La Guardiana

La Guardiana towers over the festival grounds wearing an enredo (skirt), a rebozo (shawl) to carry her child, a mask to conceal her identity, and horns to represent strength. She is the guardian of the immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and around the globe. The iconography on her enredo includes people walking and traveling by train and boat toward the border wall — an appeal for an understanding of the reasons that people make the dangerous journey to strange lands. The figure was created by El Paso, Texas-based artists Ramon and Christian Cardenas, aka, LosDos. The husband-and-wife duo is known for creating murals, screenprints, street poster installations, and even a large-scale inflatable sculpture, drawing their characters and ideas from everyday life in El Paso and Juarez, Mexico.