“Silvia Rodriguez Vega demonstrates how art can always, and will always, speak truth to power. Drawing Deportation is the book we’ve been waiting for— with gut wrenching images that inspire us to continue the fight for social justice, immigrant rights, and children’s happiness! !Viva el teatro! !Vivan los niños!”
– Dolores Huerta, Co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association & President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
“Through the lens of their art, Silvia Rodriguez Vega unveils not only the traumas and untold angst that our broken immigration system unleashes upon immigrant children’s lives but also the unmistakable resilience and resourcefulness so many demonstrate. Her child-centered, social justice-oriented voice rings loudly and is essential reading for developmentalists, educators, and policy makers who care to understand the realities of these children’s experiences.”
-Carola Suárez-Orozco, Director of Immigration Initiative, Harvard University
“Only Rodriguez Vega could write a book this ambitious, creative, and politically urgent. Drawing Deportation reminds readers that pre-adolescent children both understand our fearful immigrant climate as well as express sheer resilience through art.”
-Dolores Inés Casillas, Director, Chicano Studies Institute, UCSB
“Children of immigrants in Arizona and California witness and internalize anti-immigrant sentiment and policies all around them but they are not passive recipients of these problems. Using innovative interdisciplinary methods, Drawing Deportation highlights children’s creativity, agency, and ability to heal themselves. Rodriguez Vega convincingly demonstrates that art allows children to create different and improved worlds for themselves and their communities, harnessing the type of resistance and hope that can spark change and social justice.”
–Leisy J. Abrego, Professor and Chair UCLA, Chicana/o and Central American Studies
“There is a humanitarian crisis happening and Drawing Deportation wakes us up to it. With vivid and unforgettable drawings by some of the most vulnerable, it will be impossible to put this book down and stay silent any longer.”
-Laura M. Esquivel, civil and human rights activist
“A work of heartbreaking vision and innovative scholarship, this landmark volume brings the power of art, drama and science together to inform U.S. immigration policy. Youth from Arizona and California provide extraordinary artistic and dramatic testimony and resistance in confronting the harshest immigration enforcement, while Rodríguez Vega amplifies their voices with her analytic depth, rigor and brilliance.”
-Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education, NYU, and Co-Director, Global TIES for Children Center