Ester Hernandez

Ester Hernandez is a notable Chicana artist who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, the heart of California’s migrant worker community. Sun Raid highlights the intersection of two very important issues: low-wage migrant worker labor and immigration concerns faced by the

Chicano community. The familiar Sun Maid icon, now transformed into a shackled skeleton wears a traditional indigenous huipil, representing the migrant workers, who are now majority indigenous Mexicans rather than Chicano. By naming specific indigenous Oaxacan groups,

like Mixtecos and Zapotecos, Hernandez emphasizes the concentration of indigenous Mexican migrants in low-wage, low-mobility jobs like agricultural labor. The familiar Sun Maid raisin box, unchanged for decades, may have once been the face of agricultural labor, but has long been inaccurate.