On the seventh day of her pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., Esmeralda Dominguez walked against the cold rain for several miles.
Exhausted and blistered, she rejoiced upon arriving in Silver Spring, Maryland, the last overnight stop in a 100-mile journey to arrive in the nation's capital at the same time as Pope Francis.
Dominguez set out last week from York, Pennsylvania, with 100 women, all of them immigrants intent on transforming their own difficult experiences into a message of compassion and hope.
They are heartened by how the pope has asked Catholics and world leaders to recognize the common humanity and dignity of migrants in the United States and abroad.
The 100 women, who arrived Tuesday evening, do not expect to meet Francis, nor are they carrying a list of demands.
Dominguez, a 33-year-old mother currently undergoing treatment for bone cancer, says she is walking for love and solidarity.
Though she is a U.S. citizen who emigrated from Mexico as a child, her undocumented husband of five years may not be eligible for permanent residency as her spouse. He entered the country illegally and cannot obtain documentation to work or drive, is ineligible to adopt Dominguez's 11-year-old son in the event of her death and may be deported without warning.
Esmeralda Dominguez discusses why she joined the pilgrimage. Credit: Barni.me
"I want to bring the plight of suffering to light, to be that voice that nobody is listening to, that image that somebody needs to see," Dominguez says of her pilgrimage. "I want to make sure they can hear my husband’s story and see how he is being dehumanized and decriminalized."
The women are immigrants from countries around the world; some of them are documented, some of them are not. The pilgrimage was a project of "We Belong Together," an immigration reform campaign coordinated by the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.
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Few of the women trained for the walk, which has averaged 10 to 12 miles per day. They have relied on each other for moral and physical support and sought spiritual relief through meditation, song and prayer. They were also joined by volunteer nurses and an EMT, who tended to their scrapes, strains and blisters.
"I think a big part of this is the women feel like they’re not only walking for themselves and their families, but for the 11 million people who are undocumented [in the U.S.], living and trapped in the shadows," says Ai-jen Poo, executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. "I think a big goal is to have the pope and people of faith and conscience all over the country hear their stories and understand their experiences."
Father Michael Russo, a professor of communication studies at Saint Mary's College of California who is involved in the production of Francis's Mass in Washington, D.C., says that a papal visit can be an extraordinary opportunity for advocates.
"People sense the moment of the occasion and are able to latch their fortunes onto getting some of the media limelight," he says. "It's important for those stories to be heard."
The pilgrimage itself is a symbolic rejection of heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric in the U.S. It also highlights the divide between socially conservative Catholics who may see illegal immigration as a matter of order and fairness and liberal Catholics who embrace social justice as an essential aspect of their faith.
Dominguez, a Catholic, invokes the commandment to love thy neighbor in her appeal to those who may have little sympathy for undocumented immigrants. Moreover, she wants people to understand that immigration policies don't just affect people who came to the U.S. illegally, but also their families.
"I want to make sure I can live in a world and not worry about my husband not coming back to me," she says.
Dominguez, who was bedridden a month ago following surgery related to her cancer, has been determined to complete the walk.
"We are 100 women under God," she says. "That God is guiding our footsteps to the pope so he will hear our stories and utilize them...When he speaks to the nation, he can move their hearts."