Two Quilts

With many thanks, we present to you...

The hard work of three weeks! 

During these weeks we collected the clothes from the desert, washed them by hand in tubs like these (note the highly-effective tools: a hose, a coke bottle attached to a broom handle and a rake)...

we sewed an enormous mexican folkdance skirt...

we cut up the clothes we collected from the desert, pinned them, and began to sew...in the final days working until we were squinting to see!

We collaborated with the folks at the rehabilitation center, CRREDA....

Ruben and Mickey.

and recorded interviews of their stories about life on the US-Mexico border...

Lola and Vanessa

and finally, we celebrated! We danced, we played music, we shared our experiences and our thanks for this amazing time to come together and create these works of art.

We present: the "Two Sisters/Las Dos Hermanas" - 2 Sister quilts in the form of traditional Mexican folk dance skirts. We started with one humongous skirt and I kid you not-- ONE DAY before the celebration cut it into two still-gigantic skirts.

The creators of "The Two Sisters/Las Dos Hermanas", from left: Ana Flor Adams, Miriam Maldonado & family, Maria Gabriela Marcos Santiago, Juana Martinez & family, Cleotilde Miss Vasquez & family, Jose Baltierres, Juan Rivas Hurtado, Jesus Marcos Santiago, Martin Galvar, Rosalinda Sagaste Chavez & family, Juan Vargas, Jesus Hernesto Dessens Velarde, Juna Rosales Muller, Miguel Angel Munguia Valenzuela, Ernesto Franco, Aracely Gonzalez Marquez, Juan Cayetano Marcos Santiago, Jocabed Gallegos, Maria Vicenta Santiago Isabel & family, Maribel Ruiz & family, Ruben Miranda. (Not pictured: Trinidad Anguamea Brasil, Ada Gonzalez & family, Melissa, Laila Rosales Muller, Vanessa Teran, Pedro Reyna Gomez, Maria "Lola" Dolores, Rigoberto Noperi Hernandes, Gabriela Garcia, Hector Hortega.)

The Sister on the left is completely finished, and will return with Juna to Ojai to be shared. The other Sister will stay in Agua Prieta, where the sewing group at DouglaPrieta wishes to complete it! 

Gabi chair-modeling the almost-complete falda.

The Two Sisters getting ready for the big night.

We hope to track the stories of the Two Sisters as each one travels, is shown, and is danced in on both sides of the border. In this way, we can also symbolically track the experience of families divided by borders, as they are parted and reunited over time.

We experienced an outpouring of joy at our celebration as each participant stood up to introduce themselves and share the story of how these quilts came to be. As the night went on, we feasted on Chicken Tinga tacos and pineapple juice lovingly prepared for days by the women of DouglaPrieta.

And we danced. The finished skirt was worn by woman after woman, girl after girl, as some of the more experienced dancers showed us how to work a falda.

Borders are places of division. They are also places where two things meet: places of coming together. As the project moves forward, we come back to the US with amazing new friends and a new experience of the kinds of connection that are possible between our two countries.

SO many people were involved in creating these Sisters. From the sewing bees in Ojai, Portland, and Agua Prieta, to the funding from friends and family all over the country, to the loan of a camera, to the ride to the airport shuttle, to the messages of support from so many. In particular we wish to thank the folks at Frontera de Cristo, DouglaPrieta, and CRREDA, for keeping us fed, sheltered, and in the right places, and for whole-heartedly diving in to participate.

Stay tuned. We have a video to edit, quilts in process, workshops on the horizon...and we can't wait to share them with you!

wow,
Juna & friends

It's On

We're in the thick of it! Every morning we gather to work with the migrants' clothes -- washing, cutting, pinning and sewing. We've also been hard at work eating snacks (pineapple with chamoy sauce, homemade tamales, chiltepin peppers, sweet membrillo, jujubes, you know).

In all, there are about 10 of us sewing at DouglaPrieta Trabajan. Lots of kids come and help too.

The DouglaPrieta power team: Trini, Pedro, Cliotilde, Laila, Ada Lizet, Miriam, Rosalinda, Maribel & the girls, Juana, Juna, and Ada. Not pictured: Vanessa, Vicenta, and Vicenta's amazing kids!

When we first gathered two weeks ago, we discussed different designs we wanted to make using the clothes. We threw around quilt design ideas-- the emblematic volcano that lies east of Agua Prieta, footprints to represent the migrant trails, the Mexican flag. 

After one person had the idea of making new clothing from the migrant's discarded clothes, our task became clear: create a falda folklórica, or a traditional Mexican folk dance skirt. This kind of thing: 

The traditional folk dance costume of Jalisco.

Every region of Mexico, as well as parts of the United States and Central America, has a distinct costume, music, and style of folk dance. It made sense to the group to make a skirt because they are "very Mexican" and "represent a celebration of life". The falda folklórica's liveliness, sense of pride, and context would be in direct opposition to the material we would use to create one.

We decided to first create the skirt from old sheets, then cover it with pieces of the clothing. 

Aww. Laila was lovely our skirt-model.

The power team whipped out this skirt in no time. Now we are pinning & sewing up a storm to try to get all the pieces of clothing on before our ending celebration on Wednesday...crossing our fingers. We are hoping to have Miriam's daughter, who dances baile folklórico, show us how it's done.

We also continue to happily work with CRREDA, the rehabilitation center here in town. The afternoons are spent embroidering on the clothes with them, recording interviews, and sometimes playing unexpected baseball.

Our little outdoor spot at CRREDA.

It was such a treat to have both Laila and Vanessa come to help sew, take fotos, fold paper cranes for kids, and wander the streets at night in search of tasty food. People keep asking about them -- "when is she coming back?"

In other news, I tried cabeza for the first time (essentially cow cheeks). Verdict: delicious, and grateful they didn't tell me what it was until after I finished.

Hasta soon,

Juna & friends

Aquí estamos!

 We are in Mexico! Agua Prieta, Sonora, is our home for the next few weeks.

The border wall runs right through the city, where cars line up to show identification and cross over into Arizona. The wall in the city is double-thick, with two 18-foot high fences separated by a deep cement canal. For added security, there are surveillance cameras on towers, underground motion detectors, and agents patrolling by jeep, horse, and foot. If I stand in Mexico with my back against the wall, I am on American soil.

All this security is for "prevention through deterrence", a strategy that effectively channels migrants to the outskirts of cities and the more treacherous countryside that lies beyond them. Unfortunately, many people who take this journey are not informed about the formidable conditions they will face. To collect clothing for the project, we traveled to the border wall outside the city--a tiring but successful trip. This is what it's like:

To get to the border outside of the city, you have to drive 20 minutes down a highway lined with miniature houses of every color honoring different saints. From there, you get into the back of a truck (if you are not incognito), which will take you over a barely-there mud road, avoiding deep lakes that have sprung up overnight from the monsoons. It's better than Magic Mountain, but your butt hurts more afterwards. This part lasts for about 40 minutes. You are being watched.

From the point that the truck can't go any farther, you get out and walk. It is very hot, you walk through sand, and if you wear shorts like I did, you will have scratches all over the place. Ow. You walk in sand-bottomed arroyos if you are trying to stay out of sight. There are only a few trees that cast any shade, but under these you can sometimes find water tanks. This part lasts about an hour, until you reach the wall.

The wall is easy to climb... if you are fairly able. We found a ladder made of ropes and pipes, and sheets tied together sneaking-out style. Of course, we were there not to cross, but to collect the things that people have left behind on their many journeys.

We were lucky to find lots of clothing and items that help tell these stories, all caked with mud!

You can see in the group picture below that the border wall is wide open. These doors are usually opened during the monsoon season so that water can pass through, but we were still surprised to find them!

The group who came on the clothes-finding expedition included women from the community center, Dougla Prieta Trabajan, with whom we are working on sewing with the clothes. The others in our group are from CRREDA, a drug rehabilitation center that works to refill water tanks in the desert for those who are crossing.

Collecting clothing on migrant paths in the Sonoran desert.

With the clothing we collected, we have begun our sewing projects with the women of Dougla Prieta Trabajan. We are so grateful to work collaboratively with them--here are a few pictures of the team:

Beyond all this, we have watched rivers fall from the sky and take over the dirt streets, blow-dried baby chicks, eaten more cheese and corn than we could possibly imagine (they have "Chihuahua cheese" here, it's the BEST), "mountain biked" through the streets of Agua Prieta, gotten lost in translation, waited out thunderstorms, avoided cute but terrifying packs of dogs that chase, walked the plaza at night eating duro con verdura (verdict: weird), and seen the most beautifully-colored houses. 

To your very good adventures.

xo

Juna & friends

We all start somewhere...

So much has happened! A popsicle party sewing bee that showed the amazing support and embroidery skills of the Ojai community, a workshop with youth through the Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project, and a whirlwind of preparations to leave for Agua Prieta, Mexico, TOMORROW.

Here are some of the peoples who enjoyed unusual pop flavors and the work we got done at the send-off party! Thank you so much for showing up or sending your notes of support.

A Popsicle Party Sewing Bee, with many hands sewing and enjoying avocado-lima, pixie tangerine, and ruby grapefruit-strawberry-mint pops.

I was so grateful to also be able to sit in with the inspiring young leaders that make up the youth group of the Mixtec/Indigena Community Organizing Project in Oxnard. Vanessa Terán, program manager at MICOP and artist/activist extraordinaire, facilitated our meeting as we discussed how the youth can be involved in making quilts from migrants' clothes collected on the border.

And... the donations have come. Thank you so very much if you have lent a hand, a message of support, or the dollars from your wallet to this project. It means the world to us and has allowed us to make some purchases, including...

Three new sewing machines! We will take these down to Agua Prieta and use them to create quilts at Frontera de Cristo's community center, DouglaPrieta Trabaja.  The machines will also allow the community center to expand their sewing classes in the future.

All of these efforts have been in preparation for our three week stay down in Agua Prieta, Mexico, during which we will collect clothing from border trails, design and sew quilts with folks who live and work on the border.

In this time of unprecedented numbers of children crossing the border alone, let's come together to re-imagine ways we can meet these difficulties face to face.

Nos vamos!
love,
Juna & friends

Why does P****ism need Mending?

I have never felt like a "patriot". Growing up, this was basically a dirty word.

My project grew out of wanting to share my experiences talking to people living on the US-Mexico border, to raise questions about what it means to be an active participant in your country's international relationships, and out of wanting to respond to the tribalism and exclusion that define our notion of patriotism. Especially after 9/11, American flags started popping up everywhere-- in one sense I thought they were supportive, and in another sense they baffled me. I have never felt very comfortable with flag-flying, because of the kind of patriotism I feel it suggests in certain contexts.

So after traveling to Agua Prieta I was just lying awake every night thinking about this, and realized I wanted to make my own flag that would send a message of alliance, and begin to express a patriotism that I am comfortable with.

I wanted a flag of my own. And I wanted a pride of my own, in a country of individuals that I understand to be doing their best to tackle difficult realities through engaging directly with them (-- and maybe even in ways that they enjoy!).

To me, a mended patriotism would ultimately be about involvement. It would be about reclaiming a participatory democracy, one where citizens (and residents) are engaged, feel powerful, and have the tools they need to stand up for the issues important to them.

"Mending" is a pretty, old-fashioned word, and my hope is that its use here hearkens back to a time when most Americans were more actively involved in the material stuffs of their lives and making use of the resources available to them.

Beyond this, there is a notion that historically, quilts have been used to mark safe houses, most notably on the Underground Railroad (some scholars debate this, but nevertheless it is part of our collective story). Along the border, these safe houses do exist, both literally and metaphorically.

How do allies identify themselves today?

Flag quilt on display at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, 2013.

How Mending Patriotism Started

This is a site to document the celebrations, difficulties, and wonder of working on an ongoing art project dedicated to sharing the stories of border-crossing.

Mending Patriotism is primarily a quilting project. It began when I traveled to Mexico as a trip leader with the Woolman Semester School in Fall 2011 and Spring 2012.

These trips were intended to give high school students and the adults accompanying them the opportunity to meet people who live on the US-Mexico border, hear their stories, ask them questions, and walk the paths that many migrants crossing illegally walk. We also had the opportunity to visit border patrol stations, a migrant resource center, a permaculture-based community center, two maquiladoras (foreign-owned factories operating on the border), a drug rehabilitation center whose residents refill water tanks in the desert, and a fair-trade coffee shop working on economic justice for growers in Chiapas (yum).

All this was made possible by the excellent organization Frontera de Cristo, a Presbyterian border ministry with strong community support and incredible leadership. I continue to work with the remarkable team at Frontera.

On my second visit to Agua Prieta, Mexico -- which sits on the border next to the much smaller Douglas, Arizona -- I began to feel strongly that I wanted to share what I had seen and heard on the border with people who could not visit themselves.

I had also just really gotten into quilting. So when I saw all the clothing left behind in the desert, a natural idea was born.

I returned in the summer of 2012 to collect clothing from the desert and reconnect with some of the folks I had met. I then spent the following year making the first three quilts and beginning to share the stories in two workshops, which are participatory in nature.

Now, we are entering the next stage of the project. I am returning to Agua Prieta this summer to jump in and collaborate with new friends from there and to see what stories we will tell together, and what quilts!


Thank you for being a part of this project by witnessing and holding us accountable to these stories,

Juna

High school students hike the well-traveled paths to the border fence on a border education trip facilitated by Frontera de Cristo.