Jeannette E. Martinez

This dissertation explores how US Central American artists utilize landscape representation to craft a sense of belonging from the 1990s to the present. Terruño, a common term used throughout Central America to express sentiments of placehood through associations with the land, operates in this project as a conceptual framework, reinforcing how artists navigating the Central American diasporic experience engage with landscape representation to contend with complex geopolitical spaces. Archival examination of the Central American presence within American archives is juxtaposed with visual analyses of contemporary art that disrupt limiting historical narratives of Central America and its US diaspora. Bridging past and present, these archival interventions provide insight into how creating terruño serves as a radical act of agency for the Central American artists and communities confronting histories that have been misconstrued, silenced, and erased.