Casitas Lindas

Casitas Lindas is an installation art piece by poet and theatre artist Andrew Aaron Valdez. Valdez, a Texas native, drew inspiration from Dallas Native Giovanni Valderas’s guerilla outdoor project Casita Triste (Sad Little House). Valdera’s project looked to create awareness, reflection, and empathy by provoking discussion around affordable housing issues and displacement in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, TX. Though the issue of gentrification and displacement is not unique to Dallas, Casita Triste highlighted the plight of Latinx neighborhoods rapidly disappearing and being replaced by affluent, luxury housing. 
Casitas Lindas serves as a response to the Casita Triste project, a wayward symbol of welcoming and embracement of  the Latinx folks who have found themselves being displaced either due to gentrification, home country plight, or other conditions. Casitas Lindas hopes to welcome our gente who have been displaced, and is a symbol that they are welcome here, you are welcome here and you should be celebrated. This project is specifically aimed at welcoming and celebrating the high number of Latinx immigrants that find their way to Cleveland. Casitas Lindas was commissioned as a part of the Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center Support for Artist Grant.