Sometimes it is so crowded we cannot find a place to sleep, so they allow a few of us to sleep outside the fenced area. Caso não concorde com o uso cookies dessa forma, você deverá ajustar as configurações de seu navegador ou deixar de acessar o nosso site e serviços.

Descriptions of what the lawyers heard from these children and saw led to a massive public outcry over conditions inside a Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas. She was very upset. Looks like your browser doesn't support JavaScript. By now, millions of people have seen a photo of a 2-year-old girl screaming while a U.S. border agent pats down her mother. A June 17, 2018 photo provided by US Customs and Border Protection shows a caged facility in McAllen, Texas. They took our baby’s diapers, baby formula, and all of our belongings. Contact Claudia Koerner at claudia.koerner@buzzfeed.com. They have never been washed.". There are no paper towels to dry ourhands. [15] "La Cihuacoatle, Leyenda de la Llorona" is a yearly waterfront theatrical performance of the legend of La Llorona set in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City,[16] established in 1993 to coincide with the Day of the Dead. I did not know either of them before that. [11], While the roots of the La Llorona legend appear to be pre-Hispanic,[12] the earliest published reference to the legend is a 19th century sonnet by Mexican poet Manuel Carpio. [44], "Mexico's legend of La Llorona continues to terrify", "Women Hollering: Contemporary Chicana Reinscriptions of La Llorona Mythography", "From Llorona to Gritona: Coatlicue in Feminist Tales by Viramontes and Cisneros", "Mysterious tales behind La Llorona, Island of the Dolls in Mexico City", "How Mexico's Most Sorrowful Spirit Became a Cultural Phenomenon", "The Tears of Oppression: Josefina Lopez bases her play, 'Unconquered Spirits,' on the 'Crying Woman' legend. [17], In the Southwestern United States, the story of La Llorona is told to scare children into good behavior,[18] sometimes specifically to deter children from playing near dangerous water. “It was very dark and hard to focus,” he remembers, “and it all happened very quickly.”, The iconic photograph of the little girl crying was the last photo Moore took that night. Some kids are only two or three years old and they have no one to take care of them. "I’m hungry here at Clint [detention center] all the time. “I tried to calm him down a little and showed him some pictures on the back of my camera of the river.”. The immigration agents separated me from myfather right away. When I saw this little girl break down in tears I wanted to comfort this child. There is no soap and our clothes are dirty. Here's how the children described the conditions inside. I think the guards act this way to punish us.". BuzzFeed News has journalists around the US bringing you trustworthy stories on the 2020 Elections. “I was anxious and sad,” he says. “I knew many of these parents and children would be separated later. [5] The poem makes no reference to infanticide, rather La Llorona is identified as the ghost of a woman named Rosalia who was murdered by her husband. "I’m so hungry that I have woken up in the middle of the night with hunger," a 12-year-old boy said. Photographer John Moore tells PEOPLE that "after I shot this picture, I had to stop and take a few deep breaths". “It touched me at that moment, and I still think about that moment often.” (On Wednesday, The Daily Beast reported that a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said “the mother and daughter were not separated.” The spokesman also told the outlet that the girl and her mom were expected to stay together at a detention center as their case goes through federal court. And like millions of others who see the image, says Moore, “it makes me cry too.”. Our members help us keep our quality news free and available for all. I have not seenmy father again… I have had a cold and cough for several days. The legend concerns the crying ghost of a woman who has lost her children and now searches for them endlessly in the river. [39] It has since been covered by various musicians, including Chavela Vargas,[40] Joan Baez,[41] and Lila Downs. For me, because I am so pregnant, sleeping on the floor is very painful for my back and hips. He’s documented their hardscrabble lives in Central America and along the route to the US-Mexico border, and earlier this year published a book of his work: Undocumented: Immigration and the Militarization of the United States-Mexico Border. “She was feeling anxious.”. [23] René Cardona's 1960 movie La Llorona was also shot in Mexico,[24] as was the 1963 horror film, The Curse of the Crying Woman directed by Rafael Baledón.[25]. She is very sad because she misses our mother and grandmother very much… We sleep on a cement bench. Our clothes were still wetand we were very cold, so we got sick… I’ve been in the US for six days and I have never been offered a shower or been able to brush my teeth. The 2006 Mexican horror film Kilometer 31 is inspired by the legend of La Llorona. We spend all day every day in that room. I had no place to wash the clothes so I could not put them back on my baby because when he went to the bathroom his poop came out of his diaper and all over his clothing. The workers did nothing to try to comfort her. A young girl begging for someone to call her aunt.

But I did.”, It was close to 11 p.m. when border patrol agents began taking names and documents to register the immigrants. We have been here for a long time. The lights are [on] all of the time.". [2] In another version of the story, her children are illegitimate, and she drowns them so that their father can not take them away to be raised by his wife.