Nina Zaldivar

  

Volume 9 | Issue III | September 2025

Francis W Parker School ’26

Illinois, United States

  

I first encountered Judy Baca through her ice-cream cart installation, Paletas de la Frontera, at the New Mexico Museum of Art. Beneath a colorful umbrella was arresting imagery of migrants struggling at the US border. Baca’s work sparked my interest in art as a means of political and social commentary. I sought out opportunities to learn about Latin American art history through UC Santa Cruz’s course Art and Social Change in Latin America. There, I chose to write about Baca for my midterm essay, but I felt stifled by the five-page limit. I am incredibly grateful to have my extended research essay about Baca’s half-mile-long mural, The Great Wall, published in The Schola. The writing process led me to the realization that Baca’s Great Wall is more than a pictorial historiography of marginalized groups in California’s history; it is a metaphor for the function of participatory art in the historical record. Spurred by these insights, I work to amplify artivists like Baca in my blog, highlighting Latin American art activism. At school, I serve as the Editor-in-Chief of our literary magazine, co-head of our Math Club and our Multi-Racial Affinity Group, and US History Teaching Assistant. An avid flying trapeze artist, I work at my local trapeze school and mentor high school refugee girls through circus art workshops.