This story is about my girlfriend’s mother, Guadalupe, and her journey from Mexico to America. When Guadalupe was pregnant with her first child her husband was pursuing a citizenship in America. While his application was being processed he would not be able to come back to Mexico in the meantime, so this left Guadalupe with a tough decision; give birth to her son in Mexico without a father or immigrate to the states and give birth to him in America. Mexico was all she knew, she would be leaving behind her friends and family to give her son and future kids a better life in an unknown world, also she was pregnant so the journey would be extremely difficult. However, her family encouraged her to immigrate to America for Mexico would not able to provide an ideal life for her children. 

As she was packing her bags her mother gave her a necklace called an escapulario, the object in the photo, this was to be given to her youngest child. An escapulario is two rectangular pieces of cloth each bearing a unique symbol woven together by a piece of yarn, it is meant to be worn as a necklace with one piece of the cloth resting on the chest and the other over the back. An escapulario is supposed to symbolize faith to the church, but to her it is that and a piece of memorabilia of her mother and life back in Mexico. Though leaving Mexico was not an easy decision she found her silver lining by providing a better life for her kids and to be with their father and that’s something worth pursuing.

– David Nham

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant