Tia Maria, a famous Salvadoran YouTube personality, with the Ambassadors, a group in the United States made up of people from Intipucá, El Salvador, who help fund projects back home.

Three journalists present a complicated exploration of the effects of remittances in the Central American town of Intipucá .

Text by: David Honzalez

Photographs by: Anita Pouchard Serra, Koral Carballo and Jessica Avalos

The political has long been the personal for those who decided to abandon all they knew in El Salvador to search for a safer, but uncertain, future up north. The atrocities committed by its American-backed government during its war against leftist guerrillas in the 1980s spurred an exodus whose legacy is reflected in today’s migrant crisis.

The political narrative dominating the news includes scenes of desperate, weary souls seeking asylum and alarms over an impending — albeit unproven — invasion of hordes bringing crime and disease. Anita Pouchard Serra, who had been photographing news events along the border, thought the flood of images coming from there failed to capture the profundity of the crisis. That uneasiness eventually led her and two other like-minded journalists to Intipucá, a town in El Salvador transformed by remittances sent by untold thousands of its absent sons and daughters working in restaurants, hair salons, stores and offices in the Washington, D.C., area.

A statue of Sigfredo Chavez in the main square of Intipucá. Mr. Chavez is known as the first migrant who went to the United States.

Preparations for the Jaripeo, a traditional event with bull riding in the Plaza de Toros, in Intipucá.

An interior of a house in Intipucá.

A group of children during a parade of queens in Intipucá. Members of the diaspora in the United States select a queen to go to the festival.

“What interested us was to talk about migration from the point of departure, not their arrival,” Ms. Pouchard Serra said. “How those who left keep a presence, while those who stayed, how do they see their lives? “From a history of migration, you create a new territory that is a mixture of Intipucá and some neighborhoods in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. It has its own cultural mix and a lot of feeling of being here and there.”

She can relate, splitting her time between Argentina and France. So, too, can the other two women who joined her in this project, Koral Carballo, a Mexican photographer, and Jessica Avalos, a Salvadoran writer. This transnational team became so close that they would share credit for “Welcome to Intipucá City,” a deft exploration of life between here and there and how, maybe sometimes, you can go home again. Or not. It’s complicated, and definitely not your great-grandparents’ migration tale.

The project’s roots date to 2016, when Ms. Pouchard Serra met Ms. Carballo at a photojournalism workshop in Veracruz, Mexico. They were the only women in the workshop. They had covered issues regarding domestic violence and migration, but were eager to go beyond the immediate or obvious image as they settled into a visual style. Migration, which touched both of their lives, seemed a fitting topic. After researching the topic, their proposed project on Intipucá earned the support of the International Women’s Media Foundation. The two photographers were, in time, joined by Ms. Avalos, whose on-the-ground knowledge proved indispensable.

The Casa Blanca, one of the biggest and well-known houses in Intipucá.

Miss Hispanidad during the main night parade in Intipucá. Each woman has her own decorated carriage, prepared and funded by the community.

A home in Intipucá.

Inside Tia Maria’s house.

“What motivates all three of us is how the majority of the media offers a narrative about the ‘other,’” Ms. Carballo said. “We want to get close and empathize. These migrants are stigmatized by the hateful talk in the U.S., but on the contrary, they are people who could be your family.”

Not to mention neighbors.

The flow from Intipucá has lasted decades, and remittances have transformed it physically, with houses built in suburban style, even with material imported from the United States and decorated with American knickknacks, like one from the Statue of Liberty. Culturally, the flow between the two countries has resulted in another North American phenomenon: Spanglish.

Tangled family ties pulled taut by distance are common. Employing drawings and oral histories, the team sketched out genealogical trees using different colors to show at a glance who went where. Ms. Pouchard Serra got the idea from her own childhood; her grandfather had drawn family trees.

A view of a neighborhood of traditional Intipuca houses from atop a Ferris wheel, installed during the Intipuca Festival.

A photo of Omar Blanco’s father boarding a plane to the United States, and a sock worn by Alfredo Arias, one of the first migrants to make the trip to America in 1960.

The interior of a house in Intipucá.

A wall with the image of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero on the edge of Intipucá.

Claudia Rivera’s family tree shows her two teenage sons living with her parents in Washington, where she was raised after fleeing El Salvador’s civil war. Now a doctor, she returned to Intipucá and set up a clinic in a village an hour’s drive away. “She wanted to do something to help her country,” Ms. Pouchard Serra said. “But there is a new challenge because you can be a bit of a stranger because you lived for so long in another country. All of these families have those feelings.”

In more recent trips for the project, the team has gone to the Washington area to follow up with those who are still in the States. This diaspora remains connected to Intipucá in ways an older generation never could, relying on its own website, social media and Skype calls. But those who left also sustain their hometown by holding pageants and raffles, raising money for local projects and providing school supplies for the town’s children. Some also return to the town for festivals and religious feasts, bringing their children to remind them of their family’s roots.

The project, which was selected for the Open Society Foundations’ Moving Walls 25 exhibition, — is a work in progress. So, too, are the lives of their subjects.

Ludwin Navarrete, 38, on his farm in Intipucá. All of his brothers moved to the United States, but he wanted to stay behind. On Mr. Navarrete’s family tree, the names in red are relatives who live in the United States; those in blue reside in El Salvador.

Claudia Rivera, whose family tree is at right, fled Intipucá as a child because of the civil war. Now a doctor, she left Washington, D.C., and returned to El Salvador.

The home of Hugo Salinas and his uncle Alcides Andrade in Intipucá.

The exterior of a house on the beach in Intipucá.