UNAM Chicago

UNAM and UNAM Chicago have begun the second part of the collection Narrar lo propio (Narrating Our Own Stories), which this time brings together a group of women whose life stories and acts of courage deserve to be told and known on both sides of the border and beyond.

Each of them represents a testimony of life, of struggle, uniquely shaped by motherhood, the act of leaving their family behind, or bringing their children to another country to start a new life, which requires double the effort—the famous “double shift” that affects all aspects of women’s reality.

In collaboration with UNAM’s Literature Department, this new project, Narrar lo propio / Stories of Migrant Women in Chicago, will feature participants who will take a creative writing workshop with Sylvia Aguilar Zeleny. During a meeting with the participants, she expressed her joy and solidarity with them. In this workshop, they will learn how to express through writing how they learned to “be themselves” in a different city, with specific social and cultural characteristics, and in a new language with a different way of thinking.

This meeting, attended by Guillermo Pulido, director of UNAM Chicago, and Julia Santibáñez, director of UNAM’s Literature Department, marked the official start of this second season of the project, which will be told from the perspective of women, an undoubtedly interesting and moving initiative.

Both directors expressed their satisfaction with this second part of the collection, where these remarkable women will have a platform not only to share their stories but to learn how to narrate them as the voices of many others with similar experiences around the world. They also thanked Tamara Martínez, Secretary of Institutional Development at UNAM, for her tremendous support in making this project a reality.

Additionally, given that this is an international cultural project, they acknowledged the institutional support of the Coordinations of Cultural Outreach and International Relations and Affairs, led by Rosa Beltrán and William Lee, respectively.

Through this project, we will learn the stories of a chef, an opera singer, a Purépecha woman dedicated to singing, a Zapotec woman, academics, artists, entrepreneurs—all stories of effort and success. For various reasons, and with love for Mexico in their hearts, they came to Chicago seeking a better life for themselves and their families, both here and there.