Sophie Rivera, I am U, 1995

Dr. Yasmin Ramirez: Hi, I'm Dr. Yasmin Ramirez, a curator and art historian that specializes in Black and Latinx art in the United States. 

Narrator: Dr. Ramirez discusses a photograph by Sophie Rivera, I am U.

Dr. Yasmin Ramirez: I am U is an example of Rivera's ongoing interest in using techniques like double exposure to convey the complexity of identity formation among Puerto Ricans in the United States who arrived to the city as a consequence of forced migration. 

In the foreground, we see a boy in a birthday hat sitting on a slide, and behind him the image of a girl who looks to be about the same age with similar facial features, although not the same color. Is she related to the boy, or perhaps his female doppelganger? Their merged body parts allude to the multiracial bi-cultural composition of Puerto Rican families. A totality that can look marvelous or monstrous depending on the perspective of the spectator.

I am U is an invitation for us to empathize with these children and to reflect on the existence of the "inner child within us." According to some schools of psychotherapy, the inner child is a part of our subconscious that holds on to unresolved childhood memories and emotions, particularly those related to traumas like loss and displacement, which Rivera experienced firsthand. Sent to an orphanage in Staten Island after her parents separated, Rivera's portraits of Puerto Rican children which she made throughout her life became a form of healing and connection to others as well as a platform for Rivera to critically engage in the representation of Puerto Rican subjectivity as the sum of dualities, losses, and reconciliations.