Oil on wood panel, 16x20in.
Captivity text: “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
- Trumps campaign launch speech, June 16th, 2015.
 
Since it was stolen from the indigenous population, America has been a nation of immigrants. People were so proud of this melting pot of cultures that Emma Lazarus’ poem, The New Colossus, was attached to the base of the Statue of Liberty to welcome people as they entered the country, from across the sea and around the world, in pursuit of an American dream. Today it is a different story. President Trump launched his campaign in 2015 by calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers. He hinged his presidency on the promise of building an expensive, unnecessary, and ineffective wall. ICE denies asylum seekers, takes children from their parents, and keeps them in overcrowded cages. Now we’ve found out that women are being sterilized against their will in these camps. America was meant to be a place for people around the world to collectively build their ideas of a better life together. This reversal of American values is incredibly harmful and destabilizing.
Donations from this piece, and it's twin piece, Liberty, will go to the ACLU.