She Made the Invisible Visible - Sophia Chavez, Collegiate Cultura Ambassador
Sophia Chavez grew up watching her Cultura get consumed and her family's labor go unacknowledged. So, she made it impossible to look away.
You have seen it billions of times. On every phone, every laptop, every product Apple has ever made. One of the most recognized marks in the world. A simple, elegant apple with a single bite taken out of it.
Most people never stopped to ask who drew it. The answer: a Latino immigrant named Carlos Perez, raised in Stockton by a single mother, the first in his family to go to college. He drew it by hand. He carried those original sketches in his portfolio for 36 years. The world consumed that apple billions of times and never knew his name.
SVL told his story. Now we tell hers.
Sophia Chavez grew up watching her community's Cultura get celebrated on the surface while the people behind it were ignored underneath. As the daughter of immigrants, raised on stories of sacrifice and labor, she understood that contradiction before she had words for it. She didn't look away from it. She built her thesis around it.
"Consumed, Unseen" is Sophia's answer to a question she has been living her whole life: Why do we make culture visible but keep its people invisible?
The mixed-media installation — a bold poster series surrounding a central illuminated lamp — was presented as her Senior Design Thesis at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where she is completing her BFA in Graphic Design. The work is as sharp as the question it asks. And so is she.
THE ROOT
Sophia Chavez is from San Jose. She has been drawing since she can remember, shaped early by cartoons and early 2000s fashion — visuals that told stories before she had language for what storytelling meant. She initially saw herself as an illustrator, but something shifted as she learned what design could do.
"I became more aware of how design shapes the way people see and understand the world around them," she says. A first design internship in high school confirmed it. This was the work.
At LMU, she became Social Media Chair for the Latinx Student Union. She designed for Mane Entertainment and the William H. Hannon Library. She brought her skills to community-driven creative projects. Along the way she learned that design is never just about aesthetics. It's about who it represents and who it's for.
That understanding would become the engine of her thesis.
"You can't separate the aesthetic from the people it comes from."
THE WORK
"Consumed, Unseen" began with her father.
He worked multiple jobs to put himself through college. Later, he worked closely with farmworkers and laborers in Latino communities through an initiative called Prósperos. Through him, Sophia became intimately aware of the conditions these workers face. Her own grandfather spent hours doing intense labor for very little pay, providing what people rely on every day without a second thought.
"That contrast stayed with me," she says. "The same culture that gets overlooked or discriminated against is constantly being enjoyed at a surface level. People dismiss Latino communities but still embrace the food, the aesthetics, the music, and even travel to Latin countries for the experience. And I've seen how authentic traditions get watered down to be more 'accessible,' how elements of Latino culture show up in fast fashion and trends without any acknowledgment of where they come from."
The installation gives that contradiction physical form. The outer posters are bold, colorful, typographically loud. They mirror exactly how culture is packaged for consumption. At the center, a lamp glows with black-and-white imagery: labor, migration, generational struggle.
"I chose black and white to strip everything back to what really matters," she explains. "The colorful posters are loud and stylized, which reflects how culture is often presented and consumed. Black and white removes that layer of aesthetic and makes the content feel more direct and honest. It connects to history. It feels less like a trend and more like something that has existed over time."
"While the outer panels draw you in, the black and white inside asks you to slow down and actually see what's behind it."
The lamp itself was intentional down to its light source.
"The light is about visibility, but in a quieter way," Sophia says. "It also works as a kind of beacon. The light suggests that these stories, this culture, and this resilience don't disappear. They carry through generations and persist even when culture is reduced to something aesthetic or commodified."
THE MESSAGE
Sophia made this work for two audiences. She names them both without hesitation.
"For the people who are often unseen, it's about recognition," she says. "I wanted to acknowledge the labor, history, and experiences that don't always get the visibility they deserve. At the same time, I made it for the people doing the consuming. The piece is meant to create a moment of reflection, maybe even discomfort. It asks viewers to think about their relationship to the culture they enjoy and where it comes from."
When asked what she would say directly to the brands and media companies that profit from Latino aesthetics while keeping our people invisible, she doesn't hesitate:
"You can't separate the aesthetic from the people it comes from. Representation shouldn't just show up in the visuals — it needs to exist behind the scenes too."
She goes further. It's not just about credit, she says. It's about who's in the room. Who's being hired. Who's making decisions. Who benefits.
"Because at the end of the day, it's not just inspiration. It's tied to people's lives, their labor, and their experiences. If brands are going to benefit from that, there should be responsibility that comes with it."
MAKING HER SPACE
Sophia also led the branding for "Full Bleed," this year's Senior Graphic Design and Multimedia thesis show at LMU. She describes the project as being about expansion, expression, and taking up space. For Sophia, making that space is personal.
"Taking up space means being confident in my perspective and not feeling like I have to shrink it or make it more 'acceptable,'" she says. "As a Latina in design, there aren't always spaces where our voices are centered, so it's about showing up fully and trusting that my experiences and ideas belong there. It means letting my identity be present in the work. Not separating it but allowing it to shape what I create."
She is clear-eyed about the industry she is entering. She knows it is largely white. She knows how it extracts from Cultura without credit. She is going in with her eyes open.
"It's not about trying to fit into the industry as it is," she says. "It's about moving through it with intention and holding onto what drives me."
"It's not about trying to fit into the industry as it is. It's about moving through it with intention."
WHAT'S NEXT
Sophia is focused on transitioning into a full-time role in branding or creative marketing. She wants to work at an agency where she can design across brands and styles, ideally in Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco. She wants to keep growing, collaborate with other creatives, and work on projects that carry real impact.
She also wants to expand "Consumed, Unseen" into a magazine, into large-scale posters, into whatever form the story needs to take next.
And she has a message for the young Latina who might stand in front of her installation one day and recognize her own family's story in it:
"I'd want her to feel seen first. Then to feel confident in owning that story. And then to carry it forward — to express it in her own way, to create connections with others who share similar experiences, and to remind others that their stories matter too."
Sophia Chavez already knows what it means to make the invisible visible. She built it by hand, lit it from within, and stood in front of it at LMU and told the truth.
Our comunidad is watching. And we couldn't be prouder.
Know a Latino or Latina student doing the work? Nominate them for the SVL Collegiate Cultura Ambassador series: info@svlatino.com
Follow Sophia's journey: sophiachavez.me
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