What: Stop the Raids!, a student organization to raise awareness of the mistreatment of immigrants, presents Be our Guests, an art exhibit that will feature the works of Marela Zacarias and David Bacon. The exhibits will focus on the immigrant experience in the United States and along the Mexico-US border.  Zacarias is a local muralist who has done work all over the United States and in her home country of Mexico, and David Bacon is an international reporter/photographer based in San Francisco.   Bacon, who will be displaying his photography at the gallery, will also give a talk on the campus.  The event is free and open to the public.

When: November 9, 2007 ~ 6:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Where: Broad Street Gallery, 1283 Broad Street, Hartford, CT

Background:

Marela Zacarias graduated from Kenyon College with a major in Social Movements through Art and Religion. She did her thesis on Mural Art as a Tool for Social Change, and has gone on to teach mural art in Washington, DC, Mexico City.  She is now teaching in New Britain and Hartford, CT. Among her murals are those sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corcoran School of Art, the New Britain Museum of American Art, American University, the Latin American Youth Center and most recently the Charter Oak Cultural Center. Her sponsors also include the Mexican Autonomous University and the Mexican Electrical Workers Union.  For more on Zacarias and her work, please visit http://marela.org/.

David Bacon is extremely knowledgeable on the issue of undocumented immigration in the United States. His works have covered many of the most recent events and issues surrounding immigration in both the U.S. and Mexico. He has documented child labor along the U.S./Mexican border and in the Philippines for The Nation and the San Francisco Chronicle, the hardships of field workers in California for the L.A. Weekly, strikes among industrial workers in Los Angeles for Pacific News Service, and the political movements in immigrant communities for many other publications. He travels frequently to Mexico, Europe and the Philippines. His images have been exhibited nationally in galleries, community centers, universities and union halls.

For twenty-five years Bacon was a Silicon Valley factory worker and a union organizer for the United Farm Workers, the United Electrical Workers, the International Ladies' Garment Workers, and the Molders Unions. Most of the unions to which he belonged were ones in which immigrants were a big part of the workforce. Today he serves on the boards of the Bay Area Media Alliance, the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights, and the Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health.
This event is free and open to the public. 

For more information, please contact Daniela Ortiz-Bahamonde at (508) 688-0054.