Rachelle Mozman Solano grew up in New York City of parents who shared the experience of immigration. She works between New York and Panama the country of her maternal family. Starting often from her biography and family history Mozman Solano explores how culture shapes individuals, how environment conditions behavior. This edition features photographs of the women in her family and transcripts of oral histories shared by her mother and grandmother.

House of Women interview: In the summer of 1981, my mother and grandmother sat on a porch with a tape recorder in the town of Woodstock, Virginia. I was nine years old. It was my mother's intention to record the story of her mother's life, especially of the family and memories they left behind in Panama when the relocated to the United States between 1964 and 1967 My grandmother, Carmen, arrived first; then my mother, then my aunt.

La Negra interview: In the fall of 2015, I interviewed my mother. She sat in a chair and between us was my phone to record the audio. I wanted to learn more about her mother and sister and their experience emigrating from Panama to New York City. Her mother had remarried an American Southerner and left Panama to live with him, first in Maryland and then in the rural town of Woodstock, Virginia. Her grown daughters, my mother and aunt, left Panama to join their mother but when their prospects of life in the South felt too hard, they separated from her to live in New York City.

Immigrants > United States > Interviews.

Women > Family relationships.

Oral histories.

Photobooks.

Artists' books.