About
WHAT IS IT?
El Cruce is a multimedia project and storytelling podcast created to document the human cost of forced migration across the southern U.S. border. It is a space for collective memory—through interviews, anonymous submissions and creative expression.
​
​PURPOSE
To offer a place for people to be heard without being judged.To collect the fragments of what gets lost in translation, in detention, in silence.To preserve truth—raw, unfiltered, and deeply personal.
MISSION
-
To share stories rarely given a platform
-
To archive voices and expressions that challenge dehumanization
-
To invite people—migrants, allies, families—to participate, reflect, and connect
-
To use audio and art as tools for truth, dignity, and healing
-
Whether through a letter, a poem, or a whisper into a mic—El Cruce aims to hold what systems erase.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
-
Storytelling is resistance.
-
Borders may divide land, but they do not define humanity.
-
Silence protects systems. Voice protects memory.
-
We honor those who speak. And those who can’t.
-
We believe in protecting the undocumented, the displaced, and the forgotten.
-
Listening is an act of justice.
-
Memory is power. And we refuse to let it disappear.
-
A voice doesn’t need a name to be real.
-
We honor grief, resilience, and everything in between.
-
The journey doesn't end at the border. Trauma travels too.
“I want to take this message everywhere—into rooms where it’s inconvenient, into hearts that have forgotten where they come from. Because these stories carry resilience. And because when we cross, dignity does NOT stay on the other side”
​
— Livia Benitez
About the founder
Livia Benitez Fabe, MA in Global Risk
Hi, I'm Liv, and I’m the voice behind El Cruce.
I grew up in a small tobacco town in the westernmost corner of Cuba, surrounded by tobacco fields— I come from a place where people survive with little, but carry stories that could fill the sea, and though I’ve lived in many places since, it is that soil, that silence, that stubborn hope that made me. ​
We are all shaped by borders—some drawn on maps, others carved into our lives. Borders of language, of access, of memory. I’m an immigrant and my story is not very different than millions of others, all over the world, I know what it means to leave, to rebuild, and to carry pieces of yourself across timelines, countries, and expectations. That truth has define me and it’s what led me to pursue a career in international relations, searching for answers about how power moves, how systems work — and how people survive them.​
​
I currently hold a master’s degree in Global Risk, and I’ve dedicated myself to working in humanitarian response, global education, and migration policy —always centered on the people whose lives are disrupted by crisis, conflict, or displacement and trying to bring dignity to spaces that so often ignore it. I’ve seen firsthand the gaps between decision-making and lived reality, between narratives and truth.
This project was born out of that gap, out of the silent stories. We are living in a time of chaos, disinformation, hatred and distance.
El Cruce exists because behind every person that crossed that border, there is pain, strength, loss, love — and those stories deserve more than statistics. They deserve to be seen, heard, remembered, and this is my way of honoring them, of humanizing what the world tries to flatten.
​
This is not a portfolio. It’s not content. It’s a record. A refusal. A love letter.