People With No Names, The Undocumented: #123

These are two 6" x 12" oil on canvas panels side by side.  Depicted are two women waiting to be fed in a deportee dining room run by the Jesuit ministry The Kino Border Initiative. Today, the Advent scripture readings include the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes with seven loaves and a few small fish.  Every single day this miracle of feeding the multitude, with compassion, happens just steps from the walled border between Mexico and the U.S.

People With No Names, The Undocumented: #122

This 11" x 14" oil on canvas portrait is a recently deported Mexican worker.  He is young, best friends with young man in #121, and the two of them will try again and again to get back to the United States to work. They have seen a place where there are jobs, and they want to get back to that place.  E.J. Dionne Jr., an opinion writer for the Washington Post explains:
                           "Pope Francis has surprised the world because he embraces the   
                            Christian calling to destabilize and to challenge. As the first leader
                            of the Catholic Church from the Southern Hemisphere he is
                            especially mindful of the ways in which unregulated capitalism has
                            failed the poor and left them waiting."                     

People With No Names: The Undocumented #121

This 11" x 14" 'portrait' of a deportee in Nogales, Mex.  On this, the first day of Advent 2013 we are admonished to be 'awake' and to 'watch'.  "The night is advanced, the day is at hand".  We still don't know exactly WHEN Jesus is coming again...but we do know that we should 'watch carefully' the events unfolding around us.

People With No Names: The Undocumented 120

These four oil on canvas (each 11" x 14") paintings are the four quadrants of an image of two undocumented roofers.  They function independently as abstractions.  It seems appropriate because the whole idea of 11 million undocumented immigrants in our country is a pretty abstract concept unless we get to know the people who are working among us.

People With No Names: The Undocumented #119

This 8" x 12" oil on board is an unfinished view of an undocumented immigrant building a fence,  in the United States, for a family.  There is an unfinished section of foliage "on his back" and as I looked at it, I realized that it reminded me of the "burden" on the back of the 'Pilgrim' in the story "Pilgrim's Progress".  What a relief it was for the pilgrim in the story, when his burden was rolled away.  What a relief it would be to 'roll away' (i.e. reform the immigration policies in our country) or remove the immigrants' daily fear of being 'found out', of being deported, of being separated from their loved ones and possibly never seeing them again.

People With No Names: The Undocumented #118

This is a little 8" x 12" oil on board portrait of an undocumented immigrant building a nice new fence for an American family.  The irony of a man who is legally "fenced out" of America, building a fence IN America is rich.  I heard recently that immigration is a problem if we don't know who we are...as a nation, as a people.  If we know who we are, we are secure, curious, and not defensive.

People With No Names: The Undocumented #117

     This unfinished 24" x 36" oil on canvas is titled,  "Que busca?" or "What are you looking for?"or "What do you want?"  These child venders, at a market in Guatemala, kept asking me this question.     Now I am asking that same question of my government.  What do we want?  As I write this, the government is shut down. National Parks and Monuments are closed, many Federal employees have been told NOT to come to work, and those people who are required to continue working will NOT be paid for their work.  All of this is happening so that 'The Affordable Care Act' will not be funded...so that the children, the weak and the vulnerable will not be cared for.
     European tourists in the United States today expressed disbelief that the country that claims to be the "Leader of the Free World" does not want to extend health care to all of its citizens.

Why I Paint What I Paint

This lovely gathering of friends and family in my home for a meal is something many of us take for granted.  Many people must LEAVE their homelands and seek work in new places, in order to provide food, shelter, and education for their families. 

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.

Why I Paint What I Paint

This is NOT a portrait (retrato) of an immigrant.  This is a portrait of 16 year old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez.  He was in Nogales near the wall that separates the United States and Mexico.  The Huffington Post says, "An autopsy report indicates a Mexican Teen who apparently was shot to death by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in October was struck by at least eight bullets, all but one hitting him in the back".  He and other youths were throwing rocks at the Border Patrol.   An anonymous source commented that  "Border Agents are generally allowed to use lethal force against rock throwers".

People With No Names: The Undocumented # 115

                                   I came to put food in my mouth.....I put food in your mouth.

Why I Paint What I Paint

This is an 8"x10" red iron oxide and chalk on canvas of a young boy who I encountered in a  Nogales, Mexico apartment for recently deported women and children.  This morning I was walking and listening to a radio story about Afghanistan.  As the United States is winding down their presence in that country, the military spokesman said that they have learned about "bottom up diplomacy".  He went on to define "bottom up diplomacy" as things like building schools and taking the time to meet and talk to village elders in remote places.  He talked about approaching people in "their way...slowly", and he said that "to change hearts and minds" takes time. I want to be a nation and a person who practices "bottom up diplomacy".

People With No Names: The Undocumented # 114

This is acrylic on canvas 12" x 30".  A little over a week ago it was Holy Thursday when priests all over the world washed people's feet in a re-enactment of The Last Supper.  In fact,  our new pope washed feet at a juvenile detention center in Rome and EVEN the feet of several women!  I started thinking about all of the immigrants walking up to the United States and that verse from Isaiah, (that is repeated in Romans), "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news...".  Here in the Sonoran Desert,  people actually have to walk over rugged mountain terrain to enter the U.S. What 'good news' can they possibly be bringing to us?  Well it turns out there is a 'Barrio Effect' that immigrants bring with them.  It is an actual, medically documented fact that people who live in poor Latino neighborhoods are healthier than our own homegrown poor people.  Infant mortality rate is lower, neighborhoods really matter, they have access to traditional foods (which are prepared from scratch), extended family members live nearby or with each other.  There is ethnic and racial pride.  As was expressed in the Broadway musical "Porgy and Bess", "I've got plenty of nothing, and nothings plenty for me".  Ethnic enclaves share struggles, and that social life actually causes biological changes in the body and lowers stress.  In our terrifically independent lives, our newest societal members, maybe, have something to teach us.  We may be 'connected' by our abundance of social media, but we sure aren't preparing meals, touching, talking and living together.

People With No Names: The Undocumented: # 113

This 11" x 14" oil on canvas "Ce n'est pas un animaux".  (Please see, "ce n'est pas un pipe" by Magritte, surrealism)  On Sunday March 24, 2013 there was a front page article about immigrants being held in solitary confinement.  The U.S. has come under sharp criticism at home and abroad for relying on solitary confinement in its prisons more than any other democratic nation in the world.  This practice is particularly "startling because these detainees are being held on civil, not criminal charges.  As such, they are not supposed to be punished: they are simply confined to ensure that they appear for administrative hearings." At the bottom of the article is a picture of a chain link 6' x6' cell "where immigrant detainees may get an hour to pace". 

People With No Names: The Undocumented #112

This 11" x 14" oil on canvas is easy to title...It is "Pool Girl".  This young man is one of many undocumented kids crossing the U.S. border alone in increasing numbers.  Illegal immigration may be down, but the number of children coming across the border into the U.S. ON THEIR OWN is soaring...
            -Terry Green Sterling
                The Daily Beast, March 24, 2013

People With No Names: The Undocumented #111

This 6' by 4' oil on unstretched canvas is of two women recently deported from the United States.  I realize that I made the hand (on the woman in the back) too small...especially when you consider the amount of work she probably does with that hand!  They are both separated from their families who live and work in the United States,  a United States that is growing and changing. The "we" of "we hold these truths to be self evident" is always growing and changing. It now includes people of both genders, people of every ethnicity, and... as always...people from other lands. Who is the "we" today?  The "we" includes 11 million people from Central America and Mexico who are deemed 'unlawfully here' by the people in power today.  Tomorrow, the power may shift and the "we",  like any living organism,  need to grow and change or we will begin to die.  What to do with 11 million immigrants who are working and paying taxes in the United States of America?  At great cost to taxpayers, we criminalize, expel and build walls to 'attempt' to keep them out of "our" country.  It would be cheaper (not to mention kinder and more effective) to enfranchise and welcome people.  I was touched today, to hear that the country of Jordan is continuing to welcome Syrian refugees.  It is a strain on their water supply and economy...(and they are asking the international community to come alongside them)...BUT it is fundamentally WHO the Jordanian people are, to be a people of 'hospitality' and as such they must welcome refugees. 

People With No Names: The Undocumented # 110

 

I am reading the Isabel Allende book about the history of Haiti,  "Island Beneath the Sea",  and was struck by the white plantation owners saying that "the black slaves have never accepted their fate".  It got me to thinking about the idea of "accepting your fate".  Today, the President of the United States nominated a new Secretary of Labor,  one Thomas Perez who NEVER accepted his fate.  He is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic (next door to Haiti) and put himself through college collecting garbage and working in a warehouse.  The president described him as a tireless advocate for the 'American Dream'.  Then, in case we needed a refresher, the president spelled it out...he said, "It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is;  if you are willing to work hard you can get in on the 'American Dream'.  It seems like a prerequisite would be...DON'T accept your fate!  This is an 11" x 14" oil on stretched canvas of a recent deportee from the United States.

People With No Names, The Undocumented: 109

This 11" x 14" oil on canvas is of a young man who was recently deported from the United States.  I keep thinking that we are not paying attention to history as it is unfolding.  We see so clearly that we should have done more as Jews were being rounded up in Europe during WWII...we should have helped in Rwanda.  We should have the attitude of a character in a book that I am reading (The Postmistress by Sarah Blake) as she realizes what is happening in Europe in the winter of 1941.  "Whatever is coming does NOT just come, as you say.  It's helped by people willfully looking away.  People who develop the habit of swallowing lies rather than the truth.  The minute you start thinking something else, then you stopped paying attention---and paying attention is all we've got."

People With No Names, The Undocumented: 108

This 20" x 30" oil on canvas depicts one of the growing number of immigrant women in the deportee dining room in Nogales, Mexico.  She has tried to run to higher ground (the north)...she was not successful this time...but she will probably keep trying because life depends on it.  Today I heard a discussion of the salvific power of myth and folklore in people groups.  Specifically,  when people pass on descriptions of what happens and what to do in the event of natural disasters, they are passing on life saving information.  In the case of a tsunami,  certain coastal dwelling people groups know that when the sea rushes out,  run for higher ground.  If you are tempted to remain, or even spend time inspecting the new landscape, you will perish.  In 'economic tsunamis',  when jobs, land and food are swept away,  people need to get to safe ground.

People With No Names: The Undocumented #107

This 18' x 36" oil on canvas depicts a woman at the Nogales deportee center who had on at least four layers of clothing.  It is cold in the shelter because there are only three sides enclosed.  I got to wondering if maybe she had on even more layers than I could see...and then I thought what a great metaphor the clothing layers are.  All of us, every single person on the planet is composed of so many layers...some that we can see and identify, some that we cannot.