The Threshold is a series of conversations with writers from the Gallery’s Migration Literary Award.
Read the opening editorial, “What a Story Costs.”
She didn’t tell anyone she was doing it.
Not her parents. Not her friends. She kept the submission to herself the way you keep something that might still disappear—held close, not yet named aloud, until it became real enough to share.
Ana-Maria Posada Borda was eighteen when she submitted Twenty-Two Minute Car Rides: A Story of Identity and Home to the Gallery’s inaugural Migration Literary Award in 2025. The jury recognized it with an Honourable Mention. By then, the story had been cooking for years, a shape in her mind she couldn’t quite place, until the framework gave it somewhere to land.
Her story moves through Beckoning, Beginning, Becoming, and Belonging—the Gallery’s four thematic movements—not because she shaped it that way from the start, but because that structure found her. The four Bs gave her waypoints for experiences she already carried. What she discovered, working through them, was that the story was never only hers.
The Story Inside the Story
‘Twenty-Two Minute Car Rides’ is structured around music—the Colombian national anthem heard through a kitchen radio, Celia Cruz in the aftermath of a sleepover she wasn’t allowed to attend, and Rubén Blades and Willie Colón playing on the night her father told her she had arrived.
Each song is a marker. Each car ride between her father’s apartment in downtown Montreal and her mother’s house on the South Shore is a classroom without a desk. The story belongs, technically, to Ana-Maria. But it travels in company. The voices of her parents—who came to Quebec before she was born and who built a life without a blueprint—move through every sentence.
"Migration is such an important part of who you are. It shapes your identity — and you never know how much your perspective can mean to someone else."
Watch The Whole Conversation
Watch the full conversation with Ana-Maria Posada-Borda and go behind the scenes of her award-winning story, Twenty-Two Minute Car Rides: A Story of Identity and Home. Learn how it took shape, what she wrestled with, and what she chose to keep. We’ve also laid out the full details of the conversation below.
The Conversation
What moved you to share this particular story—and was there a moment when you almost didn’t?
I’ve always been someone who’s been very interested in writing and growing up in an immigrant household, as I have, I’ve always wanted to find a way to channel my voice and use my passion for writing for the better good.
I stumbled upon this project. I was just looking up writing contests because I was really interested in showcasing my writing style and seeing if people would think that it was of any interest. And I was lucky enough to find this very beautiful initiative of the Gallery, and I was able to write up my ideas. I’d always had this inspiration — the story concept of sharing with the car rides, which was the underlying theme. I always had thought of that. It was like an idea that had always been cooking in my brain. And then I got the opportunity to do it.
There definitely were points where I was less adamant about wanting to share it, because the writing process is very long and there’s a lot of editing to be done. Sometimes I feel like when you write so much, you’re so in the story that you have some difficulty taking away from it. So maybe there were harder moments in the writing process, but I always knew I wanted to share my story.
Since your story was published, has anything shifted—in how you carry it, how your family or community responded, or in the work you’re doing now?
I never told anyone I was doing it until it was actually published, because it was a project that I really wanted to do for myself and to give myself a chance to actually write about something that I was very passionate about.
When I told my parents and my close friends and family, they were really happy and impressed. And with the impact that it had—my close community, where I teach French classes, I showed my students what I had been working on with my writing, and I also showed some teachers at school who got to read what I did. I feel like they were very proud of the work that I completed. And for the immigrant community that I surround myself with, it was very meaningful to them to see someone who is pretty young have the courage to submit the story.
I feel that it impacted the way I carry myself in general, because I know that I have put out something that is able to be read by the general public. And I feel that that’s a very big privilege.
I’m from Montreal, so it’s a very big immigrant community. And they’ve just sent my story to friends of friends of friends who’ve come back to me with very positive feedback, saying that it’s inspiring to see that they feel represented by what I wrote. And I feel like that’s very meaningful.
People don't really know about these initiatives and organizations that do this very respectable work. I got to be part of that mission in a way that I would have never thought my idea would ever bloom into.
Did the four Bs framework help you during the writing process?
Yes, it did. I definitely took that into consideration. The first draft, or the idea that I had to send—I really tried to take my general idea of the story, of my theme, and then I tried to fit it to that, because I felt as though that’s how it would fit into the anthology and the work that you were putting out.
I tried to work around the frameworks and reflect on what personal experiences I’d had that related to the four Bs. I tried to integrate them so they would follow a theme, and they had a sort of structure that held my story together—it wasn’t just a bunch of strung-together experiences. It was more like… with a clearer purpose.
So it definitely helped me find my way. Sometimes I’d have certain experiences that I wanted to include or certain ideas I didn’t really know where to fit. So I would see where they would fit in the themes, and I would put those ideas together. It ended up giving us the final product. It’s very useful, I definitely would say.
Was there a moment during the process—writing it, submitting it, or after—that surprised you?
I think during the writing, I would have never thought it would demand so much introspection on my part, because you would think that it’s easy to write about yourself because you know yourself and what you’ve lived. But really thinking about each word, having to go through several rounds—this is what I want to say, but in this specific way—I would have never thought that it would demand that much self-thinking. It isn’t just as easy as writing but more like choosing the right words.
I was very lucky to be helped by mentors and family, friends, and people who knew me very personally and who were able to give their insight. But in general, I feel like the process was a lot harder than I envisioned it. And I’m very thankful and grateful for the experience, because now I know what it’s like to put out a piece of work, and I’m very proud of it.
After, I would have never thought that people would actually read it and come back to me with such positive comments. And they also got to learn about the initiative in general. I feel like people don’t really know about these initiatives and organizations that do this very respectable work. And I feel like I got to be part of that mission in a way I would have never thought my idea would ever bloom into. I’m very thankful for the opportunity.
Migration stories often carry more than one person’s truth. Whose voice, beside your own, lives inside the story you submitted?
There are so many people that come to mind. I definitely would say my parents. They came here before I was born, and they built a life completely on their own. A lot of the things that I remember from my childhood are stories that they’ve told me once I’ve grown up—certain things that I don’t really remember because I was a kid and they saw it as adults. The way I was raised and the way I was educated to evolve, especially in a society like Quebec in Montreal that is so multicultural, where you’re constantly surrounded by different cultures—I’ve always learned to be very grateful for the way that this province welcomed my parents but also to recognize the certain hardships that they did have to go through and what I went through personally. I think that my parents were always sort of the North Star because they were my point of reference.
I have a lot of friends that also have their own migration stories, whether that be first, second, or third generation. Everyone has different stories. But at the end of the day, we’re all united by the fact that we’re a mix of cultures—we’re from here, but we’re also from our original native country.
When I teach my French classes, which is an activity I dedicate a lot of time to, I hear certain things about students who don’t really master French and have to go through the whole language barrier—which is another big aspect of migration, and I tried to include that in my story. That community of immigrant students I share with — they’re full-grown adults. They have children. They also go through the immigration process in a very much modern age. So I also tried to include their point of view in certain things that they have gone through that I have heard now, being someone who is actively involved in trying to make immigrants’ lives easier when they’re immigrating to Quebec.
I know that if I were to stumble upon someone else's story that I reflected with — it can be very simple things that you wouldn't think of. You don't have to have every single life experience to relate to someone. And I think it's about feeling represented.
Someone is sitting with a migration story right now—unsure whether it’s worth telling, whether anyone will understand it, or whether it belongs. What would you say to them?
I would say that migration is such an important part of who you are. It shapes your identity, and you never know how much your perspective can mean to someone else. And the fact that we have this platform that allows us to put out our own stories—I don’t think it matters how many people are going to read it. I really think it’s more about representation.
I know that if I were to stumble upon someone else’s story that I reflected with or had certain similarities—it can be very simple things that you wouldn’t think of. You don’t have to have every single life experience to relate to someone. And I think it’s about feeling represented.
I know that my parents, when they came here, the immigrant community wasn’t as strong and present as it is now. And I feel as though they would have been very appreciative of any sort of representation of someone who went through the migration process themselves. And there’s also a beauty in the fact that yes, we’re all united by this common experience, but it’s very different for everyone at the same time.
Anytime you put out a piece of writing in a contest like this, or just in any kind of creative way, you’re contributing to this building of a community that is very much larger than yourself. So I would say, don’t hesitate. It’s going to end up having a very meaningful, impactful outcome. And I think it can really go much farther than you would think—because that’s what happened to me, and I’m very happy to have done it. If I had to do it all over again, I would.
Ana-Maria Posada received the Honourable Mention in the Gallery of Human Migration’s inaugural Migration Literary Award. Her story, Twenty-Two Minute Car Rides: A Story of Identity and Home, can be read here.
The Tapestry, the 2026 edition of the Gallery’s Migration Literary Award, is now open for submissions.
**Deadline: August 31, 2026.**