SUBJECTS
ROBERTO BAUTISTA
Roberto is a master weaver from Todos Santos whose life’s work exists at the intersection of memory, loss, and survival. His loom, older than the war that devastated his community, becomes both a tool and a witness, preserving traditions that were nearly erased by violence and displacement. Through his hands, clothing transforms into identity, resistance, and connection, worn by Maya people across Guatemala and throughout the diaspora. Quiet, deliberate, and deeply proud, Roberto carries the weight of generations, stitching together a past marked by trauma and a future sustained through ritual, craft, and an unwavering belief that tradition must endure.
JONATHAN RAMOS
Jonathan is a U.S.-born son of Todos Santos, shaped by distance yet deeply anchored to a place he refuses to forget. Raised between cultures, he returns each year to Guatemala for the Skach Koyl festival, drawn by a responsibility to carry forward the traditions his father ensured he would always know. With his fiance Jackie expecting their first child, Jonathan stands at a crossroads, balancing the realities of life in America with a growing urgency to pass on language, ritual, and identity to the next generation. Thoughtful and self-aware, he embodies the tension of the diaspora: belonging everywhere and nowhere at once, determined that his child will inherit not just a homeland, but a living connection to it.
YASMINE - NAME WITHHELD
Yasmine is an undocumented Maya woman living in the Bay Area, navigating a life shaped by fear, separation, and quiet strength. Forced to leave Guatemala by poverty, persecution, and systemic racism, she and her husband made the impossible decision to migrate, leaving their children behind in order to give them a future. In the United States, Yasmine works invisibly, moving through other people’s homes while carrying the constant threat of deportation. Yet in her traditional clothing she finds power, a declaration of identity that transforms fear into resolve. Through distance, sacrifice, and unwavering love for her children, Yasmine embodies resilience, using culture not as nostalgia, but as armor.
DAMASO CALMO
Damaso is a Maya community leader living in Oakland whose life is defined by both survival and defiance. Forced to leave Todos Santos after enduring discrimination and violence, he arrived in the United States carrying trauma but also determination. Through resilience, education, and hard-won experience, he built a new life while refusing to shed his identity. Today, he walks openly in traditional Maya clothing, works as an immigration legal assistant, and helps others navigate the same perilous system he once faced. Unafraid to be seen, Damaso embodies a radical kind of courage: proving that pride, visibility, and service can become powerful acts of resistance in exile.