{"id":598,"date":"2010-09-11T12:37:25","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T16:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=598"},"modified":"2010-09-11T12:37:25","modified_gmt":"2010-09-11T16:37:25","slug":"cardenas-collection-puts-faces-on-immigration-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2010\/09\/11\/cardenas-collection-puts-faces-on-immigration-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardenas Collection Puts Faces on Immigration Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Steve Charles<\/em>\u2014Halfway through his talk to the Wabash students, faculty, and guests who filled the College\u2019s Eric Dean Gallery Friday afternoon, University of Notre Dame Institute for Latino Studies Director Gilberto Cardenas asked his audience to \u201cimagine you are coming here [from Mexico] to work in the underground mode\u2014through an underground system dependent on illegal behavior and violence, through a system you don\u2019t want but is your only way to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The photographs, paintings, and other art from Cardenas\u2019 collection that comprise \u201cAcross the Border: Perception and Reality”\u2014this year\u2019s first Wabash art exhibit\u2014fire that imagination. They put human faces on complex issues, offering viewers a window into lives at the margins of survival. Sometimes startling images that first disturb, then invite empathy\u2014rare glimpse of understanding into what has become one of the most polarizing political issues of our time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Writing in the gallery guide for this selection from the Cardenas Latino Art Collection, Wabash Assistant Professor of Political Science Paul Vasquez says, \u201cAs you encounter this exhibit, you will doubtlessly think about the various ways in which Latino immigration and the United States affect each other. Hopefully, you will gain some insights from this exhibit that you did not have when you first arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walking through the gallery with Cardenas himself, who has studied issues in immigration for over 30 years, you couldn\u2019t help but gain some insight.<\/p>\n

Cardenas pointed out one of the most disturbing pieces : a painting by Malaquias Montoya depicting a body wrapped in an American flag, strangled by barbed wire, and tagged \u201cUndocumented.\u201d The work is titled \u201cThe Immigrant\u2019s Dream: The American Response.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people will be offended by this painting,\u201d Cardenas said. \u201cYet to others, it means a great deal.\u201d He told the story of a Mexican immigrant who fought in Iraq and was killed in action. When his body was returned to the U.S. it was \u201cdeported\u201d to Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe often ask how illegal immigration affects society, but we rarely ask how society affects illegal immigrants,\u201d Cardenas said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A photographer and writer whose books include the 1970s book Los Mojados: The Wetback Story<\/em> and who founded Galeria Sin Fronteras III<\/em> [Gallery Without Borders] in Austin, Texas, Cardenas added that he is \u201cas interested in the artists as I am in their artwork.\u201d He pointed out a work by Ruben Trejo, who was born in a boxcar in the Burlington Railroad Yard in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His father worked for the railroad and his mother and siblings worked the fields as migrant laborers.<\/p>\n

Cardenas has also been one of a smaller number of scholars to study Latino immigrants in the Midwest, and his collection reflects that interest. One series of photographs by photojournalist Alan Pogue, whose work he has championed, first depicts a migrant family camp in San Diego County. The second photograph titled \u201cDay One: Kokomo, Indiana\u201d was taken in 1988 and shows a young mother admiring her newborn baby in a migrant worker\u2019s shack.<\/p>\n

Cardenas pointed out that immigration policy has established a constant supply of temporary workers for many of the most difficult jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the days of slavery, slaves had to be taken care of to some extent. If their health was bad, the work they did suffered. But with temporary workers you just use them up, send them back, and get more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing in front of an early 20th century photograph of border guards, Cardenas recalled a confrontation he had with a border patrolman during his own studies immigration issues years ago. While the incident angered him, he said he is sympathetic to today’s border patrol agents.<\/p>\n

“Patrolling the border is a hard, hard job,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And how else are they supposed to do this work?” he asked, noting\u00a0that the U.S. has developed a vested economic interest in enforcement\u2014from jobs in the border patrol and numerous detention centers to the service industries that support them along the southern border.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to move from a policy of exclusion to inclusion,\u201d Cardenas said, recalling the immigration policies that allowed in so many nationalities into the country during the 19th and early 20th century. \u201cWe had an attitude toward citizenship that was inclusive\u2014to include more people, and we became a stronger and better nation for it. Over the years to the present we\u2019ve leaned toward more exclusionary principle\u2014who can\u2019t come in, who can\u2019t have rights. We\u2019re moving toward the negative instead of a positive direction toward human needs and values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardenas recalled a gathering he led at Notre Dame on the \u201cTheology of Immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you think about it, Christ was an illegal immigrant,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this is a global issue. More than 180 million people change their residency each year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardenas praised the work of the College\u2019s Gallery Director Michael Atwell, who curated and selected the pieces from hundreds in the Cardenas Collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake a look at these,\u201d Cardenas said. \u201cHopefully they\u2019ll make you think\u2014maybe they\u2019ll make you mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

But you\u2019ll never look at immigration the same way again.<\/p>\n

Across the Border: Perception and Reality is on exhibit in the Eric Dean Gallery in the College’s Fine Arts Building through October 13. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Charles\u2014Halfway through his talk to the Wabash students, faculty, and guests who filled the College\u2019s Eric Dean Gallery Friday afternoon, University of Notre Dame Institute for Latino Studies Director Gilberto Cardenas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/09\/cardenasclose72.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}