Nuyorican Dreams of Old San Juan is a mixed media piece combining collage and ceramics, inspired by the vivid colors of Old San Juan, my mother’s birthplace in Utuado, and the sacred aesthetics of Taíno ceramic traditions. This work holds the tender dream of return—a dream my mother could not fulfill due to the forces of gentrification and displacement. Through layered imagery and clay, the piece becomes a meditation on home, memory, and the ache of longing passed down through generations. It is both a tribute and a quiet protest, honoring those who carry the island in their hearts but are kept from it by systemic erasure.