PARTNERS
Gale Hall, Originator of the Welcome Quilt idea and the Author of Lili’s Quilt
Gale Hall is a retired early childhood professional who moved from New Hampshire to southern Arizona in 2016. During her career she worked on state and national early childhood and family literacy initiatives and advocated for young children, families, and their teachers.
She ended her career as a professor of Early Childhood Education, training students to be future teachers. Upon moving to Arizona, she began making quilts for newly immigrated children at a Welcome Center in Tucson. There she became involved with the Art of Asylum exhibit featuring the artwork of children, most of whom had immigrated from Central America in 2019.
“The artwork of children immigrating to the U.S. has found me and transformed me. I was moved to develop an interactive curriculum that helps to immerse and engage participants in the authentic stories being told in that art. As I see myself in their stories, I realize that this could easily have been me. I hope that participants will ask – Now that I know, what can I do? I hope the experience helps to bridge our humanity and make us better people.”
Gale was asked to create the 2020-2021 Migrant Quilt which was on exhibit with 20 other quilts in the collection at the Arizona History Museum. The lives of 225 people who died that year in the Tucson sector of the Sonoran Desert trying to reach safety in the U.S. are memorialized in the quilt. Clothing of children and adults migrating to the United States was collected on established trails in the desert and then used to make the migrant quilt. The quilts in this collection commemorate the deaths of people who died as a result of Desert as Deterrence and other U.S. policies.
The Arizona History Museum in Tucson exhibited Gale’s Welcome Quilts, a project championed by Voices from the Border as part of their mission of creative activism around immigration. In an effort to counteract words of hate and fear, quilts contain messages of welcome and hope from people across the U.S. to those seeking safety and asylum. The year-long display entitled Welcome Quilts: Migration, Art and Hope closed in April 2024. The original exhibit, along with its accompanying curriculum, is available to travel to venues across the country. A second traveling exhibit can be borrowed from the Welcome Quilt Project.
In 2024, Gale wrote and Michelina Nicotera-Taxiera illustrated the children’s book Lili’s Quilt, which focuses on the journey of a mother and daughter coming to the United States. Lili’s Quilt won Best of Category, Children Under 12, in the 2025 Arizona Authors Association Literary Contest.
Voices from the Border
Led by the values of justice, compassion, and human dignity, Voices from the Border is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Patagonia, Arizona, formed following the Women’s March of January 2017.
Direct Migrant Services
Voices fulfills our mission in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico by supporting the work of Nurse/EMT Francisco (Pancho) Olachea Martin who has served the migrant population there since 2009. Pancho, along with our Migrant Services Team, coordinates and provides free medical care to those who would otherwise not have access. Additionally, we provide safe, comfortable housing in apartments in Nogales, Sonora, as well as food, clothing, and daily necessities to migrating families, refugees, and those recently deported from the U.S.. As our apartments are often at capacity, we help others cover the costs of rent and utilities in rentals across the city.
Supporting and Promoting the Arts to Spread Awareness and Empathy
The second branch of our mission, on the U.S. side of the border, uses the arts as a vehicle for “creative activism,” aiming to foster a more holistic and empathic understanding of the lived experience of migration. Beginning with our flagship cross-border event, Mothers Across Borders, in 2017, Voices has sponsored a variety of creative endeavors and events. For example, in collaboration with Sierra Club Borderlands, we created Peek Behind the Curtain, a live interview and podcast series with the founders of The Border Chronicle, Todd Miller and Melissa del Bosque. A recent Peek Behind the Curtain featured well-known authors Gary Nabhan and Luis Urrea.
Becoming Partners in the Welcome Quilt Project
In 2020, Voices organized Leaving Home: Migration Through the Eyes of Children, a ten-day series of migration-focused events in Patagonia, Arizona. Its centerpiece was an exhibit titled Hope and Healing: The Art of Asylum, featuring artwork by children of asylum seekers staying at a Welcome Center in Tucson. The exhibit was paired with Gale Hall’s curriculum centered on lessons of empathy and belonging. Nearly 100 local schoolchildren participated, creating Welcome Squares directed toward immigrating children from Central America whose art was on display.
During the COVID “pause”, Gale created eight Welcome Quilts from those fabric squares and gifted six of the quilts to Voices. Voices recognized the importance of these quilted expressions of welcome—especially from children to other children—and their potential to help build a movement around immigration that emphasizes welcoming over demonizing those who immigrate. The rest, as they say, is history. The quilts were shown to the Arizona History Museum in Tucson, where they were subsequently exhibited for nearly a year. Today, the idea is catching on nationwide, with people in local communities making quilts, developing exhibits, and spreading the message.
Left: India Aubry, President,
Voices from the Border
Right: Maggie Urgo, Outreach Coordinator,
Voices from the Border
Michelina Nicotera-Taxiera, Illustrator of Lili’s Quilt
Michelina Nicotera-Taxiera is a multi-media artist and illustrator who moved from Denver, Colorado to Tucson, Arizona in 2017. Her work primarily focuses on the rights and protection of children and her personal experiences with childhood trauma.
Her journey to understanding the issues of forced migration began when she went with a delegation to El Salvador in 1990. The trip was to accompany Salvadoran people while they commemorated the 10th anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination. She was deeply moved by the experience, and when she returned she created artwork that correlated the suffering of the Salvadoran people to the suffering of Jesus on his last days on earth. In 2020 she began expanding this series of drawings to include the struggles of asylum seekers coming to the U.S. called The Way of Asylum.
Gale & Michelina in front of a Welcome Quilt at an event in Tucson