Intuition, honesty and compassion: Capturing the road from Cuba to the US

In late 2015, photojournalist Lisette Poole met Marta (pictured), who said she wanted to migrate to the United States from Cuba and would be comfortable with Lisette documenting the journey. Here, Marta eats an apple at a rest stop in Ecuador with other migrants in the background. Photo by Lisette Poole

When photojournalist Lisette Poole got the phone call to follow two Cuban women migrating to the United States, she had very little time to prepare and fear was also a factor.

“I had wanted to do something like this for so long, so the fear of not taking the opportunity and regretting it was greater than the fear of what could happen out there in the field,” said Lisette, who is a Cuban-American based in Havana.

Marta, right, and Liset, center, with friends and family back home in Havana, Cuba, a few days before leaving for their first stop in Guyana. While Marta was initially planning on going alone, her neighbor Liset decided to join her. Photo by Lisette Poole

One of Lisette’s biggest motivations to document the journey of Marta Amaro and Liset Barrios was to show that everything is not getting better for everybody in Cuba, despite media coverage showing the contrary over the past two years since the announcement of normalization of relations with the United States.

“Liset and Marta are from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, and I don’t think they really felt like any of those improvements were going to reach their lives quick enough to make a difference, so they wanted to get out,” said Lisette.

Thus began Lisette’s 48-day journey through 13 countries with Marta, Liset and five cameras.

“I went with my 5D thinking I was going to be able to shoot with my DSLR and realized pretty quickly that that was pretty much a dumb idea,” said Lisette over laughter. Traveling with other migrants and “coyotes,” or human smugglers, was at times a very delicate situation. Lisette said it was really hard to let go of the fact that she couldn’t shoot in the way she normally would.

Clockwise from left; Liset waits for Marta as they walk through a river in the Darien Gap at dawn after their first day walking. Having left the night before, Marta was injured with a sprain in her shin — she limped the rest of the way; Migrants in Nicaragua wait for days for cues to move on. In the top right corner a Cuban woman takes photos; A detention center for migrants in Metetí, Panama. Lisette was separated from the women because of her American passport. When she arrived at the detention center for fingerprinting, she was reunited with several migrants with whom she spent days walking the Darien Gap; Reals in Brazil; Marta smoking a cigarette in the Darien Gap after crossing the river. Photos by Lisette Poole

“I basically came to the conclusion early on that I was just going to have to take what I could get visually and that the story was not going to be your typical photojournalistic essay,” said Lisette, who shot with her mobile phone camera, a GoPro, a point-and-shoot film camera, a Fuji x100s and sometimes, when she could, her DSLR.

Looking back, Lisette says she wouldn’t have done it any other way. “I really think that having the combination of cameras and having [for example] the water on the GoPro in the photo where [Marta] is sitting in the middle of the river is kind of perfect because visually it actually portrays the journey a lot better.”

When faced with other challenges, such as being confronted by coyotes or finding herself in uncomfortable situations, intuition and honesty became her most powerful tools.

“The truth was always the way to go because at the end of the day I’m not a cop, I’m not there to reveal their identities to anyone or get them in trouble — the story wasn’t about them,” said Lisette about coyotes who would confront her about her identity.

From left; At the border of Brazil after crossing from Guyana; The view from a bus window in Peru; Medellin, Colombia, from a touristic look-out point. Photos by Lisette Poole

Besides the grueling challenges of trekking across unknown terrains, Lisette says there were also many really sweet, surprising moments. For example, when Marta ate apples and grapes for the first time, she was ecstatic and became obsessed with eating them.

“They were able to find ways to smile and enjoy the moment wherever they were at and with whatever was going on. I think that has a lot of value too,” said Lisette.

Ultimately, Lisette hopes her work can “give a face, a personality and humanize migration and show who these people are who want to come to our country — and to show who Cuban people are.”

“It was really intense to see how there’s government, there’s military, there’s police, there’s all these forces around that are in control of these people’s destinies and lives — they’re just trying so hard to survive, they’re trying so hard to move on to the next step. It just gave me this really deep sense of compassion.”

Liset arrives at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on July 3. Photo by Lisette Poole

Lisette’s book will be available through Red Hook Editions next year. Follow Lisette on Instagram and see more of her work here.