What happens when you cross?
Not the act of stepping over a geographical line—the other crossing. The one that happens the moment you decide to leave your home, your life, your language behind. That second when hope outweighs fear.
This isn’t a story about borders. It’s about everything that breaks—before, during, and after the crossing. El Cruce is a living archive of memory. A refuge for the stories that don’t make the headlines. Stories of those who left without wanting to. Some with documents, others with nothing but a backpack and faith. Some walked for days, some carried their children, some were carried. Every single one left something behind. And none came back the same.
Here, we listen to what is so often silenced: Voices that passed through deserts, jungles, and rivers— and still tremble, even after reaching “the other side.” Because the crossing doesn’t begin at the border, nor end there. t begins with loss, and often continues in silence, and in an endless mourning.
This project exists to give those absences a name—even if it’s just a word.
To preserve what hurts, and what endures.
So that those who crossed—and those who never could—
have memory.
And voice.