The Welcome Quilt Story Begins
In 2018, the Esperanza Quilters made quilts to welcome children immigrating to the United States upon their arrival to the Casa Alitas Welcome Center in Tucson, AZ.
In the fall of 2018, four Arizona quilters were moved by the stories of children and families, mainly from Central America, seeking asylum in the United States. These families, often fleeing violence, poverty, and climate change, arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs. After being released by Customs and Border Patrol to pursue their asylum claims, they were taken to Casa Alitas Welcome Center in Tucson, where they could rest, care for their children, and stay for the night if needed while volunteers helped them contact their sponsors and arrange transportation.
The quilters asked the director of Casa Alitas if quilts for the children would be welcomed. She immediately responded, “Yes!” The quilters then designed a bag in which parents or children could easily carry the quilts. A pocket on the front of the bag contained a children’s book that parents could share with their children. Quilters also created questions about the quilt designs which were translated into Spanish. The questions facilitated discussions between parents and children about the quilt’s design thus making the quilt a tool of literacy as well as of comfort. The quilters hoped that all of this would create positive memories for the children of their arrival to the United States.
Entrance to Casa Alitas in Tucson
Vitral (stained glass pattern) is one of the quilts given to the children at Casa Alitas.
Gale Hall, creator, scouts out fabrics for quilts.
Expanding the idea of drawing words of welcome on quilt squares, Gale Hall sent out a 2019 Christmas letter to her friends and received a very positive response.
The Story Continues with Hope and Healing:
The Art of Asylum
Casa Alitas soon moved to a larger facility with an art room where where a volunteer coordinated trauma-informed art experiences for the children. She organized the children’s artwork into an exhibit to share their stories with the community. While developing the exhibit, this volunteer connected with the Esperanza Quilters, and they provided fabric squares for the children to draw what they loved. The quilters incorporated these squares into “art” quilts to display the children’s artwork. The exhibit, Hope and Healing: The Art of Asylum, opened in July 2019 at Councilman Steve Kozachik’s office in Tucson and traveled to various locations in southern AZ for the next nine months.
In the exhibit, the children’s art told the stories of why they had to leave their homes, their journey to the United States, and their time at the border and in detention. These offerings were typically left in the art room after volunteers had gone home for the day. The children wanted their stories to be told.
As part of the trauma-informed art experiences at Casa Alitas, children from Central America were asked to “Draw What You Love.” Their images of love for home, family, God, nature, and pets filled the walls of the art room (below).
The Esperanza Quilters Contribute to the Hope and Healing Exhibit
The Esperanza Quilters, now including 12 women, divided into 4 teams to make the art quilts from the drawings of the children from Central America. After studying the artwork on their group of squares, each team found a story that they wanted their quilt design to reflect.
In the large quilt to the right (titled “Esperanza para el Futuro” or “Hope for the Future”), the color gradation begins in the bottom right corner with the label Hope... where the children’s story begins. The dark colors represent the realization that to have a better life the children would have to leave behind home, friends, family, and pets. As they traveled north and made it through the port of entry, hopes rose; so moving up the quilt the colors trend toward the lighter and brighter.
When they arrived at the Casa Alitas sanctuary and were greeted with open arms, food, clothing and help, hope for the future rose further, and the colors grow even brighter. Through their journey and hardships to their ultimate destination, the children’s hope for the future remains...a brighter tomorrow.
The complex stitch pattern chosen is a combination of a meandering path (traveling) pattern and a flower pattern, reflecting the flowers depicted in much of the the children’s art when asked to draw what they love.
Voices from the Border brings the Hope and Healing Exhibit to Patagonia, AZ
India Aubry, a board member of Voices from the Border, requested to bring the Hope and Healing: The Art of Asylum exhibit to Patagonia. Voices is a 501(c)(3) organization focused on humanitarian aid to people seeking asylum in Nogales, Mexico, and creative activism in the US.
Voices engaged local organizations, businesses, the school system, and the community to create a multi-venue series of events in March 2020 called Leaving Home: Migration Through the Eyes of Children. Gale was contacted to offer a curriculum she developed for the exhibit. Nearly 100 local students aged 4-18 took field trips to the exhibit in Cady Hall and engaged with Gale’s curriculum.
Gale asks Patagonia students to draw what they love.
A teacher engages children in artwork telling stories of why children left their home to immigrate to the United States.
Gale reads a book about what to bring if you had to suddenly leave home, to engage the students in conversations about what they would bring and the meaning of that object.
Students and teachers draw pictures and messages of welcome on fabric squares for Welcome Quilts.
Students and teachers draw pictures and messages of welcome on fabric squares for Welcome Quilts.
A child compares her drawing of what she loved to that of a child from Central America.
Patagonia Children React to the Drawings
of Children from Central America
Students in Patagonia were really drawn to this picture by a teenager from Guatemala. It reminded them of Patagonia State Park in their community. They realized their worlds were closer than they thought.
Gale uses pandemic down time to make the Patagonia children’s squares into quilts.
As with many other people, the COVID pause left Gale feeling at a loss for what to do. And then she remembered the welcome fabric squares drawn by the students in Patagonia. She had enough squares to make eight Welcome Quilts. Creating these quilts was very therapeutic. In one corner she put an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a symbol of faith and cultural identity in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, as an invitation for individuals from those areas to see the welcome messages and drawings.
The Welcome Square drawings on the left made by 2 students in Patagonia, highlighted their love of a fishing lake surrounded by mountains that they shared with the teenager from Guatemala. The drawings make the connection visible.
They also brainstormed ways to welcome families who had recently immigrated into their communities.
Then COVID hit and the remaining series of events was sadly shut down.
Voices Mounts a Quilt Exhibit
In fall 2021, during the annual Patagonia Art Walk, Voices from the Border showcased the Welcome Quilts Gale created with the Patagonia children’s drawings. Seeing those quilts positioned opposite the art quilts of the children who had migrated, viewers felt as if the children in Patagonia and Central America were communicating with each other.
Gale and friend Michelina start a retreat and take the Welcome Quilt idea to the folklife festival Tucson Meet Yourself.
After completing the Welcome Quilts for Patagonia, Gale heard that Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), an agency that works with the government to resettle refugees, was forming an Asylum and Detention Network. She joined the education subgroup of the network and began expanding her curriculum into an in-person retreat experience. At the retreat booth at Tucson Meet Yourself (2022), people drew these welcome messages. A Gap store employee even took squares to work, so other employees could participate. Gale continued making Welcome Quilts.
To find out about Gale and Michelina’s Leaving Home Retreat, visit: www.leavinghomeretreat.com
The Arizona History Museum Premiers a
Welcome Quilts Exhibit
In early 2023, several people from Voices from the Border toured the Arizona History Museum. While there, they showed the museum curator the Patagonia children’s quilts, and told her about the exhibit they mounted which included the art quilts of children from Central America. The museum was very interested and they already knew Gale’s work from a different migration-focused quilt project. This led to the exhibit Welcome Quilts: Migration, Art, and Hope, displayed from June 2023 to May 2024, and experienced by many, many thousands of visitors.
Gale Hall and Voices from the Border encourage others to create and display their own Welcome Quilts as a public counter-narrative to the negative view people who migrate. Their project fosters community and belonging for newcomers using the warmth of handmade quilts and hand-drawn messages, welcoming them as future neighbors, friends, and even family.
...and the story is still being written!
Contact Us
To find out how to create a Welcome Quilt that can be displayed in your local community center, hospital, food bank, place of worship, library, school or college campus, please fill out the contact form here or email Gale Hall at welcomequiltproject@gmail.com
