When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, California State University, Northridge Central American and transborder studies professor Beatriz Cortez, an internationally recognized sculptor, wondered about other pandemics and their impact on the world.

Her research led her to the sixth century Tierra Blanca Joven eruption by the volcano Ilopango in her native El Salvador, one of the largest volcanic events recorded in history. Ash from the volcano blanketed the earth — its name means “Young White Earth” in English — and obliterated the sun for about 18 months, causing catastrophic damage and contributing to what is believed to be one of the world’s earliest recorded pandemics….

Scientists have found samples of ash from Tierra Blanca Joven — which came from the sacred underworld of the Maya of Mesoamerica — all over the world,” Cortez said. “The particles of the Mayan underworld were migrants crossing lands, rivers and oceans. I started to think about how everything migrates. How everything is in motion — the mountains, the land, matter. I wanted people to know that we are all part of a culture, a world, that is in motion.”

Cortez created three site-specific sculptures that consider the experience of migration through the lens of simultaneity, recalling multiple spatial and temporal realities that immigrants experience at once….

For more of the media release: https://csunshinetoday.csun.edu/university-news/csun-profs-volcano-that-left-recalls-the-realities-of-the-immigrant-experience/