migration
We have all been migrants,
or we will be
Across a watery border, a man not yet a man travels, carrying the weight of fourteen years on his shoulders, hidden in the back of a truck. He has left behind a continent they call black to reach a European country. Being fourteen, not eighteen, makes him unaccompanied; but in four more years, his new label will be illegal.
They'll also call an Indigenous woman who crossed three borders of forest and river, heading for the American North, illegal. Up north, they'll exchange seven dreams for a dollar. With one dollar from the North, you can buy a day of school for your children in Central or South America. So people take their dreams to cross America; they stuff them into bags and pockets until they're almost bursting, and sell them at whatever exchange rate is available.
The rafts, the pangas, the cameras, the dinghies, the boats are all filled with dreams. The train cars, the car trunk, the bus's luggage compartment, the piece of drainage pipe, the bottom of the coyote's van in Sásabe. Gather seven, eight, eleven, sixteen, and the journey to the other side is set in motion, to the place where, to become someone, you'll have to stop being.
Migration—along with feminism and climate change—is one of the three major issues of the 21st century. At some point, Migration ceased to be a choice and became a necessity: Because of poverty, because of droughts, because of gangs, because of the lack of services, because of state violence, because of corrupt government, because of organized crime –because these two are sometimes one and the same, and there is no other option but to migrate– Migration ceased to be an activity and became a stigma: tell me how, when, where, from where and why you migrated, and I will tell you who you no longer are.
The right to freedom of movement, for each human being to choose where and how they want to live – the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, some say – ended up being turned into paper: into a passport, a visa, an INE credential, an identity card, a child-sized photograph.
We place the validity of a right in a government seal, on a bureaucrat's typewriter, in an interview with immigration officers. We assume that legitimacy is granted by the location on the map where your mother gave birth, or by the color of the passport of the guy you fell in love with.
None of this, or almost none of it, has anything to do with you, your effort, or your will. Your skin tone in Pantone, your hair shape, the language you speak, the faith you profess, are all the result of chance, just as much as everything that entitles you to have a role to travel, to have an assigned number, to not be invisible.
Regardless of borders, Pantone colors, or paper, we continue to migrate: from the countryside to the cities, from the jungles to the metropolises, from the Sahara to the Darién. We continue to love the land where we were born and learn to love the land we walk on every day: we work it, we walk it in work boots, we carry loads across it, we cultivate it, we harvest it, we water it when homesickness strikes, and we make it our own with the marks of our sweat. We continue to migrate, leaving behind our homeland, our roots, our loved ones, our friends; We continue to migrate to clean up what we didn't dirty, to raise children who aren't ours, and to accompany women searching for their own; to take care of others so they don't have to migrate.
We migrate even when we never imagined migrating. One day we have to leave our own home as the only option—to avoid dying for believing in a god, or for not believing in a god, or for not believing in a politician who thinks he's a god, or for not believing in the left and not in the right; because we like men, or perhaps because we don't like men. We arrive in a new city and work in the city's businesses, we cook what the city eats, we educate the city's children; we tend to the city's lawns even though we don't have a piece of paper in our pockets calling us citizens.
There are 272 million pairs of feet walking a country that is not their own; half are women, one in seven are children, and 20 million are refugees. Each one understands the roads as the future, the ravines and rivers as the border, and scorns the wall, the fence, the barbed wire. They see themselves reflected in the migration of birds and find in other humans a reflection of themselves. Sooner or later, they now know, they will all have to migrate. And it will be those who move around the world who will manage to tear down the walls.
Eileen Truax
Mexican journalist specializing in politics,
immigration and social movements.
Listen to the story and look at the poster
Did you know?
Keys
Latin American migrants
In the first two decades of the 21st century, Latin America transitioned from being primarily a region of origin for migrants to countries in the Global North to a region of transit and destination for migrants from neighboring countries, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. State control practices were strengthened to impede, persecute, and criminalize migration, creating a highly risky vertical border that extends northward and expands along the migration corridor connecting the Andean region, Central America, Mexico, and the United States.
Detention and deportation
Detentions and deportations are becoming increasingly common, not only in the United States, but also in Canada, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil. The militarization of borders has led to hundreds of regional and extra-continental migrants being confined in highly dangerous waiting areas, such as the Darién jungle between Panama and Colombia or the border between Mexico and the United States.
Rights stolen
The increase in restrictive policies has led to a rise in irregular migration and limited the recognition of the right to asylum. In fragile Latin American economies, migrant workers are employed whose labor is essential, such as in agriculture, delivery services, and care work. Many of these workers, facing obstacles to regularizing their status, are left without social protection and become exploitable, deportable, and disposable.
Migrant struggles
Faced with this hostile territory, it is collective organization that sustains the lives of migrants and refugees. Through solidarity, creativity, and resistance, people on the move—adults, accompanied and unaccompanied minors, and entire families—defend themselves against violence, exclusion, and control. These actions reveal that these individuals, far from being “passive,” “victims,” “trafficked,” or “defenseless,” are subjects in struggle who constantly activate survival strategies in the face of the open and intolerable deprivation of their rights.
Who to Follow?
Migration corridors
Ecologies of migrant care
Migrants from another world
@EileenTruax
Mexican journalist specializing in politics, immigration, and social movements.
Mesoamerican Migrant Movement
(In)Mobility in the Americas and Covid-19
It is an (un)finished project and therefore under construction, which reflects collectively on (im)mobility and control in the Americas during the pandemic. immobilityamericas.org
Readings to Go Into Depth
Immigration
The nine reflections that make up this collective work offer guidelines for rethinking the uncertain and contingent nature of migration dynamics, which are changing in the region. Furthermore, they seek to contribute to politically engaged research with a transnational call for migrant justice.
Authors: Iréri Ceja, Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Ulla D. Berg
Rethinking the link between migration and crisis
Perspectives from Latin America and Europe
This collective book, co-published with CALAS, offers a critical look at the link between migration and crisis, and invites us to rethink the limits of the concept of migration crisis from political, environmental and identity perspectives.
Various Authors
Perspectives on migration, borders and exile
This book seeks to problematize the presence or absence of a fundamental actor in the expulsion processes of migration and exile: the role of political power, the State and its institutions.
Various Authors
General coordination:
Karina Batthyany
Nicholas Arata
Nicolás Sticotti
Illustration:
Power Paola (@PowerPaola)
Academic advising:
Iréri Ceja and Soledad Álvarez Velasco
Podcast:
Gustavo Lema
Design and communication:
Gustavo Lema
Marcelo Giardino
Sebastian Higa
