IN THE CLASSROOM
The Power of Hope:
Art as a Ministry of Presence Inside an
Immigrant Family Detention Center
by Helen Boursier
Helen Boursier was a volunteer chaplain for two years (2015-2016) inside an immigrant family detention center where she facilitated art as a pastoral care ministry of presence with women and children seeking asylum in the U.S. from the violence in their Central America homelands. An ordained Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister with a Ph.D. in practical theology, she approaches immigration reform from an education perspective as she writes, speaks, and advocates for refugee families. She currently teaches trauma theory to social workers at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. The Interfaith Welcome Coalition, an immigrant advocacy group in San Antonio, recently commissioned her to create a traveling art installation, “The Power of Hope: Refugee Art/Reflections by Mothers and Children Seeking Asylum.” The exhibit and this article are dedicated to refugee families seeking asylum.
Helen Boursier was a volunteer chaplain for two years (2015-2016) inside an immigrant family detention center where she facilitated art as a pastoral care ministry of presence with women and children seeking asylum in the U.S. from the violence in their Central America homelands. An ordained Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister with a Ph.D. in practical theology, she approaches immigration reform from an education perspective as she writes, speaks, and advocates for refugee families. She currently teaches trauma theory to social workers at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. The Interfaith Welcome Coalition, an immigrant advocacy group in San Antonio, recently commissioned her to create a traveling art installation, “The Power of Hope: Refugee Art/Reflections by Mothers and Children Seeking Asylum.” The exhibit and this article are dedicated to refugee families seeking asylum.
It seems surreal that as many as three thousand immigrant women and children are incarcerated only ninety minutes from my home, locked inside two for-profit prisons which have been politely named “family residential centers.” Technically, they are “level one” detention facilities. Overseeing an all-volunteer art and jewelry ministry inside one of them emerged from my involvement with immigration concerns. I had been asked to chair a denominational mission, outreach, and justice committee to connect 150 Presbyterian (PCUSA) churches located between north Austin and the Mexican border. Prior to enrolling in seminary, I had been a mixed media artist, and the ministries of my congregation already had embedded mixed media art in many of the church’s ministries, and even its worship. It was a natural extension of my congregation’s existing DNA to offer to do art at the immigrant family detention center. Amazingly, the authorities agreed, and I began doing art with the children during “spring break” of March 2015. I initiated the art/reflection process with the mothers as group pastoral care in response to an attempted suicide by a resident in June 2015. Other than a Roman Catholic priest who did weekly mass with the immigrant families, there were no other ministries from outside that were allowed inside. Two volunteer chaplains1 often assisted me, and we viewed the opportunity to engage directly with the families as miracle, grace, and privilege. It was our abundant joy to witness how the incarcerated mothers and children expressed their hopes through the making of art.
The art sessions were not art for art’s sake; rather, the creation of the works of art and reflection about them were set against a backdrop of trauma theory and art therapy practices. Each guided meditation was intentionally theological and pastoral, and each focused on helping the women heal from past hurts while claiming hope for a better future. The prison authorities were very supportive of the art ministry and consistently commented on our dedication to the families and the uplifting experience it was for the mothers and children. In fact, the volunteer chaplains were awarded certificates of appreciation in June of 2016. The ministry occasionally received criticism from refugee advocates for being “in collusion with the enemy,” so to speak. However, not unlike any prison ministry, the volunteer chaplains had to work through the authorities in order to work directly with the women and children.
Participants and Parameters
Most of the participants were women and children who had been victims of horrific violence, fleeing from Central America’s “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The women were trying to protect their children from exploitation and death, while also escaping from the feminicide of their homelands.2 Sporadically, there also were families from Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Brazil. Very few families were from Mexico. The ministry was held two to four weekdays a month for two years. There was a staggered arrival during the scheduled timeframe, generally 9 to 11 a.m., for mixed media art, and from 1 to 3 p.m. for jewelry. The participants signed in and out on a first-come basis, and children under age twelve were required to have their mothers present.
During the morning session, the participants created a mixed media reflection, or work of art, which resembled art journaling—what art therapists call visual journaling.3 Sometimes, the finished product was done on 8.5 x 11-inch white cardstock. Other times, the same paper was cut into eight Artist Trading Cards (ATCs; 2.5 x 3.5-inch cards). The families exchanged them amongst themselves as Tarjetas de la Amistad (Friendship Trading Cards) or with Pastora Helena as prayer cards. In the afternoon session, each person made one pair of earrings and one beaded bracelet. They kept their art and jewelry, and they were allowed to wear the bracelets and earrings during the remainder of their incarceration. Overall, more than 5,000 mothers and children participated during the ministry’s two-year timeframe. Generally, between 50 and 75 mothers and young children attended the regular weekday sessions but, during the scheduled school breaks, as many as 300 women and children created art simultaneously in the on-site gym. Everyone participated voluntarily. So much excitement built up about the ministry that, more often than not, the families were lined up awaiting our arrival.
The ministry format factored in the feedback I received from residents, detention facility staff, and volunteer chaplains who assisted with the art ministry. I also regularly made adjustments in response to the changing regulations within the detention facility and also to the external protocol changes related to immigrant family incarceration. For example, initially the families were incarcerated for as many as twelve months at the facility where I began the ministry. As advocates protested the long-term incarceration of children, immigrant family detention laws changed and the families rotated out of the facility much more quickly. The art ministry necessarily shifted from being long-term pastoral care to intense but brief sessions for pastoral care. Internally, the facility made numerous policy and procedural changes as the prison company attempted to have the detention center licensed as a childcare facility, which would legalize a longer time of incarceration for the children and, hence, the mothers. The art ministry had to adapt its process accordingly. For example, a mandatory naptime was instituted from 1 to 2 p.m. for mothers with young children, which meant a delayed start for the afternoon jewelry session. The flexibility for the mothers to come and go to the art classes as desired also changed procedurally several times. We adjusted as necessary and kept going with the flow.
The Process
The artistic reflections were about process, not product. Prior to the refugee art program, I had experienced success in various ministry contexts in which I had integrated guided reflections with art, with grief groups, survivors of addiction, and at-risk teens, for example. After a team from my congregation joined a weekend mission trip to an immigrant aide station in South Texas with my seminary alma mater, I received further affirmation of this approach to cross-cultural engagement.4 In the detainment facility, the mothers responded to prompts or guiding questions about a particular theme related to recovery from trauma.5 Of course, the mothers had complete freedom to reply to the questions, write about anything else they chose, or skip the writing portion altogether and jump to the mixed media art. Although I used this semi-directive approach with the adults, I used a nondirective approach in art sessions with the children.
This method further evolved when I incorporated Judith Herman’s groundbreaking trauma theory which has confirmed that the “action of telling a story” has helped with the “transformation of memory” and recovery from trauma.6 Art therapist Pat B. Allen added a nuanced perspective adapted for Art as a Spiritual Path: “When we face and engage our pain, it begins to soften and open and change into something else.”7 My procedure also resonated with what Madeleine L’Engle once wrote about in Walking On Water: Reflections on Art and Faith: “In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and by grace.”8 The sessions provided a safe place for the mothers to voice the injustices they had experienced in their homelands, during the journey, and upon crossing the border to the U.S. as they began the asylum-seeking process.9 The prompts then helped participants to move from their pain, frustration, uncertainty, and fear of the present to framing and claiming a renewed hope for the future that then reoriented their perspective about the present.
Written Reflection Themes
Translations guided the next project. For example, a consistent theme that arose during the art reflection was, “Quien soy?” (“Who am I?”). This meditation underscored the importance of personal agency, which became the groundwork for the following meditation, “Ya me voy!” (“Enough, I go!”), where the women wrote about the particular action or event that had been the catalyst for their decision to leave their homes, families, and countries. “Mi viaje de allá para aquí” (“My journey from there to here”) picked up the thread of the decision to leave, and asked the women to write about their experiences of the journey itself. They ended their written reflection with advice for women at home who also might make the decision to come to the United States. “Oramos” (“We pray”) focused on the prayers and concerns of the women once they had left home, arrived safely, and were awaiting the next steps of their journey. “Cronología: El panorama general de la vida” helped to situate the incarceration experience within “The Big Picture of Life.” In “Jardín de Gratitud” (“Garden of Gratitude”), the flowers represented the special people in their lives. I designed “From Fear to Freedom” to help prepare the women for their credible fear interviews. This reflection created space for a non-threatening way to practice making their case for asylum.
The ‘Art Part’
The guiding questions and written responses were foundational to the enterprise, but the “art part” helped the women and children express more than what words alone could articulate. During the evolution of the ministry, ultimately it became helpful to give the women printed bilingual instructions which included the reflection prompts as well as the step-by-step directions for the artistic portion, with examples for each step of the art project. I also mounted a four-step visual on foam core which was used as a teaching tool by the staff and volunteers who assisted me. The visuals bridged any language barriers—whether Spanish, Portuguese, or Guatemalan indigenous languages—and made it possible to facilitate art with up to three hundred participants simultaneously. The prompts and visuals provided a starting point for the women, but they had complete freedom to write about whatever they chose, and to create their art wherever the muse led them. It also should be noted that using examples and step-by-step processes did “not necessarily lead to imitation.”10 I used a traveling open studio format and ensured that the art supplies were clearly visible, accessible, and open to all participants.11 The families had to check in/out with staff; otherwise, they had complete license to move about the space and to choose whatever supplies they preferred. The prompts and visuals offered merely a semi-directed place to begin.
The Art Learning Experience
Part of the ministry included sharing my love for mixed media art by introducing a multi-layered art experience to the families to help them to express what was on their hearts. As Karen Stone explained: “Words communicate our experiences and ideas, but images form them. . . . [W]ith their visual weight, images have a power to affect and convince that words alone cannot. . . . [Images convey] that intangible, private or communal moment when we encounter being.”12 To enhance their self-expression and creativity, I stuffed two super-sized Pullman suitcases and two heavy tote bags with a plethora of diverse art supplies which had been donated by the interfaith community to support the ministry. Everything had to be checked through two security checkpoints going in, and the same two checkpoints upon departure. Initially, the security personnel opened every plastic tub and unzipped every zipper, but as time passed, we were required to register only the jewelry tools and the camera that I had been given permission to use to photograph the art and jewelry ministry.13 During the final six months of the ministry, we left the tools at the detention center and then only needed to check the camera in and out—which sped up what otherwise had been a very tedious process. (We were going through four rounds of security each art day.) The detention center staff often quipped about the diversity and quantity of the supplies that I schlepped inside, but I always replied, “What would I not bring?” The mothers and children used everything every time. Despite teasing me about the excessive materials, the “recreation specialists” who assisted us in the art room never once complained about the art mess we made with the families as they carefully sorted, cleaned, and stowed all the supplies into the labeled translucent plastic tubs which went back into my art suitcases after each session.
Whereas the women generally were very literate with written words, their art experiences were virtually nonexistent. The Catholic sister who assisted with the ministry once observed, given their struggle simply to survive in their home countries, “Who has time for art?” Part of the art as spiritual care ministry included the “how-to” experience for learning techniques for using multiple art media and layers. We circulated around the room to demonstrate how to use the various art supplies such as watercolors in trays (get the brush wet first); stamps (press the stamp onto the ink pad); stencils (a “dry brush” technique creates a crisp look); punch tools (insert the paper here); block prints (paint the shape with acrylic and then stamp your art); Gelli art mono printing (brayer the acrylic paint, create designs with stamps, and press the paper with your words facedown onto the plate); and so on. Once we showed some of the mothers and children the basics, they helped each other.
Of course, the women loved the puffy paint, glitter glue, Washi tape, stickers, and bling, but they also used the stencils and stamps to express symbolically what their words alone could not. Rawley Silver, an art therapist who has focused on children, has said, “Symbols have meaning beyond their visible form. Art symbols may have many possible meanings simultaneously at different levels.”14 Favorite symbols in our context included butterflies (freedom), the dove (Holy Spirit), and flowers (new life). A stencil with the words “faith, hope, love” was also a favorite, as were the stamps and stencils shaped as women and children which symbolically represented themselves. The mothers particularly liked the custom cut Spanish word stamps which I had carved from artist erasers and wine corks. Their favorites included familia (family), justicia (justice), esperanza (hope), paz (peace), Dios (God), Jesús (Jesus), and amor (love). They scattered the stamped words throughout their art, using them as labels or subheads to express key themes which had emerged from the written layer. The “art part” took the written reflection to a deeper level and helped the women to identify their experiences analytically while simultaneously working at the gut level from the essence of their innermost selves.15 The diversity of art materials added to the creative energy in the art room and to the participants’ delight in their completed works. I once asked the staff if there was always so much energy during the various activities they scheduled for the mothers. The reply: “No. It is only like this when you are here. You bring the women hope.”
Art as a Theology of Hope
As the staff person had noted, my purpose came to be about providing an environment where hope could flourish.16 I designed the art reflections to encompass my understanding of hope as influenced by Søren Kierkegaard’s view of persons, whom he described as having actuality, freedom, and possibility.17 Actuality encompasses a person’s past and includes the entire set of complex experiences which contributed to shaping someone’s present sense of self. Freedom refers to the present. It is a finite freedom in the sense that there are certain limitations in the present, based upon what has shaped a person’s life. For example, the women were immigrants seeking asylum. Even within the actuality of their current context, they still had certain freedoms which they could exercise and which helped to shape their new futures. Amidst family detention, their freedoms were limited, to be sure, but they did have some freedom, including exercising what Viktor Frankl famously called “the last of the human freedoms”—the freedom of how to respond to what is happening that might otherwise seem beyond one’s control.18 Possibility focused on the future—a future that could be shaped by how one imagined the future within the limits of past and present. One could imagine—and ultimately become—something new.
The reflections also helped to facilitate hope-filled conversations. I regularly talked with the women about imagining a new future and of maintaining hope. I provided printed scripture verses in Spanish related to the art theme. Psalm 23 was among the passages which the women consistently included in their art. They also liked the famous words of the prophet Jeremiah: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jer. 29:11). The families combined colors, symbols, and thematic words to illustrate their profound faith in God’s sovereign care. For many participants, women and children alike, the artistic reflection became a form of prayer. Serene Jones beautifully expressed what the participants experienced when she wrote about courageously “lift[ing] up to God the most painful and often unseemly torments of one’s soul,” and that, when one does this, “one testifies to God—one tells the Divine directly—the story of one’s deepest affections and emotions, including the depths of pain suffered.”19 The experience reminded the families of the faith and hope that they already had, and by citing their favorite biblical texts in their creations, they knitted their words together with God’s own.
Art as a Ministry of Presence
As much as I loved the “art part,” pastoral care was my top priority. I wanted to be fully present for and with the women. As “keeper of the art studio,” I was there to laugh, to pray, to cry, and to encourage them along their journeys.20 The staff we worked with in the art room had compassionate hearts and felt a deep sense of moral commitment to help the families through the asylum process. They would let me know when a woman had received particularly bad news—such as imminent deportation—so that I could spend more one-on-one time with her. Whenever a mother was in tears during the written reflection time, a staff member would call me over for pastoral care, simply saying, “Pastora, I have another one here for you.” Residents also asked ahead of time to talk with Pastora Helena. For example, an 18-year-old mother who had fled her homeland after seeing her father’s face blown off before they turned the gun on her, fired two bullets in her leg, and left her for dead, asked to speak with me to share her grief, homesickness, and fear of deportation. All of the volunteer chaplains came to embrace deeply what it meant to be a “ministry of presence” each time one of us went to a weeping woman, knelt beside her, rested an arm across her shoulders, and held her as she silently wept.21 We whispered a few words in Spanish, but mostly we held the mother close and let love flow silently from our hearts to hers.
It was an art ministry in the fullest sense of the term. Isolation is one of the biggest challenges for incarceration, and it is magnified exponentially at an immigrant detention facility because the inmates are literally strangers in America and far from the support system of family and friends in their homelands. In addition to their isolation, they are vulnerable to the whims of the U.S. immigration system. They wait in silence—wondering if they will receive permission to continue on to the family member(s) waiting for them in the United States, or if they will be summarily deported with no recourse. After being released from sixteen months of incarceration from a detention facility in California, an immigrant mother of three children compared her experience of immigrant detention to that of being on death row: “Waiting. Appeal. Waiting. No information. Nothing but silence. You are a nobody. A nothing. Just a number.”22 The art ministry helped to break the isolation. Similarly to visitation-only programs, our presence showed the women that they were not alone, that people outside the detention center walls knew, cared, prayed, and advocated for their freedom. We were friendly faces who were not a part of the system as we treated each person with dignity and respect.
The art process also affirmed their selfhood. Facility staff let the women know that “the art ladies” were volunteers. We spent the day with the women because we wanted to—not because we had to. It was not our job. It was our joy. A recently released immigrant detainee said, “Your presence gives dignity to the immigrants—it affirms their value.” As we visited while cleaning up following an art session, one detention center staff member said, “You bring joy and hope to people who have lost everything.” Another said, “You’re a legend here,” adding that for days and even weeks following an art day, the mothers would ask when I was coming back. “Tomorrow? Is she coming back tomorrow? Next week? When?” Ironically, I made the notation about their excited anticipation in what would become one of my final journal entries. Homeland Security closed the art ministry on December 15, 2016.23
Amplifying Voices
I remain grateful for the privilege I had in serving so many refugees. I also have been forever changed, for as Herman has pointed out, “It is morally impossible to remain neutral in [a] conflict” when the trauma has been caused by human beings. The reality is that “the bystander is forced to take sides.”24 I have sided with the women and children seeking asylum. Their stories have become my stories; their words have become mine.
Choosing sides in a moral issue also requires discerning best response, embodying what art therapist Pat Allen called a “deep listening” to discern the best ways to stand alongside those who suffer, including refraining from “mindless action” until after carefully considering the possible effects of one’s actions. Allen wisely advised, “To stand in witness to what we believe is no small task. To have the patience to wait and the courage to see the correct action and then take it is a discipline.”25
Whereas I frequently have spoken about my unique immigrant art ministry, I have hesitated and exercised caution about publishing anything. I have been invited to submit stories and photos to publications of various immigration advocacy groups and agencies, but I did not want the women’s art to be used to further the agenda of any given agency or entity. The women must bear witness to their own stories without any filters and/or assumptions of individuals or agencies interfering. Their stories needed to remain their stories.
Kimberly Vrudny aptly expressed my ethical concerns in her ARTS article, “An Ethical Gaze?: Behind the Scenes with 30 Years / 30 Lives,” as she highlighted several of ten principles she had identified that constitute an ethical photographic project. Her complete list included, “opposing stigma, embracing solidarity, avoiding objectification, appreciating dignity, restraining voyeurism, averting exhibitionism, engaging responsibly, mitigating privilege, preventing exploitation, and over-coming stereotypes.”26 My ethical boundaries have been similar as I have only recently begun to share the immigrant art/stories, prioritizing the following: (1) unfiltered listening to the concerns of families seeking asylum; (2) offering their art/testimonies as a visual witness by/of/for the families; (3) creating ways for the words of the mothers to “speak” and advocate on behalf of their own experiences; (4) preventing exploitation of their art/stories; (5) providing education on the systemic issues related to mass migration from Central America to the U.S. and “our” culpability; and (6) extending an invitation to an ethical-theological and humanitarian response to “Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1).
The incredible experience of working closely with these wonderful families seeking asylum undergirds my commitment to discern creative ways to share their stories, their words, and their testimonies through art—amplifying voices that otherwise go unheard.27
NOTES
CAPTIONS
Participants and Parameters
Most of the participants were women and children who had been victims of horrific violence, fleeing from Central America’s “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The women were trying to protect their children from exploitation and death, while also escaping from the feminicide of their homelands.2 Sporadically, there also were families from Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Brazil. Very few families were from Mexico. The ministry was held two to four weekdays a month for two years. There was a staggered arrival during the scheduled timeframe, generally 9 to 11 a.m., for mixed media art, and from 1 to 3 p.m. for jewelry. The participants signed in and out on a first-come basis, and children under age twelve were required to have their mothers present.
During the morning session, the participants created a mixed media reflection, or work of art, which resembled art journaling—what art therapists call visual journaling.3 Sometimes, the finished product was done on 8.5 x 11-inch white cardstock. Other times, the same paper was cut into eight Artist Trading Cards (ATCs; 2.5 x 3.5-inch cards). The families exchanged them amongst themselves as Tarjetas de la Amistad (Friendship Trading Cards) or with Pastora Helena as prayer cards. In the afternoon session, each person made one pair of earrings and one beaded bracelet. They kept their art and jewelry, and they were allowed to wear the bracelets and earrings during the remainder of their incarceration. Overall, more than 5,000 mothers and children participated during the ministry’s two-year timeframe. Generally, between 50 and 75 mothers and young children attended the regular weekday sessions but, during the scheduled school breaks, as many as 300 women and children created art simultaneously in the on-site gym. Everyone participated voluntarily. So much excitement built up about the ministry that, more often than not, the families were lined up awaiting our arrival.
The ministry format factored in the feedback I received from residents, detention facility staff, and volunteer chaplains who assisted with the art ministry. I also regularly made adjustments in response to the changing regulations within the detention facility and also to the external protocol changes related to immigrant family incarceration. For example, initially the families were incarcerated for as many as twelve months at the facility where I began the ministry. As advocates protested the long-term incarceration of children, immigrant family detention laws changed and the families rotated out of the facility much more quickly. The art ministry necessarily shifted from being long-term pastoral care to intense but brief sessions for pastoral care. Internally, the facility made numerous policy and procedural changes as the prison company attempted to have the detention center licensed as a childcare facility, which would legalize a longer time of incarceration for the children and, hence, the mothers. The art ministry had to adapt its process accordingly. For example, a mandatory naptime was instituted from 1 to 2 p.m. for mothers with young children, which meant a delayed start for the afternoon jewelry session. The flexibility for the mothers to come and go to the art classes as desired also changed procedurally several times. We adjusted as necessary and kept going with the flow.
The Process
The artistic reflections were about process, not product. Prior to the refugee art program, I had experienced success in various ministry contexts in which I had integrated guided reflections with art, with grief groups, survivors of addiction, and at-risk teens, for example. After a team from my congregation joined a weekend mission trip to an immigrant aide station in South Texas with my seminary alma mater, I received further affirmation of this approach to cross-cultural engagement.4 In the detainment facility, the mothers responded to prompts or guiding questions about a particular theme related to recovery from trauma.5 Of course, the mothers had complete freedom to reply to the questions, write about anything else they chose, or skip the writing portion altogether and jump to the mixed media art. Although I used this semi-directive approach with the adults, I used a nondirective approach in art sessions with the children.
This method further evolved when I incorporated Judith Herman’s groundbreaking trauma theory which has confirmed that the “action of telling a story” has helped with the “transformation of memory” and recovery from trauma.6 Art therapist Pat B. Allen added a nuanced perspective adapted for Art as a Spiritual Path: “When we face and engage our pain, it begins to soften and open and change into something else.”7 My procedure also resonated with what Madeleine L’Engle once wrote about in Walking On Water: Reflections on Art and Faith: “In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and by grace.”8 The sessions provided a safe place for the mothers to voice the injustices they had experienced in their homelands, during the journey, and upon crossing the border to the U.S. as they began the asylum-seeking process.9 The prompts then helped participants to move from their pain, frustration, uncertainty, and fear of the present to framing and claiming a renewed hope for the future that then reoriented their perspective about the present.
Written Reflection Themes
Translations guided the next project. For example, a consistent theme that arose during the art reflection was, “Quien soy?” (“Who am I?”). This meditation underscored the importance of personal agency, which became the groundwork for the following meditation, “Ya me voy!” (“Enough, I go!”), where the women wrote about the particular action or event that had been the catalyst for their decision to leave their homes, families, and countries. “Mi viaje de allá para aquí” (“My journey from there to here”) picked up the thread of the decision to leave, and asked the women to write about their experiences of the journey itself. They ended their written reflection with advice for women at home who also might make the decision to come to the United States. “Oramos” (“We pray”) focused on the prayers and concerns of the women once they had left home, arrived safely, and were awaiting the next steps of their journey. “Cronología: El panorama general de la vida” helped to situate the incarceration experience within “The Big Picture of Life.” In “Jardín de Gratitud” (“Garden of Gratitude”), the flowers represented the special people in their lives. I designed “From Fear to Freedom” to help prepare the women for their credible fear interviews. This reflection created space for a non-threatening way to practice making their case for asylum.
The ‘Art Part’
The guiding questions and written responses were foundational to the enterprise, but the “art part” helped the women and children express more than what words alone could articulate. During the evolution of the ministry, ultimately it became helpful to give the women printed bilingual instructions which included the reflection prompts as well as the step-by-step directions for the artistic portion, with examples for each step of the art project. I also mounted a four-step visual on foam core which was used as a teaching tool by the staff and volunteers who assisted me. The visuals bridged any language barriers—whether Spanish, Portuguese, or Guatemalan indigenous languages—and made it possible to facilitate art with up to three hundred participants simultaneously. The prompts and visuals provided a starting point for the women, but they had complete freedom to write about whatever they chose, and to create their art wherever the muse led them. It also should be noted that using examples and step-by-step processes did “not necessarily lead to imitation.”10 I used a traveling open studio format and ensured that the art supplies were clearly visible, accessible, and open to all participants.11 The families had to check in/out with staff; otherwise, they had complete license to move about the space and to choose whatever supplies they preferred. The prompts and visuals offered merely a semi-directed place to begin.
The Art Learning Experience
Part of the ministry included sharing my love for mixed media art by introducing a multi-layered art experience to the families to help them to express what was on their hearts. As Karen Stone explained: “Words communicate our experiences and ideas, but images form them. . . . [W]ith their visual weight, images have a power to affect and convince that words alone cannot. . . . [Images convey] that intangible, private or communal moment when we encounter being.”12 To enhance their self-expression and creativity, I stuffed two super-sized Pullman suitcases and two heavy tote bags with a plethora of diverse art supplies which had been donated by the interfaith community to support the ministry. Everything had to be checked through two security checkpoints going in, and the same two checkpoints upon departure. Initially, the security personnel opened every plastic tub and unzipped every zipper, but as time passed, we were required to register only the jewelry tools and the camera that I had been given permission to use to photograph the art and jewelry ministry.13 During the final six months of the ministry, we left the tools at the detention center and then only needed to check the camera in and out—which sped up what otherwise had been a very tedious process. (We were going through four rounds of security each art day.) The detention center staff often quipped about the diversity and quantity of the supplies that I schlepped inside, but I always replied, “What would I not bring?” The mothers and children used everything every time. Despite teasing me about the excessive materials, the “recreation specialists” who assisted us in the art room never once complained about the art mess we made with the families as they carefully sorted, cleaned, and stowed all the supplies into the labeled translucent plastic tubs which went back into my art suitcases after each session.
Whereas the women generally were very literate with written words, their art experiences were virtually nonexistent. The Catholic sister who assisted with the ministry once observed, given their struggle simply to survive in their home countries, “Who has time for art?” Part of the art as spiritual care ministry included the “how-to” experience for learning techniques for using multiple art media and layers. We circulated around the room to demonstrate how to use the various art supplies such as watercolors in trays (get the brush wet first); stamps (press the stamp onto the ink pad); stencils (a “dry brush” technique creates a crisp look); punch tools (insert the paper here); block prints (paint the shape with acrylic and then stamp your art); Gelli art mono printing (brayer the acrylic paint, create designs with stamps, and press the paper with your words facedown onto the plate); and so on. Once we showed some of the mothers and children the basics, they helped each other.
Of course, the women loved the puffy paint, glitter glue, Washi tape, stickers, and bling, but they also used the stencils and stamps to express symbolically what their words alone could not. Rawley Silver, an art therapist who has focused on children, has said, “Symbols have meaning beyond their visible form. Art symbols may have many possible meanings simultaneously at different levels.”14 Favorite symbols in our context included butterflies (freedom), the dove (Holy Spirit), and flowers (new life). A stencil with the words “faith, hope, love” was also a favorite, as were the stamps and stencils shaped as women and children which symbolically represented themselves. The mothers particularly liked the custom cut Spanish word stamps which I had carved from artist erasers and wine corks. Their favorites included familia (family), justicia (justice), esperanza (hope), paz (peace), Dios (God), Jesús (Jesus), and amor (love). They scattered the stamped words throughout their art, using them as labels or subheads to express key themes which had emerged from the written layer. The “art part” took the written reflection to a deeper level and helped the women to identify their experiences analytically while simultaneously working at the gut level from the essence of their innermost selves.15 The diversity of art materials added to the creative energy in the art room and to the participants’ delight in their completed works. I once asked the staff if there was always so much energy during the various activities they scheduled for the mothers. The reply: “No. It is only like this when you are here. You bring the women hope.”
Art as a Theology of Hope
As the staff person had noted, my purpose came to be about providing an environment where hope could flourish.16 I designed the art reflections to encompass my understanding of hope as influenced by Søren Kierkegaard’s view of persons, whom he described as having actuality, freedom, and possibility.17 Actuality encompasses a person’s past and includes the entire set of complex experiences which contributed to shaping someone’s present sense of self. Freedom refers to the present. It is a finite freedom in the sense that there are certain limitations in the present, based upon what has shaped a person’s life. For example, the women were immigrants seeking asylum. Even within the actuality of their current context, they still had certain freedoms which they could exercise and which helped to shape their new futures. Amidst family detention, their freedoms were limited, to be sure, but they did have some freedom, including exercising what Viktor Frankl famously called “the last of the human freedoms”—the freedom of how to respond to what is happening that might otherwise seem beyond one’s control.18 Possibility focused on the future—a future that could be shaped by how one imagined the future within the limits of past and present. One could imagine—and ultimately become—something new.
The reflections also helped to facilitate hope-filled conversations. I regularly talked with the women about imagining a new future and of maintaining hope. I provided printed scripture verses in Spanish related to the art theme. Psalm 23 was among the passages which the women consistently included in their art. They also liked the famous words of the prophet Jeremiah: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jer. 29:11). The families combined colors, symbols, and thematic words to illustrate their profound faith in God’s sovereign care. For many participants, women and children alike, the artistic reflection became a form of prayer. Serene Jones beautifully expressed what the participants experienced when she wrote about courageously “lift[ing] up to God the most painful and often unseemly torments of one’s soul,” and that, when one does this, “one testifies to God—one tells the Divine directly—the story of one’s deepest affections and emotions, including the depths of pain suffered.”19 The experience reminded the families of the faith and hope that they already had, and by citing their favorite biblical texts in their creations, they knitted their words together with God’s own.
Art as a Ministry of Presence
As much as I loved the “art part,” pastoral care was my top priority. I wanted to be fully present for and with the women. As “keeper of the art studio,” I was there to laugh, to pray, to cry, and to encourage them along their journeys.20 The staff we worked with in the art room had compassionate hearts and felt a deep sense of moral commitment to help the families through the asylum process. They would let me know when a woman had received particularly bad news—such as imminent deportation—so that I could spend more one-on-one time with her. Whenever a mother was in tears during the written reflection time, a staff member would call me over for pastoral care, simply saying, “Pastora, I have another one here for you.” Residents also asked ahead of time to talk with Pastora Helena. For example, an 18-year-old mother who had fled her homeland after seeing her father’s face blown off before they turned the gun on her, fired two bullets in her leg, and left her for dead, asked to speak with me to share her grief, homesickness, and fear of deportation. All of the volunteer chaplains came to embrace deeply what it meant to be a “ministry of presence” each time one of us went to a weeping woman, knelt beside her, rested an arm across her shoulders, and held her as she silently wept.21 We whispered a few words in Spanish, but mostly we held the mother close and let love flow silently from our hearts to hers.
It was an art ministry in the fullest sense of the term. Isolation is one of the biggest challenges for incarceration, and it is magnified exponentially at an immigrant detention facility because the inmates are literally strangers in America and far from the support system of family and friends in their homelands. In addition to their isolation, they are vulnerable to the whims of the U.S. immigration system. They wait in silence—wondering if they will receive permission to continue on to the family member(s) waiting for them in the United States, or if they will be summarily deported with no recourse. After being released from sixteen months of incarceration from a detention facility in California, an immigrant mother of three children compared her experience of immigrant detention to that of being on death row: “Waiting. Appeal. Waiting. No information. Nothing but silence. You are a nobody. A nothing. Just a number.”22 The art ministry helped to break the isolation. Similarly to visitation-only programs, our presence showed the women that they were not alone, that people outside the detention center walls knew, cared, prayed, and advocated for their freedom. We were friendly faces who were not a part of the system as we treated each person with dignity and respect.
The art process also affirmed their selfhood. Facility staff let the women know that “the art ladies” were volunteers. We spent the day with the women because we wanted to—not because we had to. It was not our job. It was our joy. A recently released immigrant detainee said, “Your presence gives dignity to the immigrants—it affirms their value.” As we visited while cleaning up following an art session, one detention center staff member said, “You bring joy and hope to people who have lost everything.” Another said, “You’re a legend here,” adding that for days and even weeks following an art day, the mothers would ask when I was coming back. “Tomorrow? Is she coming back tomorrow? Next week? When?” Ironically, I made the notation about their excited anticipation in what would become one of my final journal entries. Homeland Security closed the art ministry on December 15, 2016.23
Amplifying Voices
I remain grateful for the privilege I had in serving so many refugees. I also have been forever changed, for as Herman has pointed out, “It is morally impossible to remain neutral in [a] conflict” when the trauma has been caused by human beings. The reality is that “the bystander is forced to take sides.”24 I have sided with the women and children seeking asylum. Their stories have become my stories; their words have become mine.
Choosing sides in a moral issue also requires discerning best response, embodying what art therapist Pat Allen called a “deep listening” to discern the best ways to stand alongside those who suffer, including refraining from “mindless action” until after carefully considering the possible effects of one’s actions. Allen wisely advised, “To stand in witness to what we believe is no small task. To have the patience to wait and the courage to see the correct action and then take it is a discipline.”25
Whereas I frequently have spoken about my unique immigrant art ministry, I have hesitated and exercised caution about publishing anything. I have been invited to submit stories and photos to publications of various immigration advocacy groups and agencies, but I did not want the women’s art to be used to further the agenda of any given agency or entity. The women must bear witness to their own stories without any filters and/or assumptions of individuals or agencies interfering. Their stories needed to remain their stories.
Kimberly Vrudny aptly expressed my ethical concerns in her ARTS article, “An Ethical Gaze?: Behind the Scenes with 30 Years / 30 Lives,” as she highlighted several of ten principles she had identified that constitute an ethical photographic project. Her complete list included, “opposing stigma, embracing solidarity, avoiding objectification, appreciating dignity, restraining voyeurism, averting exhibitionism, engaging responsibly, mitigating privilege, preventing exploitation, and over-coming stereotypes.”26 My ethical boundaries have been similar as I have only recently begun to share the immigrant art/stories, prioritizing the following: (1) unfiltered listening to the concerns of families seeking asylum; (2) offering their art/testimonies as a visual witness by/of/for the families; (3) creating ways for the words of the mothers to “speak” and advocate on behalf of their own experiences; (4) preventing exploitation of their art/stories; (5) providing education on the systemic issues related to mass migration from Central America to the U.S. and “our” culpability; and (6) extending an invitation to an ethical-theological and humanitarian response to “Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1).
The incredible experience of working closely with these wonderful families seeking asylum undergirds my commitment to discern creative ways to share their stories, their words, and their testimonies through art—amplifying voices that otherwise go unheard.27
NOTES
- Rev. Sabrina Jennings, an ordained United Church of Christ minister, and Sister Denise LaRock, a consecrated Roman Catholic Sister with Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent DePaul.
- Feminist social scientists use the term “feminicide” to define the brutal killing of girls and women by men “on a massive scale, and with impunity for the perpetrators.” Nancy Pineda-Madrid, Suffering and Salvation in Ciudad Juárez (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 1-2.
- See, e.g., Barbara Ganim and Susan Fox, Visual Journaling: Going Deeper than Words (Wheaton: Quest Books: Theosophical Publishing House, 1999).
- Arte de Lágrimas (Art of Tears) mission project at the Catholic Charities immigrant relief center at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, through Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, Texas.
- A directive or semi-directive approach offers a framework of guidance for art participants with the written reflection and/or the art part; whereas the nondirective approach means that the art facilitator provides a blank sheet of paper and art supplies and does not guide or prompt the participant in any way. See, e.g., Cathy A. Malchiodi, ed., The Art Therapy Sourcebook, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2006), 107. See also, e.g., Heather Walton, Writing Methods in Theological Reflection (London: SCM Press, 2014).
- Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (New York: Perseus Books, 1992), 183.
- Pat B. Allen, ed., Art is a Spiritual Path: Engaging the Sacred through the Practice of Art and Writing (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), 29.
- Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Art and Faith (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1980), 51.
- To understand the violence in their homelands, see, e.g., Cristina Eguizábal, Matthew C. Ingram, Karise M. Curtis, Aaron Korthuis, Eric L. Olson, Nicholas Philips, “Crime and Violence in Central America’s Northern Triangle: How U.S. Policy Responses are Helping, Hurting, and Can be Improved” (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Latin American Program, 2015); https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/FINAL%20PDF_CARSI%20REPORT_0.pdf. [Accessed 5 June 2017]. For an example of how the families have been treated upon arrival to the U.S., see, e.g., American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, “Court Orders Release of Graphic Photos of Arizona Border Patrol Detention Facilities and Damning Expert Witness Testimony,” https://www.acluaz.org/en/press-releases/court-orders-release-graphic-photos-arizona-border-patrol-detention-facilities-and (Aug. 8, 2016). [Accessed 6 June 2017].
- Rawley Silver, Developing Cognitive and Creative Skills through Art: Programs for Children with Communication Disorders or Learning Disabilities (Lincoln: iUniverse.com, Inc., 1978, 2000), 113.
- See, e.g., Madeline M. Rugh, “Art, Nature, and Aging: A Shamanic Perspective,” in Spirituality and Art Therapy: Living the Connection (London: Jessica Kingsley Publisher, 2001), 167.
- Karen Stone, Image and Spirit: Finding Meaning in Visual Art (Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 2003), 2.
- The camera was itemized on the equipment list each time I checked in/out through security, and the facility has a full set of the digital images. I followed HIPAA guidelines for individual privacy and the detention center’s guidelines about not showing the space or place. I asked permission of each participant before I took a photograph, and I honored their response. Despite the personal pain the mothers often expressed in the written layer, it was rare for a woman to say no when I asked permission to photograph her words. The women were eager to share their stories and their art. Many of the short but poignant conversations I had one-on-one often occurred immediately before or after I photographed their completed art/reflection.
- Silver, Developing Cognitive and Creative Skills, 7.
- See, e.g., Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking, 35th anniv. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), and Ian Jackman, ed., The Artist’s Mentor: Inspiration from the World’s Most Creative Minds (New York: Random House Reference, 2004), 4.
- For a parallel view, see e.g., Bernie Marek, “Each Time a New Breath: Buddhism, Art, and Healing,” in Art is a Spiritual Path: Engaging the Sacred through the Practice of Art and Writing (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), 70.
- See, e.g., Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin; ed. and trans. Reidar Thomte with Albert B. Anderson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).
- See, e.g., Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (New York: Washington Square Press, 1959).
- Serene Jones, Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 54.
- See, e.g., Shawn McNiff, Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul (Boston: Shambhala, 2004), 20.
- See, e.g., James E. Miller with Susan C. Cutshall, in The Art of Being a Healing Presence: A Guide for Those in Caring Relationships (Ft. Wayne: Willowgreen Publishing, 2001).
- Anonymous 47-year-old respondent from El Salvador who was in the audience at an immigration forum, Boursier, Field Research Journal (Aug. 31, 2016).
- U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) terminated the art ministry effective December 15, 2016, and revoked the security clearance for all three women in ministry who had assisted with the all-volunteer art and jewelry program. These actions were in response to a paper I had presented at the November 2016 American Academy of Religion, upon which this article is based, and a second paper I presented to the Society Biblical Literature which advocated for the church’s necessary involvement in immigration concerns for families seeking asylum. See Helen Boursier, “Faithful Doxology—Allyship with Immigrants Seeking Asylum as the Church’s Missional Hermeneutic,” International Bulletin of Mission Journal, 41/2 (April 2017): 170-177.
- Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 7.
- Allen, Art is a Spiritual Path, 206-207.
- Kimberly Vrudny, “An Ethical Gaze?: Behind the Scenes with 30 Years / 30 Lives,” in ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies, 24/1 (2012/2013), 22.
- See, e.g., Oscar Romero, Voice of the Voiceless: The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements; trans. Michael J. Walsh (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2005). For examples of the art reflections and the (translated) poetic testimonies of the refugee families, see my blog, http://RefugeeArtBlog.com.
CAPTIONS
- Mother, Honduras, 11 April 2016; photo by Helen Boursier, taken with the permission of the artist
- Oramos ("We Pray"); photo by Helen Boursier, taken with the permission of the artist
- Prayer for Peace; photo by Helen Boursier, taken with the permission of the artist
- Mother, El Salvador, 17 April 2016; photo by Helen Boursier, taken with the permission of the artist
- Teen Girl, Honduras, 27 April 2016; photo by Helen Boursier, taken with the permission of the artist
- Mariposa, ("Butterfly"); photo by Helen Boursier, taken with the permission of the artist
- The butterfly symbolizes freedom; photo by Helen Boursier, taken with the permission of the artist
- A sample of the variety of art materials from which participants are to choose; photo by Helen Boursier