Mev Luna

Fact Checking My Father

Beginning with my father’s death certificate, I check his statements for factual accuracy against public record, national statistics, and published scholarship. Initially focusing on the specificity of his lived experience, the lecture swings back and forth between the personal and factual, connecting with broader discussions of race and ethnicity, as well as an accounting for oral traditions diminished by state sanctioned history. Unpacking complexities around issues of racialized ethnicity, assimilation, migration, and the prison industrial complex, Fact Checking My Father delves into the political fixation on facts by challenging the notion of state verification, asserts the power of oral tradition and the reassesses currency of truth.

Lecture-performance, 2017. Presented at SFMOMA as part of the UC Berkeley / Stanford University Symposium–Not at Home: Migration, Pilgrimage and Displacement in Art, Design, and Visual Culture.

2017

Baptism, Maria de los Angeles, 1866
Document
1866
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document consisting of six paragraphs in cursive lettering, each signed at the bottom with the same signature.
Death certificate, Vicente Luna, 1983
Document
1983
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white death certificate form filled out with typed writing, with a circular stamp and signatures at the bottom of the page.
Border Crossing, Santiago Luna, April 10, 1924
Document
1924
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document consisting of the front and back of an immigration form. “Manifest, U.S. Department of Labor” is written at the top of the front page, and the form is filled out with cursive lettering. The back side is a faint, mirrored imprint of the front side.
Birth certificate, Jose Norbinto, 1871
Document
1871
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document of two pages of writing with cursive lettering through the body of the pages and in the margins. Stamped on the top with a bold stamp in black ink.
Death certificate, Angela Luna, 1960
Document
1960
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document of two pages of writing with cursive lettering through the body of the pages and stamps and signatures in the margins. The pages hold the heading “Acta De Defuncion.”
Border crossing, Andres Luna, May 21, 1923
Document
1923
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white image of the front and back of an immigration card, the front is filled out with cursive writing and the back is blank.
Baptism, Maria Encarnacion Luna, 1861
Document
1861
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document consisting of six paragraphs in cursive lettering, each signed at the bottom with the same signature, and a tab on the left that reads: “Pagina(s) Manchada(s).”
Baptism, Eliseo Luna, 1868
Document
1868
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document consisting of six paragraphs in cursive lettering and a tab on the left that reads: “Pagina(s) Manchada(s).”
Birth certificate, Andres Luna, 1904
Document
1904
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document of two pages of writing with cursive lettering through the body of the pages and four passages of writing in the margins, with a signature at the top of the page.
Birth certificate, Martin Luna, 1906
Document
1906
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document of two pages of writing with cursive lettering through the body of the pages and four passages of writing in the margins.
Death certificate, Gonzalo Luna, 1938
Document
1938
Fact Checking My Father
A scanned black-and-white document of three paragraphs of writing in cursive lettering across two pages, and three passages of writing in the margins of the page.