Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, a textile artist born in 1949 in Sacramento, has spent decades creating works that confront the US-Mexico border. In 2009, she was invited to participate in the group exhibition “Xicana: Spiritual Reflections/Reflexiones Espirituales” at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, California. Faced with a blank museum wall, she decided to “blow up the border,” creating her first large-scale installation, *Undocumented Border Flowers* (2010), which features a red gash representing the border surrounded by paper flowers of the four border states. This work launched her ongoing “BORDERLINES” series, which she has produced some 15 times across the country, often collaborating with schoolchildren or recently incarcerated women. Her practice is deeply personal: her father was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico of Huichol ancestry, and she spent her childhood as a migrant farmworker, following harvests along Highway 99. Her first woven artwork, *C.C. Huelga* (1974), was inspired by the United Farm Workers flag and leader César Chávez.
This article matters because it highlights an artist who uses textiles and installation to address urgent political and social issues—immigration, border violence, and the human cost of arbitrary boundaries—while centering Chicana and Indigenous perspectives. Jimenez Underwood’s work bridges personal history and collective struggle, offering viewers a visceral encounter with the border’s impact. Her “BORDERLINES” series exemplifies how community-engaged art can foster empathy and awareness, making her a significant figure in contemporary art discourse around migration, identity, and social justice.