Sacred Women Oracle
Oráculo de Mujeres Sagradas
A healing and empowering game for Latinas

The Sacred Women Oracle is a card game that seeks to empower migrant Latinas about their rights by invoking the might of Pre-Hispanic goddesses.
ORACLE









ABOUT
The Sacred Women Oracle / Oráculo Mujeres Sagradas is a game of 30 cards that seek to empower migrant Latinas in the United States. The migration journey from Central America to the United States is particularly predatory for women from Central America. According to Amnesty International, six in 10 women and girl migrants experience sexual violence throughout their route. Once in the US, Latinas are still in a vulnerable position. Compared to white women, Hispanic women’s HIV diagnosis rate is three times higher, and their teen pregnancy and birth rates are more than double.
The Sacred Women Oracle offers healing and self-caring advice to Latinas resettling in the United States. It encourages them to look for educational programs, acquire new language skills, take care of their bodies and minds, and be proactive in their legal immigration status. Each card represents a specific divinity from Native American cultures, including the Maya civilization stretched throughout Central America, the Aztecs in central Mexico, the Inca Empire extended along with the Andean South America, and the Mapuche culture of Chile and Argentina.
The cards are categorized into three topics: Healing, Wisdom, and Protection. Healing introduces goddesses associated with health, self-care, and reproduction—Wisdom with creativity and education, and Protection with justice and community. Besides the card deck, three booklets go in-depth on these same topics.

RESEARCH
The Sacred Women Oracle is a Master in Design Studies thesis about the migration journey of women coming from Central America’s Northern Triangle to the United States. The study examines the different stages of the trip, including the departure, the transit, and arrival, and the various direct and indirect violence towards Latinas' bodies during the journey.
While migrant numbers are exponentially growing, laws and the reinforcement of borders against immigrants and refugee seekers are expanding fast by xenophobic agendas and policies of isolationism dictated by governments. By presenting the experience of Latinas migrating from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to the United States, the project displays a landscape of horror, conformed by detention centers, fenced border walls, immigration court tents, migrant border camps, and detention centers.
Rooted in cross-border solidarity between Latinas, Sacred Women explores the role of design to provide tools for a safer trip for women embracing the reclamation of sacredness, ancestral wisdom, and cultural values. It is from this lifeline cooperation, almost like an ancestral act of surviving, that the project departs.
THE JOURNEY NORTHWARD