[5] De Leon was convinced that the mainstream media was not accurately portraying what was happening to the South Bronx and its people during her upbringing, and this led her to capture the daily lives of the children and families who still remained in the decaying neighborhoods using photographs.
De Leon also considers herself an activist, and in 2018 she joined forces with LuminAid and University of Puerto Rico students to distribute solar lights to remote areas of the island following Hurricane Maria in 2017.
[4] Her photographs document the damage to the African American and Latino neighborhoods by the construction of the Cross Bronx expressway, fragmenting their community and infrastructure, and the subsequent devastation by extensive fires during the 1970s.
[7] De Leon was one of ten Latino photographers featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Exhibition: Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography.
[2] The exhibit focused on multiple cities that underwent drastic changes in terms of demographics and economy due to white flight and the construction of new highways that cut through once thriving neighborhoods.
According to LACMA's press release on the exhibit, "the artists deceptively use the simple idea of 'home' as a powerful lens through which to view the profound socioeconomic and political transformations in the hemisphere.