Here is where you belong.

Here is where you belong., 2025
For the Learning Community Space, César E. Chávez Library at San José City College, San José, CA
Belle's and Jenny's acrylic, graphite, hand embroidery, and water gathered from Los Gatos Creek on canvas and paper, 12 x 12”
Collection of San José City College

Dedicated to the ones for whom wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge, are lifelong pursuits

In considering the foundations upon which we grow, this work was created specially for the Learning Community Space, where students from all walks of life gather as a living migration story their own.

San José City College rests where Highways 17, 880, and 280 converge as pathways for forward movement. Meeting these passages on SJCC’s southside, the Los Gatos Creek flows as bridge and as carrier, ending at Summit Road as we aim for higher ground. Campus is nestled into this verdant corner of San José where diversity is valued, growth is fostered, and ideas bloom as knowledge is ushered into verb in the pursuit of excellence.

The yellow warbler, taking a pause from her own migration, perches to guide our future leaders through a landscape abundant with yerba mansa—a flowering herb used by the Ohlone peoples to remedy pain and disinfect wounds—further illustrating the healing spaces that are made available to students on SJCC campus.

Among the array of materials utilized to honor SJCC’s impact upon our students and the ones who have been called to guide them, I have incorporated paints inherited by two of my closest sisters, Kelly and Jenny, whom I met in San José while the three of us pursued our art degrees. Having since passed away from cancer, their artwork continues to be a healing source for many, and their materials continue the work in my practice.

Here is where you belong. was made soon after my unique experience mentoring two very special students, Zach and Nhu, as they created a work of art for the new Việt Thanh Nguyễn Asian Pacific American Curriculum Collection at San José City College. Throughout our semester of working together, talking art and concept (and more importantly, life and history and present), a very unexpected and profound healing occurred among generations and factions. Our deepest gratitude to Dean René Alvarez and Professor Cindy Huynh for your advocacy in creating for us a space wherein this kind of healing could happen.