Art
‘Deportation Nation: Visual Migrations’
Exploring Displacement and Division in North America and Palestine
BY D. W. AOSSEY
The phrase “Divide and Conquer” is a familiar one to students of history and international conquest alike. But when internal divisions are imposed upon peaceful civilians the concept takes on an exceptionally cruel irony – and few places today more fundamentally represent this disparity than the U.S./Mexico border region and Israeli-occupied Palestine.
“Deportation Nation: Visual Migrations,” a week-long exhibit held in San Diego in January, brought together a group of visual artists to address the issues of mass deportation and disenfranchisement as a result of America’s stance on immigration, and to examine the alienation of groups and individuals within regional borders.
The event showcased several well-known artists from the Southwestern U.S. including Bernice Badillo, Chikle, Isaias Crow, Gerardo Quetzatl Garcia, Xohitl Gil-Higuchi, Nuvia Crisol Guerra, Ricardo Islas and Gabriel J. Valez – and seeking to explore common ground between the Latino population of North America and the Palestinian people, the exhibit also featured prominent Arab-American artists Doris Bittar and John Halaka.
Revealing a richness of ideas and viewpoints, the confluence of Arab and Latino artists was highly complimentary and the works on display ranged from the whimsically sad to the haunting and surreal; from the spiritual to the abstract. In “Unnatural Disservice” by Nuvia Crisol Guerra, the animated children’s character, Dora the Explorer, stands helplessly before an elementary school as her handcuffed parents are led to a Border Patrol vehicle by toy letters wearing oversized sunglasses. The letters form the acronym “INS” – the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The painting drives home the fact that between 2000 and 2007 more than 100,000 adult parents of U.S. citizens — children — have been deported, in many cases forced to leave their children behind with friends and relatives or as wards of the foster care system.
In another eerily surreal painting titled “Operation Body Snatcher,” Ricardo Islas portrays a sinister, robot-like caricature of Uncle Sam in hot pursuit of a brownish figure representing the Mexican people. The silvery, stun-gun wielding Uncle Sam is characterized as having a hole in his chest where his heart should be – reminiscent of the Tin Man in the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” This analogy is an important one, suggesting that, like the Wizard, Uncle Sam is merely an imposter hiding behind a grand facade while only pretending to uphold high-minded values and ideals.
Among the other works on display, a montage of blue security envelopes forms an American flag in “Secured Flag 3” by Doris Bittar. Symbolic of the state of elevated national security, the image invokes America’s evolution from the hysteria of the military state to the paranoia of the security state – an eventuality manifest in legislative acts such as FISA and the Patriot Act which have stripped the individual of human and Constitutional rights both inside and outside of America’s borders.
In “Migration Patterns: Gaza/Tijuana/Gaza/Tijuana,” Bittar also explores parallels between the insidious wall erected in Israeli-occupied Palestine and the collection of barriers that separate the United States and Mexico. The inkjet on acrylic image brings into focus the idea that walls and barriers are not necessarily in place to manage borders but rather to control and corral people. To paraphrase San Diego artist John Halaka during a panel discussion that followed the exhibit opening: just as the wall built in the Occupied West Bank was never intended to keep the Jews and the Arabs apart, neither is the wall at the U.S./Mexico border intended to separate Mexicans from Americans. Rather, such walls are erected for one purpose – to keep the indigenous people away from each other; to divide and to control.
Similarly, Halaka’s contributions to “Deportation Nation” are representative of America’s attitude toward outsiders while at the same time betraying a sobering insight into America’s national identity. In “Land of the Free, But Not For Me?,” a map of the United States is ringed with barbed wire. Yet, not only do the menacing wires constrict America’s external boundaries but, like meandering weeds, the insidious barbs riddle every corner of the nation. The map motif is expanded further in “Land of Desire and Denial.” In this work, rubber stamps of the word “DENY" cover the continental United States while on the land and in the water outside her borders the term “DESIRE" predominates.
In keeping with the themes of division and exclusivity in U.S. immigration policies, as with the oppressive policies of apartheid and confiscation visited upon the Palestinian people, Halaka concludes that a clear pattern of racism is evident – vestiges of colonialism and intercession that have evolved into a sense of superiority and entitlement by the ruling elite. And, unfortunately, the situation does not appear to be softening. But while admittedly discouraging, hope for justice surely lies in vigilance, outspokenness and the continuation of dissent – sentiments which, coming full circle, truly define the spirit of “Deportation Nation: Visual Migrations” and the exceptional artists that participated.
This review appears in Al Jadid, Vol. 15, no. 60 (2009)
|
