Kat Fajardo

Early life

Fajardo is a first-generation American Latina born and raised in New York City, New York. Her mother and father are both immigrants, from Honduras and Colombia respectively. She attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, where she studied art from 2005-2009. She later graduated with a BSA from the School of Visual Arts in 2013, where she studied cartooning, illustration, and animation.

Career

During college, Fajardo became an intern at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, where she assisted the organization with file management and helped man their booths at comic conventions. She also worked as a design intern and later as an employed illustrator at 3iying, where she learned the basics of design marketing and branding. In 2012, she became the lead designer and storyboard artist for the animation movie "Destroy all Slackers" for musician and nerd culture blogger Kris Kail. From 2011-2013, she worked as an artist alongside writers for articles in Symbolia Magazine, a digital comics journal. She now works predominantly as a freelance comic artist and illustrator in New York City, New York.

Works

• La Raza Anthology (in production)
• ¡Bandida! Series (2016)
• Gringa! (2015)

Featured in:

• Dirty Diamonds Anthology (2016)
• Sweaty Palms Zine (2016)
• CollegeHumor (2014)
• Symbolia Magazine (2012-2014)
• BARTKIRA (2013)
• Strange Paradise Zine (2013)
• The White Asylum (2013)
• Monster Mash Anthology (2012)
• Hope Mountain Magazine #3 (2012)
• SVA INK Magazine (2012-2015)
• SVA Visual Opinion Mag (2011)

Literary style and themes

Fajardo's work is heavily influenced by her personal search for wholeness in her cultural identity as an American Latina of Colombian and Honduran heritage. Her 17-page mini comic Gringa! is a candid chronicle of her struggle “through assimilation, racism, and fetishization of Latin culture”. The cover of Gringa! depicts the main character, Fajardo herself, in a state of cultural divide. Half of her outfit is emblazoned with the stars and stripes of America while the other half proudly dons a traditional Latin American dress. On the Latinx side, her hair is jet black and long; on the other side, her hair is bleached lighter and cropped short in an attempt to seamlessly assimilate into American culture. The first few pages of ‘’Gringa!’’ depict vitriolic attacks on immigrants from American protesters holding signs that read words like "'Diversity’=White Genocide” and “Return to Sender!” Fajardo reflects on the hardships immigrants face—“leaving their families behind and endangering their lives” only to arrive in America to unjustified racism and hostility. She ultimately recognizes that she should be proud of her heritage, but cannot find the courage to outwardly celebrate it. She cites a variety of factors: lack of Latino studies in academia and representation in television and cinema, fetishization and racism from classmates, and pressure from her own family to become a “proper lady” and “accept Machismo as the norm.” She does her best to conform and pass for the prototypical white American woman, but "mi raza" (literally translating as "my race") holds her fast. Years later, after discussing common experiences with Latinx youth, she realizes that any discrimination she receives due to her heritage is no longer an obstacle for her, but “fuel” for her own creativity. She ends the comic proud of her journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance, and hopes to use her artwork to contribute to better representation of Latinx and Hispanics in the media.

Fajardo is currently working on La Raza Anthology, which is a collection of comics, illustrations, poems, and short stories by 30+ Latinx creators discussing topics such as assimilation, racism, feminism, and queer and self-identity. La raza is a term stemmed from Mexican scholar José Vasconcelos's phrase, La Raza Cósmica ("the cosmic race"). Because Latin America is a mixture of different races and cultures ("Latinx= an ethnicity not a race"), Farjardo uses la raza as a term to define her community by celebrating her roots. The anthology is an effort to give Latinx creators proper recognition and address issues important to Latinx culture.

In 2016, Fajardo was awarded a Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) Mini-Grant for her work on the ¡Bandida! series.