People With No Names: The Undocumented #127

Yesterday, the County Supervisors of Tucson, Arizona voted to have our county (Pima County) be "Immigrant Welcoming".  The City of Tucson has made this a 'welcoming city'.  This is especially noteworthy because Pima County has the most border area of any county in the U.S.A.  Human dignity and human life are being given respect.  This small 8 x 10 oil study is a depiction of 3 immigrants being captured and surrounded at gunpoint by 5 U.S. Border Patrol agents.  It is another version of the last two paintings posted.  This image references a real event that occurred along the U.S. Mexico border.  Despite the new policy in Pima County,  THIS is the welcome that immigrants can expect until we have an 'immigrant welcoming' policy at the Federal level.  Still, 'Bravo' Pima County Supervisors!

People With No Names: The Undocumented #116

These are roofers in Tucson, AZ.  Roofing is hot, dirty work but someone needs to do it...because we literally need roofs over our heads.  So until non-immigrants want to get up there and do this job,  immigrants will do it.

All You Holy Men and Women Pray For Us-Saints Among Us #2

This "saint" works tirelessly with The Samaritans (Los Samaritanos).  "Since July 1, 2002, Samaritans have been a voice of compassion, a healing presence in the Arizona desert.  It is an organization comprised of people of conscience and faith who render humanitarian aide to migrants in distress in the Tucson sector of the Arizona/Mexico border.  In the desert,  if a person is actively exerting himself, (and the coyotes/paid guides ARE hustling them along),  he needs 15.5 liters of water per day to stay hydrated.  There is no way that a person can carry that much water.  Dehydration also makes a person more prone to hypo- and hyperthermia.  Then, to further compound problems, immigrants get huge, foot-encompassing blisters that render them unable to 'keep up' so they are abandoned in the desert by the coyotes.  IF they can continue,  they often become lost, succumb to the elements, and die.  The woman pictured above, hikes the trails searching for lost immigrants,  puts water alongside the remote ever-changing paths that immigrants take, educates others about the immigrant plight, and has co-authored a book titled 'Crossing With The Virgin'  (by Kathryn Ferguson, Norma Price and Ted Parks).  She also owns a dance studio and teaches belly dancing.  Oh glorious, myriad, diverse saints among us!

why i paint what i paint #15

This is a little oil sketch on cardboard of the Guatemalan wife and mother I met at the Nogales deportee center. She was standing alone...alien, unwanted. To endure this hardship, and search for a better life, she had made the difficult choice to leave her four children. Yesterday, ( in church in Tucson, AZ.), we were admonished to "Love our neighbors as ourselves". It always sounds so simple. I just have to answer the questions: (1) Who is my neighbor, and (2) How do I love myself? Who is my neighbor? Could it be anyone... whose need or suffering comes to my attention? Does geographic proximity play a part? Is my economic well-being tied into others...my neighbors? What makes me feel loved? Well, certainly 'inclusion' makes me feel loved. And 'being wanted' makes me feel loved. Certainly, rejection does not make me feel loved.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #10.

I found this group of cheerful , hardworking men rewiring a school in Tucson, Arizona.