A lively costumed figure appears out of nowhere and begins to dance. She looks like a cross between Dora the Explorer gone bad and a south of the border Miss Piggy with long black hair and low cut shorts.

Art goers stop to watch, not sure what to make of it. A tall Anglo man breaks the fourth wall and joins in, reveling in the surrealism of dancing with a Latino cartoon character. The music ends, and the mysterious figure disappears never to be seen again.

Well, not quite.

"That's Francis Marquez," says John Ribo, the co-curator of "Necessary Fictions", the first major Latino art show in the Triangle. The performance is part of her "Chonga Series." Marquez, a Tampa-based Cuban-American artist, is one of the six artists featured in this rich and layered exhibit that explores the struggle to find a identity as a Latino(a) in 2010.

You will also find the intriguing family miniatures of Josue Pellot; Suzy Beilak's ritualistic video staging of an earthquake shaking the foundations of a domesticated home; Mario Marzan's documentary of a dreamed apocalypse; Izel Vargas' epic mindscapes on canvass and Mari DeGuzman's brilliant attempts to photograph a world beyond everyday reflections.

Each one of these artists highlights the incredible geographic and ethnic diversity contained in the simple term: Latino(a).

Ten years ago the 2000 U.S. census hit the American consciousness like a giant enchilada. Hailed by Newsweek as "The Browning of America", these startling numbers pointed to a radical new vision of who we were as a nation: hybrid, multicultural and bilingual.

As the "Nuevo South" was being born, a generation of Latino artists came to light confronted with the old-age American questions: who am I in the midst of change? How do I negotiate my identity in a mass culture that thrives on selling stereotypes of ourselves? Taco, Chiquita banana, Dora the Explorer, Cinco de Mayo, el Mariachi . and yes even the "Chonga," a complex Latino subculture native to the South Florida urban landscape.

Two photographs by Francis Marquez show her posing as a "Chonga," staring back at us, defiant and insolent. "That's her avatar," says Ribo. Looking closer at one of her jackets, one can see a design made of cartoon strips where the protagonist is absent and only the bubbles voicing some fight with "BAM" and "WHAMS" remain.

"My work is greatly connected with identity, specifically with the idea of 'Hybridity,' writes Marquez. "A state of being, arrived through the innovative missing and borrowing of ideas, languages and modes of practice. The work functions as a way for me to reconcile with different aspect of culture."

It's a fitting image, a vibrant strategy of self-representation: mask yourself inside the stereotype, make it your own, and in doing so, refract back to the audience a process of both resistance and assimilation to the dominant culture. It's a magic trick: the artist has to first disappear in order to find him or herself. Identity is no longer codified. It's a constant process of transformation.

For the images in "Necessary Fictions" ultimately point back to us, the viewer, and ask that we question not just how we view "Latino(a)s," but how we view and process our own identity.

Maria DeGuzman, associate professor of English and director ofLatina/o Studies at the UNC, photographs miniatures refracted in a prism of light. Her piece "He Saw Himself in the gaze of the Dominant Culture" beautifully illustrates the illuminating power of this exhibit to challenge the certainty of our gaze.

For DeGuzman the difference between a "reflection" and a "refraction" is crucial. A reflection "suggests a faithful or even passive imitation of an already existing object or condition", she writes in an e-mail. But "Refraction" retains aspects of the form or traces of the original - the social conditions, the object of the gaze, etc. - but with a difference, with an imaginative and also physical (as when talking about the behavior of light as it passes from one medium into another) displacement and transformation. I see my work as an act of refraction."

And why are these fictions and refractions necessary? Surely, to say Latino(a) - is to enter the world of mythmaking, where the last open frontier of the American dream is the power to forge your own identity. "Necessary Fictions" is a groundbreaking show that invites you to come along and be a pioneer of your own representation. So, come and disappear for while. You might be surprised at what you find.