The politics of poverty are personal for north Seattle couple

Jay and Christine Stickler brought their
daughter's baby shirt to add to Margaret
Hartley's art installation in LFP Sunday
Photo by Luanne Brown

By Luanne Brown

The politics of poverty turned personal for Jay and Christine Stickler, currently of Wallingford, when they adopted their daughter Ana, now 36, while living and teaching in Honduras.

As part of artist Margaret Hartley’s “Compassionate Clothesline” art piece, installed at the site of the Lake Forest protest on September 1, Christine hung up a baby shirt their daughter wore as an infant. 

“We adopted her while living and teaching in the Honduras. Ever since that time we’ve been intensely connected to what’s going on there and have been saddened and horrified by the turn of events in the last years,” Christine Stickler said.

“I have lot of personal feelings about Honduras,” her husband Jay added. “It’s become a horror show there. And now it’s a horror show for people leaving there and seeking refuge in the U.S. It’s beyond belief what we’re doing to them. 

"I hope there will be a turning point but there must be a different political will at the highest echelons. I don’t think there is much listening, much compassion for people’s lives at that level. Unfortunately, there are so many hellacious things going on in the world that we’re becoming hardened to people’s pain.”

“I thought it would be powerful today to bring that shirt for Margaret’s art piece. Like Ana says, ‘I was lucky and found family to love and take care of me.’ That is not true for everyone," said Christine. "Placing Ana’s baby shirt on Margaret’s clothesline was a very personnel experience for my husband, Jay and I.”

Currently, Honduras is rated as the 24th most impoverished nation in the world with a purchasing power per person of USD ($)2909.249 per person, according to FocusEconomics. The 2019 World Report says, “Violent crime is rampant in Honduras. Despite a downward trend in recent years, the murder rate remains among the highest in the world.” On the U.S. State Department website it says, “an estimated one million Hondurans reside in the United States, approximately 600,000 of whom are believed to be undocumented.”