Art exhibit at Olympia City Hall emphasizes city’s connection to immigration crisis
A month-long art exhibition at Olympia City Hall featuring photos of artwork created by immigrant youth who were detained in El Paso, Texas, in 2018, opens Friday afternoon. And although the art was made 2,000 miles away, it has a direct connection to Olympia as a sanctuary city.
The Uncaged Art exhibit will open at 4:30 p.m. May 5 at Olympia City Hall, 601 Fourth Ave. E., followed by a presentation at 6 p.m. The exhibit will end with a panel discussion by local organizations Friday, June 2.
There also will be a series of related presentations throughout the month of May. They will feature organizers of the original exhibit in Texas, as well as local leaders in protection and support of minority groups.
Anne Fischel is one of the people who brought the exhibit back to Olympia, after a brief stint at Arts Walk and the Timberland Library. She’s a member of Thurston County’s Strengthening Sanctuary Alliance and the Uncaged Art Planning Group.
Fischel said the planning group wanted to bring the exhibit back in a larger capacity to emphasize the importance of being a sanctuary city. She said Olympia has taken in refugees from around the world over the years, including unaccompanied minors and separated families.
Olympia passed a resolution in 1985 declaring itself a City of Peace, where people who are politically persecuted can find safe haven, according to the city’s website. In 2016, the city became a Sanctuary City for people regardless of immigration status. Gov. Jay Inslee declared the state a sanctuary state the following year.
In 2018, it came to light that border agents had been holding thousands of Central American children at a detention facilityin Tornillo, Texas, outside El Paso. By the end of 2018, nearly 15,000 migrant kids had been detained across the country, according to previous reporting.
Fischel said the detention center in Texas was a focus of deep concern by local residents because there was very little access to it. No one could check in on children, and a black tarp covered the fence around the facility, making it impossible to see in or out. Kids had no sense of time in the facility, she said, and they lived in tents.
Fischel said a group of local teachers in Texas were approved to enter the facility to make art projects with the children. They had construction paper, pipe cleaners, some yarn and other simple materials, she said. When the conditions of the facility were brought to light, it was set to close in 2019, and the art was going to be thrown away. Then the facility’s priest stepped in, she said.
The priest asked to receive some of the artwork, Fischel said, and he then passed it on to Dr. Yolanda Chavez-Leyva, who teaches at the University of Texas-El Paso. The two worked together to build the first exhibit to bring attention to the condition of the children, Fischel said. It has since traveled around the country.
Strengthening Sanctuary Alliance
Fischel said Strengthening Sanctuary Alliance started in 2016 while the Olympia City Council was discussing increasing its sanctuary status. She said having the official designation was a wonderful step, but someone had to ensure people were actually receiving support.
Since then, Fischel said the group has conducted Know-Your-Rights workshops in community centers and churches. And they’ve worked in schools, too, to address the needs of immigrant children. Some members even stayed with a Guatemalan family seeking refuge at a local synagogue while they were under a deportation order. That family was able to stay in the city.
“People should not have to feel different or stigmatized or at risk because their families made the choice to try to make that dangerous trek to be somewhere where they can raise their families in safety,” Fischel said.
But how people benefit from the city’s sanctuary status isn’t always so obvious. Fischel said it comes down to day-to-day response, such as how a teacher should respond to the needs of an immigrant child in their classroom, or a community leader ensuring everyone is represented and treated equally.
“We’re focused on policies that ensure all residents, no matter of immigration status, are treated the same,” City Manager Jay Burney said. “We don’t cooperate with entities who seek to identify people by immigration status.”
Burney said part of the city’s role includes working with local groups such as Strengthening Sanctuary Alliance to ensure policies are equitable. He said bringing the Uncaged Art exhibit back to the city brings more visibility to the issues many people face when trying to enter the country, and it gives the city a chance to show it’s an ally.
“It’s not our role to be policing people who came here because they’re seeking the safety and the opportunity that our own parents, grandparents and great-grandparents sought when they came,” Fischel said.
Presentation schedule
All presentations will be at 6 p.m. on Fridays at Olympia City Hall.
May 5: The Landscape of Immigrant Detention and Social Justice at the Border
Dr. Yolanda Chavez-Leyva will present through Zoom alongside members of the Uncaged Art planning group. Dr. Chavez-Leyva teaches at the University of Texas-El Paso and is co-director of the Museo Urbano. She curated the Uncaged Art exhibit in 2019 and will share the history of the exhibit, as well as efforts in El Paso to care for immigrants who continue to cross the border.
May 12: When a Right to Stay is Disrupted: Unaccompanied Minors’ Pursuit for Dignity & Life
Dr. Maria Isabel Morales, director of the North Central Washington Educational Opportunity Center, will present alongside leaders of Community for the Advancement of Family Education in Wenatchee, as well as a NW Equity Alliance board member.
Dr. Morales will focus on the stories of children and youth who migrate from Mexico and Central America, as well as some of the reasoning behind migration. According to the schedule, she also will discuss the racialized and “adult centered” contexts that deeply inform the criminalization of brown and black unaccompanied minors in “the land of opportunity.”
May 19: “We Are Seeds”: Familia
Members of The Evergreen State College’s Latinx student group Familia will speak about their passion for learning, the connections to their communities of origin and more.
June 2: What We Can Do: Panel discussion with local organizations
Kindra Galan, educational director of CIELO (Centro Integral Educativo Latino de Olympia); Dianna Torres Angulo, president of the Hispanic Roundtable; Diana Perez, TOGETHER’s Community Schools Program Manager for Tumwater schools; and Strengthening Sanctuary Alliance members will participate.
