Teaching About Border Issues Copyright Š 2019 by Alex Gomez All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author. ISBN (XXXXXXXXXXXXX)
Cover Design: by DACA college student living in San Diego who chooses to remain anonymous due to unforeseen changes in status or the DACA program.
Dedication: To all families that have been separated by the US-Mexico border policies and those that try to seek justice on their behalf. To Madres y Familias deportadas en Acciรณn for allowing us to use their center as our operation research center.
Table of Contents
Preface
7
Introduction: Getting Started with Border Issues
14
Chapter 1: Useful tools for studying and teaching border issues. by Alex Gomez, Phil Trotter, and Rodolfo Jacobo
26
Chapter 2: How do United States trade policies push people to migrate (studying NAFTA) by David Schmidt
55
Chapter 3: Reluctant Immigrants by Alex Gomez
71
Chapter 4:The Border and the environment. by Alex Gomez
71
Chapter 5: Immigration and fake news: Current and Historical Policies. by Alex Gomez
77
Chapter 6: Examining the experience of undocumented students by Dr. Rodolfo Jacobo
113
Chapter 7: The Tale of the Bi-national Garden by Daniel Watman
130
Chapter 8: Deported Veterans by Alex Gomez
153
Chapter 9: US-Mexico Border Art by Alex Gomez
161
Preface We walk this earth only able to live our lives but it is very important for us to empathize and feel what others feel. I guess I didn’t realize that I felt many of ways other travelers have felt. Their feelings, I assume, were much stronger and clearly much higher stakes. I hope to continue to grapple with this issue, but to always keep in mind the families that are affected by the border. Kevin Dunn, Jacumba September 2018
This book is designed around the idea that there are approaches beyond the textbook that help to broaden students’ views of complex topics such as poverty and immigration. The ability to understand and communicate with each other across cultural barriers is a fundamental prerequisite for making societies work. As educators and students, we have a unique opportunity to help develop the citizenship skills that will enable our community to provide a mutual framework for understanding. The goal of this book is to take a look at immigration along the southern border in order to provide a framework for mutual understanding by using multiple perspectives with this very multi-layered and contentious issue. The world is an extremely complex place, comprised of multiple levels of dynamic, intertwined systems. This era of
globalization has produced unique, complex dilemmas and opportunities that are difficult for both educators and students to wade through. Students wrestle with these topics because most lessons tend to stay away from the human component and rely on statistics and secondary sources. By reasoning, students can comprehend issues such as population growth, global warming and immigration. These topics are usually studied independently and then reinforced through social media, politics and classroom units. We would like to address the elements put forth in some International Baccalaureate programs that factor in feelings and emotions as important gauges of understanding. Students seem to understand that our world is more connected, and that a range of unfolding trends are shaping how we view borders. We call some of these trends 'global megatrends' as they cut across social, technological, economic, political and even environmental dimensions. Such trends have huge implications for the global demand of resources and have a direct effect on how we see ourselves as Americans and our role in the world. Now more than ever, is a good time to be engaged in global issues, and to provide young citizens with the tools to understand the complexity of social issues. Conversations in and out of classes have evolved to include tweets from the President, instantaneous news flashes and social media updates. As an attempt to explain complexity
and also to provide tools for understanding citizenship skills we decided to use the Tijuana and San Diego border region as a microcosm of global integration. Students have the opportunity to explore how these two cities have responded to the many challenges and opportunities of globalization. Integration brings forth problems of unjust economic inequality and also the opportunity for mutual social and cultural engagement. Unfortunately, students often have not been given the tools or the time to examine questions of equity and justice in any depth. The idea of writing this book stems from years of successful nontraditional approaches to teaching border issues in the San Diego/Tijuana region. Before Dr. Alex Gomez taught at the high school level, he spent about a decade teaching at San Diego State University. Dr. Gomez started experimenting with curriculum in an upper division course on the border region separating the United States and Mexico. By taking students beyond the classroom, he found that by providing the experiential learning components to the curriculum, the students were more engaged and also had a better understanding of the complexities of the border region. Many concepts for example, human migration, which seem too difficult to get a grasp of in the classroom, are a lot easier to understand when dealing directly with stakeholders.
University students began the experience with a border tour designed to analyze the complexity and immigration policy of the border. The program evolved into a series of experiential trips along the Southernmost border between Mexico and the United States. The first experiential learning opportunity took place at Friendship Park, at the southwestern most tip of the border. This meeting place on the border is the most interesting and important stop for many students. The Nixon administration built Friendship Park, the only federally designated bi-national meeting place along the US southern border. Up until 1994, the park between San Diego and Tijuana did not include any fencing. Citizens from both countries could spend time there during the day, monitored by the US Border Patrol. But border security tightened over time, and today families can barely touch fingertips through Friendship Park's thick steel fence. Friendship Park used to be the meeting place where families at one point could meet and have a picnic, share their food and have physical contact. In Tijuana, Friendship Park still looks like a gathering place with picnic tables and mariachi bands. On the American side, there are armed border patrol agents, surveillance cameras, and a barren slab of concrete that keeps this park very restricted.
From the Border Field State Park, we drove students to the Outlet Mall--Puerta de las Américas, in San Ysidro, where a new
international pedestrian bridge connects the two cities taking visitors next to the entrance of the mall. At this site, students can see the buying power from the Tijuanenses. This provides the first real example of economic interdependence of these two cities. Day visitors from Mexico legally travel into the United States in an area extending no more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the international border, as defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The transnational border is where students are introduced to the term “transborder residents”. Among those that cross, there are thousands of dual citizens with passports from both the United States and Mexico and the ability to live and work on either side of the line. Others are “Laser Visa” holders who have authorization to cross in the “border zone” for up to 72 hours but may or may not have legal work authorization. Of the community of cross-border residents, an estimated 50,000 have now signed up for the SENTRI program providing rapid passage across the international line. Students start to understand after this trip that the border provides a great economic and social hub for tens of thousands of documented migrants who benefit from this unique region. Our last stop on our border field trip, on the US side, is the town of Jacumba, California. The purpose of going to the high desert outside of San Diego is to show the risk that it presents to migrants. More than 450 unidentified bodies have been found in
Imperial County since 1990, and authorities estimate that at least 90 percent are undocumented immigrants who died while crossing the border. The thousands of deaths on the desert challenge and contradict the claims of how easy it is to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. In 1995, the barricade was built to discourage caravans smuggling people and narcotics from driving into the United States from Mexico. In California, Operation Gatekeeper fundamentally changed how the border was crossed. Migrants could no longer simply blitz the border into San Diego, so immigration shifted east into Imperial County, where a smaller number of agents were responsible for nearly 90 miles of mostly uninhabitable land. These experiential learning trips helped students gain a deeper understanding of the complexity and importance of this region. The core value of Teaching Border Issues is to help students and educators use the concept of experiential learning, and apply it to their teaching curriculum. You certainly do not have to live in San Diego or have access to special resources to take these trips to benefit from these curriculum teachings. Experiential learning opportunities are open to all who have a desire to seek knowledge about a social topic. The first theories of experiential learning arose in the mid-nineteenth century as attempts to move away from
traditional formal education, where teachers simply presented students with abstract concepts, and encouraged an immersive method of instruction. Students would “learn by doing,” applying knowledge to experience in order to develop skills or new ways of thinking (Lewis & Williams, 1994, p. 6). Experiential learning is also built upon a foundation of interdisciplinary and constructivist learning. Experiential methodology doesn’t treat each subject as being walled off in its own room, unconnected to any other subjects. Phil Trotter has benefited from a vast array of teaching and learning experiences that range from teaching the children of migrant farm workers in the Coachella Valley to teaching the sons and daughters of the elite families in Mexico City. He has also lived and taught in the San Diego border region for most of his life. Alex Gomez and Phil Trotter both have come to understand that compartmentalized learning doesn’t reflect the real world, and that experiential learning and student focused projects work to create an interdisciplinary learning experience that cannot be replicated in textbooks. (Wurdinger, 2005, p. 24). Alex Gomez and Phil Trotter believe that our border region can serve as an important opportunity to teach global competence. Our big challenge was based on this question: In an era when complex events are often portrayed in a limited and
polarizing manner, how can educators address contemporary dilemmas in ways that nurture students' global competencies, including empathy, collaboration, and critical thinking? Mr. Trotter spends a trimester teaching a unit on border issues in a Global Issues and Social Justice course that he developed for seniors in high school. Alex Gomez used his background in teaching immigration through literature to help enhance the curriculum and co-facilitate the unit on the border. It was the perfect combo, to turn our lesson plans into a unique unit. When students can see the connections between individual subject areas, the material became more relevant and impactful. We designed this book, to serve as a course where art through digital media, dialogue, and travel served as pathways for civil discourse and social action on the topic of global borders and human migration. We hoped that by going to the border to listen firsthand to multiple stories and perspectives, students could better humanize and understand immigration. We wanted to shift from the prevailing "us" versus "them" ideology, into spaces of collaboration and creativity. Â
Introduction
“When the wall finally came down, it was their dreams that were fulfilled. Their strength and their passion, their enduring example remind us that for all the power of militaries; for all the authority of governments, it is citizens who choose whether to be defined by a wall, or whether to tear it down.”
- Barack Obama’s Berlin Speech 2013
pic by Alex Gomez
Getting started with Border Issues “Before I came to America, I thought the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I learned three things: one, the streets were not paved with gold; two, the streets were not paved at all; and three, they expected me to pave them.� - Italian immigrants joke, New York City 1900
The U.S.-Mexican border has been misunderstood by those who live far away from it. However, for those living within this long 2,000 mile corridor, the border becomes a unique hybrid community full of challenges and opportunities on both sides of the border. This corridor created by a history of conflict and disjointed politics, functions like no other border on this planet. Despite the columns that separates these two cities, San Ysidro and Tijuana remains a single community. The fence is just an inconvenient reality that is circumvented by hundreds of thousands transborder residents who commute through it everyday. ​For most pedestrians and drivers, to cross the border into the US constitutes a more banal, cumbersome reality marked by traffic lines that can take hours to navigate. The greater San Diego/Tijuana community understand the economic potential they have when they act as one region Therefore, the border region has no other choice than to be creative and adapting to the
shifting economic and political changes. We have seen that the U.S. government is often forced to conform to the border regions adaptations. The demand for a more efficient crossing has led to new lanes being created like Ready Lane and Sentri for easier and faster commute in the US, to the building of a pedestrian skywalk bridge exclusively for Tijuana Airport passengers who cross the U.S./Mexico border as part of their trip, call Cross Border Express.
The San Diego-Tijuana region not only makes up forty percent of the entire U.S.- Mexico border population, but is also the busiest border crossing in the world on most days. There are approximately 120,000 vehicles, 63,000 pedestrians and 6,000 trucks crossing back and forth every single day. The value of trade between San Diego and Mexico consistently exceeds $4 billion per year. Commercial exchange between Tijuana and San Diego is valued at $2.1 million daily. The complexity of the border can best be understood by developing first-hand experiences with all stakeholders.
US-Mexico Border Tour
The complexity of the issues that plague the San
Diego-Tijuana border are best understood by interactions with stakeholders and personal experiences of being immersed in the
region. The border region is embedded with people in crisis and despair, we hear their stories and see first-hand injustices and human rights violations, which allows us to work toward solutions that support everyone seeking for peace and justice. We take students across the border so they can learn about border problems first-hand and develop practical solutions.
Professor Jacobo and Dr. Gómez were pioneers in Southern California that implemented the idea of taking University students down to the border region. ​They taught many upper division classes at SDSU; the USA International Border and the US-Mexican Border Folklore and Culture, these two classes in particular explore issues at the border between cultures and nations in a transnational community. Phil Trotter was developing similar experiences with high school students in San Diego. For over 20 years both college and high school students have taken our border tour to better understand globalization and the migration patterns that take place in the San Diego-Tijuana region.
The last 20 Years of work in the Tijuana-San Diego border community has taught us that we must approach the overwhelming issues with a targeted focus. Also, that we must partner with those affected by violence in Mexico ​in an effort to
work together toward solutions. Over the past three years we have worked with Madres y Familias Deportadas en Acción, an NGO that supports mothers that have been deported into Tijuana. We try our best to set the record straight through non-partisan research, public forums and public outreach; by working in collaboration with other civic organizations and media outlets to help promote educated dialogue. Our goal is to end uninformed debates and start conversations that center on human rights and justice issues. We also track Mexican immigration policy, focusing
on basic due process issues to help minority groups are more likely to face discrimination on their journey to peace and freedom.
Picture of high school students on the Tijuana side of the prototypes for the border wall.
The trip to the Tijuana-San Diego border region provides an opportunity for students to have discussions with all different kinds of stakeholders in this challenging situation. Students are challenged to question about what it means to be an American, to take pride in our multicultural, multi-religious diversity, yet have policies that challenge those values.
Our goal through this tour is to not only help students with the tools to understand the complexities of these questions and put these issues into historical context, but also to help them think about how to facilitate better conversations about these challenging questions, which we have very little experience doing in public discourse today. Immigration issues are manipulated by politics throughout the world. The Immigration debate resurfaced again in the 2016 presidential campaign. Candidates outdid one another in declaring how tightly they would seal our borders, especially the southern one. However, the fact is that undocumented immigration to the United States is at a forty-year low. Our country admits a very limited number of refugees and the border is more secure than ever. Yet, nativist rhetoric continues to paint a picture of crisis; of individuals fleeing Mexico in masses and illegally occupying U.S. territory. Mexican and Central American migrants appear in these discussions only as objects of policy
proposals. There is little attention paid to who the migrants are as individuals, why they come, and what they knew about the United States and the immigration process before they came. Migration is a basic human activity. The history of mankind is a story of migration and the United States represents the results of immigration more than any country in history. The push and pull factors that brought most of our ancestors are still very much in play today.Many
of our students wonder why all immigrants do not just come to the United States legally or simply “get in line” if they are unauthorized.
Students absorb multiple points of view about the central issues we discuss during this tour. The border tour gains its strength from a variety of pedagogies, including experiential learning, discussion ,storytelling, documenting and reflection activities. One example of a hands on learning experience that could not have been replicated in the classroom is when students spoke with migrants at La Casa Del Emigrante, in Tijuana. During the overnight trip, nightly group reflections helped participants to contextualize their experiences. Students also kept journals of their readings, experiences, and reflections. They later referred to these journals to analyze specific issues and develop guidelines for social justice.
Students and teachers having dinner with migrants at Casa del Emigrante in Tijuana.
As educators, we have a unique obligation to help students develop the civic skills that will enable them to operate in and contribute to the increasingly globalized world. Students comprehend inequalities that exist in the contemporary world, but they often have not been given the tools or the time to examine questions of equity and justice in any depth. There is a renewed sense of urgency among young people to be engaged in global issues, a new activism is taking place with young citizens to create a better world. The big question is, how can we as educators foster this activism that is key to a healthy democracy?
The tour along the border requires students to make connections between the environment, economy, politics, and culture of both
sides. Getting multiple perspectives helps students to understand the complexity of the border and is the key to moving students to take action. We believe that the Catholic social justice model of see-judge-act is at the core to move students from passive observers in a classroom to active citizens. We also build in time for discussion and reflection
Border fence at Colonia Libertad
The border tour focuses around three themes: Globalization and migration, human rights across borders, and issues of race and racism. Words from students experiences best reveal the depth of student learning:
“It was so surreal to walk along the border fence and look at it the way that I was. I felt grateful. Grateful that I could be walking alongside of it calm and safe. Looking up at the moon and marveling at its brightness, not dread its light for fear it would
expose my hiding place in the bushes like a Border Patrol searchlight. I thought of all the different feelings people had looking at this border. Fear. Hope. Dread. Sadness. And there I was walking along it at ease, just because I had been born on a certain side of it.
After this trip, I still have questions to the issues of the border. I do not know exactly how I feel about it. I want to help people and I know that so many desperately will do anything for a better life, but I also don’t think that we can realistically not have a border at all. I do not know the solution or even where the problem exactly lies. But I do know that there are people out there dying trying to cross the border. People. Children. Grandmothers. Fathers. They are not crossing for an adventure. They are not crossing so that they can rape people. They are not crossing so that they can undermine the American society. They are crossing because believe with all of their being that they have no other choice. They don’t have two roads; they have one. They leave their families, their homes. And they risk their lives. It is crazy to me to imagine children crossing the desert alone. Going there, being by that fence, I just couldn’t understand it. How could a children cross that? What is it that is driving them so far as to do that? I think we need to remember that these are not numbers crossing over the border, they are humans. They are humans who are not being
treated with dignity and respect that they deserve. And I think right there, is at least where we can begin to come to a solution.”
Bella Norton Senior Student at Francis Parker School - 2017
During the tour in the Tijuana-San Diego region students will explore: ● the Border as a place that reflects the strengths and weaknesses of globalization. ● dynamics as a way to study the consequences of political, economic, or social inequality among peoples and countries. ● geography to visualize the consequences of political or economic policies. ● the border’s strength and weakness is that it gives students a jumping off point to understand how the US relates to the rest of the world.
How does the Border Work?
● Civil Society - How do social actors coexist? ● Is there such a thing as interdependence?
● Does help flow only one way? ● Challenges: In Mexico: Mexican customs/legal and fiscal Requirements. Does NAFTA exist for NGOs? In US: More stringent requirements for humanitarian visas, increased expense. ● Politics - September 11 Consider the levels and branches of government on either side of the border and How are Borderlanders represented? ● Economics - NAFTA Consider the infrastructure necessary to run the US and Mexican economies What industries are present at the Border? How are the US and Mexican economies integrated and what role does the Border play?
Discussion guide: What are some current challenges?
Terrorism Militarization of the border Four Enforcement Operations since 1994
Globalization: Illegal contraband and trade in drugs Global Cartels Kidnappings
Sells of Arms Money laundering
Poverty Increasing gap between rich and poor
Ecology and health: Water and sewage Air basin contamination Disease control Endangered species
Immigration USBP Largest US Law Enforcement Agency 11-20 million Undocumented Immigrants 60% overstay 40% cross
Chapter One
The Iceberg Model One model that is helpful in understanding the US-Mexico Border is the “Iceberg Model.” We can only see 10% of the total mass of the iceberg, but the other 90% deep beneath the ocean is what the ocean currents act on and what creates the iceberg’s formation at its tip. Therefore, the iceberg model can be a helpful way to understand border issues by looking for the patterns and structures that drives events. By comparing immigration issues with an iceberg, students can better understand why migration occurs. The forces that push all these migrants to risk their lives are so complex that it becomes the part of the iceberg hidden beneath the water. For example, by simply looking at the income gap and differences in standards of living between the world’s rich and poor countries we can see they are greater than ever. The development of better means of communication also allows diasporas and potential migrants in source countries to keep in touch, thereby further encouraging migration.
https://www.nwei.org/iceberg/
Multiple Perspectives
Another useful tool in teaching border issues, is by being able to look at the issues from multiple perspectives. Exploring multiple perspectives, which is known as "multiperspectivity" requires incorporating source materials that reflect different views of a historical event. The study of border issues must include the many different voices that are part of this complex subject. One reason for this stems from increasing diversity and cultural pluralism, since many
groups such as women, the poor, ethnic minorities, etc. have been ignored in traditional historical narratives. ​For example, listening to the voices of deportees, refugees, local artists, activists and many others that are more emotionally invested in border issues because of personal experience. Consider how much you can get a deeper understanding of the migrant experience by having a conversation with a refugee. ​The National Council for the Social Studies in the United States recommended that students learn to think critically, and make personal and civic decisions based on information from multiple perspectives.
Critical Thinking One last tool to learn about border issues is critical thinking. The study of border issues, requires students to make connections between the environment, economy, politics, and culture. For example, being at Friendship Park in San Ysidro, where the fence plunges into the ocean, for any student, the physical barrier of the fence creates the perfect environment for
them to think in real time. The fence becomes an excellent example of a question about how the physical wall of the fence have a direct impact on the flora and fauna of the region. This simple question, allow students to closely examine, scrutinize, validate, and shape the idea of a physical barrier that is not only connected to politics but also the environment. Therefore, just the physical space at Friendship Park, can help train students to think more like experts in various disciplines. ​We take a look at the environmental impact of the border fence along the US-Mexico border. The wall slices across fragile ecosystems in public lands, parks and refuges threatening rare species and disrupting wildlife migration.
This book is a collection of different voices on issues affecting the political, economic, and cultural significance of our physical border with Mexico. The contributors to this book share basic research and practical interest in broadening discussion of our border region related problems and deepening understanding of
its politics that often contradicts when it deals with having fortified wall that separates two countries and one community. The US-Mexico border region is a place of great contradiction and conflict as well and that’s what makes this topic a fertile ground for students to be critical thinkers. For us, it is essential to create a book that gathers voices with contrasting passions and experiences of the U.S.-Mexico Border. Taken together, all the stories form an integrated geography that will ideally give students and educators a sense of landscape, the humans, the flora and fauna, the history, culture and politics thus becoming inseparable. As we face the greatest test to our species and all species in climate change and population growth, we also confront the challenge of difference itself. If we allow destructive differences in our politics to continue dividing us, there will be nothing left to fight for.
Teacher Resources:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans/foreducators_index.h tml The Border: Resources for Teaching https://resourcesforteachingabouttheborder.wordpress.com/immigration/
Chapter Two How Do Our Trade Policies Force People to Migrate?
Creating Alternative and Fair Enterprise (C.A.F.E.) Director Alfonso Cuarón’s film Children of Men visits a dystopian future in which humanity has exhausted the planet’s resources so thoroughly that practically every country on earth has become uninhabitable. Waves of refugees flock to the last remaining bastion of wealth and stability—England—where they are rounded up into horrific concentration camps.
Is this future imagined…or are the seeds of it already germinating in the present world?
Background: Exploitation, Unfair Trade and Migration
As the global economy has become increasingly interconnected over the past century, the rich have become richer and the poor poorer. This is not only the case between rich countries and poor countries, but also internally within countries: a shrinking middle class and growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” is a broad trend in our world. Day by day, wealth becomes
concentrated in the hands of an ever smaller group of people. The natural result of this is more migration out of countries and regions which are bled dry by the economic powers-that-be.
Many estimate that there are currently as many as 200 million immigrants in the world today—people who have fled hunger, war, instability and poverty, often only to be denied the chance to legally search for their livelihood somewhere else. This situation is no accident: it is the direct result of a global economic system that bleeds much of the world dry. We live in a world where it is becoming increasingly easier for money and products to cross borders—and increasingly harder for human beings to do so.
In many recent cases, waves of migration have followed a fairly predictable pattern: people migrate out of countries which were in a colonial, exploitative relationship, heading for the very nations that had colonized, in some form or another, their homeland. The British Empire of the 19th Century drained many of its colonies of their resources—people now leave India and Pakistan to search for work in England. North Africans who grew up speaking French have moved to France. The former Soviet Republics to the south of Russia are now sending droves of migrants to Moscow in search of employment. Spain has witnessed an influx of migrants from Latin American countries.
The pattern is quite simple and predictable: the colonized country is bled of its resources, its political independence limited and economic development artificially stunted. When its people cannot raise a family at home, they move elsewhere—and international ties make it easiest to move to the colonizing country.
This is the case here at home as well. The two independent nations that have seen the highest percentage of their citizens migrate to the United States are countries where the U.S. has historically been the most involved: the Philippines and Mexico. (This is not counting the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which has more of its people per capita living in the continental U.S. than any other nation on earth.)
Over the past two hundred years, Mexico and the Philippines have been impacted by U.S. military, political and economic intervention in myriad forms. At various points in history, forces in the U.S. Congress were pushing to annex the nations entirely. To a greater or lesser extent, the two countries’ economies have been locked into a neocolonial relationship in which U.S. companies used the Philippines and Mexico as sources of raw materials and markets for manufactured goods, keeping them from developing
their own national businesses. There is no irony in the Mexican folk saying, “Ay de México…tan lejos de Dios, tan cerca de los Estados Unidos…” (“Woe is Mexico: so far from God, so near to the United States.)
U.S. intervention in Mexico began with a military invasion which deprived the nation of more than half its national territory, imposing the first of many foreign debts on Mexico. The pattern of intervention continued into the 20th Century; the annexation of Mexican industry by U.S. companies was encouraged by the government of dictator Porfirio Díaz. The most recent and most broad-reaching move taken by U.S. business to take control of Mexico’s economy, however, was the North American Free Trade Agreement, or “NAFTA”.
NAFTA: Increasing Inequality, Forcing Migration
Human migration in what is now the U.S.-Mexico border region has been a reality millennia before the imaginary line in the sand even existed—the Kumeyaay and other native peoples of the San Diego-Tijuana region freely migrated north and south for centuries. Even after the modern border was established in 1848 following the U.S. invasion of Mexico, people moved back and forth with relative ease.
The 20th Century brought a more militarized, controlled border and with it, the phenomenon of undocumented immigration. Migration northward from Mexico continued to ebb and flow at a mild pace throughout the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s…it reached a sudden fevered pitch, however, after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1994. Presidents Clinton and Salinas promised the world that the free flow of money and goods (but not people) would equalize conditions between the two countries and bring greater prosperity to all of North America. Now, more than fifteen years after the agreement was signed, history has offered quite a different judgment.
NAFTA was accompanied by the liberalization of much of Mexico’s agriculture (while U.S. agribusiness continued to receive millions in government subsidies), making it literally impossible for many small farmers in Mexico to make a living working the land. An estimated 1.5 million Mexican farmers were put out of business as a direct result of the free trade agreement.
The exodus from the countryside was joined by a flow of human migration from other areas in Mexico as the gap widened between the average wages in the U.S. and Mexico. Foreign corporations were given free rein to set up maquiladora
sweatshops along the northern border of Mexico, taking advantage of cheap wages (and driving wages further down) while bleeding Mexico of the profits and value added to the manufactured goods. Under NAFTA, 80% of Mexico’s export trade is with the United States. Since NAFTA was signed, poverty has spiked in Mexico, with food prices rising by over 500%. Large anti-union companies from the U.S. such as WalMart now dominate much of Mexico’s labor market.
Mexico is not a “poor country”—the GDP of Mexico is greater than that of Canada or Australia. The wealth that exists in Mexico, however, is unevenly distributed, with the bottom half of the population controlling only 16% of the nation’s wealth. Combine this with a neocolonial economic situation in which many Mexicans spend their lives working for companies that do not have their headquarters in Mexico, producing wealth and profits that flow freely northward…and migration northward is no mystery.
In the context of the devastating effects of NAFTA and the increase in migration caused by the agreement, U.S. policies towards immigration have become stricter. The signing of NAFTA coincided
with
Operation
Gatekeeper,
which
increased
enforcement along the more populated areas of the border. Of
course, NAFTA pushed a spike in immigration—and Gatekeeper pushed that migration towards the desert. As the working poor of Mexico have been displaced and driven northward in search of work, they are met with an ever-growing enforcement effort composed of border walls, workplace raids, neighborhood immigration patrols, freeway checkpoints, and municipal police acting as immigration agents.
To say that the working poor of Mexico are placed “between a rock and a hard place” is putting it lightly.
In
extreme
cases
such
as
Arizona,
the
entire Latino
population—U.S. Citizens, Legal Permanent Residents and all—finds itself in the crosshairs of the immigration enforcement apparatus. Enforcement of immigration policy is expanded to include attacks on Latino culture at large: funding is withdrawn from Chicano Studies programs in public schools; large sectors of the population are treated as “potential illegal immigrants” by law enforcement. Latino U.S. citizens, many of whose families have lived in the United States for generations, become “guilty until proven innocent” of violating immigration laws.
The great irony is that migration is criminalized at exactly the same time as economic policies force people to migrate. One
woman I spoke with in Tijuana, herself recently deported from the U.S., put it succinctly: “I don’t understand you gringos. If you want us to come work for you in the States, then why don’t you give us a legal way to cross the border? And if you want us to stay in Mexico, why do your companies make it so hard to make a living here?”
It is clear that a different kind of economic relationship is desperately needed—between the U.S. and Mexico and at a worldwide level. A different kind of economy—one based on mutual respect, openness, equal opportunity, collective effort and fairness, an economy that places primary value on human dignity rather than profit margins—must be created from the ground up. The Fair Trade movement is part of a worldwide grassroots movement towards creating an alternative to the destructive economic forces that affect our world today.
The New NAFTA under President Trump
On December 1, 2018, U.S., Mexican, and Canadian leaders signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement at this year's G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina. On September 30, 2018, their trade representatives had renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. It must be ratified by each country's legislature.
As a result, it wouldn't go into effect before 2020. After signing the agreement, Trump threatened to terminate NAFTA if Congress didn't approve the USMCA.
CBS News, published Nov 30, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umxIUHuvpZg
NAFTA was 25 years old and badly in need of modernization, according to David Gantz's analysis, the author of the brief and fellow in trade and international economics at the Baker Institute. The USMCA will include new provisions on data, e-commerce, labor and the environment, all of which were lacking in NAFTA, according to Gantz. Many of the USMCA innovations reflect the Trans-Pacific Partnership that was rejected by President Donald Trump in 2018. In a first for a trade agreement, the USMCA incorporates measures to guard against currency manipulation.
The deal is an important component of President Trump's economic plan. He wanted to lower the trade deficit between the United States and Mexico. In 2017, Americans bought $71 billion more imports from Mexico than vice versa. The trade deficit with Canada is smaller. NAFTA's purpose was to make North America more competitive in the global marketplace. It's the world's largest free trade agreement.
Six Changes to NAFTA Under the USMCA
The new deal changes NAFTA in six areas:
â—?
First, auto companies must manufacture at least 75 percent of the car's components in Canada, Mexico, or the United States. It was 62.5 percent previously. At least 30 percent of the car must be made by workers earning at least $16 an hour. That increases to 40 percent in 2023. That's three times what the average Mexican auto worker makes. Autos that don't meet these requirements will be subject to tariffs. The agreement protects Mexico and Canada from any future U.S. auto tariffs. These changes should create more U.S. jobs for autoworkers. But it could reduce U.S. jobs for cars sold to China. The higher labor costs will make them too expensive for the Chinese market. It will also increase the price of cars sold in America. It also means some small cars will no longer be sold in North America.
â—?
Second, Canada must open up its dairy market to U.S. farmers. It will eliminate its complex pricing scheme for Class 7 products. That includes milk protein concentrate, skim milk powder, and infant formula. It also allows certain cheeses to be marketed in Mexico and the United
States. It opens the wine market in British Columbia to American wine. ●
Third, Mexican trucks must meet U.S. safety standards before crossing the border. That was a win for Mexico. It was promised in the first NAFTA agreement but withdrawn by the U.S. Congress. Mexico must also allow its workers to form unions.
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Fourth, the new agreement provides more protection for patents and trademarks. This adopts many of the intellectual property rights negotiated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership abandoned by Trump.
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Fifth, U.S. drug companies can sell products in Canada for 10 years before facing generic competition. It was eight years under NAFTA.
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Sixth, companies can no longer use Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement to resolve disputes with governments. The only exceptions are U.S. oil companies. They are concerned Mexico may try to nationalize its oil industry again. But Chapter 19 of the agreement dispute resolution panels remain. These arbitration panels rule on whether a NAFTA country treated a partner's overseas investments unfairly. The panels make sure U.S. corporations maintain the rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.
The agreement met President Trump's September 30, 2019 deadline. He needed to notify Congress 90 days before signing the deal. He wanted this to happen before a new Mexican president assumed office on December 1, 2019. But the new president, Andres Manue​l Lopez Obrador, said he has no intention of renegotiating the agreement.
The parties agreed to revisit the USMCA every six years. If they don't renew it, the deal will sunset in 16 years.
How We Can Work Towards an Alternative Economy: locally and globally
The following are some of C.A.F.E.’s suggestions for moving towards alternative trade, with examples from efforts in which we have taken part. It is our hope that these ideas will spur dialogue, creative thinking and interaction between groups and individuals, moving us towards a more cohesive movement for a different kind of trade.
Exploitative trade can be fought, and replaced with alternative trade, at every level of our lives:
Individual: Increase awareness: The age-old adage that “one person can make a difference” certainly rings true when it comes to our consumer habits. For a coffee drinker who drinks countless gallons of coffee every year, switching from coffee that was farmed and purchased in exploitative ways to coffee that is fair-trade certified could literally save a family of coffee farmers from having to leave their home town in search of work. Our purchase is our vote. Depending on the food and clothes we buy, we vote in favor of a global economy based on exploitation and inequality, or on an alternative economy based on mutual support. C.A.F.É is involved in public speaking engagements at schools, universities, churches and elsewhere, bringing awareness of the dark conditions of trade and inviting people to make the switch to Fair Trade in the products they buy—we encourage other groups to do the same. Community: Establish personal, specific connections with alternative trade producers: Alternative trade is about more than just purchasing a product with an abstract label on it—it is about recognizing the intricate
connections we have with the humans who produce what we purchase. C.A.F.É takes part in regular tours to Tijuana, organized by the Maquiladora Workers’ Solidarity Network in San Diego, in which participants get to know firsthand labor rights organizations and alternative trade co-op’s in Tijuana and meet the people who are organizing amongst themselves and creating alternative sources of income. Participants are encouraged to both buy the products made by these co-ops and to build a relationship with them, learning from their daily struggles and successes.
Other Fair Trade groups worldwide organize regular trips to coffee co-ops in Latin America and Fair Trade artisan shops in Asia and Africa, allowing participants from Europe, the U.S. and Canada to experience firsthand the lives of the people working there. The person who farmed your coffee will never again be a faceless no-name after such an experience. Focused campaigns to replace unfairly-traded products with Fair Trade-certified products: Beyond individual consumer choices, we encourage you to be a part of a much larger transformation. At San Diego City College, C.A.F.É has participated in a campaign to replace the conventional “exploitation coffee” served in the college cafeteria with only Fair Trade-certified coffee. This campaign, led by the tireless efforts of
the C.A.F.É student organization on campus, included collecting signatures, public presentations in classrooms, distribution of info to other students, and meetings with the associated student body and the college administration. The strategy is simple: find an institution, store, community or similar concrete, large-sized target, and focus on one product. Then switch from conventionally bought products to Fair Trade-certified products. The same sort of campaign could be launched anywhere—to urge a hospital to buy Fair Trade scrubs rather than sweatshop scrubs; pressure a local supermarket chain to buy only Fair Trade coffee and tea; bring awareness to the teachers, students and parents at a school that uses uniforms and make the switch to Fair Trade uniforms…the possibilities are endless.
City / County: City-wide campaigns push for a “Fair Trade city” declaration: Fair Trade USA has launched successful campaigns across the United States to push for cities to declare themselves “fair trade towns,” meaning they guarantee that a certain amount of Fair Trade-certified products will be available in the city’s stores. This is a way to bring awareness to issues of unfair trade at a citywide level. For more information, see: http://getinvolved.transfairusa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Stories_of_Fair _Trade_in_Your_Community
National: Change the discourse on immigration: Immigration reform in the U.S. is frequently discussed as if it were a form of charity. Even the term “amnesty,” commonly applied to the last broad-reaching immigration reform of 1986, implies that a crime has been committed and must be forgiven. Is this really what
immigrants’
rights
are
about—forgiveness
towards
law-breakers? In the immigration debate, the right wing typically calls for heavier enforcement of existing immigration policy—“the law’s the law.” Meanwhile, the left wing is too often on the defensive, asking that the existing laws not be enforced as strictly. Far too little critique is offered about why the laws are fundamentally unfair, however. As long as we have trade policies that force migration and immigration laws that criminalize it, we will be left with a deeply hypocritical policy that is impossible to enforce.
Immigrants’ rights organizations must articulate this fact—much of our own country’s policies have been the cause for people migrating here to begin with. Immigrants’ rights groups should ally themselves more closely with labor unions, here and abroad, and with other groups pushing for workers’ rights and alternative
trade. Never should immigration be discussed without trade also being discussed—the two issues are inextricable.
Only when the fight for immigrants’ rights joins the fight for alternative trade and workers’ rights will it be made clear that immigration reform is not about “charity”—it’s about fairness. An Alternative Reality is Possible: !Sí Se Puede! In many ways, Fair Trade is still a “niche market”—a small portion of the overall products bought and sold worldwide. It doesn’t have to be that way. Not many years ago, Fair Trade coffee in Denmark made up a tiny percentage of all the coffee people bought nationwide—now the country buys close to 100% Fair Trade certified coffee. It is possible, through focused work, massive education and collective effort, to expand alternative trade on a massive scale. And there is no time to waste—the whole earth collectively groans, awaiting redemption and change.
Student Activity 1. Read this web article published by Peopleworld.com, titled “The Right to Migrate, The Right to Stay Home. What is the story behind this title? https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/the-right-to-migrat e-the-right-to-stay-home/
1.
Discuss the political impact of NAFTA on recent national
elections in Canada, Mexico and the U.S.?
Chapter Three
Reluctant Immigrants
Migration is a difficult topic to talk about, particularly when in our country political extremists have monopolized the discussion. Those who do not find racism and xenophobia compelling try to avoid the issue. Talking about migration often causes emotions to go through the roof. However, it is important to understand why many of us are here.
Pic by Maria Teresa Fernandez, Hondurans crossing through Friendship Park
Asylum Seekers, Refugee and Economic Migrants Living in the U.S. as a migrant has been a great growing experience. When I first arrived to New York, I began ESL classes,
there were many of us newcomers eager to learn a new language, but most importantly we wanted to feel a part of a community and this country. In our ELS ESL classes we all shared fond memories of the countries we migrated from. The sadness of losing or being removed from our own culture was obvious, if given a choice I don’t think any of us would have chosen to migrate. Migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, have all come to the U.S. for various reasons including….. Most likely, the average middle class American wouldn’t contemplate migrating to another country, when people feel safe and their basic needs are met, most don’t even question or wonder about living outside of our country. The average American thinks about traveling for leisure, to explore the world, visit exotic places, and to work or live abroad for fun. Rarely can we sympathize with the poor traveler, the one that is has been forced to go on a real “adventure” because they were forced to flee from their country. By listening
to the various voices found in this unit, I want the reader to understand why people come to the U.S.
In recent years, Tijuana shelters have experienced new migrant faces. The common Central American migrant or South American migrant is now mixed with African and Middle Eastern migrants. The shelters in Tijuana have become the new Babel. The human folly that brings down God's wrath is globalization.
There is much confusion in the media and in public debate about asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants. “Asylum seeker” means a person who has claimed asylum under the 1951 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees (hereinafter referred to as “the Convention”) on the ground that if they return to their country of origin they have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political belief or membership of a particular social group. They remain an asylum seeker while their application or an appeal against refusal of their application is pending, which can take up to months or
years to process. This definition is a paraphrase of the statutory definitions of “asylum seeker” and “claim for asylum” in section 94(1) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. “Refugee” as the word is used in the Convention means an asylum seeker whose application or subsequent appeal against initial refusal has been successful. In its broader context it may also mean a person fleeing e.g. civil war or natural disaster and not necessarily fearing persecution as defined by the Convention. Such persons may be entitled to humanitarian protection under paragraph 339C of the Immigration Rules. They are therefore different from refugees who flee their homes and countries because of the threat of persecution. Economic migrants can normally return home when they choose to, will not face the threat of persecution and will continue to receive the protection of their government. Refugees on the other hand are not able to return safely to their homes unless or until the situation forcing them to leave has been resolved. However, according to a number of reports, some of
these people may in fact be environmental refugees, but because there is no international recognition of environmental refugees they end up being classified as economic migrants. People who gain vulnerability because of the journey itself get trapped by this increasingly negative label of ‘economic migrants’. http://migrationsmap.net/#/USA/arrivals
MigrationsMap.net. Where are migrants coming from? Where have migrants left? More than ever before migration is a highly visible issue for the international community. In the European Union, countries are
refusing a redistribution of asylum seekers among member states and are elevating barriers at the borders to Europe and to individual states to avoid such a possibility. President Trump is trying to raise the wall between the United States and Mexico, and the U.S. Congress is considering a severe reduction of the annual intake of family migrants. Asylum seekers and refugees escape from countries who cannot ensure their safety for various reasons and seek visibility to call attention to the situation where they come from and where they cannot return. When escape becomes massive, the attitude of political authorities in countries of resettlement turns blind, as responsibilities to respond to their plight are dumped on those countries that have immediate borders with the origin countries. The many conflicts and natural disasters in the world force millions of people to seek refuge in another region or country. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 65 million people are forcibly displaced in the world, 22 million of whom are refugees.[5] Natural disasters normally
generate movement within the country, giving rise to internally displaced persons (IDPs). There were 24.2 million new displaced persons because of natural disaster in 2016.[6] Durable solutions, however, are frequently slow in coming and temporary conditions can often become long-term situations, which slowly fall into invisibility. Asylum seekers and refugees escape from countries who cannot ensure their safety for various reasons and seek visibility to call attention to the situation where they come from and where they cannot return. When escape becomes massive, the attitude of political authorities in countries of resettlement turns blind, as responsibilities to respond to their plight are dumped on those countries that have immediate borders with the origin countries. Tijuana shelters are seeing an unprecedented surge in people stranded from all over the world as they await answers from the U.S. on whether they’ll be allowed to enter. In a period of eight weeks in 2006 (from May 26th to July 21st), Casa del Migrante hosted over 800 from 24 countries as guests. Other migrant
shelters in Tijuana such as, Casa Madre Assunta, Padre Chava of the Salesians and the two Casas of the Salvation Army reported similar numbers. We have assisted close to 4,000 asylum-seekers in just eight weeks. These numbers do not include the people who at times were forced to sleep on the streets outside the doors of different casas because there was literally no room at the inn. The situation reached a critical phase, and we continue experiencing a full blown crisis at the border of Tijuana and San Diego. What started as a trickle in late May of 2016 has become an eruption of humanity. Diverse men, women and children are flocking to Tijuana on a daily basis in the hopes of starting new lives in the United States. The bad news is that the migration crisis will not end anytime soon. There are media reports estimating that over 15,000 people are seeking to flee Central America this summer and there will be many more Mexicans migrating from places like violence-torn Guerrero and Michoacán. Under U.S. law, CBP agents are required to turn asylum-seekers over to specially trained officials from U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, who then conduct interviews to determine whether there may be merit in a refugee’s asylum claim. Human rights groups pushed back, saying many seeking help at the U.S. border were being turned around without having their claims processed at all. In response to questions, Customs and Border Protection said that the United States adhered to international law and convention permitting people to seek asylum on the grounds that they were being persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, political belief or other factors.
Haitians Refugees Thousands of Haitians were given visas to go to Brazil after the devastating earthquake in 2010. Many were able to make a new life and start families in Brazil. However, with the recent destabilization of the government, the lack of employment and the increase of violence and anti-immigrant sentiment, many people have begun to make the long journey north, at times crossing 13 countries to get to the Tijuana border. Thousands of miles away, people haggle over policy details, about who is a risk
and a burden, or an asset full of potential, a victim, or a potential tool of foreign policy, but really they are talking about us, and the days of our lives and how they want us to live them.
While teaching Spanish classes at Madres y Familias Deportadas, I learned about the travels and story of one of the Haitians refugees, Rony Matheue. “From Brazil I took a bus to Peru, than to Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, than Mexico,” said the 32-year-old Haitian native. “So I passed through 10 countries to make it up here,” he traveled by bus and on foot for more than two months, said Rony.
“My frustration is that they don’t know us. They don’t know the days of our lives that we have already lived, and the dreams and the strength in our hands. To them, you are an abstraction, colored by their fear and their hate, or by their heartrending idealism. Where do we go? We are without a home, the one where I was born is now gone. We have sold everything to pay for our long journey all the way to Mexico, and we certainly don’t
have enough money left over for four plane tickets back, back to a country that it is worse off than us. After all that paperwork that we have to filed and now awaits in the US. office it is the last hope for us to stop wandering off. And have a stable life” -Rony Matheue, a Haitian migrant refugee in Tijuana. Unaccompanied children. The attention to unaccompanied children reached its peak when tens of thousands of them presented themselves to U.S. border officials in 2014. A report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights[10] indicated that in the same year approximately 200,000 applied for asylum in Europe. According to the report, there are many reasons behind the migration of unaccompanied children, including situations of violence, the constraint to become soldier children, domestic violence and forced marriage. For others, however, the attempt was for reunification with family, to join the diaspora or to study and seek employment. Children are easily victims of exploitation, particularly when left alone; criminal organizations can take
advantage of their needs and recruit them for their criminal activities.
Activity #1 Read the list of pros and cons from the web link below and determine which one do you agree with the best. Should the Government Allow Immigrants Who Are Here Illegally to Become US Citizens? https://immigration.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID= 001362
For more pro and con: https://immigration.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID= 001362 Relevant documentary: https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/as-haitian-refugees-sett le-in-mexico-a-photojournalists-documents-a-new-tijuana Read: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum Activity # 2 This lesson plan promotes reflection on the value of diverse perspectives about immigrant experiences. The underlying goal is for students to understand that immigrants have different
reasons for coming to the United States and have unique stories about their journeys. One morning in January of 2016 five men from Nepal showed up at the Casa del Migrante in Tijuana, looking for a bed for the night. “That was extremely odd,” the shelter’s director, Father Patrick Murphy, remembers thinking. The city of Tijuana has been a gateway to generations of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Mexico and Central America, people dreaming of a better life in the United States. But Nepal was 8,000 miles away. What were they doing here? Within months, Tijuana would be teeming with migrants from across the globe from Haiti, India, Bangladesh and various parts of Africa all hoping to reach the U.S. Earlier last year, in 2016, the shelters in Tijuana started taking unprecedented number of Haitians. For most Haitians, the ultimate destination is Miami or New York City, where there are established Haitian communities. However, On Sept. 22, 2016, the U.S. effectively closed its priority access lane for Haitian immigrants. Prior to that, Haitians had been allowed to enter the U.S. without fear of deportation, as part of a temporary reprieve following the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti.
I had the opportunity to learn about Rony Matheue and Titus Avivus stories, two Haitians migrants that crossed 13 countries to
arrive in Tijuana to learn that the US was no longer their last final destination. Rony Matheue and Titus Avivus were one of 50,000 Haitians who had moved to Brazil after the earthquake to find jobs in construction. But, when the economy went south, many of them headed north beating a new trail to the U.S. and now they're stranded at the U.S. border in Tijuana in massive numbers. For people like Rony and Titus, the U.S. policy change is like getting invited over to someone’s house then getting arrested when you ring the doorbell. They are one of the untold thousands of Haitian immigrants stranded between Brazil and Tijuana, with nowhere to go. They can't continue forward without risking deportation, and they can't go back to Brazil because all of the jobs have dried up. So they're stuck in the middle, stateless, impoverished, displaced and mostly unwanted wherever they stop to rest. The Trump administration is monitoring Haiti’s earthquake recovery to determine whether to renew the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation in 2018. In May 2017, following the announcement of the most recent six-month extension, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly advised TPS holders to use the time to “prepare for and arrange their departure” in case the designation is not renewed.
Questions a) How are refugees and asylum seekers different from the larger immigrant population?
b) Who determines whether someone is a refugee? An asylum seeker? Under what category falls under Rony and Titus?
c) How are these two categories different?
d) From what countries or places do Refugees and Asylum seekers are coming from and why?
e) Why do some individuals receive refugee or asylum status while others do not?
f) Why don’t they just stay home and let their government take care of them?
g) Why do people come here?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/world/americas/mexico-b order-tijuana-migrants-haitians-trump-wall.html
Why do People cross the Border http://beta.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-morrison-ryo-immig ration-20141126-column.html
Chapter Five The Border Fence impact on the environment
On August 14, 1983, the United States and Mexico entered into the United States–Mexico Agreement on Cooperation for the Protection and Improvement of the Environment in the Border Area, known as the La Paz Agreement. The agreement aims to protect and conserve the environment along the border. However, the border has become more political and driven by the fear of those who are poorly informed. Therefore, In the past two decades, new laws have come into effect. The reinforcement of the border under the The Secure Fence Act of 2006 provided for the construction of 700 miles (1,100 km) of high-security fencing. This act was processed under the Bush Administration in an attempt to complete the construction of the United States–Mexico barrier. On January 25, 2017 President Donald Trump issued the Executive Order 13767, directing construction of a U.S. bigger border wall. The reality is that where the line is marked by the border their consist a variety of ecosystems ranging from deserts and mountains to natural waterways along the US-Mexico border.
Scientists and environmentalists have been warning about the potential negative environmental effects, like restricted animal movement and plant pollination, of a border wall for over a decade, since President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006. When President Donald Trump started discussing the construction of a massive border wall during his presidential campaign, those concerns resurfaced. Billions of dollars already have been spent on existing border fencing, with little to no environmental oversight, according to a statement made by Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. The fencing has led to erosion and flooding in border communities as well as a roadblock for the natural movement of wildlife across the border. Environmental groups say that migration corridors are crucial for the recovery and survival of wildlife along the border. They've spotted wolves, ocelots, and even jaguars along the border walls. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, more than 100 species between California and Texas are listed as threatened and endangered under the Endangered Species Act these "new barriers would increase the number of species at risk." According to biologist professors Lasky, Jesse R., Jetz Walter, and Keitt Timothy H. in their article titled, “Conservation biogeography of the US-Mexico border,“ the scientists concluded that new barriers along the border would increase the number of species at risk.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state that accused the Trump administration of violating environmental laws in expediting construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec 3, 2018 rejected a request from a trio of conservation and environmental groups seeking to block construction of President Trump's wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The ruling is also a significant victory for Trump, who campaigned on beefing up immigration law enforcement and constructing a wall on the nation’s multi-state border with Mexico. The law gives the Department of Homeland Security unchecked ability to waive legal requirements if they prevent building border protective infrastructure.
The US-Mexico’s border should concern everyone The evidence that a wall will bring significant environmental costs far outweighs evidence of any benefit in terms of border security. What’s more, environmental review could bring more attention to alternatives that would lessen the ecological upheaval. Having electronic sensors, for example, would be a way to detect human
border-crossers without hindering the free movement of other living things in the same space. We can’t pretend we can build a wall without tremendous environmental impact, not to mention great financial cost. Even small segments of new wall on federal lands in places such as Big Bend National Park or the Lower Rio Grande Valley will devastate habitats and local recreation and ecotourism. Although recent legislation forbids, at least temporarily, a wall across Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, the much larger Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge has no such exemption. Wall-building also means consuming materials, deforestation, pollution, increased carbon emissions and noise that disturbs wildlife all in a unique river ecosystem containing biodiversity found nowhere else on Earth. Despite this, federal agencies have exempted this barrier’s construction from normal environmental impact reviews. Student Activity: To start, have students read the online article from Vox and the YouTube video titled “How Trump's border wall would disrupt nature” https://www.vox.com/videos/2018/4/13/17233942/trump-borde r-wall-nature-animals
Next, students will explain the environmental impacts of the border fence.
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/02/17/51435613 0/the-environmental-consequences-of-a-wall-on-the-u-s-mexicoborder
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/26/environmental-impact-u s-mexico-border-wall-426310.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trumps-wall-could-ca use-serious-environmental-damage/
http://jetzlab.yale.edu/publications/conservation-biogeography-u s-mexico-border-transcontinental-risk-assessment-barriers
http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Indigenous-people-inv ented-the-so-called-12262494.php
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-rsquo-s-wallmay-threaten-thousands-of-plant-and-animal-species-on-the-u-smexico-border/
Chapter Six Immigration and fake News: Current and Historical Policies
Fake news is no longer a matter of the occasional hoax. There is growing evidence that fake news has the power to shape public opinion and even affect elections. As more Americans get their news online, it is increasingly vital that students know how to verify sources and spot fake news or images, which often appear indistinguishable from a reliable source. This lesson asks students to analyze the consequences of fake news and build the skills needed to question and verify what they view online or watch on the television news.
The United States has several components that drive its social, political, and economic stances. One major component that can shape viewpoints and narrow the information gap is the mainstream media. The mainstream media is responsible for informing the public and holding government and corporations accountable for any relevant action that impacts the country. The mainstream media is able to dictate the manner in which news is presented, and can ultimately shape perceptions by prioritizing the importance of certain stories and headlines. These mainstream media outlets (such as the New York Times, CNN, Fox News...) operate with large audiences and powerful
resources. The mainstream media not only impacts the way that the audience perceives certain issues or events, but also sets the tone for other outlets around the country. Viewers turn to news outlets in order to gain a sense of certainty, stability, and knowledge that they wouldn’t otherwise have. However, viewers also crave information that aligns with their own viewpoints and agendas, leaving them susceptible to biased presentations from particular mainstream media outlets.
For example, the 2016 presidential election in the United States was a feeding frenzy for the mainstream media, as every outlet was (and still is) competing to provide every piece of information on the polarizing and controversial personality of Donald Trump; as well as any information relating to Hillary Clinton and her campaign. The manner in which outlets such as FOX News and MSNBC have covered current events vary drastically. While each network has a duty to present honest and truthful news, it has been suggested that each network depicts political matters and issues in a manner that upholds a particular agenda (Xiang & Sarvary, 2007).
Executive orders relating to immigration, the economy, and healthcare have sparked significant controversy in the media, and amongst the American public. For example, President Trump
signed an executive order on January 25th, 2017 for “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements,”which “is aimed at fulfilling one of Trump’s key campaign promisesenhancing border security- by directing federal funding to construction of a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border. It instructs the secretary of homeland security to prepare congressional budget requests for the wall and to “end the abuse of parole and asylum provisions” that complicate the removal of undocumented immigrants” (Zoppo & Santos, 2017, para. 15). The first two years of the Trump presidency have been extremely active and tumultuous, both in the media and in the political realm. Trump’s administration has taken several measures to change current policies and regulations, but President Trump himself has certainly created a media frenzy over his use of the executive order to fulfill his agenda. For example, President Trump has clearly taken a firm stance on the issue of immigration, signing an executive order during the first week of his presidency “halting all refugee admissions and temporarily barring people from seven Muslim majority countries” (bbc.com, 2017, para. 1).
In the political realm, media bias is very relevant due to extremely divided political parties and crucial partisan issues that impact the United States. In today’s political media, the necessity to interject opinion over fact seems to be a huge issue amongst several major
media outlets. For example, DellaVigna and Kaplan (2006) conducted research on the impact of Fox News on media bias and audience perceptions, with the understanding that Fox News tends to lean toward right-wing conservatism. “The introduction of Fox News into a cable market, therefore, is likely to have a systematic and significant effect on the available political information in that cable market.
Mainstream media personalities on national television have a duty to separate their own personal beliefs from current events. The distinction between commentator and journalist is a crucial aspect in reporting, especially because the public may not be fully aware of the difference between the two. Hendrich (2013) notes “the primary division between us is that of reporters and commentators, which essentially splits us into the ‘news’ section of the newspaper, and the ‘opinion’ section. More often than not, the public treats both sections as if they are one and the same” (para. 3). The public needs to be able to distinguish when a commentator is giving an opinion on an issue, and when a news anchor is strictly reporting the news. This distinction is difficult to make, especially given the divisions in cable news. Hendrich (2013) explains that “people falsely equate news and opinion when they start complaining about bias in the media” (para. 8), and he notes examples of liberals complaining that “FOX news is
biased because of people like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity” while conservatives “complain that MSNBC is biased because of people like Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz” (Hendrich, 2013, para. 8). However, the key issue here is the audience’s ability to recognize that these personalities are not necessarily depicting news and current events objectively. It is the anchor’s responsibility to clarify that they are issuing a 10 partisan outlook; otherwise these broadcasts can become irresponsible and potentially deceptive to the audience (Hendrich, 2013).
How to stay away from fake news No media outlet, even an established one, is completely bias free. All media selects which story is newsworthy. It is important to recognize that our news outlets will have a readership and stories are written for a particular reader. Bias differs from fake news in that fake news is specifically untrue. Biased sources don't necessarily use lies, they just don't include the whole picture, only using the facts that support their viewpoint. By using only the facts that support their cause they are giving an incomplete and therefore inaccurate picture. When determining bias look at: ●
Compare headlines and story content
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Identify politically-charged labels, adjectives, and verbs
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Question the agenda of sources
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Consider whether the placement of ideas and sources affect the story’s impact
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How might the story change if told from another perspective
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Compare photographs and photo captions to the news stories connected with them
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Which perspective does data from polls and statistics seem to support
A few more tips on how to spot fake news: If you are using the internet, check the web address or URL. If you see an address that is unfamiliar, do a little digging. There are websites that mimic the site's layout, logo and even have a web address that is similar enough to the legitimate website. Be wary that fake news sites sometimes have domains that are very close to real news sites. For example, in late 2016, there was an announcement from what appeared to be a BBC twitter account declaring that Queen Elizabeth II had died. It was shared thousands of times before people started to notice that the username was a variation on the real BBC twitter username. The real BBC twitter username is: @BBCNews and this account was tweeting from @BBCNewsUKI A close enough match that it fooled thousands of people.
Look for an "About Us" page and read it. ●
Is the website clear about who is running the site?
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Do they state that the website is satirical or full of fake news?
Be wary of websites that don't tell you about the website. There are websites that have, at first glance, innocuous content. For example, this Martin Luther King website which lists historical writings and "the truth" about King. But look closer... at the bottom of the page there is a link that states that this website is hosted by Stormfront. Look for elements that you would expect from an established news source. Such elements are: ●
Date stamp on the story. The date stamp lets you know when the story was first published. Fake news stories circulate for years.
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Is it a .com? .org? .edu or .gov?
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Break out of your information bubble Seek out news from a variety of sources. Traditional news sources are not neutral. All news agencies report or publish stories based on what they consider to be newsworthy. Make it a habit to look at established news
sources from all sides of the political spectrum. In addition to this, don't limit how news is delivered to you. Don't rely on your Facebook or other social media venues to give you your news.
While there is no one definitive list of where news sources lie on the political spectrum, Allsides' bias rating does make an attempt to categorize news outlets (primarily US focused). Pew Research Centre also publishes a list of trusted news agencies by ideological groups.
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Use different search engines Try using different search engines. Search engines are not neutral. Search engines keep track of your search habits and try to customize your search hits based on your past searching habits and where you live.
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Know that fake news and biases exist Be critical of your own personal, moral and political biases when reading information or news. Don't get suckered into immediately agreeing with information that matches your personal belief set.
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Develop a healthy dose of skepticism When reading anything, even from traditional news sources, be skeptical. Look for information, photos, language that is meant to sway you to a particular point of view. Even when reading something from a traditional news source or something that your favourite aunt, nephew or child shares with you.
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Dig deeper Try to verify what you are reading from other sources. Look for those elements that indicate that what you are reading may be fake.
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Question language, social conventions, and taboos being used to define issues and problems How does your news outlets refer to or describe conflict/issues? Inflammatory words, polarizing positioning, stereotypes or imagery.
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Give breaking news stories time to develop The full story takes time to report accurately. Breaking news stories will often get the facts wrong. Give time for a story to be discovered. Hold off on your opinions and
judgment on a story until more information is known to reporters.
Conclusion: We are living in a paradoxical moment, while all reliable data suggests that immigrants are integrating as fast, or faster than in previous generations, anti-immigrant rhetoric and violence appear to be on the rise. Maybe that is to be expected. During periods of mass migration, newcomers have often been met with skepticism and distrust. Beyond the predictability of prejudice, an informed observer will recognize that many of the stereotypes directed at immigrants today echo those that were used to label immigrants in the past. For example, since the 1750s, Benjamin Franklin warned that Germans were too stupid to learn English, and therefore represented a political threat to America: "Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation…and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain…Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it…I remember when they
modestly declined intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them, except in one or two Counties...In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious." Classroom Activities Activity: Immigration on Twitter I selected a number of anti-immigrant tweets. You should choose your tweet carefully and try your best to analyze and debunk these tweets. For example: On October 12, 2018, a group of about 160 people from Honduras began traveling to the U.S. to seek asylum. Within two days, the group grew to 1,000 people. Because of the dangers along the way, many of the migrants decided to travel as a large group as they
believed it would be safer. This is known as a “caravan.”
Here is what I found about President Trump’s bias tweet: ●
No elected Democrat wants “open borders,” the total absence of any immigration restrictions.
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The current flow of migrants toward the US from Central America, many of them children or families, and many of them seeking asylum isn’t the product of Democratic encouragement; it’s a complicated mix of economic and humanitarian migration, which others in the Trump administration have been struggling to disentangle.
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Current US law offers extra protection to children and families entering the US without papers because Congress decided that was a good idea.
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Current US law makes it legal for people without papers to seek asylum either by presenting themselves at an official
US border crossing, or even after crossing illegally and being apprehended by Border Patrol because it’s required to under international law.
Note: you will do the same with the tweets below, providing a list of facts that supports why these tweets are misleading.
Tweet #1:In response to the migrant caravan, President Trump has threatened to reduce aid to Central American countries and to seal the southern border.
Tweet # 2 President Trump plans to sign an executive order that would remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born on U.S. soil.
Tweet # 3 ​The images that President Trump included in a tweet about being briefed on the start of his signature wall has been criticized as misleading. What is wrong with this tweet?
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/facts-still-matter-immigra tion-evidence-must-be-deployed-more-strategically
Chapter Seven Examining the Experience of Undocumented Students
This chapter examines the experiences of undocumented students attending college, and the trauma they live on a daily basis. A conceptual framework is provided for examining the tensions experienced by undocumented students. Using qualitative mixed methods, as an exploratory study, undocumented college students identified eight themes that uncover the journey they travel in their desire to improve their life possibilities in unauthorized societal space.
Introduction An undocumented immigrant is defined as any foreign-born person who does not have a legal right to remain in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants reside in the U.S. as of 2016, representing 3.4% of the country's total population. ​According to the American Immigration Council, between 1990 and 2013, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population grew from 7.9% to 13.1% and the number of unauthorized immigrants more than tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million. Thus, each year, thousand undocumented students graduate from high school, many of
whom have lived in the United States since childhood.
On June 15, 2012, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which granted temporary permission to stay to certain undocumented youth who came to the United State as children. However, on September 5, 2017, the Trump Administration announced that it would end the DACA program. NACAC opposes the decision to rescind DACA, and encourages Members of Congress continue to attempt to negotiate a solution for these students and individuals.
In January 2018, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered a halt to the federal government’s termination of the DACA program. Specifically, Alsup ordered the government to temporarily reinstate the DACA program and to announce a process by which DACA recipients can apply to renew their DACA status. In February 2018, Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued a similar injunction. The Trump Administration filed an appeal of the California Court’s decision to the Supreme Court which was denied in February 2018, leaving the case to be heard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. DHS announced that it would resume processing renewal applications while litigation is ongoing.
The protection of education for undocumented students can be traced as far back as Plyler v. Doe, 1982. The US Supreme Court ruled that no child should be denied a K12 public education based on their immigration status:
“Whatever savings might be achieved by denying these children an education, they are wholly insubstantial in light of the costs involved to these children, the State, and the Nation.”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, writing the opinion of the court, Plyler v. Doe, 1982. Despite this ruling, immigrant and undocumented youth still struggle to access paths to higher education. The court, however, never extended that right to higher levels of education (Olivas, 2004; Horwedel, 2006).
Contrary to popular belief, many undocumented immigrants pay into the federal and state tax system, and yet we still deny their children funding to higher education. Research shows that allowing this determined group of young people to join their peers in higher education and the workforce would not displace US born citizens, but would in fact, be a great benefit and aid to our economy.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economy Policy report from March 2017, the 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States contribute more than $11.74 billion in state and local taxes. This report specifically examines the state and local tax contributions of undocumented immigrants who are currently enrolled or immediately eligible for DACA and the fiscal implications of various policy changes. The report includes information on the national impact (Chart 1) and provides a state-by-state breakdown.
Key Findings ●
The 1.3 million young undocumented immigrants enrolled or immediately eligible for DACA contribute an estimated $1.7 billion a year in state and local taxes.[v] This includes personal income, property, and sales and excise taxes.
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DACA-eligible individuals pay on average 8.3 percent of their income in state and local taxes. Their effective tax rate is higher than the average rate paid by the top 1% of taxpayers in state and local taxes of just 7 percent and is on par with the average rate paid of 9.7 percent paid by the middle 20 percent of taxpayers.
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Continuing DACA and ensuring all who are eligible for the program are enrolled would increase estimated state and local revenue by $815 million, bringing the total contribution to $2.5 billion, and increasing the effective tax rate for those enrolled to 9 percent.
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Repealing the temporary legal status and work authorization permitted by DACA would reduce estimated state and local revenues by nearly $700 million, and drop the total contributions to just over $1 billion annually.
Criminalization of Unauthorized Immigrants
“If you’re in this country illegally and you committed a crime by entering this country, you should be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried.” Former acting ICE Director Thomas Homan.
I want you to take 5 minutes and to analyze this quote from former ICE Director Thomas Homan. According to the American Immigration Council, the United States is in the midst of a “great expulsion” of immigrants, both lawfully present and unauthorized, who tend to be non-violent and non-threatening and who often have deep roots in this country. Within a week of taking control of the White House, President Trump signed an executive order doing away with prosecutorial discretion an act that made virtually any undocumented immigrant a target for arrest.
The criminalization and virtual internment of undocumented youth in the United States is the result of historical prejudice and a failed immigration policy that condemns youth into a lifetime of uncertainty (Chavez, 1991; Pizarro, 2005, AcuĂąa, 2007). The impact of past injustices and a failed immigration policy is painfully clear in K-12 schools and colleges where undocumented students live in constant fear of their status been disclosed and where despite their educational success, their dreams and professional objectives are currently futureless (Olivas, 2004; Rincon, 2008).
Many unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children think at least daily about getting deported from the U.S., a new study finds. During President Trump's second month in office, the Department of Homeland Security issued memorandums that essentially stripped all deportation priorities, a fundamental shift away from the Obama administration's guidelines to prioritize criminals and recent border crossers. Since then, immigrants have been arrested while accompanying family members to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) check-ins, waiting with co-workers for rides to work and sleeping in the same home as a law enforcement target. Lawyers and advocates say the "arrest everyone first, ask questions later" approach which some
see as a response to the "sanctuary city" movement violates immigrants' constitutional rights and constitutes racial profiling.
Unlike in criminal court, immigrants facing deportation are not appointed public defenders. Nationwide, 63% of immigrants facing deportation don't have an attorney, according to a study by the American Immigration Council, that analyzed more than a million cases between 2007 and 2012.
According to Ingrid Eagly, an immigration law professor at UCLA who co-wrote the study, said people subjected to unconstitutional arrests are unlikely to know how to challenge their deportation and many times agree to their expedited removal.
Despite the abundance of evidence that immigration is not linked to higher crime rates, and that immigrants are less likely to be criminals than the native-born, many U.S. policymakers succumb to their fears and prejudices about what they imagine immigrants to be. As a result, far too many immigration policies are drafted on the basis of stereotypes rather than substance.
Three activist groups are suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on First Amendment grounds in Seattle’s
federal court. ICE has detained or deported several prominent immigrant activists across the country, prompting accusations from advocates that the Trump administration is improperly targeting political opponents. Among the more than 10 nationwide cases cited in the complaint are two involving Washingtonians: Maru Mora-Villalpando, a well-known Bellingham activist who calls for the end of all detentions and deportations and is currently in deportation proceedings herself; and Baltazar “Rosas” Aburto Gutierrez, a Pacific County seafood worker arrested after speaking to The Seattle Times and the Chinook Observer about the arrest of his longtime girlfriend. The lawsuit says the selective arrest, detention and deportation of immigrants began when President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. “This sharp spike in immigration-enforcement targeting the most vocal immigration activists is intended to stifle dissent,” reads the 25-page complaint. A spokesperson for ICE said that the agency does not target people for their political views. "ICE does not target unlawfully present aliens for arrest based on advocacy positions they hold or in retaliation for critical comments they make. Any suggestion to the contrary is irresponsible, speculative and inaccurate," said Lori Haley, ICE Western Region Communications Director.
Data obtained by the Freedom of Information Act, offers the first detailed look at ICE’s shifting arrest strategy since President Donald Trump took office. The data reported by the agency last year already indicated ICE is going after people with pettier criminal records than in recent years. Roughly one-quarter of the 143,470 migrants ICE arrested last year had no criminal convictions at all, and 11 percent had no outstanding criminal charges. “This administration tries to characterize all undocumented immigrants with the same brush ― that if you’re an undocumented immigrant, you’re somehow a public safety threat. And this data demonstrates that’s not true.” Former acting ICE Director John Sandweg
How Much Can Schools Protect Undocumented Students?
A case study in what schools should not do took place more than a decade ago in the Albuquerque, N.M., district. In 2004, city police assigned to work in schools called Border Patrol agents, who questioned three students and found out they were undocumented. The Mexican American Legal Defense Fund sued, reaching settlements with the district and city police department on behalf of the students. Albuquerque developed a policy that remains a model and the city's police department barred its
officers from "stopping, questioning, detaining, investigating, or arresting" students younger than 18 on any immigration matter while on or in the vicinity of public school grounds.
In 2017, Governor Jerry Brown, in California signed legislation requiring the Attorney General to issue guidance to help California’s public K–12 schools and other local educational agencies develop policies to protect the rights of undocumented students. The guide describes what public school officials can do when interacting with federal immigration agents. For example, the Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), requires schools to enroll all eligible children regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. State and federal laws also prohibit schools from disclosing personally identifiable student information to law enforcement without the consent of a parent or guardian, a court order or lawful subpoena, or in the case of a health emergency.
Alliance for Excellent Education webinar on DACA (h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd7McDaoXdI) Please watch this youtube video by Phillip Lovell, vice president of policy development and government relations at the Alliance; Jamie Fasteau, principal at Education Counsel; Carlos A. Guevara, senior policy advisor at UnidosUS; and Eduardo Mendez, principal of Guadalupe Centers High School (MO) as they discuss DACA, the rights of undocumented students, and best practices for creating a culturally inclusive school environment. Various resolutions passed by school boards in three so-called sanctuary districts such as, Clark County, Nevada., Los Angeles Unified, and Pittsburgh don't even include the word
undocumented. ​The resolutions refer to school grounds as "safe" places, spaces, or zones for students, staff, and parents regardless of immigration status. The policies in most districts affirm that schools will do everything within their legal power to protect student privacy, including barring the release of information about immigration status unless there is parental consent, or if federal agents produce a warrant, subpoena, or similar court order. Schools must balance two sometimes dueling obligations: ensuring student safety and privacy and cooperation with federal officials as required by law. Lawyers say schools can accomplish those goals by limiting immigration authorities' access to campuses and providing information to families on their rights under district and federal policies. Lawyers for both immigrant advocacy groups and school systems acknowledge that families may view the word "sanctuary" literally and overestimate the legal protections afforded to them in schools. When agents want access to a campus or information on students, for example, the resolutions in Clark County, L.A. Unified, and Pittsburgh require the requests to go through a superintendent's office or a district's legal department. But the resolutions also make clear that campus police will assist federal agents as required by law if called upon to do so. However, ICE is a federal immigration agency and they do have legal authority to
enforce immigration law and there could be scenarios where ICE could access campus, according to Jessica Hanson, a lawyer with the National Immigration Law Center. A 2012 Immigration and Customs Enforcement memorandum known as the "sensitive locations" memo prohibits agents from conducting enforcement activities on school campuses unless high-ranking federal authorities give prior approval. Higher Education Opportunities for Undocumented Students
Most undocumented students have access to public K-12 (elementary and secondary) education. However, attending a college or university can be a difficult undertaking for these individuals. A primary reason is affordability: As noted by Inside Higher Ed, undocumented immigrants are considered ineligible for any form of federal financial aid, including fixed-interest federal student loans and Pell Grants. In addition, these students face educational challenges due to state-specific laws. Only six states have enacted educational equity laws that provide state financial aid for undocumented students: California, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Texas. Another 10 states have educational equity laws for undocumented students, but no state financial aid. Other states have taken a different approach; Alabama and South Carolina, for instance, prohibit undocumented immigrants from
enrolling at any degree-granting institution. Despite these state-by-state differences, there are many opportunities for undocumented students to take college courses at accredited institutions, earn degrees, and follow their professional dreams.
FAFSA For Undocumented Students
All incoming college students including undocumented individuals are encouraged to complete and submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). This form is used to evaluate the financial needs of applicants based factors like their individual and family's household income, employment and tax history, and academic and career goals. The application is available in paper, online, and PDF formats.
A Social Security number (SSN) is required from all applicants. Most DACA recipients are given an SSN, but other undocumented immigrants do not qualify for one. For undocumented students who do not have an SSN, the U.S. Department of Education urges them to meet with a school counselor to discuss financial aid options. In some cases, these students will be able to apply for and receive financial aid without submitting the FAFSA.
When prompted on the FAFSA form to answer whether they are
U.S. citizens, DACA students with an SSN should mark the box that reads: "No, I am not a citizen or eligible noncitizen." Two additional questions will inquire about the legal state of residence of both the applicant and his or her parents along with the tax history of the applicant and his or her parents. If applicants and/or their parents have filed taxes with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), then the requested information may be accessed using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool found on the FAFSA website. For taxes not filed with the IRS, applicants can input this information manually.
Overview of the Literature
The debate over the rights of immigrants, especially from Mexico is not new. The educational rights of Mexican origin children in general, and of the undocumented in particular have historically been at the center of the debate (Chavez, 1991; Zinn, 2003). A clear pattern of discrimination against the Mexican origin population and the marginalization of their children are historically evident (Zinn, 2003; AcuĂąa, 2007). Thus, important questions for understanding the present conditions facing undocumented Latino immigrants are: What has been the historical anti-Mexican sentiment and U.S. immigration policy?
and, how have immigration policies hinder undocumented college age (UCA) students’ access to higher education?
The vast majority of UCA students did not make the personal choice to enter illicitly into the country (Chavez, 1991; Zinn, 2003). Instead, they were caught in the historically complex web of American immigration policy. Legal and undocumented immigration from Mexico to the United States has been constant for over one hundred years, recurrently triggered by American appetite for inexpensive labor. Along with the demand for labor came a failure to implement a viable and just immigration policy that meets the labor demands of the nation and in providing post secondary education, while keeping immigrants and their families together (Jacobo, 2006; Acuña, 2007; Diaz-Strong, et al. 2010).
More recently the Amnesty Act of 1986, known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), not only proved the need to secure foreign labor but also created much of the turmoil we are currently experiencing (Diaz-Strong, et al., 2010). The law granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before January 1st 1982, and resided here. While the law placed some two million people on a path to citizenship it did little to rapidly unite families, thus creating a wave of unauthorized children into the United States. These
children eventually went to school and were the target of Proposition 187 in California. The goal of Proposition 187 was to bar undocumented immigrants from receiving social services, health care and public education, under the SAVE OUR STATE initiative. The law was overturned by federal courts but not without adding to the legacy of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States (AcuĂąa, 2007). A consequence of the Amnesty Act was the influx of undocumented children to the United States to be with their families with the hope that one day the laws would change (Diaz-Strong, et al., 2010). In this regard the present continues like the past.
Today, when undocumented children enter school, they face a world of uncertainty and fear. During their high school years as they apply for work and college they must confront the reality that they are unauthorized in the United States and could very well be detained and deported. For many UCA students the years can go by without ever being detained. Nevertheless, they consistently struggle having to negotiate their living spaces and schooling (Soja, 2007). They live shadowed lives.
While studies on undocumented youth, data suggest that they are under severe emotional strain and trauma (Capps, Chundy, & Santos, 2007). They suffer from extreme isolation, are vulnerable,
and easily exploited. Students tend to live in fear and shame, feelings that are often fueled by political discourse and biased media in the United States (Diaz-Strong, et al., 2010; Jacobo, 2010). The psychological stress experienced by undocumented youth builds up as they enter high school and college. The recent defeat of immigration reform at the federal level, including the Dream Act in 2010, further alienated UCA students as their legal and academic status continues to be unresolved. The proposed Dream Act of 2010 was proposed federal legislation that would grant high school students with good academic standing legal status in the United States. Legal status would also be extended to undocumented immigrants of good moral character who wanted to serve in the armed forces or attend college.
The support and resistance toward accessing higher education for UCA students can be seen in the conditions placed upon them by states in our nation. Since 2001, 11 states have passed laws that allow undocumented students to qualify for in-state tuition in public universities in their state of residence (California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin) under the criteria that they need to have attended for at least three years and graduated from a high school in their state of residence. This has created uproar in many American communities who see such laws as
pandering to undocumented students. Against such access, since 2006, Arizona, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma, North and South Carolina, have voted against in-state tuition for undocumented students or banning undocumented students from attending (Frum, 2007; Diaz, et al., 2010). More recent studies of UCA students have began to document the path and challenges faced by UCA students, specifically with regard to college persistence ( MuĂąoz & Maldonado, 2010), their resiliency (Perez, Espinoza, Ramos, Coronado & Cortez, 2009), their struggle for opportunity (Perez-Huber, Malagon & Solorzano, 2009), and the barriers of ideological divide in human dignity and equality (Rincon, 2008).
Framework for Framing the Experiences of Undocumented College Students To examine the pressures and social-psychological forces that shape the daily-lived experiences and negotiated spaces of UCA students pursuing higher education, a conceptual framework developed by Jacobo and Ochoa (Jacobo, 2010) is provided. The framework in Figure 1 emerged from our work with K-12 Southwest school districts near the Mexican border, living the presence of the Border Patrol in border communities, through our engagement in higher education institutions and direct interaction with college aged undocumented students in our
courses. Also supporting the framework is critical theory (McLaren, 1997; Kincheloe, 2008) that is concerned with issues of power, justice, and specifically diverse forms of oppression. Critical theory as a perspective searches for new theoretical insights and interconnected ways of understanding power and oppression and the way they shape everyday life and human experience (Kincholoe, 2008, p. 49). In the context of one’s legal status in a global economy the struggle of contesting one’s residency is both a political, psychological, and social struggle (Aronowitz, 2003). Figure 1 illustrates two dimensions and four quadrants that allows one to reflect on how undocumented college students navigate their lived spaces on a daily basis. The first dimension (vertical) consists of explicit and implicit modes of behavior—behaviors that are seen by others who interact with the individual (explicit) and behaviors that are not seen by others (implicit). The second dimension (horizontal) is the legal status of the individual or the unauthorized status of the person living in the United States. The legal dimension is expressed from a legal continuum—at one end are unauthorized and unregulated social policies where the individual is able to negotiate his/her lived space by being very familiar of his/her surroundings. At the other end are unauthorized and regulated social policies, where the individual in public spaces runs the risk of being apprehended for not having legal documentation.
To examine the lived spaces of undocumented youth/students living in the U.S., the framework offers four quadrants of analysis. In the first quadrant (unauthorized and unregulated legal social policy and explicit lived space) the undocumented youth experiences incomprehension, a state of living in a part of the community where s/he feels familiar and has a high degree of awareness of civic behavior while understanding his/her legal status and interacting in low risk social activities that are part of the daily social dynamics of the community. S/he while experiencing a sense of “zone of comfort” in the community, nevertheless has the constant worry or trauma of not being “legal” and living under stress. Involvement in church activities or family gatherings at a park are enjoyed but not without the fear of legal ramifications. S/he lives in a space of ambivalence (Miao, Esses, & Bell, 2000). Under the second quadrant (unauthorized and unregulated legal social policy and implicit lived space) the undocumented youth experiences encapsulation, a state of constant fear only known to him/her or an intimate other. The youth is constantly aware that s/he must always be on the lookout and negotiating the lived spaces that offer him/her a sense of control. Trauma under quadrant II is expressed as an emotional distress. Teachers and peers are unaware of a student’s legal status in an implicit lived
space. Therefore, a school field trip designed to be educational and fun can elicit feelings of fear and apprehension in the unauthorized student as legal and physical barriers may be present. S/he lives in a space of encapsulation (Clark, Aaron, & Beck 2009). Under quadrant III (unauthorized and regulated legal social policy and implicit lived space) the undocumented youth experiences dissonance, a state of living in trauma and out of harmony within the community and within the self. The inability to share the legal status with others creates conflict, a feeling of helplessness, and depression. A simple college night out with friends to establishments that require a driver’s license for identification becomes an emotional test for unauthorized individuals. S/he lives in a space of dissonance (Goldsmith, Barlow, & Freyd, 2004). Under quadrant IV (unauthorized and regulated legal social policy and explicit lived space) the undocumented youth experiences rejection, a state of living outside of the community where he/she feels excluded from civic participation. In this quadrant, the individual suffers the trauma of having no legal assurance and exclusion from social integration and civil social identity. Not being able to take part in the political process during this historic
period serves as an example of such exclusion from social and civic integration. S/he lives in a space of rejection (Pehrson, Brown, & Zagefka, 2009).
FIGURE 1. Framework for understanding the lived spaces of unauthorized youth
Approach Qualitative mixed methods were used in ascertaining the concerns and issues faced by UCA students (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000).​ ​Specifically a three-phase approach was taken. The first phase consisted of submitting an Institutional Research Board (IRB) proposal to a CSU university to identify a pool of UCA students enrolled in a college education in the community college
and/or the CSU systems of California. Upon receiving IRB approval that involved participant consent, recruitment process, structured interview processes, protocols on data collection, a pool of over 30 candidates were identified and four selected for this exploratory study. All were from Mexico, one male (Roque) and three females (Maria & Brenda, & Norma), two attending a community college and two in a four-year college (CSU). All four entered the U.S. unauthorized between the ages of 2 to 5 years old. The second phase consisted of using case study methodology that included interviews, autobiographies, and face-to-face meetings using a focus group approach. Four undocumented college students were invited to participate in an open-ended discussion on their lived experiences as UCA students. A three-hour discussion was recorded with their permission for coding their opinions and perspectives and in the focus group used a fictitious nickname. The conversations with the four participants were analyzed to identify salient themes. The themes were shared with the UCA students on different dates for accuracy and content validity. The third phase was an interactive process of data analysis consisting of data content analysis, data display, data coding, data reduction, and generation of themes and thematic interpretation.
Examining the Experiences of Unauthorized College Aged Students
Eight themes were derived from the interviews and focus group discussion, with each pointing to social-psychological forces that shape the daily-lived experiences of UCA students. These themes are: Identity, Membership, Microaggressions, Trauma, Adaptability, Pragmatism - Resiliency, Agency, Family, and Structural Violence. In some direct or indirect form the themes correlated with all of the four concepts that described the psychological feelings of the participants as they described how they navigate their regulated and unregulated lived space, namely living in Ambivalence, Encapsulation, Dissonance, and Rejection. A brief discussion of each theme as expressed by selected UCA students provides a glimpse of their identified thematic tensions (ambivalence, encapsulation, dissonance, rejection) that they negotiate on a daily basis:
1. In reference to the Identity theme, consider not having any legal form of identification granting access to credit, travel, or simply driving from point A to B. Travel and driving has become heavily politicized in the United States in recent years with numerous states denying the unauthorized population a driver’s license and check points on the road. The impact of not having a
driver’s license goes far beyond not being able to drive a vehicle. In a culture where a driver’s license has become consistent with identity, to be denied one is analogous to one’s legal existence.
Maria tells of her ordeal with identity and belonging after experiencing a traumatizing event that involved the San Diego police department. While she negotiated her legal status throughout her life it was a specific episode with police and the lack of a driver’s license that made her confront the reality of regulated social policy and the issue of identity: I had never been treated like a criminal. This incident was a huge wakeup call for me. Yes, I did come to this country illegally but I was never treated like I was. For the first time in my life, I felt what it’s like to be seen different in someone else’s eyes because I was not born in the United States.
The issues of legality and identity can have more perverse effects. Brenda commented of the recurrent reminder of her legal status and identity at work by her boss: I decided to confront the owner one day and ask him why I was not getting paid for all the hours that I had worked. He replied, “You have no right to tell me what to pay you because you are an illegal immigrant and if you don’t like it I can fire you.” I felt so
terrible that day and I went home crying, but I did not let my mom see me or know why I was crying.
2. Membership was not only described at the macro-level as having no voice in the society, but also at the micro-level. The impact of not having a legal document prevents UCA students from a fundamental component of the American economy such as obtaining credit, having a passport to travel or a driver’s license, or simply accessing a gym membership. While the denial of membership to a gym might appear to some as insignificant. Such rejection, however, goes beyond the seeking of fitness. Membership denial to a gym based on the lack of valid forms of identification transcends into the realms of inclusive and exclusionary policy in a society. In other words, who can become a member of a group, and how can the privilege of membership be proven resides in one’s ability to have legal identification. In the United States social security number or the preferred form of identification of membership is a requirement that UCA students do not have. In the case of Roque, he states: I was able to get a part-time job when I graduated high school. The interview was one of the most nerve-racking situations I have ever been in since I had no legal documentation. While I worked I was always scared to mess up on the job in any way, because I thought that would be enough reason to review my background
and possibly discover that I’m illegal. Fortunately I was able to work and save money for college.
3. Micro-aggressions as a theme was expressed as being consistently on the alert at every hour of the day given one’s unauthorized status in the United States. Microaggressions are psychological, social, political, economic acts that go unrecognized by the general public. UCA students alertness, however, is not without consequences. The reality of living always vigilant of their surroundings, negotiating acts of disrespect and aggression, adapting to restrictions by legal conditions, and negotiating the conflict produced by their legal status generates trauma, fear, and emotional stress (dissonance, rejection). To respond to the daily psychological trauma (ambivalence, encapsulation, dissonance, rejection) Latino UCA students create an array of coping skills that positively or negatively confronts complex situations produced by their unauthorized status. Brenda personalizes the issues of micro-aggressions in her own social circle. She survives by being silent while enduring the emotional pain. All my life I have heard people use words that caused me to feel uncomfortable and have reduced my humanity. At work for example, when I worked at a restaurant or even with the family members of my ex-boyfriend I would hear people use the word
“wetback” when they talked about Mexican immigrants. I felt anger but also helpless, unable to say anything.
The exposure to micro aggressions, in a society that while seeing itself as humanitarian and the product of an immigrant experience is nativist and detached. Prejudice and fear permeate and are diluted through public commentary and the local and national media.
4. Trauma, described as living always wary of one’s surroundings, can be emotionally draining and psychologically distressing. Various types of psychological trauma impact how undocumented youth negotiate their daily-lives situations. Trauma is defined from a psychological perspective as the feeling of fear, stress, depression, exclusion and apprehension as a result of having unauthorized legal status.
In the case of Norma, apprehension, deportation, and family separation by immigration authorities generated conditions of trauma or posttraumatic disorder syndrome. Norma recalls the emotional depression she suffered when her mother was taken to a women’s prison. Norma’s grades in college dropped, as did her overall health when ICE arrested her mother. She recounts:
In January of 2007 my mother received a letter from the district attorney’s office stating she was being charged with three felonies because she used false documentation to obtain a job. Thereafter a series of never-ending court appearances proceeded. We had to get a lawyer, who ended up taking advantage of us. He did nothing to help my mother instead his actions landed her in jail one more time, but this time for nearly a month in late August of this year. It has been a horrible nightmare.
The participants in the focus group expressed how they had been impacted emotionally by their legal status in the United States. At one time or another all have experienced the fear of being apprehended and deported. Two had vivid memories of crossing the border (ages 4 and 5) and of loved ones being apprehended. Deportation for them would mean the end of all their hard work, dreams and aspirations. It would mean the separation from their family and forceful adaptation to a country that while they were born there, they know little about.
5. Adaptability was identified as negotiating unauthorized environments. The UCA students pointed out the irony that while expressing love for their country of birth if deported they would feel “alien” in Mexico. Their lives since childhood have been formed in the United States. To think that they can be exiled from
the place they have always known as home causes fear and depression. Participants in the study reported lack of sleep and concentration when confronted with the possibility of deportation. Maria highlights this point when she comments on her ordeal with police and what she would consider doing to negotiate her status​: I have never really thought about getting married to get my citizenship, but this incident really traumatized me. It has been something that I have been thinking about doing because I really want to be legal. I want to be able to drive a car with a license, and be insured. I have not been able to get behind the wheel again because of my fear of getting pulled over and/or getting the car impounded and/or getting a ticket. I am also stressed out about choosing a major and a career because of my current situation. I want to be able to choose a career that I really want and not because I think I will be able to cheat the system.
6. Under the theme of Pragmatism, Latino UCA students described the psychological trauma that they experience often with pragmatism and resiliency. Confronted with legal, financial, and other social obstacles they are consistently constructing ways to create support systems and find avenues and spaces where not only can they exist but thrive. The very fact that they are enrolled in colleges and universities speaks volumes about the resiliency of
these UCA students. Finding ways to earn money for college, arranging transportation, taking care of their health, and learning whom to trust are but a few of pragmatic ways the unauthorized youth cope with their reality.
Finding a way to negotiating unauthorized environments including employment is highly problematic and the risk taking emotionally stressful as in the case of Norma: Someone gave me the idea of erasing the “NOT VALID FOR EMPLOYMENT” of my real government card, I did that and it worked! I worked for Mickey Mouse at the happiest place on earth for 5 years. I worked there my senior year of high school and all the way through community college. I am still employed using that same card.
7. Referring to the theme of Family, UCA students identified family and friends a source of strength and the basis from which their quest for higher education emanates. The family nucleus appears to be the centerpiece in many of these otherwise “American” success stories. Sadly, family values as the centerpiece of American and Christian ideals in this country are overlooked when legal status is concerned. Roque spoke of the importance of family:
I was too young to understand the legal system, but my parents would always tell me to get good grades, go to college, and nothing was ever going to stop me from doing what I wanted to do. Over the years I have been able to study and be motivated in pursuing my education because of family support and sacrifice.
8. Structural violence as a theme was expressed as facing institutional barriers that limit the opportunity to fully participate and access their education. Brenda lamented the labeling of her legal status: Everywhere I go, anything I see and everything I do, is controlled by being illegal in the United States. On television, in the streets and even in my dreams that word “Illegal� terrorizes me, even in a college class or in high school with my counselor the word is mentioned, I feel as if there was something wrong with me, as if I was guilty always guilty of something I had no control over.
Despite the many obstacles and tensions faced by UCA students, their personal fears, sense of belonging, identity, and the psychological and social traumas, one finds them resilient and unwilling to be denied their future and very determined to succeed. They understand the value of higher education and are hopeful that the laws of this country will allow them to live out of the shadows of the law. Waiting for change, UCA students
navigate the parameters constructed by the legal and explicit and implicit lived space dimensions of society. The constant navigation of lived spaces creates experiences that correlate with feelings of ambivalence, encapsulation, dissonance, and rejection.
Discussion In synthesis, the Jacobo and Ochoa conceptual framework (see Figure 1) is useful to examine the lived spaces of UCA students and as a tool to analyze the explicit and implicit lived spaces of UCA Latino youth living in the United States and how they negotiate their tensions as illustrated by the eight themes derived from interviews and dialogue in this exploratory study,​ ​namely: Identity, Membership, Microaggressions, Trauma, Adaptability, Pragmatism - Resiliency, Agency, Family, and Structural Violence.
The voices of UCA students reminds us that under federal policy they have a right to access a free public K-12 education, yet, once they reach college age they are abandoned by the public educational system (Passel, 2006). Given the size of the undocumented immigrant population in the United States, now estimated to number some 11 million (Passel & Cohn, 2009) a significant public policy debate exits that centers on whether (1) undocumented students should be entitled to attend public postsecondary institutions, (2) whether they should be eligible for
resident or in-state tuition, (3) who should have the authority to determine this, and (4) what are the economic and social returns from investing in undocumented immigrants’ higher education.
Frum (2007) further asserts that passage of the federal DREAM Act is the best solution currently on the table, since it would allow access to federal student loans and enable eligible students to obtain legal permanent residence. Yet, the reality is that neither higher education nor immigration policies are made in a political vacuum, and what may be good in the long term from a public policy perspective may not be possible as a political position due to the politics of the next election cycle.
Lastly, Rincon (2008) points to the ideological challenges of educational access by proposing that collectively we reframe the debate on the rights of undocumented immigrants from a lens focused on economics and assimilation to one that emphasizes the struggle for human dignity and equality. Such dialogue may help close the deep ideological divides in the existing immigration debate and advance educational policies that reduce inequality in our nation.
REFERENCES Acuña, R. (2007). Occupied America: A history of Chicanos (5th ed.). London: Pearson. Aronowitz, S. (2003). How class works: Power and social movement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. California Proposition 227 (June 2, 1998). English Language in Public Schools Statute, in California as an initiated state statute. Capps, R., M. C., Chundy, A., & Santos, R. (2007). Paying the price: The impact of immigration raids on America’s children. The National Council of La Raza Chavez, R. L. (1991). Shadowed Lives: Undocumented immigrants in American society. Stanford: Stanford Press. Clark, D. A., & Aaron T. Beck, A.T. (2009). Cognitive therapy of anxiety disorders: Science and practice. New York, NY: Guilford Publication. CNNU.S. (April 22, 2009). Report finds undocumented students face college roadblocks. Retrieved 2/28/2011 from http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-22/us/undocumented.students_ 1_undocumented-s Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2000). Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Diaz-Strong, D., Luna-Duarte M., E. Meiners, E., & Valentin, L. (2010, May-June). Undocumented youth and community colleges. Academe Magazine, volume 96, no. 3.
Frum, J. (January 2007). Postsecondary educational access for undocumented students: Opportunities and Constraints, American Federation of Teacher, pp.83-108. Goldsmith, R. E., Barlow, M. R., & Freyd, J. J. (2004,Winter). Knowing and not knowing about trauma: Implications for therapy. Psychotherapy: Theory Research, Practice, Training,​ Vol 41(4), Win 2004, 448-463.
Chapter Eight The Tale of the Bi-national Garden
Before I start with the history of Friendship Park, I want to introduce the concept of a peace park. The concept of peace parks is a global one, tracing back to the 1930s when Canada and the United States of America created the ambitious Waterton Glacier International Peace Park. The idea was, and remains compelling: an opportunity to think beyond political boundaries to accommodate gene pools, water flow, wildlife movement and propagation of plant species; an opportunity to unlock regional economic development, to share the conservation of biodiversity and to promote regional peace and stability by demonstrating the benefits of cooperation. Today there are approximately 169 peace parks which involve at least 110 countries (Fuller 2004). In the late 1990's these parks started showing up, especially in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. Southern Africa has faced great obstacles to peace in the past and since the end of apartheid the countries have looked to different options for
people to work together.
However, there is a large number of people and organizations that advocate for open borders. Members of Friends of Friendship Park for years have been advocating for greater public access to this stretch of the border in San Diego-Tijuana. They all argue that building good relations with Mexico would enhance security more than a wall. The Friends of Friendship Park are members of the community working to create a future in which the public will have unrestricted access to this historic meeting place on the U.S. Mexico border. The organization dedicate themselves to the work of advocacy on behalf of the many families who depend on Friendship Park to be able to see their families and friends. "Friendship Park is one of the most important meeting spaces in the world, but at the same time, it's one of the least humane,"
said, James Brown, a designer, architect and member with the Friends of Friendship Park organization. (see youtube video titled parque binacional). Activists are now petitioning to allow people to touch in the park, as they once could. In their proposal, they would create a truly bi-national park: ●
where families can meet at the historic monument.
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where people can collaborate inside a garden of native plants;
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where friends, new and old, can play together on the beach.
http://www.friendshippark.org/proposal
The idea of a shared international park along our border with Mexico is not a new concept. In 1933, the Alpine, Texas, Chamber of Commerce proposed an international park on the United States/Mexico border and commissioned a landscape architect to conduct studies and prepare plans. While official dialogue regarding an international park continued over the decades, numerous obstacles forestalled the establishment of the protected area in Mexico. Today, grassroots efforts continue to push this old proposal to create Big Bend International Park, a park that would span the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Texas. The region stretches across the US/Mexico Rio Grande border and
includes nearly 8,000 square miles of protected lands in U.S. national parks, Texas state parks, and protected areas in Mexico.
“Because it is in the public interest, the region known as ‘Maderas del Carmen’ is declared to be a Protected Natural Area with the status of Protected Area of Flora and Fauna...located in the state of Coahuila...” “Because it is in the public interest, the region known as ‘Cañón de Santa Elena’ is declared to be a Protected Natural Area with the status of Protected Area of Flora and Fauna...located in the state of Chihuahua...” With these words, President Salinas in 1994, realized the dreams shared by people on both sides of the United States/Mexico border for many years. Long before the border region came into political focus, residents clearly understood that their shared ancestry, history, and economics often blurred the existence of the international boundary. The shared dream of people along the Rio Grande was a protected area that would preserve the land on both sides of the international border, the same way we wish to be connected here in San Diego with Tijuana. Since the 1990s, the discussion has changed from the concept of an international peace park implying cooperative management under a United States National Park Service model to the concept
of “sister parks” or “bi-national parks.” Each area will be administered under its own management plan while also providing many opportunities for joint management of shared ecosystems and resources. What will be the future relationship of these neighboring protected areas on the U.S.-Mexico border? Only time will reveal the exact outcome. No matter what the future brings, the Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem along this part of the international border now enjoys the environmental protection afforded by two countries that share the common goal of protecting the natural resources of this unique region. The quest for a binational Park This entire tale is told from Daniel Watman’s perspective as one of the main organizers and founders of the binational garden and one of the members of Friends of Friendship Park organization. Dan’s story goes back over a decade. It has become a personal quest for Daniel and the members of the organization Friends of Friendship Park to have a real binational park. The irony of wanting to have an open binational park on the U.S.-Mexico border, is that, the U.S.-Canada border already has a binational park. It is known as the international Peace Arch Park, which spans British Columbia and Washington state. When First Lady Pat Nixon inaugurated Friendship Park in 1971, she said, “I hope there won’t be a fence here too long.” Instead, the fence became a fortified wall making the park very unfriendly.
Pat Nixon’s intentions has always resonated in the back of my mind. I want to continue with Pat Nixon’s vision of an authentic friendship park with no walls. My vision is to make our binational garden an open space that embraces both sides of the border. I want to give shape to a space where people can forge friendships through the wall and to promote the growth of native plants in binational circles, where each half lies on either side of the border. The U. S. heightening security on the U.S.-Mexico border has been a central issue after 911 has made it very for the preservation of the binational garden project in San Diego. The garden has encountered much resistance up to this day. It is important to look into the political rhetoric before Donald Trump. In 2006, as a senator, Barack Obama offered a measured praise for the border control legislation that would become the basis for one of Donald Trump’s first acts as president. “The bill before us will certainly do some good,” Obama said on the Senate floor in October 2006. He praised the legislation, saying it would provide “better fences and better security along our borders” and would “help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country.” Obama was talking about the Secure Fence Act of 2006, legislation authorizing a barrier along the southern border passed into law with the support of 26 Democratic senators including party leaders like
Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Chuck Schumer. The episode shows how concerns over border security occupied Washington well before Trump made it the centerpiece of his candidacy, and that Democrats were more than willing to offer big sums of taxpayer money to keep Mexicans and other Latino immigrants out of the United States. However, the border fence called for in the 2006 law was far less ambitious than the wall Trump envisions. The government had constructed about 650 miles of fence by 2015, most of it after the act passed, according to a report by the US Government Accountability Office.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the U.S.-Mexico border was similarly suspected to be an easy and attractive entry point for terrorists. The terrorist attacks prompted a major shift in the way the country handles immigration, creating new government bodies and tightening restrictions on who is and isn’t allowed in. The U.S. invested billions of dollars in new manpower, infrastructure, equipment and new or amended policies went toward protecting the southern border. It seems that every administration have all agreed in tighter border security with Mexico. From the Mexican side of the border, the great majority consider the entire border wall to be a racist and xenophobic policy.
A decade ago, it was easy for anyone to meet at Friendship Park. Before the secondary wall was built, families would meet up at the wall and bring food and have a picnic with their loved ones on the Mexican side. People were allowed to come up to the wall and put their arms through the bars and hug each other. But, with increased security, the new fencing, and an added layer of checkerboard style mesh metal fencing between steel bars means that now they can barely touch with their pinky fingers, plus all visits are supervised by the Border Patrol. The parks have become a limited and restricted public access area. For example, on weekends, border agents let people into the U.S. side of Friendship Park for up to four hours so relatives can visit and only 25 people at a time are permitted to enter the Park where the mesh fence is. You literally walk between bars, it makes most visitors feel you as if you were visiting a prison camp (Visitors literally walk between bars, it makes most people feel as if they were visiting a prison camp). The relatives press their bodies on the metal columns to talk to their family members through the fence, raising their voices; those on the U.S. side have to keep their distance from the barrier. A Border Patrol agent monitors those talking on the U.S. side. No film cameras are permitted and passing or tossing anything through the fence is not allowed because Border Patrol agents are afraid of the fence being used for drug smuggling. On August 26, 2013, during a binational
poetry reading venue called border poets, the poet Nasheili Gonzalez on the U.S. side of the fence was escorted out of the zone by Border Patrol Agent Kris Stricklin after she stepped into a forbidden area to pick up a small homemade kite that had been dropped through the fence gaps from the Mexico side.
Border Encuentro: Bringing a binational community together
My involvement started in 2005 with a group of my Spanish-language students and friends in Tijuana who united through the fence for a language and cultural exchange on the beach. That led to the creation of a project called Border Encuentro, where I tried to find common interests that people have on both sides of the border to create events that would result in friends across the border. Through Border Encuentro from 2006-2008, we did language exchanges, yoga classes, poetry readings, salsa dancing lessons and other gatherings through the fence including the planting of the bi-national friendship garden of native plants in March of 2007. Friendship Park, as well as being a popular visitor attraction, has become a center of learning and education, and a site of conducting valuable research and conservation work.​ I started out by promoting the idea of a binational garden to environmental organizations, many schools throughout San Diego county, the
general public, and State Parks in charge of the area on the U.S. side. In Mexico, we approached the local Delegation of Playas in Tijuana. From the beginning, there was a great deal of enthusiasm on both sides to embrace the idea of a real binational Park. One-hundred native plants were donated from Aquatic Wetlands Adventures in San Diego and others plants were purchased at Recon Native plant nursery in Imperial Beach. All the plants were chosen from a list of native plants in supply at Recon Nursery. On March 20th of 2007, we had a binational official planting ceremony with forty-eight students from the middle school, Colegio Tijuana, and a group of students from Kearny Mesa High School in San Diego. The garden continues to be an integral part of the park. It is important to educate people that nature does not adhere to the human concept of borders: species are meant to cross landscapes and biomes to find food and mates. The U.S.-Mexico region is a rich ecosystem, home to a diverse array of mammals, birds, and plants. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an impregnable wall running across the entire 2,000-mile border between the two countries could “potentially impact” more than 111 endangered species, 108 migratory bird species, four wildlife refuges and fish hatcheries, and an unknown number of protected wetlands. There are already a series of walls and fences extending from California to Texas on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and they are already having a
detrimental impact on wildlife, including the extinction of the iconic roadrunner of the southwest and bighorn sheep.
Dr. Samuel Brockington of the University of Cambridge is a curator at the university's own botanic garden. He said the global network of botanic gardens was our best hope for saving some of the world's most endangered plants. "Currently, an estimated one-fifth of plant diversity is under threat, yet there is no technical reason why any plant species should become extinct," he said."If we do not conserve our plant diversity, humanity will struggle to solve the global challenges of food and fuel security, environmental degradation, and climate change. ​While borders make environmental protection more difficult in many respects, they can also provide unique opportunities for conservation, provided that the neighboring nations are amenable to cooperation. One such form of cooperation is through the designation of parks along borders known as "peace parks." For example, Israel and Jordan's agreement to build an environmental studies center over their common border illustrated the ability of environmental concerns to serve as a sign that the link between biodiversity and security can be turned around so that it is not seen as an impediment or cost of security but as augmenting security.
Daniel Watman and his personal story to save Friendship Park and the garden
For years we have been advocating for greater public access to this stretch of the border. I constantly argue that building good relations with Mexico would enhance security more than a taller wall. The new argument fueled by President Trump for more and bigger walls makes the idea of an open park very hard. For example, on January 6, 2009, the park was closed to the public by the San Diego Sector Chief of the Border Patrol, Mike Fisher. There was a coalition of 40 local religious groups, human rights organizations and environmental groups, that have been working closely with local political leaders to persuade the Department of Homeland Security to restore public access to this historic park.
During the construction of the new border wall in 2009, I stood in front of a bulldozer with a little sign, it said “Make Friends.” With my sign I held up construction for an hour and was arrested for federal trespassing, luckily that charge was lowered to an infraction. During that time we met with border czar Alan Bersin, who became U.S. attorney in San Diego in 1993 and subsequently spent almost five years as President Clinton’s “border czar,” overseeing a border-wide crackdown on illegal immigration and
drug smuggling. Bersin turned us down to the idea of restoring access at Friendship Park.
We realized that we couldn’t stop the construction of the new border fence, but we might be able to save the park. That’s when the Friends of Friendship Park came together. John Fanestil led the charge. John Fanestil, Daniel Watman, and others formed the Friends of Friendship Park Coalition to save the park and have received support from elected officials, including Reps. Bob Filner and Susan Davis, both San Diego Democrats. Filner, Davis and other federal lawmakers from border states sent a Feb. 8 letter to President Barack Obama asking him to revisit the construction plans.
Friendship Park closed in 2009 and wasn’t opened again until 2011. Mark Endicott, public-affairs officer for the U.S. Border Patrol, said no public access will be authorized between the primary and secondary border fences. The decision to impose the ban is “based on our border security mission and to assure the safety of border agents and the public,” Mark Endicott said.
After that, I circulated a public statement following the action:
Hola todos, First of all I’m fine and thanks to everyone for the supportive emails. It felt really good to know I had people to support me. I feel like my mission of sending a message of the importance of friendship was accomplished. Construction was stopped for a total of about an hour. Officials were mostly professional with me. I was not arrested. I was given a citation for trespassing on Federal property and will receive a court date in the mail (no amount was specified on the citation). There are more pics coming. Unfortunately, the person taking video had his video card confiscated by officials on the scene. We’re not sure if/when he’ll get it back and if it’ll still have the video on it. I’m working on a detailed written account that I’ll probably put on facebook that I will send with more pics over the weekend. Amistad sin fronteras, Daniel
Border Patrol Negotiates In January 2010 I started to meet with Border Patrol agent Zazueta but it did not go well because there was a lot of distrust and suspicion on his end. I knew I needed to have better support than just myself to negotiate the access to the garden and the park on the U.S. side. We started working with the community and non-governmental organizations like Border Angels, American Friends Service Committee, Alliance San Diego and the Friends of
Friendship Park. We all united seeking the same goal, the re-opening of the Park.
We turned to local lobbying and negotiating directly with the San Diego Sector Border Patrol on a new design for the park space. We established a standing quarterly meeting with the Border Patrol and, with the help of architect James Brown, we put together a concept proposal and presented it to Border Patrol on Friday April 23rd, 2010.
The group decided they wanted access to three specific spots: the monument, the garden and the beach. Because the government had cut everything off by April 2009 when construction was finished, there was absolutely no access whatsoever to those areas. But James Brown started having success talking to Border Patrol. He convinced them to create a rolling gate. The gate would roll open up to sixty feet, but it could be controlled by Border Patrol at all times. The gate could open during events, but could also be closed quickly. The government paid for this big rolling gate in 2012. During that same year, Border Patrol created a Community Liaison Department with a specific position created for Friendship
Park. A Border Patrol agent would now keep the door open during specific hours. On October 6, 2012, Friends of Friendship Park celebrated a "grand opening" of the Park. Despite the awkward prison camp style look that surrounds the park, the wall draws people from all over the world. It was almost a surreal event. On both sides, the park has become a popular tourist destination. Families have come back to see each other through the wall once again on weekends.On the Mexican side the wall is painted by different artists depicting messages of unity and resistance. Various groups like, Border Encuentro, arranges binational activities such as music and dance classes around and through the wall. Another binational community, The Border Church, is organized by Pastor John Fanestil in the United States and Pastor Guillermo Navarrete in Mexico. The Border Church or la Iglesia del Faro, is a binational religious community that gathers each Sunday afternoon at Friendship Park. Today, the church venue is attended by the many grassroots organization such as Madres Deportadas, Deported Veterans, Dream Mothers, and many others. Friendship park has become an international free speech zone used for a variety of political gatherings.
Friends of Friendship Park continues to put pressure on the Border Patrol to let anyone access the park on the U.S. side. In early 2017, we launched a petition to further that goal. It has since garnered over 1,000 signatures and representatives of the group have even met with architects to design a new border park. In September, 2017, eight border wall prototypes, each 30 feet high, were unveiled in San Diego at Otay Mesa. Friends of Friendship Park, begun championing a very different notion, removing the wall altogether. We started to argue that instead of building a prototype border wall, why not prototype a border park? “Some people might think it’s the worst time to propose an open park, but you could also think it’s the best time,” said architect James Brown. “Especially in the political climate that we’re in, it might capture the public imagination.”
Today, on the Mexican side, activity at the binational garden has increased in a lopsided way, with new programs, including native plant workshops, organizing volunteers to maintain the garden by trimming, watering and continuing planting new seeds. Most Sundays, the Faro church uses the fresh vegetables picked from the garden to serve salads for the church community. The garden beds are also open to the public for people to eat the vegetables on the Mexican side.
Current Status of the Park
The United States Border Patrol, San Diego Sector maintains long standing relationships of cooperation and partnership with the Border Angels, Friends of Friendship Park and many other civic institutions. For example, their cooperation was seen during an event to celebrate International Children's Day on November 20th year, agents were at the park opening the gate that connects the two countries for families to hug. The border Patrol has cooperated in the past opening the gate for humanitarian events that allowed chosen families to reunite briefly when the gate is open. However, during one event a surprise wedding ceremony between a U.S. man and a Mexican woman took place. Border Patrol found out the groom was a convicted drug smuggler and since then, a new policy of stricter control have been put in place at the park. In February 2018, Border Agents adopted a new policy to reduce the number of visitors from 25 to 10 people to enter the designated area, which sits between two border enforcement fences, at the same time. Photos and videos in the space are also prohibited, and the public is no longer allowed in the binational garden. The decision affected the binational garden and Daniel Watwan, who frequently organizes activities at the park, and has escalated tensions growing between his organization and Rodney Scott, the new chief of the San Diego
sector.​ During late November of 2018, the controversial arrival of the Honduran Caravan, forced agents to close the park again. On December 10, 2018 Border police arrested clergy and other protesters at a rally on the west side of the park. The "Love Knows No Borders" demonstration was organized by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that assembled religious leaders from across the faith spectrum for the event. Many of the clergy who assembled have been vocal in their support for immigrants in the past, and some are figures in the New Sanctuary Movement, which shelters undocumented migrants at risk of deportation in houses of worship in defiance of federal authorities.
With the political rollercoaster Friendship Park continues to be affected. The U.S. Border Patrol opens and closes the park whenever they want in the name of national security. People can, however, still pray together. On Sundays, two pastors from the Border Church hold service on at the same time on opposite sides of the fence. It’s a rare opportunity for families and friends across the divide to come together in song and prayer.
The commitment of those involved in keeping families and communities united between Tijuana and San Diego,recognize that the only thing separating the two parks has been the
immigration policies. The mountains are continuous, the water flows freely from one side to the other; nature knows no difference, so why should we?
Today, a simple gesture of peace and goodwill would be ideal to protect the environment and the community surrounding the park. The experience of cross-border collaboration has given friends of Friendship Park the skills to reach out to all of their neighbors with the hopes of having resource managers looking to ecosystem management as the key to maintaining species diversity and ecological integrity,. The ability to work effectively with both communities is more important than ever.
http://southbaycompass.com/dan-watmans-quest-to-create-a-ga rden-led-to-civil-disobedience/
Chapter Nine
Deported Veterans, ​They served their country, they served time, they want to come home.
Most patriotic Americans who honor the military also must deal with the fact that there are those that serve honorably and then are later cast out. This is due to the fact that our immigration system is so complex that many veterans are vulnerable to deportation despite the sacrifice that they gave to the country. Changes in immigration laws in the mid-1990s made it easier for non-citizen veterans to be deported. An example of this legislation is the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, this law increased the range of crimes that could render someone deportable and it does not permit a judge to consider defendant's’ military service in deportation procedures. Since 1996, the United States Government has been deporting veterans who, as legal permanent residents, joined the United States Armed Forces and served their country proudly. Many of the deported veterans came to the U.S. as children. Like many children who were brought over without documents, these veterans are more fluent in English than they are in Spanish and joined the service because they considered themselves Americans. Veterans who have been deported served in peacetime and in wars and conflicts in Vietnam, Persian Gulf,
Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. All of these veterans had legal residency status, Veterans Administration (VA) Benefits as well as strong ties to the United States prior to deportation. Immigrants have always made up a portion of the Armed Forces in America, joining the U.S. military has always been one of the fastest ways to get U.S. citizenship. About 8,000 troops with green cards became citizens in 2016 alone. It may come as a surprise to learn that serving in the United States military does not automatically confer citizenship, but it doesn’t. Non citizens who serve in the U.S. military are granted the right to citizenship, but they must apply for it. The American Civil Liberties Union reported last year that many noncitizen service members don’t realize their naturalization is not automatic and that they could be deported if they are convicted of certain crimes. Today, almost any offense that results in a sentence of more than a year in prison, regardless of how minor the crime, can lead to deportation for these vets. And in some cases, an immigrant can be deported for “an aggravated felony” even if the sentence is less than one year. The 1996 act does not permit a judge to consider defendant's military service or any other aspects of their life other than that
they committed such a crime. Non citizens also do not have a constitutional right to an attorney. All of the deported veterans in Tijuana maintain a strong desire to return to the United States, as many have hardly known any other home throughout their lives and have been forced to leave behind children, spouses, parents, and siblings as well as firmly established lives and communities in the United States. Many are stranded in the city of Tijuana where many have regrouped to voice their frustrations through an organization called Unified U.S. Deported Veteran Resource Center. The office is located just a few short yards from the PedWest, International POE and deportation area in the city of Tijuana, Baja California. The center is the frontline of interception of U.S. Military Deported Veterans, when a deported veteran arrives in Tijuana. Veterans assist them into integrating into the community as productive residents, during their plight to return home to their families and the country they love and that they were willing to die for the USA. “It is a shame that the U.S. has neglected its obligation to our Veterans by deporting non U.S. citizen veterans, without regard to their service, and without their benefits t​hey rightfully earned,� stated Robert Vivar, an active member of Unified U.S. Deported Veterans.
Once veterans are outside the U.S., they maintain a legal right to VA benefits such as healthcare, and to whatever funds they might be entitled, but they have no way of getting back into the United States to obtain that assistance, and there are no satellite offices outside the country to help them. The access to basic health care is one of the biggest problems facing deported veterans. Some of them have health problems that stem from their time in the military, such as hearing loss and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Because these particular veterans are either in the United States on green cards or without documentation after their discharge, they can be deported for cause, or for no reason at all. Past and present members of the armed forces are supposed to receive special consideration during deportation hearings, but the guidelines are inconsistently applied. However, some of these veterans have spent time in prison for assault or drug offenses, which makes their situation more difficult to parse, at least politically. Elected officials (and candidates) who might ordinarily be in full-throated cry about the importance of military rights tend to go oddly silent when confronted with the spectres of undocumented soldiers. Sympathy for those wounded on the battlefield under the
American flag suddenly falters when it turns out they had entered the country without documentation years before. With the help of the ACLU, several deported veterans have received pardons from Gov. Jerry Brown that could be a first step in bringing some of them home to their families. But there is much to be done. The ACLU of California along with several other organizations and a handful of congressional representatives are helping these veterans in their fight to come home.​ ​On 20 April 2016, lawmakers introduced a bill urging the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to use his powers under current law to readmit veterans into the United States who have been deported and who have not committed a serious crime. The bill also limits the current grounds of deportability to prevent the removal of a service member or veteran who has served at least 6 months in the military and who has not committed a serious crime. ​Rep. Juan Vargas, introduced a bill that would require the military to establish a naturalization office at basic training sites to help non-citizen troops obtain their citizenship, and another bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to track how many veterans are facing deportation. Lupita Lopez, the wife of a deported veteran, said she moved to Tijuana to be with her husband but their children and
grandchildren remain in California. “There comes a time when they divide families, they destroy families, and it’s not just,” Lopez said. “When my husband’s father died he was not able to attend the funeral. It’s an injustice. They must be allowed to return to the country they pledged to defend with their lives. Now, the country needs to protect them.” Classroom Activities Question for discussion Like all of us, deported veterans are flawed human beings. Deported veterans make no excuses for past judgement lapses, drug dependencies and trauma related to service to the United States. The military veterans often refer to themselves as brothers and their service to country is often displayed at sporting events, political rallies and during parades. We cannot excuse their crimes, but in holding them accountable we should not make them suffer twice. Why should we care about the deported veterans? Did their enlistment make them one of us. Why, when the uniform comes off, are they considered alien when, while in uniform, they were considered American heroes?
​As of November 2017, none of the deported veterans have been allowed back in the United States. Their fate remains undecided. What should the country do?
Classroom Discussion Ideas: Share a story about a deported veteran‌ Share a fact or statistic about veterans... Find a quote from a prominent American.. Interview a student, relative, serviceman about the issue...
Chapter 10
Border Art across the San Diego-Tijuana Region
Tijuana and San Diego artists have painted murals depicting the life, culture and socio-politics of the Mexican or Mexican-American/Chicano experience. Take a walk around Chicano Park and you’ll see Barrio Logan’s history colorfully told on the pillars of the Coronado Bridge or go by Playas de Tijuana and see the border wall decorated with murals. Regardless of your politics, border art provokes strong emotional reactions. Art at the international border in Tijuana-San Diego is inherently political. Local artists boldly tackle themes like immigration, human rights and binational policies. The fence itself has become a canvas for powerful paintings and other forms of art. With the constant attention on the border, it’s worth taking a quick look at some of the art that’s attempted to tackle the prickly issues surrounding it. In no particular order, here are some instances of controversial art that we find in our border region. Let’s start at Chicano Park. Chicano Park was founded on April 22, 1970 when the community of Barrio Logan and Chicano movement activists joined forces to protest the construction of a Highway Patrol station on the present site of the park. At the time, the Highway Patrol office was the final insult to a community that had already been degraded by the demolition of hundreds of homes to make way for Interstate 5, the Coronado Bridge, the placement of toxic industries and junkyards, lack of
community facilities, proper schools, jobs, and social or medical services. The struggle for Chicano Park came to symbolize the Chicano Mexicano people’s struggle for self-determination and self-empowerment. The murals in the park painted by Chicano artists portray the social, political, and cultural issues that form the struggle for the liberation of Chicano Mexicanos.
In January, 2017, U.S. Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell announced the designation of San Diego's Chicano Park as a National Historic Landmark. Celebrated for the scores of colorful murals painted on highway walls and bridge pillars in the Barrio Logan neighborhood, the park houses perhaps the best-preserved example of an important social, cultural, and artistic movements of the 20th century.
Truly public art provides society with the symbolic representation of collective beliefs as well as a continuing reaffirmation of the collective sense of self. Because Chicano artists were consciously
searching to identify the images that represented their shared experience, they were continually led back to the barrio. It became the site for finding the symbols, forms, colors, and narratives that would assist them in the redefinition of their communities. The park features more than 80 murals, developed because residents wanted a public space that would celebrate the area’s Chicano roots stretching back to the ancestral home of the Aztecs, which stretched from California to Texas. Today the Chicano park, remains at the center of today's political debates due to some of the murals painted on the walls. For example, the mural painted by Sal Barajas, depicts classic themes of immigration. A worker sends money back to his family in Mexico while being choked by two hands. One hand represents the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that deport immigrants, the other a Mexican government unable to provide good jobs for its citizens. Some San Diegans have been offended by the new mural, as well as other murals at the park. Some believe that the park should never have political murals put up.
For decades, art on the Mexican side has been the breeding ground for an original form of muralism, one that breaks the mold from the original Mexican masters and disassociates itself from the Chicano muralists of Southern California. Not to say these
muralists are not political or socially minded, their murals seek to incorporate community in common areas, outdoor spaces, occupied landscapes. These artists belong to a new generation of urban social artists that have been creating an animated language on its own terms. These artists represent the Border Neo-muralism movement. Many of these murals are commissioned by local businesses and government organizations, or are incorporated into the design of new landmarks or buildings.
In Tijuana, Alonso Delgadillo "El Norteño" has been covering Tijuana's walls with his singular characters and their personas for several years. According to Delgadillo, “I think the social fusion we have on the border gives my work its character, there's a way of life that goes from the most popular to the most contemporary influence. It's like having the possibility of narrating two versions of life in every piece.”
If you want to learn more about El Norteño’s art go to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/elnorteno/
Other artists in Tijuana have used the border fence as their canvas. Artist Ana Teresa Fernández has been painting the dark metal on the Mexico side right at the beach with a light blue color that creates the illusion of an open gap in the wall.
Ana Teresa Fernández. Erasing the Border (Borrando la Frontera), 2012.
Just over a hundred yards away, inland, around Friendship Park, , Enrique Chiu is aiming to cover the length of the rest of the existing U.S./Mexico boundary wall with murals created by volunteers, artists, and community groups in border towns across the Southwest. Covering a distance of more than a mile and counting, Chiu's Mural de la Hermandad (Brotherhood Mural) is
gunning for the title of longest mural in the world
( Mural de la Hermandad in Playas de Tijuana by Enrique Chui).
If you want to learn more about Enrique Chui’s art work, visit, his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/public/Enrique-Chui In Playas de Tijuana, United States Customs and Border Protection is considering removing a protest mural on the border wall dividing San Diego and Tijuana, following a visit to the area by President Trump. The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is urging United States Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) to respect the artistic expression of deported US military veterans and recognized public artists. The mural was designed by Amos Gregory, a San Francisco-based muralist, community activist and disabled Navy veteran who works with other veterans to tell
their own stories through painting. In 2013, Gregory worked with a group of deported veterans to paint the mural on the south side of the border wall at a spot known as “Friendship Circle.” It depicts an inverted US flag, a military distress signal, symbolizing the struggle of deported veterans to return to the US. Using the slats in the fence, the veterans also painted their names throughout the mural.
Joy Garnett of NCAC’s Arts Advocacy Program said, “This move is clearly politically-motivated and based on discomfort with the artwork’s message. All of the artists involved have served in the US military and chose to express themselves through this legitimate form of peaceful protest. To paint over this mural would effectively cover up a cogent reminder of deported veterans’ plight, removing an opportunity for public debate around this important issue.”
Classroom Activity
This lesson plan will involve discussing the significance of using murals in Chicano Park as a point of departure for studying the US/Mexican border. The main emphasis of the class will be to survey the major themes of Chicano history that are suggested by the murals of Chicano Park in Barrio Logan. Students will be asked to analyze and interpret some of the most controversial murals that depicts major themes of immigration​.
http://laprensa-sandiego.org/stories/undocumented-worker/ http://civilrightsteaching.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Mura ls.pdf https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/arts/the-most-memorab le-acts-of-protest-art-at-the-border/ https://borderartists.com/videos/