Immigrant Women's Sewing Circles in Queens Create Living Archives

In Northwestern Queens, New York City, two immigrant-led sewing circles, BordeAndo and Las Comadres Bordadoras, have become living archives for undocumented, working-class Latin American women. BordeAndo, founded in 2018 as a Queens Museum initiative, grew into an independent collective, with members from Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Mexico, aged 30 to 83. Las Comadres Bordadoras, founded in 2021 by two Mexican immigrants post-COVID, includes women from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, and Argentina, aged 35 to 75. These circles provide safe havens amid immigration crackdowns, where textile-making intertwines with storytelling and mutual support. Last year, both groups were featured in the exhibition 'Thread of Voice / Un hilo de voz' at the Queens Museum, curated by the author, with photographs by Andrés Altamirano and a film by Eleonora Privitera. The article, part of the 2025 Craft Archive Fellows series in collaboration with the Center for Craft, argues that textiles function as texts, encoding bodily gestures and memories, and that these costureros serve as archives of the present, preserving cultural heritage and personal histories that might otherwise be lost.