Latinas
An exhibition telling migration stories of Latin American Women in London, UK
Photography and interviews by Louise Carpenedo.
Produced by Annaís Berlim and Louise Carpenedo.
Sponsored by Bootstrap Charity and Latin American Women’s Aid (LAWA).
For more than 30 years, the U.S. has set aside a month-long period to celebrate the histories, cultures and contributions of those from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and named it Hispanic Heritage Month.
As our response to acknowledge the entire Latin American diaspora, and not only the Hispanic and Spanish-speaking communities/countries, and to bring visibility to the Latin American community in the UK, we chose to join the movement and celebrate Latinx American Heritage Month instead.
In partnership with Latin American Women’s Aid (LAWA) and Bootstrap Charity, we interviewed and photographed 10 Latin American women living in London.
Latin Americans started to arrive in relatively large numbers in the UK around the 1970s. The estimated size of the Latin American population in London is 113,500* including undocumented migrants and second generation Latin Americans, making it one of the fastest growing migrant groups in the capital.
With this exhibition we want to help facilitate a space for the Latin American community in London, highlighting the migration stories of women of different ages, backgrounds and nationalities. We want you to reflect and explore the reasons we migrate and the experiences we have as Latin Americans in the UK, where our stories intersect and where they don't, echoing the voices of these women so that they can own their narratives and be proud of their history and where they are now. We hope this exhibition brings a light to anyone interested in learning more about our world, and that it inspires other women to reclaim their own narratives.
*Source: No Longer Invisible: the Latin American community in London, Queen Mary, University of London report.
Ivanna, 30, from Venezuela
I've been in London since 2012, almost a decade. I came to study English. At the time, the situation in Venezuela wasn't that bad, but when I returned home things got worse. My mom said I should go back to the UK, so that’s what I did. I had to start a new life here. I had a partner at the time that also helped me to stay here and adapt, but it was very difficult because I never saw London as something, I wanted to live somewhere warmer with more nature. I found it very cold, very overwhelming. Culturally very different. But the circumstances made me just keep going and make my way here.
The hardest parts about moving here were the language, and finding people I felt truly comfortable with, making my own family in this country. When I arrived, I couldn't relate even with the Venezuelan people. Because when you're here, everyone adapts to it, they blend in the same kind of culture. So things that were very Venezuelan were a bit out of context for me. One of the things I keep facing is being seen as this exotic thing, the "Latin girl". I feel that they see me as something different instead of seeing me as a person and that’s one of the reasons I got a lot of jobs. I might be used as a diversity card. Some people might do it for the intention, but I feel others do it just for the pure act of putting me as "the exotic", without really wanting to internalise my culture.
I'm a DJ and event organiser. I live and breathe music. Being a Latin woman that plays Latin music made things escalate very quickly. But while I was playing in events, I realised that those types of events weren't really what I feel comfortable with. The parties were very male orientated. In a lot of this events I felt out of place, so I created something called Popola, which are Queer Afro-Latinx Caribbean events that enhance female energy, trying to put together a safer space for women to enjoy Afro-Latin Caribbean music. One thing that constantly happens is disrespect to women in all senses. No matter where you come from, your colour of skin, this happens to any femme self-identified person. I try to bring this space where femininity can be free and liberating, and take any form it wants, instead of having to feel restricted because you have all these male energy, predatory behaviours around you.
I lost a lot of contact with Venezuela, because my family and best friends don’t live there anymore. I used to go back more often, but because the situation after 2016 got really bad, it was difficult to go. There were no flights. You had to fly to Brazil or Colombia, and then take a bus and lots of transports. But I miss the ease of things. The whole situation there made people see life in a different way. Last time I was there it was very emotional seeing my family going through all of that, and at the same time seeing the new mentality that was born out of the crisis. It was beautiful. They appreciated the smallest things, and here is the opposite, there’s a lot of recklessness.
In the future I see myself going to places where there's more nature, the sea. Where I can take my work because what I do is not exclusively a London thing, I think there's an energy that the majority of society is feeling. I plan to expand to other countries, work with other associations in other places where I can bring new ideas and that I can get inspired as well, and bring back new ideas to London. I see myself moving more.
Jael, 41, from Mexico
I moved to London six years ago with my husband, who’s English. He had to come here to take care of his mother who has Alzheimer. I lived a good life in Mexico, and I always told people I would never live abroad, so I keep feeling homesick. I was in academic life, I had my own editorial and I worked for a charity. I came with a tourist visa and my two children, then I went back to Mexico to get my spouse visa and that’s when my struggle began. The British government told me in my first application that my husband didn't have enough money to be my sponsor and refused my first Visa. We had to wait another six months to save money to make the application again. After a year waiting, I made the application and got the same answer. I had no hope.
My children were very young and they stayed here with my husband while I was in Mexico. My son was six years old and my daughter was four years old. They were struggling without their mother. My husband lost his job and was taking care of the children and his mother. It was very difficult. So I went to the British Embassy, waited outside their building for a whole week and went on a hunger strike. At that moment, all I had in my mind was that people needed to know what the British government was doing to people like me. After a month, my visa finally arrived. I managed to join my family in the UK after one year and two months waiting for it. I came with a lot of anger, without any interest in learning the language. I had a lot of pain. One day I realised I needed to face my situation because many people are going through the same situation and they need to find a community. For this reason I tried to find a space within the Latin American community.
Little by little, I am changing. When you first arrive, of course you feel isolated and you don't have the skills to communicate for basic stuff. But I have the right to stay here, I paid a lot to stay here and I am working in this country, so I deserve to have a space, and slowly that's happening. I still face discrimination and I feel like an outsider all the time, but when I am with my community, when I listen to similar stories, I realise that the problem is not with me. The problem is with people who don't open their minds. In Mexico,most of my time I was involved in campaigns. We have a very big tradition to fight against capitalism, and I consider myself a grassroots activist and feminist. I became more aware of structural racism after working in the US, and that made me more aware of what was happening here in the UK as well, especially with communities like mine.
I think one of the attractive things about London is that it’s a city with lots of options, with a lot of culture. As a writer, as an activist, it is so good to visit the museums, galleries and public libraries. There's a lot of opportunity to reinvent yourself here, to make things different. You need to encourage yourself and of course, challenge the structures to be able to slowly but surely take the space that you need. One day, however, I want to go back. It’s been six years since I last visited my country, so I want to go back and spend time with my mom, with my family and of course, eat a lot!
Claudia, 40, from Colombia
I travelled back and forth from Colombia to London as a child and settled here when I was 11 years old with my parents, who migrated in search of a better life. I now live here with my husband and daughter. I’ve always struggled being here, and still do it to this day. I have very close ties with my family back home, and now my parents are back in Colombia. I work as an EAL teacher at St Gabriel's College, a secondary school in Lambeth, teaching English to migrant students who are new to the country and supporting them and their families through secondary school education. I’ve been through the same, so I understand what they are going through, and although it’s a lot easier now than it was back then, we still have the same struggles that we did many years ago.
Growing up here I could feel that I was a migrant. At school, my sister and I were the only Colombians. It was a very white Irish Catholic school, so we physically looked very different. Our food was very different. It was a time when Colombia had a very bad reputation, so we had teachers making comments and feeding into the stereotype of Colombians. There’s always a cultural struggle.
London is a very diverse city, so we’re very lucky to be here. You hear a million languages when you go out in the streets. But there are certain situations or places where I still feel that I’m the only person of colour there. My daughter is currently studying at Cambridge and we completely feel it when we go there. It’s two very different cultures. I mean, everyone’s different and I think it’s down to people’s personality as well, but I have very strong ties in Colombia, so maybe that’s why I often struggle with it more. But I do appreciate being in London and all the positives and benefits that being in London has brought me.Even though I was a terrible teenager, I can now appreciate how hard it was for my parents to migrate.
A way to keep myself involved with the Latin American community here was to run the Changemaker Programme with LAWA. It’s been four or five years now, and we run different workshops with Latin American girls from years seven, eight and nine. It can be on self-care, cultural differences, empowerment. Building a bond with them and with each other so that they can aspire to be anything they want to, and not gravitate to the stereotypes that people have of Latinas.
In the future, I would like to carry on working with the Latin American community, empowering not only students and young people, but also their families. And, yes, I would like to go back to Colombia. Obviously not immediately. I've still got my daughter going through education in the UK. When you retire here you get a pension and, you know, people back home don't have that sort of luxury. When I’m here, I do feel at home, but I love it when I’m in Colombia too. I think I’m always kind of in the middle because if you go back to Colombia, you’re a gringa, and here I’ll never be seen as British. So I feel stuck in this limbo.
Mercedes, 64, from Ecuador
It’s a funny story: my four children were all grown up and one day they decided to leave home and I was alone. I decided to go on holiday, so I went to Bolivia and Peru for a whole month. There were 18 people from Ecuador on a bus and some people from England. And then I met Jeffrey! We started chatting and we spent the whole week together. He had a similar life to me. He was divorced with four children. I was divorced with four children. And we were both alone. He went back to London and we kept an online relationship. One day in September, he appeared in Quito and asked me to marry him. I came and married him here in London. That was 15 years ago, and we’re still together.
It’s difficult moving to another country. First you have to learn the language. I was in college for two years and I went to every place where I could find ESOL classes for free. And despite Jeffrey being English, we only speak in Spanish. In Ecuador, I worked as an accountant and I expected that I could do the same here., but I realised I couldn't. I volunteered in LAWRS (Latin American Women's Rights Service) for eight years and one day I managed to get a job working at LAWA’s creche. Three years ago, I started managing the Growing Together programme for elderly Latin American women in London. We started it with just five women and now we are 65, and we are still growing. Some of them are more than 80 years old and it's so amazing to see them coming and helping at the allotments. I
I love London, to go around the city, it's so beautiful, the buildings and everything! I admire it all the time. This is what I like the most in England. They appreciate everything that's old and they look after them. I also enjoy the security. You can walk without any hesitation. You can't do that in Quito. Here you can go everywhere. The thing I miss the most back home is my children. When I arrived, I used to go back every year to Ecuador, but now I prefer to spend the money for them to come here to visit us. Another challenge is to have to be part of this extended family, it's not easy. I always cook and they never eat it. Jeffrey's children like Latin American food. They love it, actually! But the others do not, the others don't want to try it. It’s okay, they don't need to.
In the future I see myself living in Spain, in La Palma. We have a house there. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure because I think that it's not good to not have much to do, and I think there are more things to do here. We are planning to be here during the warmer months, and there during the Winter. But here is my home now, in London.
Maria Luder, 71, from Colombia
I live in London with my husband and I have my granddaughter here too. I arrived 22 years ago, when I was 49. First, my son came, and then my husband, so I already had a base here when I arrived. That doesn’t mean it was not hard.
It is really difficult to start over in a new country where you don’t speak the language and when you have to do a different type of work that you are used to. In Colombia, I worked managing a few stores, but they closed. I moved here for better life opportunities, but when I arrived, the only thing I could do was work as a cleaner. I remember getting up at 4am to go to work, and finish late at night. I worked in this place in Kings Cross cleaning toilets, and it was two very intense years. It was a very tough school of life. I remember I cried often. Today I am retired, thank God!
I know a lot of people from my community who suffered racism here, but I can’t say the same happened to me. If I feel something, I choose not to take it personally, not to put myself in that place. It’s how I deal with it. For me, the hardest part about living here is the weather. In Colombia, I never wanted to go to Bogotá because it was too cold, and look where I ended up! The language is very difficult for me too. I didn’t have time to study when I arrived because I had to work a lot, and it’s much harder when you are older. I can speak enough now to get by, but I’m not fluent. Despite that, I am very thankful I live in this country, because there are a lot of opportunities.
I am involved with a lot of charities that help Latin American migrants here. When I arrived, a lot of people helped me, so I feel like I need to do the same for other people in a similar situation. I take information and pass on to other migrants that don’t speak English or know how the country works. There are a lot of barriers for Latin Americans here when they first arrive, so I try to help them as much as I can.
I’m a very practical person, so I don’t think too much about the future. I have family here, and family in Colombia. My mother is 97 and she lives there, so I try to go visit when I can. Sometimes I think of going back, but then I think of the advantages of being here, like the safety. I live for the present, so I don’t know where I will end up. For now, I’m lucky to have two homes, one here and one there.
Melida, 88, from Colombia
Back in Colombia, I was married and had seven children, but two of them have passed away. Right now, I have two daughters living in London, one in Italy and one back home, and a son who lives in Spain. My husband left me and I had to take care of the children. I worked in a shop for years while I raised them. After they had all grown up, I came for a holiday trip to London in 1982, where I met a cousin who lived here. He took me to his house and told me to stay. I was 50 at the time, and I spent three years working here, then managed to bring two of my daughters along. After they established themselves in the UK, I moved back to Colombia. In 2001, one of my daughters who lived here was diagnosed with depression, so I came back to take care of her. In 2004, the government gave me a house, so I decided to stay. I didn’t have to work a lot because of my age.
The hardest part for me is the language. I went to all the English lessons, but never managed to learn it. At 88, I don’t see the point to keep trying. My daughter works at the Homerton Hospital and helps me when I need it. I live with her now, and we want to keep living together. It works well for both of us.
I have a very busy life, every day I do something different. I cook for one of my daughters every day, the other has become a vegetarian and doesn’t eat anything I cook anymore. My daughter and I visit sick people that need company. There’s an old man who lives in Holland Park and I bring him lunch every Monday. On Tuesdays, I take part in the LAWA Growing Together programme in the allotment, then I go see a friend. On Wednesdays I always have someone to visit, and on Thursdays we do activities with Mercedes from LAWA. On Friday, I do whatever I feel like, and on the weekends I go to church.
I love living here. I love the cold, I love being able to walk around with no fear, and everyone is nice to me. I don’t miss Colombia at all. I visit to see my daughter, and I enjoy going there, but I would never live there again. It’s too violent. If old people in Colombia had what we have here… I love London too much.
Izabella, 31, from Brazil
I was born and raised in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. Coming to London was an adventure. Because of immaturity, thinking I was going to live a fairytale, I ended up here. I never considered living abroad. I never had the mentality and the education that this would be possible for a poor, peripheral person like me, who couldn't even dream of living outside of Brazil.
I've been here for nine months now and I plan to stay. When we arrive here we see that the reality is totally different from what we expect. You are in another country, with many cultures, mixed cultures. It is very complicated. The change was brutal. Brazilians and English are very different. We are very friendly, warm, welcoming, the English have another way of living that for us is very ‘freezing’, let's say. It is difficult, but they have a lot of freedom, education and access to information. In Brazil, we know that only those from a higher social class have a bit of it. So people like me, who come from the bottom of the social pyramid, having access to this like they do, is very good. When you walk down the street and think that there may be a rich person walking beside you, it puts you on the same human level as the other person. In Brazil we don't see this. There are areas for the rich, areas of this, areas of that. There is a whole lot of inequality.
I came here because I wanted to get to know life, but the world showed me what the world is. What is real and what I was fantasising about. It was a good kick in the face. I had to face reality without family, friends, money, or a house. It was very complicated and I went through some very difficult times. I don't think I was paying attention to life. I would get beaten up and I thought it would pass, it didn't hurt any more. We get beaten so badly by life that eventually it stops hurting. It was very bad, a horror show. But I know that there are worse things out there. There always is. Each person carries a very heavy cross, and only each person knows how heavy it is.
I would like to have stability in my emotional and financial life. To be at peace. Of course, if a lot of money comes along I will accept it, but if it is going to bring me problems I don't want it, I don't need it. I plan to stay in London, I am very sure that I will. But it is a very new thought. My brain worked in a non-ordered way, I was very undisciplined. I didn't make plans, I didn't care about the consequences. So I came to London without thinking about things, and now I've decided to stay. I've fought a lot up to this point and I still have a long way to go. Something changed in my head. I don't think it is fair to go through everything I've been through and not be able to stay. Staying because I deserve to be here. Not because I have a European family that gives me this right, but because I was the one who fought for this right, I was the one who suffered, and I am the one who is here. It's my own merit. It doesn't come from anywhere. I didn't marry anyone, I didn't pay anyone to buy paper, so it is something very much mine. The staying. To be. Legally. Me being equal to a whole society. Me not being "illegal", afraid, living in a way that is not legitimate.
Pepa, 30, from Peru
I've been living in London for five years. I came to the UK to do my master's degree in physical theatre and then I stayed. I am an actor, a theatre maker, I also write, I facilitate workshops and I do a bunch of bits and bobs around stage work and sometimes on screen. When I came here I didn't know anything about the UK or London. I wanted to study something that challenged me, but I didn’t realise it would have to be in another language. I found a course here, and I was scared because I didn’t think I would be able to express myself in English.
I remember the headaches after school and the difficulties of not getting most of the references that people would talk about or the way in which people would act or behave. I wasn't ready to live in a culture in which people were different to me, but London became that place which I had no idea that could exist. So many cultures, so many languages, and people from all over the world. It was my very first time having friends that were not from South America or Peru, but a bunch of them came from Asia or Africa. It was a long process of realisation that I am a first generation migrant now, and then understanding that my parents were too. They migrated from the highlands to the coast in Peru. I started to understand that I come from a family that had to move their roots somewhere else too.
Most of the time I feel like “the other” here. Even though you are qualified like many other people, you are seen as an alien, and I tend to be the token in all groups of work I’m in. I tend to be the only migrant, the only person who has English as a second language. Being a latina artist is really complicated because I don't sound British and I don't look British. In this very narrow minded industry, especially the screen industry, I won't get to play anything but the characters that I look like Latin Americans, which are not very present in British culture. So there's very little opportunities for me if I'm trying to be cast in something mainstream. I believe the only reason why I can make a living out of my work here is because I've always done a big variety of things. I create my own work, which means I open those opportunities for myself and I put on stage the things I want to be played in. This way I can have the chance to play more complex things, like things that I really believe in and that are political and I stand for. So in that sense, if I was only an actor playing the scripts of somebody else, that would be almost impossible. In theatre, it is a little bit more expanded. It's very tough. But if space doesn't exist, I make my own.
I like working with other people, especially from different practices and I like for them to be migrants as well, from different backgrounds. I work with loads of Latinx people as well because I think that our voices need to be heard and I like opening those spaces for people. I did a project called “Migran-te”, a multidisciplinary exploration that carried the voices of seven different Latin American households that I interviewed. It’s a way of pushing those voices into the public spaces. And I keep writing. I don't know if I will ever get bored of it, but I really like working around tradition and belonging. It's who I am really, and what I'm constantly asking myself about.
Naia, 37, from Chile
I moved to London 12 years ago to be with my husband, who’s British. Moving here was very strange, because I came with a lot of cultural biases of what society expected of me. I had a small child, and the UK has such expensive childcare, so it didn’t really make sense for me to work being a migrant and earning so little with my lack of experience in the market here. I had to start all over, I went to university again and I made a lot of mistakes. I wanted to make everyone happy and along the way I realised I wasn’t making myself happy.
Today, I work in a very corporate and white environment, and the first year there was very difficult. Culturally, I didn’t know how to fit in. Then, I decided to just be myself but I noticed they would feel really uncomfortable around people who are loud and colourful like me. But I learned to create spaces here. I recently started to feel like I belong here. I realised I do have a space, and that I’ve been part of the Latin American community since I arrived. I realised I have never really been alone, and that I have many friends from all over Latin America.
I’m also part of FALA (Feminist Assembly of Latin American diaspora in the UK), and I have met so many people doing wonderful things that got me inspired, people who are interested in decolonising their minds, and then they can decolonise their bodies so they can move freely, and when they feel that freedom of movement they realise that actual movement is what is going to get us closer together. I feel content and I feel hopeful of what we can accomplish when we come together.
London is very cosmopolitan and multicultural, so it’s not a good representation of Britain. I love it here, but I don’t really like everything around it. I think the hardest part of being here is raising my child outside of my culture, having to come to terms with the fact that he doesn’t speak my language naturally, that he has no interest in understanding my culture, and that he will grow with the standards of this society. I really miss the spontaneity of life in Chile, Sunday lunch with family and friends, having the house full of people. Here everyone is always so busy.
At the same time, I don’t think I can go back to live there. I found myself in London. I changed so much here, I came to terms with the person that I am. I learned here that you can be whoever you want and no one is allowed to judge you. This city gave me this and I’ll always be grateful for that. That’s why I stay in London, because I can be 100% myself. And in the future, I would like to go around Latin America and learn more about the cultures that I’ve been enjoying here through my Latin American friends. I want to go there, and feel it myself. Everything that they tell me, I want to feel it.
Annaís, 31, from Brazil
I come from a privileged background in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I studied Social Sciences at university which helped me get out of my bubble, and I started to really see all the social problems and inequality that were present there. Volunteering with an organisation called Teto, applying social economic research in favelas with people who lived in cardboard shelters, was an experience that changed me completely. From there on, I decided that everything I was going to do in my life would be focused on social transformation.
I have a 13 year old daughter, and in 2013, the relationship with her father came to an end. It was a very abusive relationship in all possible layers, and my grandmother, at the time, told me to go visit my sister who lived in London. She showed me a London of opportunities, and I fell in love with it. I went back to Brazil to finish my studies, and in 2017 I moved here with my daughter, who was 7 at the time.
That, however, came with a lot of guilt and struggle. I wanted to help change Brazilian society but I was moving away from it. Slowly I came into terms with it. I was a single mother and I wanted my child to have better life opportunities by growing up somewhere safer and far away from the violent world of her father and the city. Here she can take the bus to go to school by herself, go to the park by herself, things that in Rio I would never allow her to do.
I love London, but moving here was very different from what I expected. I’m lucky to have some support from the government as a single mother. But it’s still a struggle. There are a lot of jobs, but it was difficult to find work in my field of study with a Brazilian degree. I ended up working for years in pubs and cafes, and had to face in my daily life the difficulties of being a Brazilian single mother in London. I was looking for community when I got involved with activism here, and through activism I learned how to make my own space. Today I work for LAWA (Latin American Women’s Aid) and run two social projects on the side, Brazil Matters (@brazilmatters) and Cine Brazil (@cine.brazil).
Migrating for me really marks the point when I started to connect with my identity. By being away from home and realising I don’t belong here, I started to explore who I was. The self-identification struggle is a real struggle for migrant communities. I realised I am a latina, a Brazilian woman, and I try to keep connected to my roots with the Latin American community I found here.
My daughter has adapted really well, and has a great education in things that for me are very important like relationships, gender and different cultures. For the first time in my life, I can fully be myself as a young lesbian single mother. I don’t have any judgments at school as I used to have in Brazil, and I found my independence. I don’t see myself staying in England forever though. When my daughter is more mature, I’d like to live in other countries. I’m a very curious person, so I want to navigate different jobs, explore my skills, discover what else feeds my soul.