| Sumario: | This article focuses on the work of New York-based artist Rachelle Mozman Solano (b. 1972). In particular it analyzes Mozman Solano's photographic series Casa de mujeres (House of women, 2009–13), in which, with the assistance of her Panamanian mother, the artist reenacts stories of family rivalries based on class and racial difference. The Casa de mujeres series tells ghost stories about the trauma related to complex racial formations on the Panamanian isthmus resulting from colonization and imperialism. The author critically examines Mozman Solano's adoption of methods from auto-ethnography and psychoanalysis in this series and discusses how such methods reframe how we think about family photography in general. Through these staged photographs, the series sheds light on the role of women in reproducing social structures and racial hierarchies. By centering the role of women, especially mothers, Mozman Solano's images suggest that the task of undoing the violence of these pigmentocracies largely remains a family matter. The article concludes by examining the broader implications of the Casa de mujeres series for subjects in the Central American diaspora.
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