Alanis Santiago-Rodriguez

El Vaivén is a short film that is inspired by my parents’ constant declaration of love and longing for our motherland, Puerto Rico. In this work, I explore their yearning and depict it as my own. Thematically, this entails translating feelings of unbelonging, familial love, and notions of “home” into video and still images. The idea of el vaivén, of comings and goings, is apparent through the use of contemporary and personal archival footage. Throughout, I am exploring my identity as a Puerto Rican, whose “home” is everywhere but the island, though my love for it transcends this fact.