Exhibit Shows Children's Perspective of Migration
 Alyssa Giachino - The Herald Mexico
| | Children frequently work side by side with their parents to increase their family's meager income. |
A new exhibit opened Friday in Coyoacan featuring photographs and paintings by migrant children who express the experience of migration in search of work through their images.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the National Council on Culture and Arts (CONACULTA) hosted an inaugural event for the show entitled "La migración desde la mirada de los niños" (Migration through the eyes of children).
On display are 115 photographs, the result of workshops organized by CONACULTA in which migrant children were trained to use Polaroid cameras. Using the cameras, children captured images of the hometowns they leave behind, as well as images of themselves and their parents working in agriculture.
Every year an estimated 500,000 children migrate within Mexico, usually with their families, in a seasonal pursuit of the next harvest. Forty percent of the children living this nomadic lifestyle are indigenous, remarked Yoriko Yasukawa, the UNICEF Representative in Mexico, at the press conference preceding the inauguration.
One of the goals of the photography project is to help children analyze their situation as migrants. "We want to encourage them to develop their own vision, their own point of view," says Griselda Galicia García, Director of Indigenous Cultures at CONACULTA.
Furthermore, using cameras to record their experiences is a way for them to develop their creativity, a skill that is often never developed when they take on the adult tasks of working, preparing meals, and cleaning, she explains.
In spite of the hardships of migration, Xóchitl Gálvez Ruíz, Director of the Indigenous Development Commission (CNDPI) mentioned that migration has potentially positive consequences as well. Children encounter families from different ethnic groups following the same harvest trail. Mixtec Indians from Guerrero meet Zapotecs from Oaxaca, Nahuas from Veracruz, and Purépechas from Michoacan.
This multicultural, multilingual mix gives children a unique perspective on the values of their heritage, said Gálvez Ruíz. During the press conference, she said she hopes that through this project, "these children will help strengthen our country, and in the future, offer us new solutions to the problems we all face."
Internal migration in Mexico is largely from the impoverished southern states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Veracruz, toward wealthier northern states. As families make the arduous journey from southern Mexico along the Pacific Coast and up to the agricultural states of Sinaloa, Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, they endure long periods without food, water, or a place to sleep.
Agricultural firms gladly accept the low-wage work force, adults and children alike. Children frequently work side by side with their parents to increase their family's meager income.
Gálvez Ruíz said many of these children cannot read, but quickly learn how to count. They count baskets of tomatoes, crates of cucumbers, and ears of corn.
The exhibition will be open through Sept. 30 at the Museo de Culuras Populares located at 289 Hidalgo Ave., Colonia del Carmen, Coyoacan. |
Vallarta Weddings
Vallarta Living | Art Talk | July 2005 
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us