To celebrate Latin American History Month and the just-past International Women’s History Month, Adult and Community Education of MV (ACE MV) hosted a presentation discussion on Tuesday night titled “Eyewitness Report from the Border Update: Women and Children in Detention.”
The event included a photography exhibition of Guatemala by local photographer and South Mountain architect Derrill Bazzy, and social justice projects from the spring session of the Fitchburg State University Arts, Education and Social Justice graduate course. The presentation also featured the group Nightmares and Dreams: Immigrant Voices, who did a staged reading of narratives depicting social injustices in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, including stories of women and children seeking asylum.
A diverse audience showed up, including several student attendees, among them MVRHS graduate Mariane Quintao, who came to the Vineyard at age 9, and was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at age 17, when she was pulled over in a car and did not have proper identification. Ms. Quintao spent more than a month in detention before being released to her father. As a result of her time in detention, she became depressed, and ultimately decided to leave voluntarily for Brazil, where she is now studying International Relations and is working on her thesis, “Immigration Detention of Children in the U.S. and Australia,” as well as being active in the “End the Detention of Children” campaign.
The presentation, along with arts/social justice scholarships for the Arts, Education and Social Justice graduate-level course from Fitchburg State University on-Island, in affiliation with ACE MV, was supported in part by a grant from Martha’s Vineyard Cultural Council. For information on additional presentations and events by ACE MV, visit acemv.org.
Lynn Ditchfield if the founder and program director for Adult and Community Education of Martha’s Vineyard (ACE MV).