these are paintings
WHAAAT.
“I’m starting from nothing. I lost everything back in Venezuela. I had my own natural soap factory but the crisis made it impossible to get ingredients. Then the government began to take 70% of my earnings. I had to close it down. Things got so bad that I couldn’t even find food for my baby. I had a little money, but there was nowhere to buy food. I’d wait in line all day for one bag of flour. We could go days without eating. When I tried to breastfeed my daughter, I’d almost faint. Leaving the country was my only chance. I’d never said ‘goodbye’ to my daughter before. She was screaming my name when I left. It hurt worse than giving birth. But I didn’t have a choice. I told her that I was going to Colombia. I told her that I was going to make a diamond, and I’d bring it back to her. Now I sell key chains in the street. When I make some money, I send packets of food back home. I’m trying to keep a good spirit. I’m doing OK. I grew up very poor. I came from nothing. So I’ve been here before.”
(Bogotá, Colombia)
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My interpreter Juan has kept in touch with Rose, and we put together a small fundraiser if anyone would like to help: http://bit.ly/2pQbI5k
“I knew my husband very well. We’d been living together for twenty-one years. So it was obvious that something was going on. Suddenly he started playing guitar and writing songs. The songs were OK, but I read some of the lyrics and they clearly weren’t written for me. He started wearing cologne. He started liking new foods that he’d never even tried before. So I was suspicious. Then one night he came home crying. I said: ‘What happened? Did you kill someone?’ He told me that he’d gotten a girl pregnant. She’d just had the baby and didn’t want to keep it. Then he asked me if I would raise it! I said: ‘Sure, give it to me.’ I arranged to meet the woman in the park, and she handed me the boy. He was only three days old. He felt like my son the moment I held him. I got rid of my husband a few months later. But I kept the baby. He’s sixteen now.”
(Lima, Peru)
“She always responds with empathy. She meets anger with empathy. She meets hate with empathy. She’ll take the time to imagine what happened to a person when they were five or six years old. And she’s made me a more empathetic person. I had a very fractured relationship with my father. Before he died, she made me remember things I didn’t want to remember. She made me remember the good times.”
“I feel like I’m just starting, but I think I’d be fine if it all went away. I get that from my mother. From the moment I started singing, she always reminded me that all of this was a privilege, and could be taken at any moment. So singing is not how I define myself. I try to keep my identity rooted in my friendships and my faith.”
“My English is not good. Spoken English is very difficult. But I want to study at Columbia so I am trying to improve. I decided to come to America because of Forrest Gump. I’ve watched the movie five times. I like Forrest very much. Forrest is very simple. He picks one thing, and he keeps going. When I was young, I thought Forrest was stupid. But now I have a different view. I think people are too complicated. They complain about everything. Forrest never complains. Forrest chooses one thing and he keeps going. I watched the movie last month to encourage me. My life is hard because people don’t ever know what I’m saying. But I just think of Forrest. Forrest figured everything out because he just kept going.”
“Both my wife and I were raised in Guyana. Neither of our families demonstrated much affection. Physical contact was always reserved for discipline. There was a certain harshness in our household that I believe was passed down from slavery. Slaves were always punished for showing affection. They were never allowed to bond. And the effects of that have been passed down through the generations.My wife and I aren’t passionate people. We don’t express our feelings. We don’t say ‘I love you.’ We just banter back and forth. But now she’s sick with a major diagnosis. I’ve had to do everything for her: the shopping, the cooking, the housework. I try to be as responsive as possible to her needs. It’s the only way I know to show her that I care and I feel and I hurt.”
“I’m afraid I’ll live a useless life and nobody will remember me. I don’t feel a strong interest toward anything. If I do, it’s just a momentary thing, and then I drop it. I tried acting. I tried swimming. I tried dancing. But I got bored with all of it. If I don’t choose something soon then I’ll leave nothing behind. We only have a certain amount of energy in life. If you don’t put it somewhere then it’s wasted. I feel like one of the little yellow minions from that movie. They get sad if they don’t have a villain to serve. When I have a goal, and I’m moving toward it, and I reach it, then I feel a little relief. That’s what life is to me. A series of goals that you move toward. I don’t think it’s possible to just become happy. Life’s not that easy. But if you keep moving, you can forget that you’re sad.”
(Moscow, Russia)
“I graduated more than one thousand kids from elementary school. I’d still be teaching but my eyes went bad. It’s such an important time in a child’s life. It’s when they learn speech, grammar, and how to pay attention. It’s when the tree gets its roots. If you’re taught wrong in elementary school, you’ll be trying to catch that train for the rest of your life.”
(St. Petersburg, Russia)
“I was on a leadership team in 5th grade. At the end of the year we were supposed to take a trip to Washington DC. We held fundraisers and everything. But when it was time to go, I didn’t have the identification papers to buy a plane ticket. So our teacher Ms. Rivera decided that we’d take a bus. Just so I could go too. That trip changed my life. It made me want to be a lawyer. And Ms. Rivera became one of the closest people in my life. She always kept in touch. She basically watched me grow up. One time in high school I got in a huge fight with my mom, and Ms. Rivera came and took me on a long car ride. I started to tell her everything. I told her about a recent break-up, and how I smoked weed, and ‘I did this,’ and ‘I did that.’ She just listened to everything. Then she started telling me about her life too. She told me that she’d been in an abusive relationship. I’d always thought her life was perfect because she was a guidance counselor. But she’d been through so much too. When it was came time to apply for college, Ms. Rivera was the one who helped me apply for DACA. She told me about the TheDream.us scholarship. I didn’t even want to apply. I was ready to give up. I’d just accepted that I’d always work in restaurants like my mom. But Ms. Rivera made me apply. She said: ‘What happened to that girl who wanted to be a lawyer?’ I learned that I got the scholarship in February. They’re paying for my entire college. Ms. Rivera was so proud of me. She kept saying: ‘I told you so.’”