Give kids paper and crayons and they will give you their hearts. At Tucson’s Casa Alitas, a Catholic Community Services short-term shelter for immigrant families released from detention, kid’s artwork covers the largest wall in the house. Guileless and profound, art by immigrant children puts the border rhetoric of adults to shame.
Many of the immigrant children at Casa Alitas are refugees fleeing the unimaginable. Multiple drawings depicting houses and pets left behind, long roads traveled, and mountains and rivers crossed, testify to the trauma of wholesale familial displacement. As an Alitas volunteer and former art therapist, when I see images of fiery volcanos erupting and great tears filling a sky, I can’t help but remember other drawings I have seen by young burn patients who use whatever body part was left unburned, even if that meant their toes to grasp a paint brushes and crayons.
Art & Faith in the Desert 
My dear Valarie,So touching, your work with the children who still see hope, light, love. I miss you. I love you. Porter
The EmPowerment Project Porter DuMar Dinehart Certified Family Law Paralegal / Advocatewww.porterdinehart.com(707) 272-1339
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Working with these kids and their mothers and fathers as well, is seriously my pleasure, Porter. Thank you, my friend, for your big beautiful heart.
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Another beautiful post. Thank you for opening up the insight and compassion in all of us …
K
Ken Balmer
RETHINK (West) Inc.
611 S Paseo De Amigos,
Green Valley, Arizona 85614
kbalmer@rethink-group.com
http://www.rethink-group.com
http://www.balmerart.com
Cell (520) 331-7286
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
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Thank you Ken for your artistic eye! Your take away is everything. Val
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