He picked up paint brush and found world of opportunity
THE STILL life of rotting fruit captured the attention of Jon Rudnicki, an admissions counsellor for the Maine College of Art who came to Washington, D.C., last autumn to review the portfolios of prospective students. So did the dark selfportrait titled “Slave With Agreement,” which shows artist Rafael Rodriguez, his hands tied with rope.
Before Rudnicki realised it, he had spent more than 20 minutes listening to the skinny young man from Prince George’s County, Maryland, talk about isolation, frustration and optimism - far longer than the five minutes he typically allows for student meetings.
“The intentionality behind the work was profound. He has a story to tell,” Rudnicki said of Rodriguez, a high school senior, who is set to graduate next month. “I literally see thousands of kids and thousands of pieces of art, and it says something when a student’s face and artwork sticks out. I wanted to help him find his voice.”
Rudnicki lobbied for his college to admit Rodriguez, 21, who fled violence in his native El Salvador four years ago and entered the United States illegally, eventually coming to live with an aunt in Maryland.
The school offered him a scholarship that would pay nearly half of the annual U$ 35,000 ( RM158,000) cost for four years.
And unlike thousands of other undocumented immigrants of college age, Rodriguez has a chance of being able to seek federal student loans to cover the rest, thanks to a little-known but increasingly in- demand programme that will give him legal residency - and is easier for young people to access in Maryland than in most of the rest of the country.
“When I make art, I feel free,” said Rodriguez, who never painted before coming to the United States. “I want to get my education to be an art teacher, have my own art studio and teach people from my country the importance of getting an education. That’s the only way things will change there.”
Rodriguez said goodbye to his
The school offered him a scholarship that would pay nearly half of the annual U$35,000 (RM158,000) cost for four years.
parents in El Salvador in 2013, when the violence between rival gangs reached his doorstep. He was 17. A cousin had been murdered, people were looking for him and it was unsafe to go to school.
“I needed to leave,” he said.
After weeks of moving between safe houses in northern Mexico, enduring hunger and threats from smugglers, the teen was caught by US Border Patrol agents near a crossing close to Hidalgo, Texas.
The US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement released him after several days to his aunt Sandra Molina, who lives in Hyattsville. Rodriguez was required to appear in court when requested, while living with Molina and attending high school.
At Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, he joined scores of other newly arrived, undocumented students. The school was poorly prepared for the influx, with no Spanishspeaking counselors and few other resources to address the newcomers’ needs.
Before taking an introductory art class his sophomore year, Rodriguez said his only plan for the future was to find an hourly wage job.
Picking up a paint brush for the first time changed that.
He dabbled in pencil, charcoal, watercolor and graphics. And his art teacher, Michelle Amaya, took notice. She encouraged Rodriguez to audition for the school’s competitive visual and performing arts programme, which is named after puppeteer Jim Henson, a Northwestern graduate.
“Some people are born with it,” said Jamea Richmond-Edwards, another teacher in the art program. “Given the opportunity and a little direction, the sky was literally the limit for him.”
Rodriguez crafted colourful landscapes and portraits of animals vivid with colour and light. His interest in environmental issues drove him to depict disasters both natural and man-made. In one, imagining how an animal suffers in an oil spill, he painted himself with black oil oozing over his head and bare shoulders.
There was the ominous drawing of a moonlit night in the Mexican desert near the border fence. And a pastel of himself caught “between walls.” That, and the self-portrait with his hands wrapped in a hangman’s knot, illustrate the frustration and uncertainty that Rodriguez said define his life as he waits for his immigration status to be resolved. “I feel tied down,” he explained. “I know I have the ability and capacity to do what I want and continue my education. But I can’t move forward because my papers come first.”