Rat City explores my family’s ongoing struggle with gentrification in our Washington, D.C., neighborhood. The installation examines how displacement intersects with themes of borders, urban colonization, and speciesism.

In 1999, my parents purchased their first home in Columbia Heights—a historically Latinx and Black neighborhood that overlooks the White House and Capitol Mall. The neighborhood is known for its deep history of civil unrest and its relentless struggle to preserve the presence of Black and Latinx families, an effort further strained by the wave of gentrification that swept through D.C. in the early 2000s and continues today. It was the first house they were able to purchase after migrating from Guatemala, and we believed this house would be our family’s home forever.

Growing up, I witnessed the demolition of old brick townhouses and the construction of towering, white-paneled condos, designed to cater to the influx of young, white professionals flocking to the city. This transformation forced some families on University Place to sell their homes to developers, who replaced them with million-dollar condominiums—some sold to private owners, others to the government as subsidized low-income housing. Amidst these sweeping changes, my family faces a critical dilemma: whether to sell our home or hold on.

This issue is not unique to Washington, D.C.; it also affects cities like Austin, TX, El Paso, TX, and Tucson, AZ— cities that shaped my understanding of border dynamics and immigration. On both local and global scales, immigrants and marginalized communities are often scapegoated for broader societal challenges, reinforcing cycles of inequity and growing xenophobia. This rhetoric often mirrors the language used to describe nonhuman species—in this case, the Norway rat, a species common in East Coast cities and often labeled invasive, unwelcome, problematic, disease-ridden, or disgusting. This parallel is explored in the video Rats, R Us, which documents my mother’s ongoing battle with rat colonies in our backyard flower beds.

I visualize this layered issue through a combination of fuzzy found blankets and dye sublimation-printed blankets. The pictographic fleece blankets, inspired by San Marcos Blankets first manufactured in Central America, bear images of pop culture icons, homeland heroes, and picturesque landscapes. These blankets, passed down through generations and carried across geographic and cultural borders, are emblematic of the immigrant experience.

The central sculpture, crafted from EMT conduit and pipe fittings, is designed for easy assembly and disassembly, mimicking the scaffolding that surrounds my family home. The 15-foot metal framework, resembling an inverted construction site, is fitted with fleece blankets and draws inspiration from makeshift shelters often seen near the border. These temporary structures, which frequently serve as a refuge for migrants, ask: How can we create a sense of home when we aren’t home? How do we redefine home when it is sometimes only temporary?

Rat City is a documentation of impending loss, a testament to survival, and a meditation on the constant negotiation of home in a landscape shaped by ongoing colonization. It envisions the survival of marginalized communities as essential to collective liberation, embracing the interconnected lives of both human and nonhuman beings.