Memories and resistances in the global order: Testimonies of migrant women in Montevideo

Abstract

From the nineties, women from Chiclayo, Peru, began to migrate to Uruguay; most of them managed to enter the labor market as domestic workers. Starting in 2009, new migratory flows of Latin American and Caribbean origin began, mainly from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. In more than 20 years of the migratory flow characterized by its feminization, it was from the normative advances of recent years that situations of abuse and discrimination against migrant women in Montevideo began to be documented. Without the knowledge of their rights, many of the stories that today make up the imaginary of the new Latin American migration in Uruguay would not have been counted. The spaces for meeting, conversation and listening among the migrant populations themselves are fundamental as a tool for the strengthening of identities, to give a name and a face to a significant number of migrant women, to know the origins of different routes to Montevideo (from Chiclayo, La Paz, Santo Domingo, Havana, Camagüey, Caracas), challenge isolation and enable spaces for visibility and political advocacy. Testimony, as a rupture of silence, enabled the recognition of migration as a legitimate right and not as a sacrifice where any dispossession can fit.