Workshop at Cafe on A's Acuña Gallery and Cultural Center, Oxnard

Workshop participants explore the "carpet shoes" used by migrants to cover up footprints while crossing the US-Mexico border.

It was a great honor to offer a workshop recently at the Cafe on A's Acuña Gallery and Cultural Center in Oxnard. The workshop was offered to members of the Oxnard Multicultural Mental Health Coalition (OMMH), a group of amazing activists, business owners, mental health workers, and city employees, among other things. These individuals are working to create access to community-defined, culturally appropriate mental health services for under-served Oxnard residents.

Armando Vazquez, one of the directors of Cafe on A and OMMH.

This workshop was the first of a series exploring how community-driven, participatory art and music can contribute to mental health. It included a discussion of US-Mexico border crossings, exploring clothing collected from the border, darning holes in migrants' clothes, and dyeing yarn with locally grown dyes.

Telling the story of where the clothes were collected.

OMMH members shared reactions to encountering the migrants' clothing, and offered personal stories of family migration experiences. 

Sharing stories of the border and reactions to the migrants' clothes.

Participants darned holes in migrants' clothes as part of an ongoing effort to create a patchwork "darned quilt" from the clothes. One participant pointed out a hole that had been darned by someone before these shorts were ever found in the desert!

Shorts collected on the US-Mexico border with a hole mended by BOTH the original owner and a workshop participant.

The original darning, in white, with the new darning around it, sewn with cochineal-dyed yarn (sometimes it comes purple!). 

As part of an ongoing exploration into de-colonizing our fibers, we discussed how we can localize our fiber sources and the labor for them by creating micro-enterprises in Ventura County. We especially focused on cochineal harvesting for natural dyeing, and got to do a test pot with locally-grown cochineal.

Looking at the "tea bag" of cochineal in the dye vat.

Locally-harvested cochineal, which grows on Opuntia species of cacti, like the one in the background.

As the yarn comes out...

The beautiful results! Cochineal has been valuable for centuries for giving this amazing red.

Looking closer at the cochineal beetle.

Getting ready to darn a hole in migrants' clothes with yarn dyed with cochineal.

We enjoyed a potluck and cake for one of the youngest members' 13th birthday!

Happy birthday!

Many thanks to Armando and Debbie, directors of Cafe on A, for organizing this workshop! So many important connections were made.

This workshop was made possible with the support of Cal State Channel Islands Center for Community Engagement - another hearty thank you to Pilar Pacheco!

Last but not at all least, many thanks to Elibet Valencia for these superb photos.

xo
Juna

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