Exploring Migration, Culture, & Mental Health: A Special Screening of our Documentary 'Trails' in honor of the National Day of Racial Healing

To kick off the new year, this January, our Puentes team traveled back to Albuquerque to participate in a week of commemorations in honor of this year’s National Day of Racial Healing (NDORH), observed on Tuesday, January 21. Started in 2017 by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), NDORH is a call to action for racial healing for all people, and this year folks across the country took time to explore the theme, #HowWeHeal. As proud WKKF grantees, we were thrilled to partner with ¡explora¡, the local children’s museum, and their teen center XStudio, to screen an enhanced cut of our migration-focused documentary Trails on January 21 at the historic Guild Cinema. The screening brought out approximately 50 attendees, including many familiar faces we’ve had the pleasure of working with over the years as our work deepens in New Mexico. Trails was created by Iman Shervington, our Sr. Director of Media & Communications, and she attended the screening to introduce the film and participate in a Q&A. Following the Q&A, there was a live-stream of a piece from Telemundo created for the NDORH which examined a lot of the themes in Trails and other relevant topics such as race, color, and hair within Latinx communities. We’re extremely grateful to WKKF for funding this special work, and our partners at !explora! and XStudio for making the day such a success! 

Trails is a documentary that we filmed throughout New Mexico and El Paso, TX from 2021 - 2023 that examines the connection between migration and mental health. It features reflections and wisdom from people directly impacted by migration, whether immigrants or migrants themselves; folks working with immigrant, refugee, and asylee populations; and/or those who come from families with folks that are immigrants, migrants, refugees, or asylees. The participants represent a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and ages, and we are especially proud that it includes many youth voices speaking on topics such as their experiences when they first arrived in the US, what it means to be a DREAMer, and what it’s like to wake up at 5am to cross the border from Mexico to New Mexico every weekday to go to school. The stars of the film also touch on a plethora of profound topics, such as what healing means to them; their connections to the land; their connections to ancestry and cultural wisdom; and the unique role New Mexico and New Mexicans themselves play within the conversation about immigration and migration in the US. 

After the screening during the week, Iman also had the privilege of participating in a special youth summit that XStudios hosted that Saturday, January 25. Held at their X Studio, next door to an awesome makerspace, Iman shared a special new youth cut of Trails that was edited to feature more youth voices and focus in on the issues many of the youth spoke about — loneliness, cultural bias, xenophobia, problems during COVID, being “othered,” etc. — as well as the ways they’ve discovered to find themselves, their roots, and their healing. Spoiler alert, it often came through cultural connection and gardening! After the screening Iman had the privilege of moderating a panel with some of the youth that attended the screening to speak about their reactions to the film, the characters and themes that they related to the most, mental health, what makes New Mexico so special for them, and their visions for racial harmony in Albuquerque and beyond.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the development of Trails, check out some of our old blogs here, here, and here. If you’d like to watch the adult and/or youth cuts of the film, check them out on our Mosaic website here. If you’d like to organize a screening of either cut of Trails, please contact Iman.

And finally, if you are ever interested in participating in a racial healing event near you — like the awesome event Ashé Cultural Arts Center hosted with New Orleans National Vodou Day on February 1 about their collaborative partnership rooted in vulnerability and uncomfortable but intentional conversations — make sure to bookmark WKKF’s official NDORH page here.