"Water is memory": Zeke Pena illustrates the Rio Grande and our changing southern border.
Zeke Pe\xf1a is a Xicano cartoonist and illustrator who, for most of his professional life, has focused on the lives and stories of El Paso, TX, where he grew up and lived for decades. A self-taught artist with an undergraduate degree in art history from UT Austin, he has built a rich portfolio of varied works that, as he describes them, are \u201ca mash-up of political cartoons, border rasquache and hip-hop culture.\u201dHe has illustrated several award-winning books, including \u201cMy Papi Drives a Motorcycle,\u201d which The New York Times called a best children\u2019s book of 2019, and \u201cPhotographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide,\u201d a Boston Globe\u2013Horn Book Nonfiction Award Winner and a Moonbeam Children\u2019s Book Gold Award Winner. Both were written by Isabel Quintero, who has become a close collaborator. In 2023 he illustrated bestselling author Jason Reynolds\u2019 \u201cMiles Morales Suspended: A Spider-Man Novel.\u201d His editorial work has appeared in a wide array of publications, including VICE, ProPublica and Latino USA. Here he describes the evolution of his ambitious journalistic endeavor, \u201cThe River Project,\u201d about the increasingly politicized Rio Grande and all it represents. He also discusses how he\u2019s adapted to the latest moral book-banning crusade and how he wishes for publishers to honor their writers\u2019 and illustrators\u2019 collaborative spirits.\xa0https://www.zpvisual.com/