Since 2000, composer Julián De La Chica has been researching Agua de Dios, Colombia, and its history as a town confining leprosy patients and those suspected of having leprosy. For the research, De La Chica visited the community and interviewed subjects with information on those who crossed the Puente de Los Suspiros {Bridge of Sighs} over the Río Bogotá and into the concentration camps. These individuals, who were forced by the Colombian government to relinquish their rights as citizens-identities, possessions, and families-numbered into the tens of thousands until the leprosarium was closed in 1961.
