Book Description

This book weaves together narratives and images created by community members to document the lived experiences of immigration in the Southern California Inland Empire region. It was born of a community arts and action collaboration with the explicit aim to the usethe arts as cultural strategy for community building, listening, and transformation. The themes that emerged through this project (health, home, family, work, and immigration detention) highlight not only the experiences of the community artists, but also mirror the community organizing campaigns advanced by the organizations that have sponsored this project (Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, Inland Empire Immigrant Youth Collective, Bringing Theory to Practice, and Critical Action + Social Advocacy, Pitzer College). This compilation was created throughout 2020, a year consumed by the triple pandemics of COVID-19, racial violence and economic instability, making the issues explored in this book all the more urgent. To create a just future- one where respect, dignity, belonging, safety, and human rights are recognized for all, not privileges for a few- we must first be able to imagine what that world looks, feels, and sounds like. Utilizing our radical imaginations through the arts moves us from idea to action, from dream to blueprint. Through our photos, our storytelling, we share our challenges and our wounds, as well as our hopes and the places where we plan the possibilities for our futures. We believe this strategy of art-making-as-social-change will someday translate our freedom dreams of a world beyond borders and bars into reality. With this book, we hope readers will be inspired to join us in shifting beliefs and policies that limit our full humanity and rights, while advocating for ones that celebrate our diverse experiences and contributions.