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In honor of upcoming Mother's Day I will be posting EVE's all week who are mothers. Enjoy.
Today's EVE: Maria de Remedio Martinez
"I give thanks to God that I am a woman so that I could have my sons and my husband and live a happy life." - Maria de Remedio Martinez owns Zaragoza, a Mexican deli/market in the East Village.#damnrightiatetheapple #mothersday
"Since my father's passing I've noticed that I have so much of his strength. On March 9th, 1975 my father, Francis Dada, first stepped on U.S. soil. He was fearless and selfless and determined to make another life for himself when he left Nigeria. He came here and was a janitor at McDonald's and became a microbiologist and raised 6 kids. I feel like he was my celebrity. Everything he has ever said to me, I hear so loudly still. He said I was a pioneer in technology and he wanted me to reach my fullest potential. He was my biggest champion." - Jumoke Dada is a tech consultant and strategist for women at Dadaverse.org.
"My parents raised me to believe I could do anything and gender was never a part of it. When I was 18 years I went to Florida to pick up a car from my father and drive it back to Texas. He gave me his car and he also gave me his gun. He said, "You never point this gun at someone unless you plan on killing them." That was the first time he showed to me that he is scared to have a girl in the world and it was when I realized I may not be as powerful and untouchable as I thought I was or as they raised me to be." - Deborah Cannon is a photojournalist and lives in Austin, Texas.
"The entire adventure Jordan and I are on started the day she born. I knew I would get her all the resources she needed. What I didn't know is that she would be bringing the resources to me." Jen Lee Reeves is the Founder of Born Just Right and is the mother of two children.
"The boys won't pass the basketball to the girls at all unless the teacher tells them to. It's so annoying. But unless I am on an all girls team I don't ever get the ball. And even then I don't get the ball that much." - Jordan Reeves is the Co-Founder and Innovator at Born Just Right. She is 12 years old and designed her own prosthetic arm that she is pictured with, which is a purple unicorn horn that shoots biodegradable glitter. She is currently designing another prosthetic arm for herself that has various tools on it, similar to a Swiss Army Knife.
"I don't think I would have been given as much time if I were a man. I was sentenced to 18 years for robbery in the first. They charged me as though I were a predicate, but I was a first time felon. I appealed, but it was denied because I had taken a plea bargain. I was 19 years old and pregnant when I went to prison and I served 15 years." - Naquasia Pollard turns 34 years old today. This is her first birthday at home since was 19 years old.
"Everything would have been different if I weren't a woman, especially where I come from in rural Switzerland. It was very gender distinct, so much so that I never even heard about homosexuality until very late in life. My mother said she was a feminist but there was a big discrepancy between her discourse and her actions. She was the center pole of the family and she worked hard and earned a better living than my father but there was always a deference to the males in the family. That is just the way it was there. In my village, divorced women were often looked down on. Even if it was the man who had a lover and broke up the marriage, it was the divorced woman who would have the lower social position. But my mother was always kind to divorced women, well really to all women. She loved women. " - Sylvie Degiez is originally from Switzerland and is a composer/musician/educator.
"It's ok for me to feel the way I feel. And just because men, like my father, often don't understand my more emotional side doesn't mean I am wrong to feel it. I will just carry on with the way I am." - Amabel was working at a crafts fair in Santa Fe, New Mexico when I met her.
"My parent's, who are community leaders, really cared for me when I was growing up. My father always said, "You are a girl and you need to be cared for and protected." - Sandra Elizabeth Lopez is a kindergarten teacher from Xacana, Guatemala.
"My daughters are 9 and 12 years old. I moved here from Mexico eight months ago so that I can work and send money home to them. I'm a single mother and I can earn more money here. I'm sad without them but I will stay and work for as long as God allows me to." - Nancy is a single mother from Mexico who works as a waitress in a Mexican Restaurant in New Mexico.
disclaimer: I am far more comfortable on the other side of the lens and not so good at selfies.
"I really love being a woman. For one, I can do this project. I can walk up to complete strangers, ask to make their photograph and then spend 5-10 minutes listening to them share with me important and intimate events from their lives. I have two wonderful daughters and I have a meaningful career. I might feel differently about being a woman if I weren't born in the United States. If I had to get up at 4am to walk a mile to the river in order to fetch water and had little access to education, I might not love being a woman so much." - Dorie Hagler photographer/activist founder of me&EVE.
"When I was giving birth to my first daughter - she was a face presentation, so the doctor did an emergency C-section. They didn't tell me I was having surgery, they just put me under. They told my husband, but he wasn't allowed in the room. I was in my twenties and I woke up with this big scar and felt that my body had been mutilated. I was very athletic and in good shape, I considered it a failure that I didn't deliver my baby on my own. Then, I had two more daughters, two more C-sections - when the third one was born my oldest daughter was only two." -Barbara Hull, retired genetics counselor and mother of three.