To mark the International Women’s Day, Systole AC Productions, from Mexico City, under the artistic direction of Elizabeth Munoz, former migrant, took up the challenge to put together a team of creators to perform an artistic, cultural and social play, with the theme of female undocumented migration.

The event was at the Centro Cultural La Raza located on 2004 Park Blvd, March 11.

Based on true stories of undocumented women in the United States, the proposal was an invitation to reflect about tolerance, gender equality and combating xenophobic acts against women that break boundaries.
“Do you know why birds fly? Because they have wings.” That’s how the play began.

With so many Latino migrant women in San Diego, the importance of this staging was to corroborate the reason for our migration. But the event had a low turnout and many missed the opportunity to rediscover that immigrant women migrate for different reasons.

They do not migrate only for economic opportunities, but to earn empowerment.

Many immigrants are educated in patriarchal societies such as Mexico, where women have to overcome traditional norms of life and social expectations. “A woman must be devoted to their home,” is a classic macho thinking.

Since in a large majority of our families, the father figure is absent, it is the mother who assumes the dual role.
These women in Mexico, tend to face great difficulties, and are generally not as free to decide as men.

Besides that, the Mexican government’s inability to create jobs for its citizens forces Mexican women to migrate.

Women’s motivation to migrate is also to flee the violence in their environment, including domestic violence.
Leaving their countries of origin is not only escaping from what their destiny is,  but to  achieve gender equality, women’s empowerment and to provide economic support for their families.

Although migrating without documents often limits migrants to occupy low-skilled and lower-paid jobs, hardship, ethnic hatred and for the less fortunate, death on their intent to cross the border; in many cases migration contributes to women’s autonomy.

To many undocumented single mothers in the United States, being weak is not allowed. Migrating represents another opportunity to start again because women have more freedom.