The Picasso of Mauritania Takes a Turn in New York
Artist Djibril Ngawa Ba makes abstract paintings inspired by dreams of rural Mauritania.
Tag: news
French-Vietnamese DJ Works to Expand Jamaican Sound System Culture in New York
DJ Quoc Pham has built a tower of sound that will shake you to your core.
Handmade Future: Four Hispanic Immigrant Women in NY Reinvent Themselves With Craft Businesses
From apple pie to crystal jewelry, a video profile of New York Latina craft entrepreneurs.
Brooklyn Artist uses Call to Prayer to Focus on Attitudes Toward Muslims
Artist Ateqah Khaki highlights the everyday lives of Muslims and encourages dialogue about Islam in new multimedia project.
Podcast: New York’s Fashion Industry Runs on Immigrant Labor and Creativity
Immigrants are making waves in the American fashion industry.
Fi2W Story About Syrian Immigrant on WNYC Radio
New School International Affairs student Yael Even Or reports on a Syrian immigrant who’s confronted with a difficult decision.
Stories
Drama About Immigration Raids and their Human Consequences in Arizona Is No Fiction for Many
Dulce Juarez plays a school counselor who has to decide whether to help an immigrant family. (Photo: Charles Dee Rice/cdricephotography.com)
PHOENIX, Arizona — When the school counselor gave her the news, it broke Olivia’s heart. Her father had been detained by deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. In the worst case scenario, he might have already been deported.
Olivia is a fictional character in The Tears of Lives, a play produced by Phoenix’s New Carpa Theater Company and written by James Garcia. But stories like hers are common in Arizona.
The play — a fundraising effort to keep Phoenix’s sole day laborer center from shutting down — is holding up a mirror to audiences, challenging them to acknowledge the situation faced by immigrant families torn apart in raids by local sheriff’s deputies who are authorized to act as immigration agents.
“We wanted to expose audiences to stories they might never see — said Garcia — put a third dimension to the immigrant story. Because most Americans’ image of immigrants is of people coming over a (border) wall, or being handcuffed on a sidewalk.”
Watch a segment of the play/Video by Valeria Fernández