“I began making a series of prints about immigration issues in 2011 based on interviews with Mexican families in Milwaukee. In October of that year, in the middle of a contentious presidential campaign, the New York Times reported on Republican candidate Herman Cain’s proposal to build a border wall along the lines of the Great Wall of China. “It’s going to be 20 feet high. It’s going to have barbed wire on the top. It’s going to be electrified. And there’s going to be a sign on the other side saying, ‘It will kill you – Warning.’” He went on to say he would consider using military troops “with real guns and real bullets” to close the border down. At the time, it seemed outrageous. Now, cruel anti-migration policy is announced on Truth Social, and imposed in ill-conceived executive orders. Public policy debate, when it happens, ignores the humanity in lived experiences of immigrants and refugees. Americans, citizens and non-citizens alike, live in chaos and fear spurred by the emergence of “alternative truths” and “Fake News!”
 
This series of 12 box sets, each with five woodcuts printed in editions of 20, was published on 22” x 30” Sommerset buff paper at Anchor Press (AP3) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, between 2024 and 2025. All images were created in conversation with the community members they portray. Some are reworked versions of prints- from that original series. Two of the images are entirely new and continue to center the fact that there are real people behind these faces whose lives are filled with dignity and purpose. ”
 
1. Dream Act, 2024.
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was first proposed in 2001. Since then, at least 20 versions of the legislation have been introduced in Congress- none has passed. It aimed to provide a gateway to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants that met certain conditions. The promise of such legislation gave hope to many of my students and their families. The mother pictured here participated in the “Ni de Aquí ni de Allá” project and the original woodcut was 50” x 69”. She was proud of the print, and hopeful that it might spark interest and understanding in the Dream Act and encourage the fair and just treatment of “Dreamers” and other immigrants. A second smaller reworked version was included in the Just Seeds “Migration Now!” Portfolio. It has since appeared on banners in immigration marches and was featured on the cover of a book by Luis Alvarez entitled “Chicanx Utopias: Pop Culture and the Politics of the Possible,” University of Texas Press, 2021. It has been widely used in university classrooms around the country to teach about art and immigration. This more recent version retains the signage as it appeared in the original woodcut.
 
2. Cinthia, 2024.
Cinthia first contacted me in 2016 to volunteer on a mural project I was leading about the United Migrant Opportunities Services (UMOS) that depicted the agency’s role in organizing the Latinx Civil Rights movement in Milwaukee. As an Undergraduate Research assistant, she helped coordinate work with 10 high school interns hired to work on the project. Cinthia led the youth in creating a declaration to be displayed at the mural site. At the end, it said, “This mural is a statement of what it looks like to fight for humane working conditions, equal education rights and family welfare—a depiction of our people struggling for a better future.” These are all issues that she holds dear. As a first generation student, and a DACA recipient, she has earned two university degrees (Communications and Urban Planning) all the while working multiple jobs in roles that contributed to the improvement of her community. In this print, her image is juxtaposed onto a photo taken by Joe Brusky at a May Day march along 6th street in Milwaukee. The parachute banner pictured at the top was designed by Nicolas Lampert using the “Dream Act” print included in this portfolio.
 
3. DACA, 2025.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was created in 2012 by the Obama administration through executive action to provide certain undocumented immigrants temporary relief from deportation, and work authorization. I first heard about it in a text message from one of my undergraduate research assistants for the “Ni de Aquí ni de Allá” project I was then working on. DACA changed many lives. It gave recipients a sense of hope and possibility for a safer and productive future. After completing her undergraduate degree, this student went on to earn her Master of Science in Student Affairs in Higher Education and is now working in the field as an academic advisor assisting students with similar backgrounds to navigate and complete their university studies. When planning the image for this print, we decided to include her DACA papers in the background. Her parents and her sister are pictured below in a photo of a family celebration in Mexico before they migrated to the United States.
 
4. Manuel, 2025.
I asked Manuel how he would like to be represented in this print- what mattered most to him. He told me that he identifies as queer, as a musician, and that he is devoted to the indigenous dance tradition of the “Matachines.” He and his family revived the ritual practice they had experienced in Mexico and brought the dance to Milwaukee to perform on certain religious holidays. A DACA recipient, Manuel funded his undergraduate degree in music by working nights in his father’s cleaning business ultimately graduating free of student debt. He is also actively trying to preserve and promote Mexican culture as a violin instructor with a program that provides heritage music education to low-income Latinx youth, and as a member of a band performing and promoting mariachi music around the state. He asked me to incorporate the popular Mexican phrase “Con el nopal en la frente” (“with a cactus on the forehead”) often used as an insult directed towards native-looking Mexicans. Manuel subverts it here into a statement of defiance and resistance.
 
5. Somos Uno, 2025.
Artist, poet, educator and researcher Ximena Soza was born in Chile during the murderous dictatorship of Agusto Pinochet. There she bore witness to the brutal repression of monthly protests as well as the defiant resistance of the people. She studied Education in both Chile and Milwaukee, ultimately earning her PhD in Urban Education at UWM with a special interest in anti-racism and bilingual education. After returning to Chile, she became part of the Collective Arte Precario dedicated to different forms of art related to social justice. She also creates didactic materials to foster the preservation of native languages like Tsotsil, Tseltal ( Mayan languages from Chiapas, Mexico) and Mapudungun ( Mapuche language from Chile and Argentina). Ximena wrote poems for each of the images created for the “Ni de Aquí ni de Allá” project. In this poem, written for “Somos Uno,” an image of her marching on May Day on the south side of the city, she contemplates her individual place in the world intertwined with her profound belief in justice and the common struggle for equality for all people.
 
Soy transeúnte con pasaporte al día
y caminante anónima, sin carnet.
Soy de los arcos y los portones,
soy de mercado, de tianguis, de flea market, soy de polvo y de vereda.
Soy por fuera los rojos irreverentes de los otoños que se ven caer desde la ventana Y por dentro los castaños tibios de veranos trabajados al sol.
Soy una carretera desolada y un punto en los metros de la muchedumbre. Soy del barro, soy del MET y soy del Louvre.
Soy, pero si no soy lo que soy con todos, no soy nada.
 
I am a traveler with a valid passport,
and an anonymous wanderer, without ID.
I am the ancient arches and the rusty gates,
I am a flea market, a tianguis, a department store, I am a sidewalk and a dusty road.
I am, on the outside, the irreverent reds of autumns seen falling through a window pane,
and inside,
I am the warm browns of summers worked in the sun.
I’m a desolate road and a small dot lost in the trains of the crowd. I am of the mud, I am of the MET and I am of the Louvre.
I am, but if I am what I am alone, I am nothing.