Helen T. Boursier, College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota, USA

There are multiple unknown variables with any on-location ESOL/ESL teaching session, but it was particularly unpredictable when I served as a volunteer chaplain with refugee families seeking asylum at a for-profit immigrant family detention center located seventy miles from my home during “Art Inside Karnes” (2015 and 2016). To facilitate this art ministry amid the mixed languages, ages, and cultures of the detained families, I fine-tuned my “signature style” layered art process for ESOL/ESL, that I had developed for ministry and mission while I was senior pastor at Community Fellowship Presbyterian Church, New Braunfels, Texas.

Participants and Parameters

Most of the migrant participants were women and children who had been victims of horrific violence, fleeing from Central America’s “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The women were trying to protect their children from exploitation and death, while also escaping from the femicide of their homelands (Boursier 2021b). Sporadically, there also were families from Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Brazil. The ministry was held two to four weekdays a month for two years. There was a staggered arrival during the scheduled time frame, generally 9 to 11 a.m. for mixed media art and 1 to 3 p.m. for jewelry. Overall, more than five thousand mothers and children participated during the ministry’s two-year timeframe. Generally, from fifty to seventy-five mothers and young children attended the regular weekday sessions, but during the scheduled school breaks as many as 250 to 300 women and children created art simultaneously in the on-site gym. The all-volunteer ministry occasionally received criticism from refugee advocates for being “in collusion with the enemy” so to speak. However, not unlike any prison ministry, the three volunteer chaplains had to work through the authorities in order to work directly with the women and children (Boursier, 2018).

During the morning session, the participants created a mixed media art/reflection which resembled art journaling, what art therapists call visual journaling. Sometimes the finished product was done on 8½”-x-11” white cardstock (Figure 1). Other times the same paper was cut into eight Artist Trading Cards (Figure 2), which the families exchanged among themselves as Tarjetas de la Amistad (Friendship Trading Cards) (Figure 3). During the afternoon session, each person made one pair of earrings and one beaded bracelet (Figure 4). The sessions were held in one of three small art rooms when it was the mothers and young children. During “school vacation,” we did art in the gymnasium with up to three hundred moms and kids. I transported the art supplies in clearly marked transparent plastic tubs that stacked into two oversized Pullman suitcases (Figure 5). Regardless of the location or the number who participated, it was impossible to provide a single teaching moment to explain the art/reflection theme and art process because the mothers and children came and went intermittently throughout each session.

Figure 1. “My Case for Asylum,” 14 September 2016. (Click for larger image)

Figure 2. Artist trading card, how-to example. (Click for larger image)

Figure 3. Mothers trading artist trading cards. (Click for larger image)

Figure 4. Jewelry examples. (Click for larger image)

Figure 5. Traveling art supplies. (Click for larger image)

Multilingual Art Sessions With Intentionality

The art sessions were not art for art’s sake; rather the art/reflections were set against a backdrop of trauma theory and art therapy practices as each guided meditation was intentionally spiritual, pastoral, and focused on helping the women heal from past hurts while claiming hope for a better future. I incorporated Judith Herman’s groundbreaking trauma theory which has confirmed that the “action of telling a story” has helped with the “transformation of memory” and recovery from trauma (Herman, 2015, p. 183). My art/reflection procedure also resonated with what Madeleine L’Engle (1980) wrote in Walking On Water: Reflections on Art and Faith: “In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and by grace” (p. 51). The art/reflections provided a safe place for the mothers to voice the injustices they had experienced in their homelands, during the journey, and upon crossing the border to the U.S. as they began the asylum-seeking due process. The prompts helped participants to move from their pain, frustration, uncertainty, and fear of the present, to reframing and claiming a renewed hope for the future that then reoriented their perspective about the present (Boursier, 2021a). My favorite projects included: preparing the mothers for the credible fear interview, guided reflections on their personal courage, hopes and dreams for their children, and celebrating memories from home (Figure 6).

Figure 6. “Memories from Home” 11 March 2015. (Click for larger image)

Art Inside Karnes used a directive or semi-directive approach for the art/reflections, which offered a framework of guidance for art participants with the written reflection and/or the art part. In contrast, a nondirective approach means that the art facilitator provides a blank sheet of paper and art supplies and does not guide or prompt the participant in any way. This method is problematic for anyone who does not know how to use the diverse art supplies, and it also is intimidating and daunting to stare at a blank piece of paper without having any sense of where or how to begin. The starter prompts included with the instructions and examples were only suggestions. Of course, the participants had the complete freedom to reply to the questions, write about anything else they chose, or skip the writing portion altogether and jump to the mixed media art. I used a nondirective approach in the art sessions with children. Everyone kept the artwork they created.

Advance Preparation Enhances Multilingual Participation

Advance prep is particularly important when facilitating any ESOL/ESL large group of mixed ages, and different languages. It was especially necessary for Art Inside Karnes because most of the families were unfamiliar with the art methods, techniques, media, and processes. To facilitate enjoyable learning, I designed the art/reflection theme and then created step-by-step bi-or trilingual written instructions (English, Spanish, and Portuguese) to fit a single side of 8½”-x-11” standard paper (Figure 7). As the diversity of nationalities widened, the language barrier became more intricate, so I also created a step-by-step visual prototype for each layered art project so everyone had an easy way to visually follow the various steps that went into the mixed media collage. Initially, I made these on the size 8½”-x-11” art paper like what the families used, and we passed these around until someone was ready for the next art layer. It became more efficient to mount all of the art process samples onto a single piece of black foam board because it was easier to explain the overview for the project to a larger group. Also, the individual pieces did not get misplaced in the piles of art supplies (Figure 8). Art as Mission explained my art process during Art Inside Karnes (hboursier.wordpress.com). Blog posts included art preparation and reflection, and they also shared insights from my ongoing learning about cross-cultural and multilingual pedagogy for facilitating large groups of mixed language participants who do not have any background in artmaking:

Every time I do art inside an immigrant family detention center, I learn a bit more about cross-cultural pedagogy. Every time I think I’ve got the process “clearly” explained it’s made obvious that NO it is not so clear. I sneaked in a “step 2” to make it more apparent what I’d blended together before. I also labeled each of the four steps. The goal is to make the process easily understood [by everyone]. (Art As Mission)

I switched blogs (refugeeartblog.com) after Immigration Customs Enforcement rescinded my security clearance and shut down the all-volunteer ministry December 15, 2016, but the original blog still archives the art preparation process for Art Inside Karnes. The new blog includes immigrant artwork and translations from the testimonies that the mothers and children shared with me. Under the “About” header, the new site also includes “how to” resources to facilitate ESOL/ESL multilingual art sessions with large groups.

Figure 7. “Hopes and Dreams” 2 November 2015. (Click for larger image)

Figure 8. Artist trading card example. (Click for larger image)

ESOL was particularly noticeable during our conversations around the art table as volunteer chaplains did “show and tell” to demonstrate how to use the art supplies, many which the families had no previous experience with (i.e., watercolors, stencils, stamped shapes, and washi tape). ESOL was evident as the multilingual group, volunteer chaplains, detained families, and detention center staff, engaged in small group conversations round the art tables with the mothers and children. I often joked with the families about my mediocre Spanish as we stumbled along together: most of the participants struggling to learn more English, and Pastora Helena struggling to learn more Spanish. The challenge to overcome the language barrier leveled the playing field, so to speak, as we all sought to increase individual and group understanding by overcoming personal fears and inhibitions about learning a foreign language. The bi- and trilingual printed instructions, combined with the step-by-step art visuals, ensured that no one felt inept, shut out, or left behind due to any language or reading limitations. Instead, these teaching tools empowered each participant to begin where they were to learn a little bit more English and art during each ESOL art/session experience. Art Inside Karnes, was an inexpressible experience of compassion, love, friendship, and multilingual/multicultural solidarity (Figure 9).

Figure 9. Solidarity: Volunteer chaplains join hands with detained migrants. (Click for larger image)

References

Boursier, H. B. (Forthcoming 2021a). Art as witness: A public theology of arts-based research. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

———. (Forthcoming 2021b). Femicide in global perspective: An interreligious feminist critique. In H. T. Boursier (Ed.), The Rowman & Littlefield handbook on women’s studies in religion (forthcoming). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

———. (May 2018). The power of hope: Art inside an immigrant family detention center. The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies Journal. 29(2): 50-67. https://www.societyarts.org/in-the-sanctuary-the-power-of-hope.html.

Herman, J. (1992, 2015). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. New York: Perseus Books.

L’Engle, M. (1980). Walking on water: Reflections on art & faith. Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw Publishers.

All photos © Helen T. Boursier; immigrant artwork and photos shared by permission.

Helen T. Boursier isa public theologian, educator, author, activist, ordained minister, and artist. She has been a volunteer chaplain with refugee families seeking asylum since 2014, including 2 years inside a for-profit immigrant family detention center. She teaches theology and religious studies.