"En La Vía" is a collaborative project by Federico Vespignani and Moises Cubas, spanning from 2018 to 2023. It chronicles Moises's journey from Honduras to the United States.

Moises grew up in Cerrito Lindo (Beautiful Hill), a neighborhood on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula, Honduras's industrial capital. You don't venture into Cerrito if you are not from the hood. There is an invisible border. You must roll down the car window, slow down, and flash the headlights to get in. Then you are on gang turf.

I met Moises there for the first time in 2017. He was playing on a football field while I was taking pictures for a story about forced disappearances.

They were playing really hard, and it was super hot and humid. After the match, the trophy was sodas, churros, and Bad Bunny playing loud from a portable speaker.

Months later, I returned and ended up in the backyard of Moises's family. I learned that Moises's place was the meeting point for most of the neighborhood's youth. His mom was and still is welcoming to everyone, always working on the stove preparing tortillas. That same day, he took me for a hike in a small mountainous area, the only elevated spot on a flat urban expanse. From there, you can see San Pedro Sula's airport, where I can catch a plane and land in Florida, Texas, or California in a few hours. Moises can't do that.

Since he was 15, Moises has tried seven times to reach El Norte - the USA, on his own initiative. He had to cross through Guatemala and Mexico, walking through jungles and deserts and riding on top of freight trains. He told me that he always had sus metas - his goals. As a kid, he heard stories of people from his community who reached the US and provided for their families. And beyond that, Moises was curious about what lay beyond the border of his hood.

We are living in an era of borders and global inequality. Borders design the world's aesthetic.

Borders have become a natural order in human lives. Borders regulate the movements of people based on capitalism and racism. Freedom of mobility for some is only possible through the systematic exclusion of others. In the following images, you'll see a journey that transcends the dystopian condition imposed by these borders.

Last year, we went on another hike in the North Hollywood hills. The city below us looked like an endless electric ocean. It was inevitable that we thought of the countless sunsets we saw from Cerrito Lindo's hill. This time, it was a little lonely; Jimena and Blake, his kids, weren't with us. For now, Moises doesn't need to cross other borders. They are all within him, and they will stay with him.

Federico Vespignani, 2025