Sharon was our inaugural Artist of the Month! She is a first-generation Mexican American filmmaker. Please enjoy our full interview with her below!

Jenny Kearney: How did being from Corpus Christi shape your art?

Sharon Arteaga: I never anticipated that I would create films about life in Corpus Christi, and even as I made my first Corpus-themed films, I did not realize that I was representing such a unique landscape, both socially and geographically. I just had complex feelings that I needed to reconcile with and they were set in what I knew best: a city of refinery workers and unassuming yet delicious tacos. I accompanied my mom through industrial places, selling tacos from our vehicle. It was something I was always ashamed of, and then I ended up making a film about it. Now I'm making a film about another thing I was ashamed of: cleaning houses with my mom for a living.

I never set out to make films about social issues. I just came from an underprivileged place and lived out these issues myself and then I grew up and realized how oblivious we were to the systems in place and that life could be different.

AND I love Corpus! Being on the gulf, I had this magic connection with the ocean. Before I knew what they were, refineries also had their magic to them when they lit up the night sky.

JK: What have you been working on recently?

SA: At the moment, my short film Plane Pretend is playing the festival circuit. The film is loosely based on my mom's several attempts to come into the United States from Mexico. It is an immigration adventure dramedy, set in 1980 McAllen, TX, that follows young arrivals on their first day in the US as they make their way to Corpus Christi by pretending to be a church choir. The film has won 3 awards since its May premiere and has played in four film festivals. We are trying to screen it in every major Texas city and have already shown in Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. We will be in the Rio Grande Valley in September and in El Paso in October.

At the same time, I am working on a cinematic essay called "When You Clean A Stranger's Home." It gives an insider look at the strengths and dimensions of Latina domestic workers through Abby's narration (a high school student who is first-generation Mexican American) as she reads an essay describing what she and her mom learn about people when cleaning their client's homes. Audiences will also gain insight into social, economic, and professional disparities that next-generation Latinxs observe and the responsibility they feel to change their family’s future. It reveals the conflict of feeling held back by their circumstances while realizing crucial internal lessons. My mother cleans houses for a living and I often accompanied her until I actually started cleaning houses myself in college.

I want to empower female domestic workers of color by showing them someone sees them, while also letting first-generation youth know that they are not alone in their complex web of feelings.

JK: What kinds of stories do you love to tell?

SA: The conflicts in my stories are usually based on either generational, linguistic, or cultural differences between people. I love forcing my characters to interact in compact spaces like laundry rooms, cars, and small airplanes where they can discover mutual respect towards each other. Through my films, I discover a catharsis towards my conflicted upbringing as a first-generation Mexican American, and I reconcile with my mother, my grandmother, and myself. And I like to have a nice laugh with an audience while I am at it.

JK: Who inspires you?

SA: My mom. I am inspired by her journey, situations she has been in and I am even inspired by my most frustrating feelings towards her. Every film I have made since college has a part of her in it: from honoring her creative entrepreneurial efforts (like selling tacos or cleaning houses), to re-telling what it was like for her to be a 14-year-old girl on her first day in the United States. My mother is an example of immigrant resilience which I had the privilege to both witness and benefit from.