2 MIN READ — Growing up, my Papa shared the story of La Llorona with me—a tale many children in Mexico hear. Maria, in a fit of rage, drowns her children after being abandoned by her husband, and her haunting wails warn children: “Don’t wander alone, or La Llorona will find you.” For years, I viewed Maria as a symbol of fear. But as a mother, I began to ask: What if there’s more to Maria’s story?

When you stand in acclaimed conceptual artist Shonna Pryor’s studio, deconstructed dinner tables hang draped in fabrics screen printed with pages from 19th century census archives. One of her Afrofuturist works is tacked up on the wall displaying a jump rope, sketchbook, and gas-mask shrink wrapped among other objects of pleasure in one of her “Care Packages for an Afro Migration to Mars.”