Mexican Restaurant, is based on a close friend and collaborator'‘s family’s restaurant and the period the family immigrated from Mexico to the United States in the 1960’s. Shortly upon arrival to northern New Jersey, their entrepreneurial spirit led to them owning several restaurants of which only one, run by her mother remains.  The project is built around an interview of my friend, and mines how the family began cooking dishes for a clientele who was unfamiliar with Mexican cuisine out of economic necessity, while satisfying a craving for exotic food. In the work, the cockroach figure references the well known child’s lullaby “La Cucaracha”, a song our mothers sang to us, but was used to create one of the first color films in Hollywood, to speak to how Latinx people are framed within US history and contemporary culture as undesirable - yet the demand for Mexican food is insatiable, revealing a deep and perverse paradox.