This cultural project on refugee children is being organized by a group of artists from Chicago.
This project is a collective project and we ask churches, organizations and individuals fighting for human rights to participate. It is a project where people will read the stories of the children in banners and reflect on how they would feel if their sons or daughters went through the same experiences. This is a cultural project to take action, whether it’s hosting an event, having a meeting at your home, calling your senator, governor, and / or president.
For more information, contact:
0antoniomartinez0@gmail.com
Whatever you read or see on TV is only a part of a very large picture. What is absent are the stories. What is absent is the personalization of these children. The humanization of these families. The impact of the generational trauma that our government is creating. Maybe providing some of that could create some compassion, especially in those who easily turn away and hide in the “comfort” of the White House narrative. When you create an enemy and create fear, people justify the dehumanization of whole groups of people. Our history continues to prove that.
Children attempt to cross the border, with or without family – Children describe what four or more weeks of walking, paying coyotes for rides in vans, riding on top of trains is like.
They are all trauma victims. They are not yet trauma survivors as their lives had been traumatic, the journey is traumatic and the arrival at the border is traumatic. And separation is traumatic.
—The majority of these children tell this exact same story:
“We don’t ever know if it is day or night. The bright lights are always on. There are no windows. It is freezing cold and they give us these paper blankets that don’t keep us warm. We don’t have beds, we sleep on a cold, concrete floor. They only give us juice and crackers to eat, for the whole time we are there … sometimes a small sandwich but mostly just crackers.
“The burrito they sometimes give us is just a wet, soggy tortilla and beans that we could not eat. When the guards weren’t looking, we threw them in the garbage.”
“I had to sleep sitting up on the cold floor. I didn’t get any food for five days; I was so skinny. I couldn’t shower or use the bathroom for three days.”
