Ramón López
They come from distant lands to visit the Windy City. They come summoned by a people who insist on celebrating the Reyes despite the cold, and by the letters they still receive from Puerto Rican children. Melchor comes—the unmistakable one—alongside Gaspar and Balthazar, who are, more often than not, interchangeable. One way or another, despite everything, they come and are joyfully recognized by the Boricua community. Hopefully, they’ll have time to take in some images created by students from various schools who participated in an art contest.
These boys and girls, children of migrant communities that took root more than half a century ago, no longer receive gifts on January 6. Their knowledge of the Reyes Magos is vague and hazy, part of a Puerto Rican identity that survives adolescence through fast-paced romances, shifting voices, hip-hop and salsa beats, gangs on every corner, the specter of AIDS, the temptation of drugs, and a deep connection to the single-starred flag.
The contest became a visual return to an image from their childhood, one that has faded into disuse in their present. The return was brief: they listened for an hour to a talk about the Reyes Magos, while looking at folk art, book illustrations, and greeting cards.
Their participation in the contest, following that initial spark, was a rediscovery—a new gaze through adolescent eyes. The students worked without revisiting the models they had seen at the outset. As a result, they created images in which old memories and fresh perspectives intertwined, shaped by their current realities. What emerged was an expression of the Reyes Magos infused with the everyday life these young people live in Chicago. The result is a visual collection where tradition, modernity, and innovation crisscross. And yet, it’s clear that the restless variety of Reyes Magos these students created possesses a coherence that transcends mere chance.
That “restless variety” deserves clarification. The students, in their bold youth, refused to follow the rules. The contest was billed as a painting competition, with strict size requirements. The enthusiastic participants produced works in paint, drawing, mixed media, and collage. They worked with charcoal, pastels, markers, watercolors, crayons, papers, textiles, plastics, and glitter dust. They submitted pieces of all sizes. To top it off, they welcomed the participation of two African American and one Asian student.
They gave the jury a nightmare of risky decisions, but reveled in their own starry-night dreams.
The plural coherence of their work becomes clear when we first recognize the vibrant energy of their individuality. The Reyes Magos of Chicago’s youth appear as three homeless wanderers, three mysterious hooded figures, three solemn and ancient lords, three bearers of Puerto Rican gifts, three incarnations of Love, Faith, and Joy, three downcast bearded men clad in rich garments, three young men in pants and vests, three riders on horseback seen from behind, three dancing women (!), three muscular warriors with hostile, menacing faces, three smiling figures of uncertain gender, three slender walkers beneath a vast pink sky, three colorful bearded men with Oriental features, three shadowy figures in front of three giant leaves, three boys who are kings gazing at one another, three fantastical wizards from an animated TV show, three nocturnal visitors in an illuminated stable… (an ellipsis in honor of those I leave unnamed).
The plural coherence of these works stems from a deep identification between the young people’s self-image and the image of the kings. First, both the life of the youth and the journey of the Reyes center around prominent festivities, collective celebrations of joy. The Reyes feast and the students’ party share the same nature of revelry: reyar feels familiar because it resembles having fun. Second, looking at the Reyes forces us to do the same thing as when we look at the youth: we notice, first and foremost, the importance of clothing as a deliberate, joyful use of color. For these young people, dressing properly—whether according to age, fashion, or gang affiliation—is as defining of personal identity as it is for the Reyes: both declare who they are through what they wear. Third, the presence of the Reyes and of the youth in Chicago are both forms of arrival from distant lands—a migration or journey. The traveling kings and the migrant youth are visible embodiments of cultural diversity.
This system of identification has direct effects on the students’ artistic expression. Their works brim with playful exploration of color and materials. The sheer visual delight they create allows them to escape stereotypes and produce a delightfully irreverent variety of Reyes Magos. Even when some of the Reyes adopt expressions of seriousness and aggression, the act of transgressing the traditional image of benevolent solemnity becomes a playful provocation. Moreover, this violation of tradition is also an embrace of the urban culture they live in—one imbued with violence.
In these works, two contradictory trends coexist—not only within the exhibit, but within the cultural formation of the students themselves. One is the recurrence of visual themes illustrating Puerto Ricanness: flags, güiros, palm trees, garitas, and a persistent Black king. The other is the intervention of visual motifs drawn from comics and violent TV cartoons: mythical warriors, superpowered sorcerers, and space travelers. These images are part of children’s transnational visual education. In fact, these characters, turned into popular toys, are part of the very gift repertoire that the Reyes Magos and Santa Claus bring to children around the world, including those in Puerto Rico.
To counterbalance the sweeping generalizations above, I want to highlight the individual strength of two works that made a deep impact.
The first is a small colored pencil drawing, too small to meet the contest’s official requirements. The artist refused to make a larger version, and the work was beloved by his classmates, so we compromised by giving it a large cardboard frame for display. At first glance, many saw it as a sweet, lovely depiction of the Reyes’ adoration. Plus, the gifts of the Magi—a güiro, a garita, and a flag—added a visible, uplifting Puerto Ricanness. Yet a closer, more attentive look brings a sense of perplexity. Let’s see.
One of the most engaging points from the introductory talk was the emphasis on Melchior—the Black king—as the favored figure in Puerto Rican tradition. The artist of this drawing, a gang-banger who leads a 20-man section of his neighborhood crew, harbors a particular aversion to Black members of rival gangs, which he has expressed in previous drawings, despite being a Puerto Rican mulatto himself. Given that, it’s no surprise that the most important and visible gift in his drawing—the Puerto Rican flag—is not in the hands of the darkest king, but wielded by another king who stands tall and faces us head-on. This is the same flag, with a spear-like pole, that in another of his drawings sets fire to a police patrol car. In that earlier drawing, the incendiary flag was held by a Puerto Rican youth representing the artist himself. In this new drawing, the king holding the flag wears green and black—the signature colors of the Cobras, the artist’s gang. As if to leave no doubt, the spear tip of the pole is also tinged green and shaped like a long diamond, the emblem of the Cobras. And it doesn’t end there: the king-Cobra-author wears a cap or turban instead of a crown. Why? Because crowns are emblems of the Kings, a rival gang. To be even more consistent, the crowns of the two other kings are painted yellow and black, the colors of the rival Kings gang.
Here, we’ve identified elements of Puerto Rican and gang identity converging in the same person, the artist. But there’s something deeper. The social world of gangs operates by rigid principles of violence, mistrust, hostility, and competition. In any situation where rival gang members meet, the best one can hope for is tense, fragile tolerance that, at the slightest provocation, turns to open conflict. In this depiction of adoration, there’s no invitation to peace, only tension and danger. Each of the four figures—the three kings and the child—looks in a different direction. The Christ child fails to bring peace to the gangs of Chicago. What complexity and artistic sensitivity lie within this small drawing!
When the contest was first explained to the students, a girl thought hard and announced that her three kings would be “three bums, because although they are bums, they still have something to offer.” Days later, she brought me a pencil drawing. To put it in Spanglish, the three kines are three bones: their worn clothes and haggard faces are eloquent enough (*). One offers a bottle of wine, another a loaf of bread. They kneel. The third stands, holding a chest in his hands, his head crowned with abundant dreadlocks. This is the vagabond Melchior, Rasta and poor, but always generous. The child looks calm, the star has descended to greet them, and the composition is anchored by an archway and two flowerpots forming a triangular frame. What’s more, the bread and wine—classic symbols of poverty and vagabondage—transcend themselves here to embody the highest spirituality: they are religious icons of Christ’s sacrifice, the Eucharist renewed at every Mass. This profound symbolism fits perfectly with the image of the homeless kings. Though bums are often dismissed as failures and outcasts, these figures know the streets better than anyone—they’ve lived there all their lives. In the city, the street is the axis of survival, and to survive, you have to know a great deal. That rich, often overlooked knowledge is stored in Melchior’s chest. Alongside the bread that eases hunger and the wine that soothes sorrow, they offer a gift of goodwill so that the Christ child—significantly alone—might survive in the harsh city of Chicago.
Bread and wine. Birth and death. The first and the last. Art can flourish in full within a poor Boricua girl in a Chicago school.
Three Wise Men = Street-wise men.
Long live the Reyes!
(*) In Chicago Spanglish, kines is the plural of king. One precaution I took when organizing the contest was to avoid translating tres reyes as three kings, because Kings is the name of one of the city’s gangs and is considered an enemy in the territory of the contest participants. The use of names, colors, emblems, and other gang identity symbols is intensely ritualized, with strict rules of mutual exclusion. Three Wise Men is a neutral term that doesn’t provoke animosity.
