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Borders Between My Mother and I

Daniela Castanon
Jacqueline Mendoza
Felicity Salinas
This film is about the borders that stand between mothers and their children in crossing the US-Mexico border.  We were inspired by the novel’s portrayal of reunification between families  who had been separated because of enslavement. In our film, we bring to light the emotions of our parents who left their mothers, in seeing them after many years,  of not being able to do so because of their legal status,  when visiting her grave after leaving for a foreign country. Throughout the film, the viewer  will hear the struggles of each individual, the reasons for why the left their homelands, what they were most afraid of being in the middle of nowhere and their connections with their loved ones.  Just as Harper portrays the hardships that Iola experienced in finding her mother and brother after being sold in slavery,  we demonstrate the hardships of being separated from your family in the hopes to live a better life. 
Borders Between My Mother and I  would like to those who shared photographs from their personal archive and their stories in the interviews for this film.  The film’s soundtrack also samples from “Madre Querida” by Vicente Fernandez.

“Saw you, the sad imploring eye?
It's every glance was pain,
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain.

She is a mother pale with fear
Her boy clings to her side
And in her kyrtle vainly tries
His trembling from to hide.”


— The Slave Mother: A Tale of the Ohio  (1854)


“‘Many's the time I hab stole out at night an' seen dat chile an' sleep'd wid him in my arms tell mos' day. Bimeby de people I libed wid got hard up fer money, an' dey sole me one way an' my pore little gal de oder; an' I neber laid my eyes on my pore chillen sence den. But, honeys, let de wind blow high or low, I 'spects to outwedder de storm an' anchor by'm bye in bright glory. But I'se bin a prayin' fer one thing, an' I beliebs I'll git it; an' dat is dat I may see my chillen 'fore I die….’”