a peace of my mind

Will Snowden

March 6, 2021 by johnnoltner

Will Snowden received his law degree from Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey and worked as a public defender in New Orleans. Through his work in the justice system, he became concerned with weaknesses in our jury system that led to a lack of diversity in jury members and ultimately, unjust outcomes. In response, Will established The Juror Project, whose mission is “to change the makeup of juries to better represent the American population and the communities most commonly […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: a peace of my mind, juror, jury, justice, justice system, New Orleans, prison, prisoner, social issues, social justice, storytelling, Vera

Gary Paul Nabhan

March 2, 2021 by johnnoltner

Gary Paul Nabhan is an ecumenical Franciscan brother who does cross cultural collaborations for environmental and social justice and caring for creation. He is known as a pioneer in the local food movement and has lead the effort to save heirloom seeds. An Arab American, he has a great love for desert environments and lives in the desert overlooking the Santa Cruz River Valley near Patagonia, Arizona. The Santa Cruz is a binational river near the U.S. – Mexico border […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: a peace of my mind, arizona, climate change, desert, ecology, gary nabhan, heirloom seeds, indigenous caretakers, local food, radical center, sonoran desert, storytelling

Sebastian Quinac

February 24, 2021 by johnnoltner

Sebastian Quinac immigrated from Guatemala in his 20s to flee the civil war and threats to his life. After time in California and New York, he settled in Tucson, Arizona where he has lived for the past two decades. He is now a U.S. citizen and works with the Guatemalan consulate to help migrant families navigate the American immigration system. “One of my friends is a psychologist. And he said, if you go back to Guatemala, I’m sure you will […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: a peace of my mind, advocacy, border, consulate, Guatemala, immigrant, immigration, migrant, storytelling

Leave a comment

Josseline

February 9, 2021 by johnnoltner

We left before the sun came up to meet Alvaro. It had snowed the night before and the roads were slow and icy. “Meet us in Amado,” he said. “By the big cow horns…you’ll see.” Alvaro Enciso is a 75-year old Colombian immigrant. He is an artist. He builds crosses and installs them in the Sonoran Desert where migrants have died trying to make the crossing into the United States. He has a list of more than 3,000 sites and […]

Categories: Blog • Tags: a peace of my mind, alvero enciso, amado, arivaca, arizona, bearing witness, border, death, immigrant, immigration, Josseline, migrant, no more deaths, samaritan, sonoran desert, storytelling, witness

Teresa Reyes

February 6, 2021 by johnnoltner

Teresa Reyes was born in El Salvador and came to the United States in 1999 when she was 17 years old, nine months pregnant and spoke only Spanish. As she established herself in her new home, she packed lettuce in farm fields, worked in slaughterhouses and taught herself English. She eventually put herself through college and now works as an environmental scientist. We talked about the search for her mother, who had fled the country’s civil war before Teresa’s first […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: a peace of my mind, borderlands, civil war, documentary, education, El Salvador, human, immigration, sacrifice, science, social justice, storytelling, Yuma

Leave a comment

Tony Sedgwick

January 27, 2021 by johnnoltner

Tony Sedgwick is the President of the Board for the Santa Fe Ranch Foundation, a working cattle ranch near Nogales, Arizona and just a few miles north of the U.S. border with Mexico. With a background in international business law, Tony offers a sweeping view of history and economics of the borderlands and sees a need to shift our international policies away from fear and protectionism and toward development and infrastructure. This interview was conducted in mid-January 2021, before the […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: a peace of my mind, arizona, border, fear, government, immigrants, immigration, mexico, nogales, photography, ranching, Sedgwick, social issues, southwest, storytelling, wall

Leave a comment

Peace at the border

January 23, 2021 by johnnoltner

“There’s a good chance you’re going to think I’m nuts,” I said to the Border Patrol agent as I walked up to his SUV, parked at the top of a hill, facing south toward the border wall on the edge of Nogales, Arizona. I’d been photographing along the wall, the rusted steel bollards thrust 20 feet toward the sky, cascading coils of concertina wire hanging from the northern side like combat zone tinsel. Scraps of the razor wire were strewn […]

Categories: Blog • Tags: a peace of my mind, arizona, art, border, border wall, concertina wire, immigration, installation art, mexico, militarization, nogales, peace, sonora, storytelling

Both sides

January 21, 2021 by johnnoltner

The day didn’t go quite the way we had planned. I was with India Aubry of Voices from the Border and we were crossing into Nogales, Sonora, Mexico to interview Pancho, a street nurse who cares for migrants waiting south of the border for asylum hearings. We had directions and our plan was to meet Pancho at one of the migrant shelters to see his work and meet with some of the travelers. We drove through the Mariposa crossing on […]

Categories: Blog • Tags: a peace of my mind, asylum, border, border patrol, border wall, immigration, justice, mexico, migrants, nogales, separation, sonora, storytelling, weaving community

Jonathan Green

January 15, 2021 by johnnoltner

Jonathan Green is an acclaimed American painter from Charleston, South Carolina whose work centers on his Gullah tradition and the nearby community of Gardens Corner, where he grew up. “You’re always reminded of being black at its worst. It seems to almost be on purpose. Imagery, where it happens, the place where it happens. So that’s what the world sees. And because that’s what the world sees, that’s how the world reacts to me or any other black person.” “I’m […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: a peace of my mind, art, Charleston, Gullah, Jonathan Green, Noltner, painting, representation, storytelling

Lee Bennett, Jr.

January 9, 2021 by johnnoltner

Lee Bennet, Jr. grew up a few blocks away from Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and is a long-time member of the congregation. A retired Army officer, Lee spent several years as Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House Drug Control Policy Office and currently serves as a volunteer historian for his church. Mother Emanuel has weathered a long legacy of challenges around issues of race, including a 2015 attack by white supremacist Dylann Roof that […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: a peace of my mind, Charleston, Mother Emanuel, tragedy, whit supremacy

Leave a comment

	lisa1951 on Statues
	Heidi on Peyton Scott Russell
	lisa1951 on Truth
	dvalerian on Peyton Scott Russell
	johnnoltner on Elaine Baker

Building community and bridging divides through portraits and personal stories.

Tag: a peace of my mind

Gary Paul Nabhan

Sebastian Quinac

Josseline

Peace at the border

Both sides

Jonathan Green

Lee Bennett, Jr.