in 1988. The piece touches on identity, assimilation, and cultural change; it consists of three-dimensional items including cactus cutouts and children's clothing attached to a large yellow backdrop with a zigzag border on the top and a barbed wire border on the bottom. The bottom text reads: "THINGS I NEVER TOLD MY SON ABOUT BEING A MEXICAN". The work's message ranges from embracing one's culture to addressing the oppression and discrimination faced in America, as the two borders depicted in the artwork are suggestive of the literal borders between the United States and Mexico. It can also be connected to López's "culture shock" experience after going to college, where she realized that she knew nothing about her own Mexican heritage or cultural history. Things I never told my son about being a Mexican addressed her son, Río Yañez, who was nine years old at the time. In the artwork, a textured and three dimensional mixed media collage, children's clothes protrude from the warm yellow background wall, with barbed wire depicted from an aerial perspective. As Karen Mary Davalos, argues, "López intentionally selected these objects for their mundane or everyday quality so that she could support her argument about the ubiquitous nature of stereotypical images. The images of sleeping Mexicans, smiling señoritas, and dancing fruits and vegetables are made absurd through unexpected placement, juxtaposition, and repetition. Her work interrogates images of Mexicans and Chicanos, and it challenges not only the context in which fine art is displayed but also the assumptions about who should be invited into such elite spaces." Personal life In 1978, López and conceptual artist René Yañez moved to San Francisco's Mission District, and in 1980 she gave birth to Rio Yañez. A few years later, López moved into the apartment next door and maintained a professional relationship with Yañez. After 40 years of living in her home, in 2014, she and her family faced eviction through the Ellis Act. In response, she created a series of "eviction garage sales" to comment on issues of gentrification and cultural heritage in San Francisco. According to the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press (2009), "López's artwork aims to offer new possibilities for Chicanas and women of color living under conditions of patriarchy, racism, and material inequality." Her contributions to Chicana society and feminism are seen as significant. López died on September 3, 2021, in San Francisco, California, at the age