Chicana activist Olga Talamante knows the feeling of being locked away and stripped of her freedom by an authoritarian regime, perhaps better than most.
For 16 months, she sat in an Argentinian prison after being tortured, beaten and coerced into falsley confessing to plotting ‘subversive acts’ against the then Peronist goverment that ruled over Argentina.
46 years have passed since the day Talamante was set free and reunited with her family in California. So when she learned in December of 2020 that more than 600 migrant children were still separated from their families as a result of the Trump administration’s Zero Tolerance Policy, she was reminded of the psychological trauma of her own imprisonment.
“I think it just stirred such a feeling of anger and a feeling of helplessness,” Talamante said. “Here we have this supposedly democratic government doing this to children.”
Compelled to act, Talamante immediately phoned her ‘comadres’ in community — Gloria Romero from Instituto Familiar de la Raza; Lariza Dugan-Cuadra from CARECEN; Adriana Ayala from Chicana Latina Foundation; Claudia León from the Latinx Racial Equity Project, and Ani Rivera from Galería de la Raza — and together they began organizing the “Caravan for the Children Campaign,” a 100-day movement that included demonstrations in Washington, D.C. and San Diego that demanded the release and reunification of the remaining migrant children in custody.
When the campaign launched in January of 2021, a reported 630 children — many from Central America — still had yet to be reunified with their families. That number was especially significant for San Francisco-based Colombian-American textile and interdisciplinary artist Paola de la Calle, the artist commissioned to create the five massive quilts that were carried by marchers during the demonstrations in 2021.
Those quilts — each measuring nine by 14 feet and that incorporate writing and poetry by nine selected Latinx literary artists — are the centerpieces of Galería de la Raza’s latest exhibition, “Pedagogy of Hope: Uncage, Reunify, Heal,” currently on display at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) until May 29. In total, the quilts measure roughly 630 square feet — a square foot for every child that was reported missing when the campaign was launched.
“When you enter the exhibition, you really feel the magnitude of the quilts,” de la Calle said.
It’s true.
The exhibition, which documents the Caravan for the Children Campaign of last year, is as breathtaking as it is heartbreaking.
Upon entering the exhibition — located on the second floor of YBCA — one is confronted by a sprawling timeline, meticulously outlying this country’s violent legacy of exclusion, separation and deportation towards unwanted migrants. Just beyond the timeline, imagery of cages and kites, butterflies and backpacks, dolls and drawings by children in detention centers, are all eloquently stitched together, taking the shape of the five quilts.
“What’s beautiful about the quilts is that, image and text are working hand in hand. What the words don’t say, the images might. What the images say, the words might not,” de la Calle said, explaining how each quilt tells a bilingual story and has a designated name. One is called ‘Uncage,’ another is called ‘Reunify,’ and another is called ‘Heal.’
Standing in the presence of the massive quilts, one is soothed by the gentle sounds of the “Our Children Are Sacred,” a song by the talented musicians Diana Gameros, Liliana Herrera, Francisco Herrera and Deuce Eclipse.
“What I really hope is that folks have the opportunity to reflect. That they have the opportunity to really sit with the quilt and try to understand what the poets are saying about liberation. What the poets are talking about when it comes to home,” de la Calle said. “Even though my family is an immigrant family — my parents were undocumented, my sister was a child immigrant — I think for me, what was really important was to make sure, especially since I’m not an immigrant myself, was to bring in other voices into the campaign.”
One of those voices is that of Freddy Jesse Izaguirre, a Salvadoran-born journalist and poet who migrated to the United States with his family in 1987 when he was just a boy. From a bustling cafe in Brooklyn, he reflected on what it meant being one of the nine selected writers for the exhibition.
“It was flattering, It was validating, it was empowering. Because you have to remember, during that time…we weren’t seeing Central American voices elevated in the media landscape,” Izaguirre said.
That time Izaguirre is referring to is that of the Trump presidency, one that was defined by the blatant racist dog-whistling rhetoric, the kind used to villainize and scapegoat migrants fleeing the violence and destabilization of their homelands. Violence and destabilization, which many times, was the result of U.S. involvement.
“So being a child of the diaspora and feeling so muted, so muffled, and not seeing representation in the media landscape, can be overwhelming,” Izaguirre said. “So to be selected to be one of the voices, to form part of this project, to be in a position to have my voice heard, our community’s voice heard…made me feel important. It made me feel like I was standing up for something.”
Today, that fight still continues.
Despite a Democratic president being elected in 2020, the imperial American machine has continued the way it always has. Deportations have yet to cease, the concentration camps along the U.S.-Mexico border remain, and migrants continue to die at the hands of Border Patrol. And yes, children also remain separated.
Last February, President Biden formed the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families, naming Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, as the Chair.
In their latest report filed on Feb. 4, 2022, the Task Force reported that as of Jan. 17, 2022, 106 children have been reunified with their parents, while also noting that 1,228 children “where the Task Force has not confirmed reunification with their parents and who are not currently in the process of being reunified.”
“If you’re Central American, one of the most potent aspects of being a member of that community is the way that you see immigration policy ebb and flow over the course of decades,” Izaguirre said. “To see the Biden administration basically continue on in the same way, to see families still being separated, to see deportations continue at Trump levels, to see these things, and to be Central American is to know that it doesn’t matter who is in charge. That our community is still facing this dire situation.”
Organizers of the Caravan are planning an action in Washington, D.C. on May 1, 2022, where they hope to meet with the Task Force and bring along postcards with public comments and signed petitions, demanding that the rest of the separated children be unified. The petitions and post cards will be dropped off at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security building.
“We just think that it’s so unacceptable that they have only reunified only 100 children,” Talamante said, who is co-chair of the Caravan. “We know that art in our political movement has traditionally provided us with the images, words and music of the struggle. It gives us the images of our struggle, but also the images of hope and resilience.”
Action items
If you’re interested in filling out a postcard, you can find them at YBCA (701 Mission St, San Francisco). Postcards are also available at Instituto Familiar de la Raza (2919 Mission St, San Francisco), CARECEN SF (3101 Mission St Suite #101, San Francisco), and Clininca de la Raza (3451 E 12th St, Oakland).
To sign the petition, visit: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/caravan-for-the-children
