Mexican Restaurant, is based on my 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 the family’s entrepreneurial spirit led to them owning several restaurants of which only one, now 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 US clientele who was unfamiliar with Mexican cuisine partly out of necessity, while satisfying a craving for exotic food. In the work, the cockroach figure references the well known child’s lullaby “La Cucaracha”, to speak to the way Latinx people are framed throughout history and in contemporary US culture as undesirable, and yet the demand for Mexican food is insatiable – revealing a deep paradox.