MIGRANTS PAINT HOPES AND DREAMS ON MURALS
Aug 18, 2:16 PM EDT
BY MARIA VERZA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- It is the first time that Hilda has held a paintbrush, but she's happy with the result. She painted herself, her three daughters and her husband all smiling on a mural on a school in central Mexico City.
The smiles and the brilliant colors, however, mask the pain of assaults and rapes on her journey north from Guatemala.
This mural is part of a project meant to help bring Central American migrants and their stories out of the shadows in Mexico, a country that is hosting an increasing number of them at a time when the Trump administration in the U.S. has become more vocally hostile to their migration.
"You can't live in my country anymore," she said. "Right now I'm scared ... because in June my oldest daughter was raped and I'm just waiting for them to finish school to bring them here." Hilda said she was raped as well and her husband nearly killed when they crossed the border to Mexico. The Associated Press withheld her full name because it does not identify victims of sexual assault.
More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_MEXICO_MIGRANT_MURAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-08-18-14-16-07
