Salem artist crafts quilt to commemorate migrant deaths in Arizona desert

A local quilt artist named Glenda Mah is joining an art initiative 18 years in the making documenting migrants who perished along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona by creating quilts using scraps from their discarded clothing. 

The project started in Tucson, Arizona in 2007 when a group of artists used the discarded clothing of migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert to create quilts as a way to commemorate those who died in pursuit of a better life in America. 

Mah told Salem Reporter the project’s organizers reached out to her and sent her a spreadsheet with entries for 159 migrants, some identified by name and others only identified as desconocido, the Spanish word for ‘unknown.’ Mah was also sent the discarded clothing of migrants collected in the desert to use as materials for her quilt. 

The quilt will be displayed starting May 11-25 in the front of Morningside United Methodist Church at 3674 12th Street S.E. The quilt will be available to view Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. and all day on Sundays. 

Mah said she will be available at the church on two Sundays, May 11 and 18 to speak with guests and answer any questions. 

Mah said stories of Border Patrol agents in the scorching Arizona desert emptying water jugs left in the desert for migrants by advocacy groups made her consider how she perceived the truth of America. 

“It is that sort of thing that happens and you are just like, ‘Where’s the compassion? Where is this principle that we are the home of the brave and the land of the free?’” Mah said. “‘Send me your tired, your poor.’ This is America. This is how we were founded. We are all here because of immigrants, except for the first peoples.”

The issue of migrant deaths in the wilderness along the U.S.-Mexico border spans multiple decades and presidential administrations with roughly 7,800 deaths recorded between 1998 and 2019. That’s according to a study funded by the University of California, Los Angeles which showed at least 3,800 of those deaths occurred in Arizona. Humanitarian groups like the Tucson-based No More Deaths have formed over the years in response to the crisis by working to end migrant fatalities in the punishing desert regions near the border.

The migrants honored by the quilt died between 2023 and 2024, Mah said. Mah said she hand embroidered each of the migrants’ names on strips of fabric and cut them out individually. She said roughly 50 of the migrants honored by the quilt were remembered with a piece of fabric embroidered with the word desconocido in the color red. 

The quilt includes a silhouette of the Sonoran Desert with the Arizona mountains the migrants crossed in their pursuit to get to the United States. Embroidered hummingbirds carry each person’s name into the afterlife. 

When considering her project in the early stages she wanted to make a political statement by depicting skeletons in the desert, but decided to go with a more subdued theme. Despite that, her quilt, like her art in general, contains political undertones as it honors the dead. 

“If you want to appeal to the masses, you don’t stare in their faces,” Mah said. “It is a controversial subject, especially right now.”

Mah said her art typically focuses on women’s issues and the plight of underserved people on the fringes of society with pieces commenting on abortion and genocide. 

She was drawn to the plight of migrants because her husband came from a Chinese immigrant family and her son-in-law came from a Mexican immigrant family. 

Mah said she was particularly struck when she received discarded clothing from children. 

“I think that does appeal to the public, to the general world. There is needless dying out there. It is stereotyped as being criminals, but these are people who had families,” Mah said. “I actually had a pair of fatigues that is child-sized. So, when I picked those up and they were a size 10 child, that was like, ‘Wow these are people bringing their families with them for a safer place and hopefully for a better life,’ and what do we do?” 

Mah encouraged people to come to the quilt showing at the church and said she hopes her project will encourage people to think about what it means to be American and about what can be done about the grim reality depicted by her quilt. 

“All of my stuff is, ‘We have to resist,” she said about her art in general. “It is a very scary time, and I hope that my quilt brings some hope in the sense that these people were remembered. Somebody wrote their names down, you know? How sad would it be to go away knowing that you died in a country where nobody knew you.” 

Mah said while she’s not a very religious person, she believes in an afterlife. 

“I hope that wherever these people are, wherever the hummingbirds have taken them, that they rest a little easier because somebody remembered them,” Mah said. 

Mah was assisted by fellow Salem textile artists Roberta Bigelow, Deb Sorem, Kat Puente, Sarah Williams, and Allison Taylor, she said. 

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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