Our voices, our lives: Unforeseen stories after the violence and opening the door to becoming whole again

Abstract

We are a group of 11 women in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Nine of us are immigrants from Mexico. One of us is from an immigrant household. One of us is neither. We have been working collaboratively on a research study called Tertulias (Spanish for "a social gathering"), which is an innovative women's peer support group approach we created to reduce social isolation, depression, and stress among women immigrants from Mexico, and to increase their resilience and sense of empowerment. In the process of implementing the Tertulias study, we are revealing the profound power of peer support, friendship, and small, quotidian kindnesses. But we are also exposing the immensity and scope of trauma, fear, loneliness, depression, and self-blame that exist in the Mexican immigrant community because of domestic violence. Our experience with domestic violence and with the consciousness-raising and support we found in Tertulias has made us want to be involved in a positive manner to do something about this issue in our community. We want our experience to mean something-to be used to make a difference. We are opening our hearts and sharing our stories and ideas. We wanted to be included as co-authors of this article because we want our stories to be received and heard by other women. We want to plant seeds to help other women find their inner strength to be able to escape from their chains. We have to return for others. It is a commitment-to understand how we were able to do it and share that with others. Through our experience participating in Tertulias, we learned that we could overcome what felt overwhelming and impenetrable. We could leave the violence and rediscover and recreate ourselves and our lives.

Keywords: community-engaged research; domestic violence; empowerment; female Mexican immigrants; peer support.

Figure 1.

Tertulias Theoretical Architecture.