In May 2003, the photographer Tom Kiefer was living in Ajo, Ariz., an artist’s enclave not far from the U.S.-Mexico border, looking for a job. He had come to Ajo in 2001 from Los Angeles, where he worked for many years in advertising as a graphic designer and photographer and, after that, as the owner of an antiques store.
Kiefer sold his business and purchased a house in Ajo (pronounced AH-ho), intending to devote himself full time to photography. After two years of living off his savings, however, he needed to work again.
He found a part-time janitorial job at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection station nine miles south of Ajo. During his time there, Kiefer watched as items deemed nonessential or potentially lethal were confiscated from apprehended migrants, including rosary beads, pocket Bibles, birth control pills, shoelaces and food — so much food.
In his fourth year there, Kiefer asked if he could salvage packaged food from the garbage bins and donate it to a local food bank. “My supervisor’s exact words were ‘bless you,’ ” he recalled in a phone interview.
As he began looking through the bins, Kiefer was stunned by the volume of personal possessions that had been confiscated and thrown out. He would reach for a can of food and see deeply personal items like wallets, family photos, children’s backpacks and even love letters.
Kiefer knew those could not be donated but felt he could not leave them in the trash either, so he took them home. “These were items people carried with them until the bitter end, only to have them taken away,” he said. “What did that accomplish? It was punitive and dehumanizing.”
In 2013, the year before he resigned from the border station, Kiefer began experimenting with ways to document the objects he had recovered. He admired photographers like Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank, whose work created a record of the times in which they lived. He wanted to do something similar. The result was “El Sueño Americano,” a collection of photographs that on the surface look colorful and whimsical but in reality are anything but. An artist’s reflection on migration and desperation, suffering and border politics, they will be on display in an exhibition at the Boise Art Museum until Feb. 9, 2025.
Kiefer photographed items individually and in groups against backgrounds chosen intentionally, he said, to “bring them to life.” They include a collection of hair combs in different shades of blue; children’s toothbrushes, bright white against a purple background; and foil bubble-packs of pain medication floating on a sea of yellow.
The photos of individual objects are akin to portraits — a pair of earrings, a child’s pink stuffed monkey, an orange canteen — and elevate the ordinary to something almost sacred.
Kiefer, 65, said he had photographed between 3 percent and 5 percent of the tens of thousands of objects in his possession.
Over time, he has learned the reasons that some items repeatedly show up, such as bottles of men’s cologne. Their high alcohol content, he said, makes them useful as a disinfectant for cuts and scrapes. Rubber ducks, which Kiefer at first assumed were children’s toys, have been used as trail markers, tied to branches and brush to show the way for other travelers.
The exhibition at the Boise Art Museum includes 87 framed artworks, an audio installation and a short film. It begins with four photographs of English-language flashcards, intended to orient viewers to the mind-set and planning process of people relocating their lives, said Tara Centybear, the museum’s curator of art and the curator of this show.
She said many of the photographs, especially those of backpacks and their contents, as well as groupings of medications, spoke “to the question of what someone chooses to carry with them when they make a decision like this.”
“El Sueño Americano” is an especially timely exhibition, with the presidential election next month and immigration a top concern. It is also timely for Idaho. In March, the state’s Republican-controlled House passed an immigration bill similar to one signed into law in Texas last December. The Idaho bill makes it a crime for a noncitizen to bypass official ports of entry to enter the state. It also allows local law enforcement to check an individual’s immigration status.
The Boise Art Museum has a long history of showcasing artists “who bring light to issues of universal human importance,” said Melanie Fales, the museum’s executive director. “This is one of those times,” she said.
In the sleek, quiet exhibition space, people on a recent visit moved slowly and contemplatively as they took in each photograph. Many left teary and red-eyed, asking staff members for tissues.
Romel Rodriguez, who fled Honduras in May 2019 amid cartel violence, found the exhibition emotionally wrenching. “My brain is like a tornado right now,” he said. “Seeing all this stuff brings everything back, just like when we crossed the border. It was so difficult. It was so scary.”
Rodriguez, now 41, was helped with his resettlement by volunteers in the asylum-seeker hosting program at the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Of the 27 people in his group, he said, only three made it across the border; Rodriguez’s partner at the time did not.
A visitor from Oregon, George Bachik, 82, had a strong response to the photographs of children’s backpacks.
“I kept thinking about those kids,” he said. “And seeing things like medications that were taken away, soap, toilet paper and blankets. I don’t think we ever hear the whole, real story about what’s going on at the border, or about the people working there.”
Brenda Padilla, 33, from Guadalajara, Mexico, was in Boise visiting her sister, and they had come together to see the exhibition. Padilla, who said she had known those who tried to cross into the United States, added that she felt “shivers up my arms.”
She was especially moved by the photograph of a love letter to someone named Blanca. “That letter,” Padilla said, closing her eyes and putting a hand to her heart. “I can imagine what she felt like, having that taken away.”
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