Lotería Tejana is a photographic series that reimagines La Lotería, widely known as "Mexican Bingo," through Tejano identity and daily life in San Antonio, Texas. The standardized Don Clemente Gallo deck was created by French businessman Clemente Jacques in 1887, featuring objects and characters reflective of Mexican culture: La Sirena (The Mermaid), La Bota (The Boot), El Corazón (The Heart). While this imagery has become iconic and culturally symbolic across Latin America, Lotería Tejana centers what it means to be Tejano today.

Growing up, Lotería meant connection and levity. Watching my grandmother light up as she bet her 50 cents at the kitchen table, a simple card game connected our worlds. Through conversations with fellow Tex-Mexicans, I identified ten subjects that represent contemporary Tejano life in San Antonio: five portraits, five objects. La Vaquera, La Piñata, El Corazón, Los Camarones, El Compositor, El Remedio, Los Recordados, Las Manos, Las Selenas, and La Fuerte. These cards reinvent the old and introduce the new. La Mano is an established Lotería card; reinterpreted, Lotería Tejana introduces Las Manos—Martin Gutierrez, an eighty-two-year-old mechanic, after a day's work. In conversation about Latin people under attack in the United States, one collaborator said, "Imagine how many Lotería games aren't being played right now." This exchange inspired the final photograph of the series, La Fuerte (The Fight).

Photographically, Lotería Tejana draws from Graciela Iturbide's 1979 series Juchitán and Hassan Hajjaj's vibrant cultural portraiture. Each subject is photographed against hand-painted canvas backdrops using off-camera flash, creating images that channel the two-dimensional abstraction of playing cards while maintaining the cast shadows and depth of photographing living subjects.

The final installation, exhibited at Columbia University (Spring 2026), incorporates papel picado, transforming the space into a familial and festive environment that resembles the kitchen tables and living rooms where Lotería is played.

"GRITAMOS POR LOS QUE NO PUEDEN."
(We speak for those who cannot.)
— La Fuerte