Women Who Migrate

For six months, two photojournalists from El Faro followed the experiences of women whose lives have been touched by migration. Women being displaced; women without documents; women headed north; women surrounded by the violence of Central America; and women who, in searching for a better life, have lost body parts. The result was a photography exhibit where women migrants are front and center. As part of this project, El Faro solicited an essay by Eileen Truax, a Mexican journalist with extensive experience covering migration, and author of the books Dreamers, An Immigrant Generation's Fight for Their American Dream; and Mexicanos al grito de Trump, historias de triunfo y resistencia en Estados Unidos (Mexicans Shout at Trump, Stories of Triumph and Resistance in the United States) The following is adapted from her essay: “You hear about men who work for a better future, even though in El Salvador and Honduras, four out of every 10 homes have a woman as head-of-household. You hear about the Central American men migrating to the United States, when half of those 3 million migrants are women. In stories told of migration, the female experience is often ignored: the women who make the decision on their own to migrate, who assume the role of providers in their families, who send remittances, who take care of their own children from afar, and who arrive to another country to take care of other people’s children. People forget that if the future is feminine, it is because migration is too. The path that runs between Honduras, El Salvador, and the United States—passing through Guatemala and Mexico—is sown with stories of women who have crossed borders, and not just physical ones. The rupture of personal borders, the triumph of willpower over fear, and the resistance to the many forms of endless violence are present in every step of the migrant’s journey. But we must be careful never to forget that these women are so much more than refugee women who have suffered and lived through traumatic experiences. There is also joy among them.Far from rendering these women into perennial victims, recounting their stories of pain must serve as a reminder that every person exists in all of their humanity. Suffering is not what defines these women. It might, however, help us understand them better, and help make crossing all those borders worth the pain.” *Translated by Laura Weiss These photos are part of the exhibit “Women Who Migrate. Portrait of the eternal journey in Mesoamerica,” produced by El Faro in collaboration with Doctors of the World, with support from the Xunta de Galicia. The traveling exhibit has been shown in Tapachula (Mexico) and Tegucigalpa (Honduras), and will continue its tour in 2020.

Thursday, April 16th, 2020

Fred Ramos, Víctor Peña

Fred Ramos Víctor Peña