Using the power of visual and performing arts, Silvia Rodriguez Vega has created an opportunity for children to become agents of their own stories. In her recently published book, “Drawing Deportation: Art and Resistance among Immigrant Children,” Vega documents the experiences and perceptions of immigrant children during the Obama and Trump administrations through a collection of drawings, theater performances, and family interviews.

Vega is an assistant professor at UC Santa Barbara in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Her work focuses on issues of structural inequality, immigration policy and transborder relations, particularly working with undocumented youth through art, performance and digital media.

In a recent interview, Vega discussed working with immigrant children and the inspiration behind her 15-year documentary project.

Chicano/a professor Silvia Rodriguez Vega’s book “Drawing Deportation: Art and Resistance among Immigrant Children” explores hundreds of drawings, theater performances, and family interviews

Q: How did your research into the lives of immigrant families begin?

A: I started the project in 2008 when I was an undergrad [in Arizona], and it wasn't meant to be an academic or research project at all. I was working in a community center with children. We were making a mural and one of the kids said that they wanted to make a mural about peace. When I asked what peace looked like, he said that it looked like Sheriff Joe Arpaio shaking hands with a Mexican. The kids really resonated with that suggestion because there were raids happening in the community.

I asked kids to write a letter, a poem or a drawing about why the mural mattered to them. That's when I collected a bunch of drawings and poems, and it was so powerful that I wanted as many people as possible to see them. That led me on a journey to really try to understand immigration policy, history and immigrant children in general. When I got to my Ph.D. program I recreated the project in California instead of Arizona.

Q: What was your process in analyzing the drawings you collected?

A: It was challenging because there wasn't other scholarship to rely on and I had to borrow from different fields. We created a system to read images, like how people transcribe interviews and observe themes that emerge. I used a method of visual content analysis and we created categories like people or actions. I would then quantify how many times a [person or action] was mentioned. When I read all of the images in this way there was a very clear pattern of what they were fearing and what was important to them. This system helped me get a sense of a greater picture when looking at the drawings.

Q: How is your book different from other literature about immigrant children?

A: One is that there isn't much literature that includes children's accounts from this perspective. I saw it as an opportunity to look at the drawings as the testimonies of children, as their stories that describe their feelings and fears. It's different in that it focuses on visual testimonies.

The other part is that a lot of literature on immigrant children is about how they suffer and how passive they are. Although that is true, they do have agency to express what they want and how they want to express it. This project created a way to talk to children and get to know their experiences in ways they can communicate most effectively and have a sense of control.

Q: What parts of your project do you feel have the most impact?

A: The drawings were very powerful. It was moving to see how children experienced things that we often think are too complicated to even explain to them, like history, policy, racism or dehumanization. They have clear ideas of those things already. Their level of sophisticated analysis surprised me.

We would do all sorts of activities and they loved acting. I found it beautiful how the shy students would all of a sudden pretend that they were a politician and have all this confidence. It was beautiful to see them embody these scary situations and work through them until they felt empowered. Even if it was just imagined, I argue that to them the power to process these scary topics is healing and helps them cope with the stress of living in immigrant families or communities and with the fear of family separation.

Lyla Moes is a fourth-year Aquatic Biology major at UC Santa Barbara. She wrote this article for her Digital Journalism class.