This story was originally posted in our sister publication, tribunodelpueblo.org/
March is International Women’s Month, and this year we honor Dora Rodriguez. Dora is the director of Salvavision. Salvavision is a Tucson, Arizona-based organization providing aid and support to asylum seekers, migrants who are passing through, being dropped off by a cartel, or deported by the Border Patrol to the remote town of Sasabe, Sonora, Mexico. Salvavision also has partnerships to support returnees who have been deported to their home countries.
Dora is a great example of why we take time to honor women’s contribution in fighting for peace, and to make this a better world. This year’s International Women’s Day campaign theme is #InspireInclusion. It “calls for action to break down barriers, challenge stereotypes, and create environments where all women are valued and respected,” the IWD website reads.
Dora fights every day for us to “break down barriers” to include migrants in our country. For migrant human rights to be upheld instead of trampled down during their trek to our borders and at our borders.
Thirteen migrants died in Dora’s group while lost in the scorching Arizona desert. She survived and from that day on Dora has lived to aid those running from state and cartel violence, and hunger due to the devastation of their lands due to climate change.
Her story is the subject of the short 2023 film Borderlands, which you can view here. El Tribuno del Pueblo and our sister publication, the peoplestribune.org, met Dora during the recent Witness at the Border conference in Ajo, Arizona. Gloria Sandoval-Meneses of El Tribuno del Pueblo and Bob Lee of People’s Tribune had the opportunity to interview her. See: Dora Rodriguez: Tell Migrant Stories to Change the Narrative
Please donate to Salvavision for Dora to continue her work in giving some humanity to migrants and refugees.
Laura Garcia is co-editor of El Tribuno del Pueblo. Visit www.tribunodelpueblo.org. Active Teatro de las Chicanas in the 1970s, she is co-editor of the book, Teatro Chicana: A Collective Memoir and Selected Plays (Chicana Matters).
