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

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

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.