Creating MigrantVoices D.C.
MigrantVoices D.C. emerged as a joint capstone project between Brionna Bolaños and Gabriella Farrell directed by the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) as a requirement for the Master of Arts in Latin American Studies within the Walsh School of Foreign Service.
It is conducted under the guidance of Adjunct Professor Liliana Duica-Amaya and the contribution of numerous others, including students, faculty, and staff from CLAS and the Center for Social Justice (CSJ).
This project results in the creation of an interactive, engaging, and permanent training course that depends on Photovoice methodology and personal interviews with migrants to educate trainees on the migration experience from Latin America to D.C.
Finding Motivation in Shared Experiences
From a formative age, we were both impacted by migration narratives. Growing up as a second-generation immigrant, Brionna was intimately shaped by the narrative and oral history passed on from her father, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico in the 1990s.
For Gabriella, a diversity of migrant narratives defined her upbringing, whether that be from her mother who immigrating from Korea as a child or her many friends and classmates who recently arrived unaccompanied from Central America.
From these connections grew a shared frustration when we began to encounter narratives of migration that did not recognize the humanity of migrants, nor their hopes, their dreams, their humor, and their dignity.
Because we have both known and loved migrants for everything they are as people, we both prioritized migration in our academic and professional careers. Through various courses, research papers, and experiences working with the migrant community, we have each engaged intimately and passionately with Latin American migration in significant ways. These personal, professional, and academic experiences led to the birth of MigrantVoices D.C.