By Laura Holánszky

SUMMARY:
Part of the role of the Hermosillo-born Perla Torres at the Colibrí center is “to give the microphone to someone who can talk on behalf of that pain, that ambiguous loss, that endless search for their loved one.”

Tucson, Arizona - Perla Torres has a mission. Her work at the Colibrí Center for Human Rights is to reconnect families whose members went missing while trying to cross the border through the Sonoran Desert. To Torres, the desert means home. To some, however, it stands as a graveyard, as they are never able to reach their final destination.

Torres considers herself lucky - she grew up on both sides of the border, as she was raised in Hermosillo, Sonora, and arrived in the U.S. in 1999 at the age of 7. However, as a migrant, not everyone can make the journey to the U.S. alive. 

“I’ve always been really well aware of the privilege that I’ve had,” Torres says. “And it’s not the fate of many migrants who come into the country. I understood really early that I had to give back to the population that was not as fortunate as I was.”

Torres feels that she has always been connected to the borderland personally.

As she traveled through the border during her childhood, she gained tons of experience about it: she saw its expansion, changes, and separation that it’s done with families. These themes also accompanied her during her studies at the University of Arizona, where she focused on immigration and law reforms as well as justice for migrant rights. After her graduation, she had no doubt that she would be working in this field.

“I think it always feels really wonderful to just follow your curiosities, and they just kind of lead up to your passions. Then there's always a point where they meet. And that's where Colibrí (Center) was for me,” she said.

Torres found her passion by working as a family network director at the Colibrí Center. Apart from that, she also manages the Missing Migrant Program, which revolves around cases of missing and unidentified individuals. The organization receives multiple phone calls each day from families from Mexico, Central America and South America. One of the first steps Colibrí does is setting up an extensive missing persons’ report in a database, which is shared with the corresponding medical examiner’s office.

As many migrants are still remaining unidentified, every little detail can help the case. “Anything from dental records, to birth certificate trails, to the clothes that they were wearing, things that they might have carried contact information, there's a lot that goes on.”

Torres’s job is to help amplify the voice of those families who have been directly affected in these happenings by making testimony projects.

“My role (...) is to give the microphone to someone who can talk on behalf of that pain, that ambiguous loss, that endless search for their loved one,” she said. “The families are extremely brave that they share their story, extremely brave that they trust, participate and collaborate with us to do this work”.

Torres says that families have diverse reasons for wanting to participate in a testimony project. 

“Many of them want it to be a place where they can honor their loved one, share their stories about them, keep their memory alive and have a really, really wonderful time being creative.”

She feels that the emotional part of the work can be significantly more challenging for her, which requires a proper existence of boundaries.

“It's an emotional process more than it is a scientific process,” Torres nods. “It’s about knowing yourself well enough to take a step back when your feelings are interfering with your work. Once you've been in this space long enough, you know when to take a step back. And it is really difficult.”

Opening up people’s eyes about what is happening at the border and the desert is crucial for Torres. Several people in Arizona do not even know what is happening within 100 miles of their homes. 

“Learning and opening your eyes to things not just because you're from here means that you really understand the issue or really maybe even care about the issue,” Perla said. “I think it's about really understanding your community and listening and taking the time to hear people's stories.”

As for the future, Torres hopes for some changes, evoked by the personal testimony projects.

“I hope that we are able to talk about it in a way which is productive. The only way that we can do that is by amplifying the voices of those directly affected. This is why I think (...) testimony projects are so powerful,” she concluded.

Tagline: Laura Holánszky is a graduate student of digital journalism from the University of Arizona, where she is also part of the UofA triathlon team.

Perla Torres works as Family Network director of the Colibrí Humanitarian Center, where she helps people reunite with the human remains of their loved ones. Photo by Susan Barnett