Joanna Garcia Salazar is wrapping up a hectic workday at a middle school in San Leandro, California, a suburban town on the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay. Her work desk is adorned with folk art by Bay Area artists, family photos, and artwork by her husband, Javier Salazar, who is currently living in Tijuana, Mexico. There is also a family portrait taken when her husband was incarcerated. Her daughter, Juliana Garcia Uribe, works at the school part time while also completing her third year in college at a nearby university.

Javier Salazar had been serving a 12-year prison sentence for an armed robbery committed in Reno, Nevada, of which he completed 11 years, serving the last four under the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Conservation Camp Program. The state’s program has roughly 3,700 inmates working at fire camps across 27 counties.

Upon his release in 2014, Salazar was deported to Mexico, a country he left as a baby when his family immigrated to Oakland, California. Ironically, he boarded the plane to Tijuana at the Oakland International Airport, the city he had called home up until his incarceration. According to the San Jose Mercury News, between 2010 and 2018, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chartered nearly a thousand flights in and out of Oakland carrying almost 43,000 detainees to either be transferred or deported—even though Oakland is a sanctuary city. “A lot of people don’t realize what happens after you get deported, what we go through,” Salazar says. “We have to adapt to a different life.”

For Garcia Salazar, her husband’s deportation shattered her family. While they have been accustomed to visiting Salazar in prison, the separation was painful and took a toll on the family’s finances. “A round trip to Tijuana was almost $700,” Garcia Salazar recalls. “This is not going to work. I was mentally preparing myself for that.” It wasn’t until a friend told her that the cheapest route was to fly into San Diego and cross the border on foot. As a U.S. citizen, she would have no problem making the trek into Tijuana as many times as the family’s finances allowed for it. Her travels by plane were becoming increasingly expensive; one way to alleviate some of the money spent was for Garcia Salazar to bring merchandise to sell back home.

While living in Tijuana, Salazar has found connections among other deportees, who work at call centers like himself. In recent years, call centers have gained popularity in Tijuana. While these jobs were often outsourced to India, companies like Redial BPO have found Tijuana and hiring recent deportees who already speak English to be a better trade-off.

“A lot of people don’t realize what happens after you get deported, what we go through. We have to adapt to a different life.”

Besides work, Salazar found solace in painting. First, he started drawing. Then his wife gave him his first set of paint, brushes, and a blank canvass. “His face lit up when I bought him the paint,” Salazar Garcia says. A striking contrast to how isolated and quiet he was when he first was released.

“My art has helped me out a lot,” he says. “Not only with my anxiety with being separated from my family, but also as a financial resource.” The colorful, yet haunting paintings reflect his duality as a Mexican-American and the struggles that come with being deported, all while using urban and ancestral symbolism. He posts his work on his Instagram account where he goes by the name of Deported Artist. Garcia Salazar took notice of her husband’s newfound therapy, and she began bringing the paintings back to the U.S. At first, the paintings hung around the walls of their house. It was not long before friends who visited took notice and asked if she would be interested in selling the artwork. In March of this year, Salazar’s work was part of an exhibit called “Keeping Families Together,” which was on display at an art gallery in Oakland called Galería Beso Maya.