In Queens, Immigrant Women Sew a Truer Atlas
The largely undocumented Latin American women of New York’s “costureros,” or needlework circles, are creating a countermap to archive the stories of their lives.
In the heart of Queens, New York City, two immigrant-led costureros—communities of women from various Latin American backgrounds—have found a sanctuary to create textiles and preserve their history. These spaces offer a refuge for many undocumented, working-class immigrants who face racial profiling and persecution due to the current immigration crackdown.
Among these costureros, BordeAndo and Las Comadres Bordadoras stand out as vibrant, intergenerational, and international groups that bring together women from different countries, ages, and experiences. Both circles have been instrumental in fostering a sense of camaraderie and kinship among the women, who come from diverse backgrounds such as Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba, Uruguay, Colombia, and Argentina.
The costureros work together to create embroidered textiles, Mexican cloth napkins, and other forms of needlework. Their creations are not just decorative items but also carry emotional weight, such as napkins for the altar of a deceased loved one or stitches learned from a grandmother back home. The collective map of these costureros, titled "The Collective Map of Paths," aims to uncover and celebrate the present-day archives created by marginalized communities.
By working with these costureros, the artist aims to reveal how craft traditions converge, and how material practices connect the geographical experiences of displacement and affect.
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