Marcela Guerrero spent the first 23 years of her life in Puerto Rico, before moving to Madison to earn her PhD in art history from the University of Wisconsin. Then Houston, where she worked as a research coordinator

at the International Center for the Arts of the America's

Museum of Fine Arts,

then LA as a curatorial fellow at the Hammer Museum,

and now at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York,

where she was recently named the DeMartini family curator.

Marcella shares what she has learned about the value of that nomadic life,

and how the decision she makes as a curator impact not only the exhibits we see,

but fundamentally change a museum's collection. Marcella, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Aniseo.

Thank you for the invitation.

I'm always curious about the process by which one comes to their Latina identity.

And I'm particularly interested for you

as someone who grew up in Puerto Rico, what your experience was of realizing how other Americans

thought of Puerto Rico. I think I've always been made aware of how illegible maybe I am or, and I'll explain. So I was born in Puerto Rico,

Rio Piedras and lived there for my first 23 years of my life. But my parents are not from Puerto Rico.

My dad is from Ecuador and my mom is from Argentina and they met in

Mississippi. So yeah, I've always been kind of feeling a little bit of an outsider. This jumble

of cultural ethnic references, it's part of me. And so then I come to Wisconsin and even though

this is very clear to me, but it's not clear to anyone,

and I don't think people knew what to do with myself or with my ax. And I saw their places,

like every time I spoke, and you know when you can tell when people are not paying attention

...