Mariana Calvo is a writer, photographer, and storyteller originally from Mexico City, but currently based in New York City. She graduated from Duke in 2017 with degrees in History and Public Policy. During her time at Duke, she did extensive research on how violence and displacement uniquely affect indigenous communities on the US-Mexico border, in Guatemala, and in the Boston area. Upon graduation, she received the Benenson Award in the Art Award to do a multimedia project titled “Cocaine: How the Movement of a Drug Moved Millions” in Medellin, Colombia. While in Colombia, she photographed and interviewed dozens of survivors of the conflict in Medellin and in the communities they were displaced from. In November of 2018, she returned to Colombia to work as a freelance journalist and photographer for Colombia Reports, a local media outlet to cover mass displacement caused by the technical failures at Colombia’s largest dam, the rise of activist murders, and the impacts of the cocaine trade on civilian populations. She has since published a series of articles on the Mexican community in New York City for Roads & Kingdoms.
To support her freelance work, Mariana works as speechwriter and staffer at the Mexican Consulate in New York City where she helps shed light on the challenges faced by her community at a time of great anti-immigrant sentiment. She is fascinated by stories and how they can be used as a vehicle for social change. As a Hine Fellow Mariana plans to continue her work as a researcher, oral historian and writer as well as to work in photography and audio.
Mariana will be working with Brooklyn Workforce Innovations.
Her work can be found at: www.marianacalvoboullosa.com
