Penélopes
2008-2010 #photography #film #audio #exhibition #catalogue
Mexican women whose husbands emigrated to the United States speak of their state of neglect and their struggles to succeed as single mothers in a society where the rights of women are still behind those of men.
My goal is to reflect on a little studied aspect of migration:
what happens to whom is waiting for those who emigrated?
The Greek myth of Penelope (who waited for her husband Ulises for 20 years after the Trojan War and his sea adventures) also represents the patriarchal tradition of submissive and obedient women who, throughout history, has been taken as the image of fidelity in various areas of the art and literature.
The impossible situation of waiting is sublimated and made poetry in this ancient myth, where love and fidelity are able to overcome two decades of separation.
There are no statistics on how many Mexican women are in this situation of wait, so far it has not been considered a relevant issue. We estimate that between half a million and one million women wait, in one way or another, for their couples.
3 out of 4 Mexicans that migrate to the USA are men.
Every year between 300,000 and 1,3 million Mexicans enter USA, 60% of whom will never return.
In 2020 there were nearly 38.5 million people from Mexican origin in the U.S., including 12.3 million who were born in Mexico. However, no statistics mention how many of these migrants are responsible for a family that awaits them in Mexico.
