Monarchs & Migration: Honoring Our Immigrant Legacies
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes
501 N Main St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
EXHIBITION ON VIEw
October 24- December 6, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 24, 2026, 5-8 PM
CURATORIAL WALKTHROUGH & PANEL DISCUSSION: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2026, 6-9 PM
A Día de los Muertos exhibition curated by Consuelo G. Flores
Presented by Self Help Graphics & Art in partnership with LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes
Monarchs and Migration: Honoring Our Immigrant Legacies explores both the natural reality of migration and humanity’s response to it—from butterflies to family journeys, the burden immigrants carry as they travel toward an unknown and often hostile future. Together, these works consider human movement as natural, constant and perilous. This exhibition is also about remembering and honoring our dead and the impact each has made on those left behind, acknowledging that they too have traveled into an unknown land.
Migration is a natural phenomenon. Animals and people have migrated for millennia and will continue to do so. Borders are human constructs created to define political boundaries and legal authority. While borders can regulate movement, migration itself is driven by deeply human needs: opportunity, education, family, refuge, safety, and survival because of war or environmental disasters. Migration and metamorphosis belong to the natural world. The monarch butterflies at the heart of this exhibition embody migration, transformation, and enduring hope.
The works in this exhibition are rooted in the stories and sacrifices of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents—people who crossed borders in search of safety, opportunity, or a new beginning, or families who lived here before today’s borders existed. As we confront the deaths or forced exodus of millions of people through immigration enforcement (ICE), we must also consider what the United States loses when immigrants are eliminated, displaced or excluded: potential, strength, and possibility.
The United States also risks losing the artists, culture bearers, and storytellers who document lived experience and expand our understanding of migration. Bringing together emerging and established voices, this exhibition highlights artists who engage the social and political realities shaping immigrant communities, while challenging narratives that diminish the contributions and complexities of migration. Their work offers intimate and collective tributes to those who came before, as well as to the unnamed migrants whose lives and deaths have compelled artists to bear witness. Together, these stories illustrate the connections that bind us across generations and consider how the journeys, memories, and legacies of those who came before continue to shape who we are—and who we might become.
ARTISTS:
Jose Antonio Aguirre, Lalo Alcaraz, Linda Arreola, Raul Baltazar, Paul Botello, Gaby Claro, Mita Cuaron, Victoria Delgadillo, Alex Donis & Ana Maria Donis, Ofelia Esparza, Rosanna Esparza Ahrens, Consuelo G. Flores, Alaín Flores Norte, Gian Flores Norte, Joe Galarza, Emilia García, Yolanda Gonzalez, Wayne Healy, Willie Herrón, Kalli Arte Collective, Leo Limon, Will Loya, Poli Marichal, Álvaro D. Márquez, Jessica Monares, Armando Norte, Moni Perez, Rose Portillo, Antonio Rael, Andrea Ramirez "Mextica", Jose Ramirez, Artemio Rodriguez, Julie Rodriguez, Sandy Rodriguez, Sonia Romero, Ginette Rondeau, Jaqueline Sanders, Marissa Magdalena Sykes, Eloy Torrez, Peter Tovar, and Linda Vallejo.
Consuelo G. Flores, Monarchs and Migration:
Children at the Boarder of Freedom, 2026
Screenprint, 26.5” x 20” sheet. Self Help Graphics & Art’s 2026 Día de los Muertos Commemorative Print. Artwork photograph by Eric Jaipal.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Saturday, October 24, 2026, 5-8 PM
Opening Reception
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes
501 N. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Thursday, November 19, 2026, 6-9 PM
Curatorial Walkthrough and Panel Discussion
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes
501 N. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Monarchs and Migration: Honoring Our Immigrant Legacies is organized by Self Help Graphics & Arts and presented in partnership with La Plaza de Cultura y Artes. This exhibition is made possible by support of the Ruth Arts Foundation for the Arts and the Perenchio Foundation. The exhibition is guest curated by Consuelo G. Flores.
This exhibition is part of Self Help Graphics & Art’s 53rd Annual Día de los Muertos Season, one of the longest-running public Día de los Muertos commemorations in the United States.