“Dos Mundos" [Two Worlds] is about home, love, family, motherhood and transformation. It offers a perspective on migration through the voices of Vicky A., born and raised in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and Sara Raquel S., born and raised in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Through collaboration with Vicky Noly A. and Sara Raquel S., the project offers a way of looking at their physical, psychological and spiritual worlds that opens the door to their dreams and possibilities, and shatters stereotypical representations of immigrants.

Eighteen years ago, Vicky Noly A. was forced to leave her children to escape poverty and political conflict in Honduras. Envisioning the U.S. as a land of opportunities, Vicky made the decision to cross the Mexican border to the U.S. regardless of the sacrifices it entailed. She took low-paying jobs in order to provide better opportunities for her children–the principal reason for living. Nevertheless, she remains deeply attached to her native customs and language and maintains a perennial desire to reunite with her children she has not seen in all these years.

Sara Raquel S. left El Salvador at 16 in 2016, crossing the Mexican border to reunite with her mother who migrated to the United States when Sara Raquel was three years old. Sara Raquel became a permanent resident of the U.S. in August 2021.

Working in an emotional space, Two Worlds explores presence, absence, evoke the memory of these mothers' lives in their home countries and the psychological weight of separation caused by not being able to return (Vicky A.) or by growing up separated from her parents (Sara Raquel S.). As my work on immigration expands, my aim is to shed light on the intended and unintended consequences of migration on the families of migrant mothers from Central America and to understand what happens to societies when families are constantly uprooted.

* Last names withheld intentionally.