Stories from Venezuelan Migrant Women

When I think about how many women, like me, belong to families that move from one country to another, trying to build a better life, I think about the identities shared by Venezuelan women migrants. All of us have many stories to tell. All of us have secrets, things we prefer not to share, erase, or keep silent about. This project offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of who we are and how displacement shapes women's identity and social positioning in Latin American contexts. I am a mother, I am a daughter, I am a professor, I am a migrant, I am a woman. My name is Claudia Cavallin.

I have spent years conducting research on Venezuelan women of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, using them as a lens through which to explore broader questions of identity formation under conditions of migration and refugee status. I am doing it on my own, in collaboration with my students, and writing short stories on my webpage. Through my interviews as well as literary and cultural analysis of theatrical works, chronicles, and fictionalized autobiographical accounts, my new project will illuminate how external factors—particularly those associated with displacement—shape women's identities and their roles during periods of political crisis.

Venezuelan women migrants share a common identity shaped by "triple jeopardy"—vulnerability due to gender, nationality, and irregular migrant status—leading to widespread exploitation, including underpaid domestic work and hypersexualized, xenophobic stereotyping. They often act as primary agents of change for their families, navigating precarious survival, forced displacement, and the need to reconstruct their identity in host countries.

Art: Venezuelan author Enza García Arreaza 

I want to conduct essential archival research and, with you, develop a more comprehensive analytical framework for this study. I want to talk with you and share pictures and testimonies. The result of this project will contribute meaningfully to ongoing conversations about displaced populations and political participation, both of which are increasingly relevant in contemporary global contexts. This research aligns with the university's commitment to fostering cross-cultural understanding.

By deepening our understanding of how displaced women are positioned within—or excluded from—civic and political spheres, my work has the potential to inform more thoughtful and empathetic engagement with migrant and refugee communities, especially women in Oklahoma.

Experiences: Creative Narrative and Migration

My deep inner word is añoranza. I will start sharing my experiences and others' testimonies. Pictures can say more than words, so I will include images of new experiences and small details that connect our memories to OSU.  In my project, I aim to achieve the following objectives:

• Interview migrant students from Venezuela and other Latin American countries to publish their experiences.
• Interview OSU professors with migration-related connections and contact with migrant women, especially Venezuelan women.
• Compile chronicles or narratives of Venezuelan migrant women, both published and unpublished, to highlight oral testimonies.
• Include drawings, such as those by Enza García Arreaza, and other visual media, such as photographs, to represent the theme of Venezuelan migration to the United States.
• Bring books by Venezuelan women writers to the OSU library.
• Translate testimonials, interviews, and texts from Spanish to English to open connections with readers in the U.S.
• Research the approach to defining identity within the historical context of the diaspora in Venezuela.

I want to include articles and interviews featuring all of you in this cultural project. Step by Step. I will share all my advances in this project. This is going to be a collective work if you help me get my goals. If you need more information about me as a journalist, professor, and writer, you can find it on the OSU research page. ¡Gracias!

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