Drawing Deportation

Silvia Rodriguez Vega is an Assistant Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies.

"Rodriguez Vega demonstrates how art 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 and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation "Through the lens of their art, 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, Harvard University "Only Rodriguez Vega could write a book this ambitious, creative, and politically urgent—expressing children's sheer resilience through art." - Dolores Inés Casillas, University of California, Santa Barbara "Using innovative interdisciplinary methods, Drawing Deportation highlights children's creativity, agency, and ability to heal. Rodriguez Vega convincingly demonstrates that art allows children to create improved worlds." - Leisy J. Abrego, University of California, Los Angeles "A work of heartbreaking vision and innovative scholarship, this landmark volume brings the power of art and science together to inform immigration policy. Youth provide extraordinary artistic testimony and resistance in confronting the harshest immigration enforcement, while Rodriguez Vega amplifies their voices with her analytic depth, rigor, and brilliance." - Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University "This singular volume is at once heartbreaking and hopeful as it tells the stories of immigrant children through their own works of art. Silvia Rodriguez Vega has spent a decade with children in Arizona and California and has found that the experience of making art about their experiences helps them to express their feelings, process their pain and become active participants in their healing journeys." - Karla Strand (Ms. Magazine) "Through children's drawings and stories Rodriguez Vega exposes the destructive consequences of legal violence, structural racism and lack of safety in these young people's lives... fascinating, timely and [a] beautifully written book that speaks beyond its context." (Children & Society) "A powerful book. Author Silvia Rodriguez Vega does a fantastic job of contextualizing the research in the long and well-documented history of American white supremacy and its role in family separations. Take your time with this important record of the inhumanity taking place daily at the US-Mexico border." (Hyperallergic)