“What if we tried turning your stories into songs?” We threw the question into the air in our workspace, which was actually the chapel at Casa del Migrante Arcángel Rafael, where we decided to develop the Music4Change pilot. The response was far from enthusiastic. Some people laughed, as if to say, “That’s not for me.” Others exchanged knowing looks. Most had never written a song before.

And yet, despite their doubts and the difficulties of their migration journeys, some decided to give this experience a chance, even as it was still taking shape, already sensing it had the potential to become something meaningful for everyone involved.

Perhaps that was the true beginning of Music4Change. Not when we first imagined the project, designed the methodology, or talked about songwriting, but in that delicate yet powerful moment when someone decides their story deserves to be heard.

Song as testimony

When Accountability Lab Mexico invited me to bring my participatory testimonial songwriting methodology into a project with migrant communities, one that also sought to strengthen the participants’ civic agency and incorporate a rights-based perspective throughout the process, I immediately said yes. 

The possibility of accompanying artistic creation processes that emerge from experiences of migration – and from the hope, risk, uncertainty, separation, loss, and everything a person carries through displacement – felt deeply necessary.

As a singer-songwriter and sociologist, I have, over the last several years, developed projects at the intersection of art and social impact with historically marginalized communities. Through these collective creative processes I’ve facilitated, people who had never written a song before were able to tell their stories through testimony, memory, and their own creative voice. This has included projects such as Volver al Corazón, created with imprisoned women in Mexico and Panama, as well as work with women from the Purépecha Plateau in the autonomous municipality of Comachuén in Michoacán, Mexico. 

Testimonial songwriting is about reconnecting with oneself, with one’s inner voice. It is about naming oneself and, eventually, sharing that openly. It is not driven by technical perfection, polished performance, or flawless execution. It’s about presence and standing in our own truth, which is profoundly transformative. 

And an experience as deeply personal as creating a song from your own story can be a restorative process, one that contributes to healing, memory reclamation, collective connection, and, of course, music itself. 

This kind of creative process touches not only on the vulnerability of the person telling the story but also on the vulnerability of the person listening. That is one of the greatest strengths of music: its ability to build emotional bridges, even between people who have not lived through the same experiences. 

Listening is also a political practice

When I speak about “listening,” I am not referring only to the songs themselves. I mean both the ability and the willingness to let that listening reshape our expectations, and even transform the way we originally envisioned the project. 

From the very first session, challenges emerged, and we quickly realized that nothing could be built linearly. The expectations we arrived with were immediately confronted by the realities of the people participating. 

Careful listening showed us the way forward. It pushed us to rethink dynamics, soften structures, recognize needs we had not anticipated, and above all, to allow ourselves to be transformed alongside them. 

We came to understand that the act of listening to another person is, in itself, a political practice. At a time when everything pushes us toward immediacy, speed, constant opinions, and the constant pressure to produce answers, truly listening to another person can become an act of radical solidarity. 

Listening is not simply hearing. Listening means recognizing another person as someone whose experience carries value, complexity, and dignity. Deep, genuine listening, the kind that allows us to become vulnerable, also transforms us. It shifts us, and it forces us to question our own narratives and certainties. 

No one migrates with their voice untouched

Throughout the implementation of Music4Change, we worked with young migrants who were not only far from their homeland but also far from a version of themselves they once knew. In that context, songwriting became a space for creativity and vulnerability where they could reconnect with themselves and rediscover who they are –  almost as if music could gather and rebuild the fragments of identity that displacement and violence so often break apart.

By the end of the project, five songs had been created: four individual pieces and one collective song. All of them were recorded in situ, which brought technical, logistical, and time-related challenges, but also allowed the entire process to unfold in the same space where the stories had first been told. Most importantly, the songs were performed in the recording by the participants themselves, as protagonists of their own stories. 

No one migrates in silence. No one migrates with their voice untouched. Every journey we go through leaves a mark on us and deeply transforms us. 

Naming ourselves through artistic creation and songwriting matters. Singing our stories can be a way to reconcile with who we were, who we are, and who we hope to become. It is also a way to communicate those experiences and to connect with people who are willing to listen.