Bordando Esperanza – Embroidering Hope

Presented by:

Bordados devocionales – devotional embroideries, hand-stitched prayers and memories by asylum-seekers stranded at the U.S.-Mexico Border from 2019 – 2022, tell the story of family migration and displacement through the hands and eyes of those living it. Each original bordado or manta is a testimony of the faith that sustains the maker and the hope they hold close against all odds.

Artisans Beyond Borders, a bi-national migration ministry of Tucson’s Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, invites you join the national tour of the exhibition Bordando Esperanza ~ Embroidering Hope: Retablos of Asylum. With the assistance of immigration advocates and faith-based initiatives, these women have lawfully crossed the border and are now in the United States waiting for asylum, their future uncertain still.

This rare exhibition is an opportunity to bring their stories to your community, to see and feel what is true and sacred to our neighbors. Whether the artisans are embroidering conventional Christian iconography, elements of the natural world infused with Dios-God, or memories of home and family they’ve been forced to leave behind, their devotional retablos rendered in cloth are intimate testimonies of faith and resilience.