Gloria and her son Alejandro are from a poor rural town in southern Mexico. She is married to a man deeply entrenched in a violent drug cartel. She lived with her husband for over a decade and was subjected to physical and mental abuse, including routine spousal rape. Contrary to many domestic violence victims in the US, Gloria was unable to obtain help from other people in her town, or even the authorities. All feared her husband and the reach of the cartel. 

 

When Gloria managed to escape with her two children and relocate to a large city 300 miles away, her husband found her a year later. He demanded she return to him; when Gloria resisted, he kidnapped their 10-year-old daughter and threatened to come back for her and their younger son, Alejandro. 

 

Gloria’s personal story will challenge a number of immigration myths and show the vulnerability of immigrant women of color to male violence and to an immigration system that is very much enforced by men.