The Flores Exhibits

VIDEOS DIRECTED BY:

Lee Sunday Evans

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY:

Cohlie Brocato

SOUND RECORDIST:

Kevin Pineda Gould

EDITING + POST PRODUCTION:

EOTI Studios

DESCRIPTION

A series of videos in which artists, lawyers, advocates, and immigrants read the legal testimonies of children and young people held in immigration detention facilities at the U.S. / Mexico Border in June 2019.

This project was created as a partnership between Waterwell and Broadway Advocacy Coalition, in collaboration with Project Amplify, the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School, along with Elora Mukherjee and Warren Binford.

Visit the Project’s dedicated website to watch the videos: flores-exhibits.org

PROJECT HISTORY

In the summer of 2019, Ben Wexler (BAC) invited Lee Sunday Evans to a meeting with Elora Mukherjee who leads the Immigrants Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School to discuss bringing a performance of The Courtroom to students in the coming semester. The meeting took an unexpected turn when Elora told us about her recent trip to visit immigration detention centers the U.S. / Mexico border as a monitor for the Flores Settlement Agreement. She had witnessed children and young people being held in deplorable conditions, and along with the other lawyers on that trip, decided to put the legal testimonies of those children in the public domain. Elora asked if there was anything that we could do to bring more attention to these stories to raise urgently needed public awareness about the situation. We developed the concept for The Flores Exhibits in response to that conversation, through an ongoing series of discussions with Elora and her colleague Warren Binford, another lawyer who was on that trip.

WATCH Elora Mukherjee’s testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives, directly after her June 2019 trip to the border.

READ this report from The Young Center about “Reimagining Children’s Immigration Proceedings”

This project was launched at a live event on September 20, 2019 at Town Stages in New York City. The videos were screening in a gallery-type space for come-and-go viewing, and there were about half an hour of live remarks by Commissioner Bitta Mostofi (NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), along with Elora Mukherjee and Warren Binford, two of the lawyers who, in their capacity as monitors for the Flores Settlement, took many of the sworn testimonies that the project utilizes.

In Fall 2020, we launched The Conversations Around the Country: a series of digital events, organized with great care by each partner organization, that used the videos from The Flores Exhibits as a starting point for dialogue among panelists and people in their community about our nation’s immigration policies. We built relationships with partner organizations around the country, with a special focus on reaching Christian communities, grassroots advocates, law students and undergraduates in 4 states – Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. With each partner, we produced a customized event that would inspire the most substantive connections and conversation about immigration issues in their own area.

One particularly meaningful collaboration that came out of this series was with Women of Welcome, a community of Christian women dedicated to diving into the whole of scripture to understand God’s heart for the immigrant and refugee. Through this partnership, we created ‘While in Our Care,’ a special series of videos where testimonies from The Flores Exhibits are read by Christian women, followed by a group discussion about immigration policy and its impact on migrant mothers and children.

CONVERSATION SERIES DATES & LOCATIONS

Septmeber 16, 2020 - University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice + Peace Day Philly- Philadelphia, PA
September 24, 2020 - Bibles, Badges, and Business Conference (National Immigration Forum) - Canton, OH
September 24, 2020 - University of Wisconsin- Waukesha, WI
Septmeber 30, 2020 - La Conexión + Bowling Green State University- Bowling Green, OH
September 30, 2020 - ACLU of Pennsylvania- Pennsylvania (state-wide)
October 5, 2020 - Drexel University Law School + Project South- Philadelphia, PA
October 6, 2020 - Freedom House- Detroit, MI
October 7, 2020 - Marquette University Law School- Milwaukee, WI
October 13, 2020 - Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center- Cincinnati, OH
October 14, 2020 - University of Pennsylvania Law School- Philadelphia, PA
October 14, 2020 - University of Wisconsin Law School- Madison, WI
October 21, 2020 - Indiana University- Bloomington, IN
October 24, 2020 - Katie Young, Candidate for 31st District + La Resistencia- Tacoma, WA
October 26, 2020 - Church World Service- Grand Rapids, MI
October 29, 2020 - University of Pennsylvania: Latin American & Latinx Studies, Russian & East European Studies, Asian American Studies, Africana Studies + Alpha Phi Omega- Philadelphia, PA
October 29, 2020 - Michigan State University College of Law, University of Michigan + University of Detroit Mercy- East Lansing, MI
November 4, 2020 - Pennsylvania State University Dickinson Law School- Carlisle, PA
November 11, 2020 - Villanova University- Villanova, PA

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

TO READ: THE POWER OF TRANSCRIPTS
Lee Sunday Evans wrote an about the process of creating The Courtroom and The Flores Exhibits. Read it here.

DEEPEN YOUR KNOWLEDGE: THE HISTORY OF THE FLORES SETTLEMENT

TO READ: JEFFREY CHASE
Opinion / Analysis on Immigration Law
Jeffrey Chase is a former immigration lawyer in New York State, and a widely respected leader in the field. He has a particular expertise in the asylum process.
Jeff was an advisor on the creation of The Courtroom, and the reader of Exhibit #4
We suggest these pieces of Jeff’s: “BIA: ‘Lock them Up!’” & “Taking a Sledgehammer to Asylum”