"Pertenencias/Belongings" Related Events

Sara John serves as the Executive Director of the Inter-faith Committee on Latin America (IFCLA), though she has been with the organization for nearly 15 years, since she was a student at Saint Louis University. Sara received a Bachelor's degree in Spanish and International Studies from SLU and a Master of Arts degree in Latin American Studies with an emphasis on the US-Mexico Border from the University of Arizona. Her graduate research centered on migrants that disappear on their journey to the US. Sara is also the proud mother to her 6-year-old son, Alex.

Pedro de Velasco Garza is a lawyer from Mexico with more than 12 years of experience working with migrant communities on both sides of the border between Mexico and the United States. He currently serves as Director of Education and Advocacy with Kino Border Initiative, a binational organization that provides humanitarian assistance to migrants in Nogales, Sonora. He was the State Coordinator of the “Paisano” Program in Coahuila, Mexico, a program responsible for supporting and informing Mexicans and Mexican Americans about their rights and obligations upon returning or visiting Mexico. In 2013 he moved to Tuscan to work with the migrants and immigrant community in Southern Arizona, at the Consulate of Mexico, where he was head of Consular Protection and Legal Affairs. His role was to protect the rights and well-being of Mexican nationals abroad, which allowed him to know first-hand their needs and challenges. He is also a community organizer with Chicanos Por La Causa in Southern AZ.

Jessica Trout moved to Saint Louis University in 2017 into a new position in the Center for Service and Community Engagement focused on advocacy and social change. Prior to her work in higher education, Jessica graduated from Saint Louis University as a first-generation college student with a Bachelors in Social Work and International Studies. After graduating, she moved to the Federated States of Micronesia to teach high school for two years. In 2013, she completed her Master in Social Work at Columbia University in New York City with an emphasis in Social Policy. During her studies in New York, she worked with Voices of Women Organizing Project, a community organizing nonprofit working with survivors of domestic violence. After six months in Central America during college, and various trips back to the region, as well as time along the US-Mexico border, Jessica has a passion for immigration policy.

Daisy Vargas, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona. Dr. Vargas specializes in Catholicism in the Americas; race, ethnicity, and religion in the United States; and Latina/o religion. Her current project, “Mexican Religion on Trial: Race, Religion, and the Law in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands,” traces the history of Mexican religion, race, and the law from the nineteenth century into the contemporary moment, positioning current legal debates about Mexican religion within a larger history of anti-Mexican and anti-Catholic attitudes in the United States. She has served as an ethnographic field research for the Institute for the Study of Immigration and Religion since 2012. In 2017, she was awarded a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Dr. Vargas serves as co-chair of the Latina/o and Latin American Religion section for the American Academy of Religion-Western Region, and as a steering committee member for the Religions in the Latina/o Americas unit for the American Academy of Religion. Dr. Vargas is co-curator of the MOCRA exhibition “Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings.”

Tom Kiefer (b. 1959, Wichita, KS) is an artist based in Ajo, Arizona. Kiefer’s photographic projects explore the infrastructure and cultural landscapes of the United States, blending fine art and documentary modes. His previous project Journey West Exhibit (2007) chronicled the landscape, structures, and cultural markers connecting the Arizona cities of Phoenix, Tucson, and Ajo. Kiefer’s work has been exhibited across the US, including the Fuller Craft Museum (Boston, MA); the Saugatuck Center for the Arts (Saugatuck, MI); the Northlight Gallery at Arizona State University (Phoenix, AZ); ArtsXchange (St. Petersburg, FL); and ArtPrize 2018 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 2015, Kiefer was included in LensCulture’s Top 50 Emerging Photographers and Photolucida’s Top 50 Critical Mass lists, and has been featured in news publications nationally and internationally.

Tom Kiefer (b. 1959, Wichita, KS) is an artist based in Ajo, Arizona. Kiefer’s photographic projects explore the infrastructure and cultural landscapes of the United States, blending fine art and documentary modes. His previous project Journey West Exhibit (2007) chronicled the landscape, structures, and cultural markers connecting the Arizona cities of Phoenix, Tucson, and Ajo. Kiefer’s work has been exhibited across the US, including the Fuller Craft Museum (Boston, MA); the Saugatuck Center for the Arts (Saugatuck, MI); the Northlight Gallery at Arizona State University (Phoenix, AZ); ArtsXchange (St. Petersburg, FL); and ArtPrize 2018 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 2015, Kiefer was included in LensCulture’s Top 50 Emerging Photographers and Photolucida’s Top 50 Critical Mass lists, and has been featured in news publications nationally and internationally.

Tom Kiefer (b. 1959, Wichita, KS) is an artist based in Ajo, Arizona. Kiefer’s photographic projects explore the infrastructure and cultural landscapes of the United States, blending fine art and documentary modes. His previous project Journey West Exhibit (2007) chronicled the landscape, structures, and cultural markers connecting the Arizona cities of Phoenix, Tucson, and Ajo. Kiefer’s work has been exhibited across the US, including the Fuller Craft Museum (Boston, MA); the Saugatuck Center for the Arts (Saugatuck, MI); the Northlight Gallery at Arizona State University (Phoenix, AZ); ArtsXchange (St. Petersburg, FL); and ArtPrize 2018 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 2015, Kiefer was included in LensCulture’s Top 50 Emerging Photographers and Photolucida’s Top 50 Critical Mass lists, and has been featured in news publications nationally and internationally.

Daisy Vargas, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona. Dr. Vargas specializes in Catholicism in the Americas; race, ethnicity, and religion in the United States; and Latina/o religion. Her current project, “Mexican Religion on Trial: Race, Religion, and the Law in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands,” traces the history of Mexican religion, race, and the law from the nineteenth century into the contemporary moment, positioning current legal debates about Mexican religion within a larger history of anti-Mexican and anti-Catholic attitudes in the United States. She has served as an ethnographic field research for the Institute for the Study of Immigration and Religion since 2012. In 2017, she was awarded a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Dr. Vargas serves as co-chair of the Latina/o and Latin American Religion section for the American Academy of Religion-Western Region, and as a steering committee member for the Religions in the Latina/o Americas unit for the American Academy of Religion. Dr. Vargas is co-curator of the MOCRA exhibition, “Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings.”

Elizabeth Eikmann, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Fellow in American Culture Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She received the Ph.D. in American Studies from SLU in 2021 and was the 2020–2021 Religion and Public Life Graduate Fellow with Lived Religion in the Digital Age. Dr. Eikmann consulted on the MOCRA exhibition, “Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings.” 

Petruta Lipan is the Executive Director of Saint Louis University Museums and Galleries, including the Saint Louis University Museum of Art, Samuel Cupples House, and the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art. Her expertise is in 20th-  and 21st-century art and semiotics of art with a particular focus on the process of meaning reconstruction determined by cultural schemata.