. “Our entire family is heartbroken, and my mother is completely devastated.” Although Vasquez’s father remains unnamed publicly, she mentioned his over 40-year presence in the United States.
In an email to Hyperallergic dated April 13, Vasquez explained that her father was “racially profiled on his way home from work, and taken by Immigration authorities” on March 31, apprehended right outside a neighbor’s residence. “My family and I have since made contact with him and know which detention facility he is being held in,” she stated. Through a GoFundMe campaign linked on her social media, the family has raised nearly $68,000 of an $80,000 goal within 10 days, intended for covering his lost wages and legal expenses.
Vasquez expressed in her email that she wants the public to know her father as “a devoted husband, parent, and grandfather, and the hardest-working, most selfless person I know.” He has been a role model to his four U.S. citizen children and many others. Vasquez’s father was immortalized in her 2017 painting “The New American Gothic,” acquired by the Lucas Museum for Narrative Art in Los Angeles in 2021. The work is a reinterpretation of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” featuring her parents with cleaning tools, symbolizing the struggles faced by many in her community.
The arrest of Vasquez’s father occurs against the backdrop of President Trump’s intensified immigration policies. The Deportation Data Project recently reported a more than elevenfold increase in ICE street arrests during Trump’s second term, covering arrests in neighborhoods and other locations. The report also highlights the increased difficulty in securing release from immigration detention during deportation proceedings.
