Como te ven te tratan (How they see you, they treat you)
One Book One Northwestern, 2020–21
This artwork was selected in response to themes in Northwestern’s community-wide reading of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014) by Bryan Stevenson.
Hector Duarte is a Mexican and American artist who lives in Chicago and is well-known for his public murals, many of which address the experience of immigration to the U.S. from Mexico and Central and South America. In this print, the outline of a figure in front of a fiery red background forms a familiar composition – a mug shot, a type of photograph used for identification purposes in police records. The human figure is reduced to a fingerprint and a barcode, two methods that are often used by law enforcement to track and surveil. The combination of the title, How they see you, they treat you, and the imagery refers to the ways that policing methods result in the dehumanization of marginalized communities. In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson explores the dire consequences of racial profiling – ranging from everyday microaggressions to the loss of human lives. This dehumanization also allows for the mistreatment of incarcerated people whom society has deemed unworthy of rehabilitation.
