Development of the Project

Nuestras Abuelas/Our Grandmothers

Nuestras Abuelas/Our Grandmother is a collective effort by community women, Natalia Muñoz, Waleska Santiago, Revan Schendler and Noemí Valentín.

We convened community women in a search of histories and photographs. The response was favorable. Months later, Nuestras Abuelas/Our Grandmothers was launched in November 2007 in La Prensa of Western Massachusetts, a monthly bilingual newspaper. Each month La Prensa would run a page, with photographs and texts of a grandmother from Latin America.

The texts that accompany the photographs were provided by the granddaughters. It was decided during the organization of this effort that, in order to reflect the diversity of origins, the texts could be written in Spanish or English. They could consist of poetry, letters or essays. The decision was left to the creativity of each contributing granddaughter. The process presented some emotional difficulties for the granddaughters, as they were required to open the coffers of their intimate memories to share with us their most treasured remembrances.

                                                                                Natalia Muñoz

Waleska Santiago

Revan Schendler

Noemí Valentín

See video clip