Esferas 12: migración y asilo/migration and asylum by NYU Esferas

ESFERAS migración y asilo migration and asylum

Issue 12 Fall 2021

The Undergraduate Journal of the NYU Department of Spanish and Portuguese New York, New York

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: Pablo Allison

ESFERAS-ISSUE TWELVE * FALL 2021 wp.nyu.edu/esferas/

SUBMIT TO esferas.submissions@gmail.com MANAGING EDITOR Lourdes Dávila INTRODUCTION TO THE DOSSIER Patrick Godino and Lourdes Dávila LAYOUT AND DESIGN Sam Cordell with the Esferas Editorial team EDITORIAL TEAM Gonzalo Appiani, Nicole Ayala León, Laura Fidalgo-Mercado, Patrick Godino, Nisha Honnaya, I Re Lee, Alejandra Melgar Chay, Sophia Moore, Rachel Reistroffer, Valentina Ruiz, Ingrid Eileen Trost COVER DESIGN Sam Cordell, www.contra.com/samdcordell

COPYRIGHT © 2021 ESFERAS & NEW YORK UNIVERSITY’S DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE ISBN 978-1-944398-14-9 RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS ALL RIGHTS REVERT TO THE ORIGINAL CONTENT CREATORS UPON PUBLICATION. THE EDITORS WILL FORWARD ANY RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS CORRESPONDENCE TO THE AUTHORS.

about ESFERAS ESFERAS is a student and alumni initiative within New York University’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese. We are a peer reviewed publication that publishes critical essays, visual art, creative writing, interviews, translations, and works related to Hispanic and Luso life within and beyond New York City. ESFERAS, “sphere” in both Spanish and Portuguese, is a fusion of compelling images, distinctive voices, and multidisciplinary views. It is the ever-changing shape and infinite flow of our creative and intellectual pursuits.

Esferas 12 - Fall 2021 migración y asilo / migration and asylum Table of Contents 8

On Issue 12

Nisha Honnaya Ingrid Eileen Trost

Introducción/Introduction

Patrick Godino Lourdes Dávila

The Light of the Beast

Pablo Allison

Más allá de las fronteras: La migración centroamericana desde la poesía

Miroslava Arely Rosales Vásquez

La nación, la identidad y el cuerpo. Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood in la Frontera

Lola Michel-Infante

A Lorena Borjas, la pájara migrante más grande

Laura Rojas

Objetos migrantes

Nadia Villafuerte

Dossier H-Lab: Asylum and Im/migration

Sibylle Fischer Ellen Noonan Benjamin M. Schmidt

Archiving and Counter-Archiving US Asylum Records: Historical and Ethical Implications

Bita Mousavi Benjamin Gladstone

The Hypocrisy of Naturalization

Monserrat Gabisch

Francesca and Syngman Rhee: Fair Admittance and Treatment, or Bent Immigration Laws?

Elijah VanderMolen

Metadata Dilemmas: Immigrant Records and the Making of a Digital Public History Project Alien Enemy Repatriation during World War II A Journey into the A-Files: A Digital Public History Project is Born Ethical Dilemmas in Publishing A-Files The Desired Laborer but Undesired Migrant Un lugar, digamos, excepcional The real crisis is not migration but the language we use to describe it The Pandemic is Exactly What the Government Was Waiting for to Close the Border Biden is Failing to ‘Get It Right’ End of the Dossier El viaje del héroe en Los ríos profundos Exile and Adaptation in Remedios Varo’s Exploración de las fuentes del Río Orinoco (1959) Lejanía Trans-Caribbean Thought: A Manifesto for Renewal of Dutch Caribbean Studies in the Age of the Anthropocene

Bryan Zehngut-Willits

106

Min (Emma) Jeong

110

Eunbin Kim

115

Alexia M. Orengo-Green

120

Sophie Annabelle Klein

122

Celia Martinez

128

Bárbara Pérez Curiel

132

Rachel Berkower

136

María Herrera Félix

139

Tatiana Ramirez

142

Siri Ranganath

146

Audrey Vo

151

Alberto Quero

156

Francio Guadeloupe Charissa Granger

157

Migración y poscolonialismo: una literatura de distinción

Juan Rivera Arroyo

165

The Avenue del Encanto: A Photographic Essay

Rachel Yaker

168

Newspapers, Immigrants, and Expats: Non-Spanish-Speaking Populations in Argentina

180 Sophia Moore

De aquí y de allá: A Transnational Analysis of Undocumented Latine Healthcare Access and Utilization

María Herrera Félix

195

Reunión, lengua o muerte

Dani Zelko

208

Biographies

231

Through its vast breadth of work, Esferas 12 helps us take a closer look at migration and asylum. With works ranging from essays, photographs, and poems to A-file analyses and opinion pieces, we take the very primal experience of migration and consider its place within our society. We find stories of hope preceded by memories of pain, political stagnation amidst growing social consciousness, and resilience for movement forward despite the trauma of lost identities. All of the works demonstrate how the experience of migration is individually unique and collectively common. It is said that the body remembers experiences, and through this issue we find ourselves revisiting the memories of displaced yet reoriented bodies throughout our simultaneously interconnected and fractured world. This multidisciplinary and multilingual exploration of migration and asylum, compiled in collaboration with the Asylum H-Lab at NYU’s Center for the Humanities, works to establish an interconnected perspective on the opportunities and tensions created when people move across territories divided by state-enforced borders. The H-Lab focuses on “information/ evidence/data regarding asylum seekers and the asylum process in the United States.” The combination of the H-Lab’s analytical dossier with other creative and individual approaches to the theme, including students’ relationship with their own migratory history, allows Esferas 12 to elaborate on the layered influences of the politics of enforcement, punishment, access and (self-) identification, as well as the ethical responsibilities in a field which includes and represents such a vulnerable population. It is through this establishment of cross-cultural and multidisciplinary languages and connections that Esferas 12 presents varieties of justice in the area of migration. This work must be done by meeting the needs of migrants and support organizations involved in all aspects of the migration system and by drawing attention to the global asylum crisis in a variety of academic and social contexts. We encourage self-representation, individual autonomy, and authority/validity in creative and artistic representations. We believe that our support of the act of representation is a modest but necessary act of intervention. Nisha Honnaya and Ingrid Eileen Trost

migración y asilo

migration and asylum

i n t r o d u c c i ó n Patrick Godino y Lourdes Dávila En la primavera de 2021, la profesora Sibylle Fischer se acercó al comité editorial de Esferas para proponer la colaboración de nuestra revista con el H-Lab “Asylum and Im/migration” que Fischer había organizado junto con los profesores Ellen Noonan y Benjamin MacDonald Schmidt en el Bennett-Polonsky Humanities Lab de NYU. La visible afinidad de concepción de su proyecto con el nuestro, tanto en tema como formato, llevó a este número extraordinario de la revista Esferas. Las “humanidades digitales” –basadas como el término mismo nos dice en la aplicación de la tecnología a la investigación de las humanidades– están por definición dedicadas a la creación de espacios heterogéneos, multiformes, experimentales, interdisciplinarios y colaborativos. Buscan hacer del estudio humanístico un lugar de investigación e intervención, comenzando con el formato mismo en el que trabajan. Así, Esferas y los H-Labs en NYU, a nuestro ver, comparten los mismos objetivos y formatos. Por otro lado, el tema de migración y asilo ya había sido una de las propuestas de trabajo planteadas por nuestro equipo en el pasado, por lo cual no fue difícil aceptar la propuesta.

Esferas 12: migración y asilo presenta aquí, en primer lugar, el dossier del H-Lab generado por

Fischer, Noonan y MacDonald Schmidt con un vasto equipo de estudio. A este dossier añadimos la participación de fotógrafos, críticos, ensayistas y poetas que, de una forma u otra, se acercaron a la migración de cuerpos, individuos, grupos o ideas, al igual que a las leyes, normas y procesos que han regido esos movimientos, que los permiten o los obstaculizan. Si la primera asociación con el tema pertenece al campo legal y se detiene en las políticas del gobierno o las leyes internacionales, ¿qué relaciones establecemos entre la gente, la cultura, o los lenguajes que utilizamos para hablar sobre la migración? ¿Cómo narrar las historias que se extienden mucho más allá de los espacios jurídicos o los archivos reservados para institucionalizar los procesos? ¿Qué ocurre antes o después de que circulan las fotografías y se vuelven virales? ¿Qué significa buscar migración y asilo? ¿Cómo narrarlo? ¿Con qué relaciones entre el cuerpo, el tiempo y el espacio? 11

La introducción al dossier, “H-Lab: Asylum and Im/migration”, de Sibylle Fischer, Ellen

Noonan y Benjamin MacDonald, proporciona pautas de lectura para el dossier. El emplazamiento es claro: el curso que acompañó a este dossier se concibió casi como una respuesta urgente al desastre humanitario y la complejidad destructora de las políticas de migración de Trump y su gobierno, desde las más visibles hasta las más invisibles (y quizá por ello más peligrosas y destructivas). Esta introducción proporciona definiciones básicas e imprescindibles para entender la situación migratoria, tales como el significado del “Credible Fear Interview” o los formularios que deben de ser llenados para comenzar un proceso de asilo, como el “Application for Asylum and for Withholding Removal”. La introducción al dossier, asimismo, cuestiona el significado de practicar lo que conocemos como “Public Humanities”, se detiene en la responsabilidad de los investigadores ante el uso de los materiales disponibles y apuesta al potencial real de una intervención humanística que comience con un estudio de la organización de los archivos disponibles relacionados con la inmigración, la organización de las colecciones de datos y las leyes y políticas de inmigración a lo largo de los años. Bryan Zehngut-Willits, en “Metadata Dilemmas: Immigrant Records and the Making of a Digital Public History Project”, explica que parte de los materiales utilizados para el proyecto pertenecía a NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) y comprendía un porcentaje mínimo de los archivos conocidos como “Alien Files” o “A-Files”, es decir, los documentos reunidos en relación con las interacciones de los inmigrantes con el sistema inmigratorio de los Estados Unidos. Si es cierto que se trabajó con material perteneciente al dominio público (ya sea porque la persona en el archivo había muerto o su fecha de nacimiento sobrepasaba los 100 años), existen varias preguntas éticas que hay que considerar en el momento de construir una historia pública digital a partir de los documentos que contienen la vida de otros. Estas son las preguntas que se hacen Alexia M. Orengo-Green en “A Journey into the A-Files: A Digital Public History Project is Born” y Bita Mousavi con Bejamin Gladstone en “Archiving and Counter-Archiving US Asylum Records: Historical and Ethical Implications.” Al mismo tiempo, Bárbara Pérez Curiel señala en “Un lugar, digamos, excepcional” que el proyecto llevó a los participantes a analizar las narrativas mediáticas sobre asilo e inmigración más recientes, y a considerar: […] las aristas de esta crisis discursiva: hablamos de la producción de información en diversos ambientes institucionales, la relación entre distintas técnicas narrativas y la posición de autoridad frente a la producción del conocimiento, la transparencia de fuentes, el afán de representación y el efecto que estos marcos estructurales y decisiones formales tienen en la constitución de la conciencia social. Se trata entonces de dos proyectos en uno; el primero, dirigido a la manipulación de, representación 12

y reflexión sobre los archivos digitales históricos existentes y, el segundo, dedicado al análisis de las múltiples formas de representación y narrativas sobre la inmigración y el asilo y sus posibles consecuencias, trabajados a partir de páginas de opinión realizadas por los escritores. Ambos proyectos forman parte del dossier.

El proyecto del H-Lab en muchos sentidos sirvió para pensar y organizar los temas presentes

más allá del dossier. Si bien el dossier plantea la complejidad y los matices del tema desde un lugar mucho más formal y en muchos sentidos más académico, sus ecos se encuentran a lo largo de toda la revista, en el proyecto fotográfico de Pablo Allison The Light of the Beast, los poemas de migrantes centroamericanos organizados por Miroslava Rosales Vásquez, el poema “Lejanía” de Alberto Quero, el relato transcrito por Dani Zelko sobre la precariedad sanitaria en España, las entrevistas sobre el cuidado sanitario para migrantes en Estados Unidos que formó la base para el análisis de María Herrera Félix en “De aquí y de allá: Transnational Analysis of Undocumented Latine Healthcare Access and Utilization”, o el canto a Lorena Borjas de Laura Rojas. Qué narrar y cómo narrar no se limitó solamente a los individuos migrantes sino también a los objetos que estos van dejando el camino, cuyo análisis Nadia Villafuerte presenta en “Objetos migrantes”, o a aquellos productos culturales que viajan junto con el movimiento de individuos y subjetividades, tal y como lo plantean Francio Guadeloupe y Charissa Granger en “Trans-Caribbean Thought: A Manifesto for Renewal of Dutch Caribbean Studies in the Age of the Antropocene” o Audrey Vo en “Exile and Adaptation in Remedios Varo’s Exploración de las fuentes del Río Orinoco (1959). Significativamente, nos interesó incluir un estudio de Siri Ranganath sobre Los ríos profundos; al hablar de migración y de la formación de subjetividades no debe de faltar la migración interna de individuos y comunidades en su propio país.

Seleccionar a Pablo Allison como el fotógrafo para nuestra portada y el portafolio fotográfico

principal de nuestro número implica una serie de apuestas. El proyecto de Allison, The Light of the Beast, se refiere directamente al tren que, además de llevar productos entre Canadá, los Estados Unidos y México, lleva a los migrantes que buscan llegar a la frontera de los Estados Unidos viajando arriba de los vagones. Como nos dice Allison en su portafolio para la revista, la mayoría de los migrantes que utiliza este modo de transporte viene de países plagados por violencia extrema; su situación se ha vuelto tan insoportable que hacer este viaje potencialmente devastador es a menudo la única opción para sobrevivir. Nuestra búsqueda mediática tenía detrás serias preguntas y preocupaciones sobre el rol de la fotografía en la representación de la migración. Como sabemos, cada encuadre textual y visual otorga atributos específicos a aquello que se comunica, establece categorías y significados muchas veces indelebles. ¿Qué es lo que se debe de decir visualmente sobre 13

la migración, los peligros de la migración, su precariedad? ¿Es posible representar visualmente la precariedad de los sujetos migrantes sin intensificar su estado precario, especialmente cuando se trata de individuos donde la opresión y violencia extrema los ha forzado a realizar este viaje hacia la frontera? ¿Cuándo se convierte una foto documental en turismo negro? Cada foto denota aspectos de la realidad percibida y sus sujetos, va formulando definiciones e interpretaciones específicas, sugiere evaluaciones morales determinadas. En el caso de Pablo Allison, su apuesta partió de su “método”: compartió el viaje por más de dos años y medio con los migrantes; conoció personalmente a muchos de los que arriesgaron su vida en “La Bestia” para poder tener la posibilidad de un futuro. Nuestra elección refleja el cuidado con el cual Pablo Allison retrató a sus sujetos, el carácter temporal de la foto, la capacidad de mostrar, dentro de la precariedad, momentos cotidianos diversos, la paradoja entre la comunidad creada en el transporte y la soledad del viaje. La fotografía de Pablo Allison, junto con la poesía de los migrantes Jeremías Estrada y Jimi Mancia, configura y da sentido a la experiencia migratoria, haciendo hincapié en la agencia de estas comunidades inclusive dentro de la precariedad del transporte.

La experiencia migratoria se explora desde otra perspectiva fotográfica en el foto-ensayo

“The Avenue del Encanto”. Consciente de la capacidad que tiene toda fotografía de revelar, subrayar, afirmar y provocar, la visión fotográfica de Rachel Yaker la lleva a observar cómo la migración puertorriqueña a esta área de Brooklyn se fija y avanza a través de la ocupación de espacios, la construcción de paisajes culturales y de negocios, la permanencia de prácticas lingüísticas y la representación simbólica de la cultura. Yaker muestra cómo los miembros de la comunidad han mantenido y aún fortalecido su identidad por medio de la incorporación de sus raíces en su nuevo espacio y hogar en la ciudad de Nueva York. Este proyecto, a su modo, es una celebración que afirma el sentido de la comunidad inclusive a pesar del desarraigo producido por la pandemia.

La fotografía es también el centro del estudio de Lola Michel-Infante en “La nación, la

identidad y el cuerpo. Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood in la Frontera”. En este trabajo, MichelInfante explora cómo Norma Elia Cantú utiliza su archivo fotográfico personal para trazar una geografía de la experiencia del cuerpo y la subjetividad en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México.

Los autores y creadores de nuestras páginas revelan el lugar del lenguaje como eje

fundamental al momento de establecer definiciones y reflexionar sobre las diversas relaciones de poder que existen en torno a la migración. En el trabajo del dossier “The Real Crisis is Not Migration but the Language We Use to Describe it,” Rachel Berkower nos recuerda la importancia de la precisión de lenguaje en los estudios migratorios. ¿Qué queremos decir exactamente cuando 14

hablamos de la “crisis migratoria” en Estados Unidos? ¿Se trata verdaderamente de una crisis? ¿O se ha elegido este término para instigar el miedo en los ciudadanos estadounidenses mientras los migrantes que buscan refugio y asilo son despojados de humanidad? Juan Rivera Arroyo, en “Migración y poscolonialismo: una literatura de distinción”, profundiza en (e ironiza sobre) las relaciones entre migración y colonialismo, partiendo de la forma en la cual la geopolítica lingüística va estableciendo disparidades atroces para generar definiciones y diferencias entre grupos migratorios, colonizadores y colonizados. En “Newspapers, Immigrants, and Expats: Non-SpanishSpeaking Populations in Argentina”, Sophia Moore da un primer paso para trazar relaciones entre la permanencia en Argentina de la comunidad cultural de grupos migratorios europeos y la permanencia del lenguaje en el espacio mediático de los periódicos. Y en “Reunión, lengua o muerte”, como el título mismo lo confirma, el relato urgente de Rakibul Hasan Razib y Afroza Rhaman coloca la lengua al centro mismo de la lucha por la vida. Como nos dice Afroza Rhaman en la narración recogida telefónicamente por Dani Zelko: No queremos morir como Hossein No queremos morir No queremos morir así ¡no queremos morir por el idioma! El dossier del H-Lab ofrece una genealogía importante para el vocabulario, los lenguajes y los discursos que forman la base de las leyes y las opiniones sobre las comunidades migratorias en la actualidad. Cada uno de los trabajos en esta sección sirve como recordatorio de cómo las raíces del racismo y de la xenofobia son inseparables de la historia misma del país y cómo estas raíces se enredan y generan leyes discriminatorias. En “The Desired Laborer but Undesired Migrant”, por ejemplo, Celia Martinez contextualiza las luchas que enfrentan aquellos que migran hacia los Estados Unidos a través de la historia de Nodie K Sohn, una inmigrante coreana cuyas múltiples solicitudes revelaron la intersección del racismo con los prejuicios de género en la formación de leyes para controlar el ingreso a los Estados Unidos a mujeres que venían en busca de trabajo.

Cada uno de los contribuidores a nuestra revista captura un momento en el tiempo. Quizá

no tengan la habilidad de generar cambios drásticos o de modificar políticas problemáticas, pero todos, con su escritura y su arte, representan y presentan la historia y el presente de la migración. Los ensayistas examinan el pasado e intervienen en los archivos existentes, haciendo de la revelación digital una provocación necesaria. A través de lentes personales, poéticas, históricas, empíricas, todos los participantes en este número de Esferas examinan lo que significa migrar, al tiempo que hacen visible y validan relatos y experiencias propias, o amplían las voces de aquellos que, por alguna razón u otra, no están aquí para hacerlo por cuenta propia. 15

The Light of the Beast Pablo Allison

The Beast, or La Bestia as migrants call it, is a freight train that carries goods between Canada, the United States of America and Mexico. As most people who leave their countries travel with no money, La Bestia represents the only way to get to the USA border, despite this being forbidden by Mexican authorities. This journey is tough and it can be extremely dangerous for people to travel this way, for a number of reasons. These travelers, often referred to as migrants, run a high chance of being kidnapped, mugged, extorted or ending up dead in the desert before they reach their destination. The majority of migrants that use this mode of transport come from countries with the highest levels of violence in the world. Places like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are examples of countries where the situation is so untenable that undertaking this potentially devastating journey is an only option for survival. The vast number of migrants that leave their countries are forced to do so due to the oppression and extreme violence caused by delinquent groups that dominate entire communities. Violence in these countries is a product of decades of poverty and a lack of decent and fair policies from governments in Central America as well as from US interventions over many decades. A secondary but still prevalent reason includes government repression and lack of opportunities. I decided to initiate these journeys to follow Central American migrants en route to the hope of a “better, more peaceful” life. Throughout more than two and a half years traveling next to migrants, I have had the fortune to meet and travel next to Alexi, Fredy, Jonatan, Karina and her young daughter from Honduras, ‘Juancho’ from Guatemala, Ventura, Liliana and her mother from El Salvador and many others who have risked their lives to find a light of hope...

Jimi Mancia

Distancia Como un ave, hoy emprendo mi viaje, extiendo mis alas y aunque la distancia sea larga siempre te llevaré en mi alma. No sé si llegaré a donde mis alas me llevan tampoco sé si volveré es un juego de la vida que no tiene medida.

Distance Like a bird, today I take off on a new journey extending my wings, And though the distance might be great, I shall always carry you in my heart. I’m not sure my wings will take me wherever that may be, And I don’t know if I shall return, It’s a game in life that has no measure.

hoy emprendo mi viaje con dolor no quisiera dejarte en el olvido pero tengo que seguir con mi camino siempre hacia adelante dejando atrás todo el sufrimiento vivido.

Today I undertake my journey hardened by pain, I don’t wish to leave you in oblivion, But I must keep following the road, I shall move forward forever, And I shall leave behind everything that once made me suffer.

La distancia entre tu camino y el mío parece infinita infinito es tu amor y el mío que hace uno solo nuestro camino.

It seems that the distance between us is infinite, But infinite too is your love and mine, Which joins our paths in life.

Jeremías L. Estrada

Triste conclusión

Sad Conclusion

una mirada triste una pequeña y delicada mano que se aleja sin poder correr a tomarla porque se aleja detrás de una reja.

a sad gaze a small and delicate hand that moves away and I cannot rush to reach out. It slowly disappears behind a metal grill.

Pero en esa despedida cada lágrima es un te amo, sin que esa pequeña alma lo pueda saber porque no puede entender que su padre es un alien number.

but in that sweet retreat each tear that falls is an ‘I love you’, and that small soul cannot fully comprehend why his father, is an alien number.

Más allá de las fronteras:

La migración centroamericana desde la poesía Selección e introducción a cargo de Miroslava Arely Rosales Vásquez Escribo estas líneas frente a las noticias de que una nueva caravana de migrantes ha salido desde Honduras, pese a los altos riesgos que supone el camino y a las restricciones por COVID-19. No obstante, esta ha sido violentamente detenida en Chiquimula, Guatemala. Esta estrategia de movilidad dio inicio en el 2018 y tuvo a San Pedro Sula, Honduras, su punto de partida. No es casualidad que ese país sea el origen de la expulsión masiva si tomamos en cuenta los altos índices de pobreza, de homicidios (37 crímenes por cada 100,000 habitantes, de acuerdo a la Secretaría de Seguridad [“Honduras”]) y la fragilidad institucional al que fue orillado después del golpe de Estado de 2009, aunado a esto las intensas reformas neoliberales que han afectado a la región desde la década de los noventa.

Una de las características de la población centroamericana es su constante movimiento

provocado fundamentalmente por la pobreza, el desempleo, el cambio climático, las violencias, la reunificación familiar, las profundas desigualdades Norte-Sur, entre otros factores (ver ECLAC).

En el campo cultural, la investigadora Ortiz Wallner señala que los creadores de la región

(al menos los abordados en su investigación) comparten la condición de “nómadas”, ya que se ven obligados a constantes desplazamientos al interior de la misma Centroamérica como al exterior. Es por ello que ella los denomina “productores de una literatura sin residencia fija” (11) y apunta que esto se puede constatar desde el Modernismo con la figura de Rubén Darío.

La literatura, tanto producida en Centroamérica como en otras latitudes, ha dado paso a este

tema tan doloroso que marca nuestro tiempo y que suma nuevas heridas a las ya existentes, herederas de las guerras y las profundas crisis acumulativas. Dentro de la narrativa actual, puedo mencionar Lost Children Archive y Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions (Valeria Luiselli), La fila india (Antonio Ortuño), Las tierras arrasadas (Emiliano Monge), Amarás a Dios sobre todas las cosas (Alejandro Hernández), La Bestia (Sofía Nayeli Bazán), El camino de La Bestia. Migrantes clandestinos a la búsqueda del sueño americano (Flaviano Bianchini) y Yo tuve un sueño. El viaje de los niños centroamericanos a Estados Unidos (Juan Pablo Villalobos). Y, en el campo propiamente poético, el Libro centroamericano de los muertos y Marabunta (Balam Rodrigo), Unaccompanied (Javier Zamora), Ropa americana (Dennis Ávila), Central America (José Serrano), Gula (Noé Lima). Los migrantes 32

que no importan, escrito por Óscar Martínez, se ha convertido en una referencia obligada para los estudios migratorios, así como el documental de Marcela Zamora María en tierra de nadie o, más recientemente, La jaula de oro (Diego Quemada-Díez). Las antologías bilingües Teatro bajo mi piel y Puntos de fuga, publicadas por la editorial Kalina en el 2014 y 2018, muestran esta difusión de las fronteras a las que han sido sometidas las escrituras de los últimos años como resultado de los procesos migratorios, así como la conflictiva irrupción del inglés como lengua central en varios poetas centroamericanos radicados en Estados Unidos o cuya formación mayoritariamente ha sido en dicho país.

La poesía aquí reunida es una brevísima expresión de las múltiples variaciones que adquiere

la experiencia migratoria. Los autores incluidos (excepto Balam Rodrigo, radicado en Chiapas, México. En el caso de Lytton Regalado, ella retornó a su país natal después de muchos años en Estados Unidos y asumió el inglés como lengua para su trabajo escritural) comparten la condición de migrantes en ciudades como Hamburg, Barcelona, Santiago de Chile, Cincinnati, San José o Bakú, lo cual evidencia los distintos destinos de la travesía sin fin. En esta muestra aparecen los tópicos de la frontera, la patria o matria, las disyuntivas de la no pertenencia al lugar de residencia, La Bestia (ese monstruo de metal que puede llegar a ser una verdadera amenaza para los cuerpos de los migrantes en su intento por cruzar México) e incluso la caravana migrante. En el caso de Balam Rodrigo, existe un abordaje más descarnado y brutal del proceso migratorio al que son empujados miles y miles de centroamericanos que son deliberadamente expulsados por el sistema social y económico imperante. No existe Estado que respete y defienda sus derechos. De eso no cabe duda, lamentablemente. Bibliografía “Honduras registró menos homicidios en 2020, según la Policía”. DW, 3 de enero de 2021. Red. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (eclac). Atlas of Migration in Northern

Central America (LC/PUB 2018/23). Santiago de Chile, 2018.

Ortiz Wallner, Alexandra. El arte de ficcionar: la novela contemporánea en Centroamérica. Madrid/

Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana, 2012.

Mónica Albizúrez (Guatemala, 1969) Frontera De pronto tu alemán impecable tus ojos azules tu piel blanca me recuerdan el peso real de toda frontera la mentira aquella del amor universal Cirujana como el trabajo quirúrgico como el bisturí rasgando la piel como la aguja y el hilo cerrando la herida como lenta recuperación posoperatoria así me planteo estos primeros días en que someto mi cuerpo al corte la ruptura (Ernesto Estrella Cózar y Jorge J. Locane, editores. El tejedor en Berlín. La única puerta a la izquierda, 2015)

Tania Pleitez Vela (El Salvador, 1969) Exilio Demasiadas cinco de la tarde en este viaje sin retorno. Cuando me fui, sabía nadar y zambullir una risa flaca en la espuma. ¿Recuerdas, pequeña? En el otro lado aprendí a planear en el azul metálico de lo ajeno. Cultivé alas, hice mío ese metal. Mira, pequeña, ya puedo suspenderme con grotesca gracia. Plantada estoy aquí, pero un cuervo picotea mi mirada, desangra medusas de rencorosas aguas. Mis escamas no combinan con mi ahora. Allá, en aquel mar, tampoco encajan las alas que fabriqué. Pez-pájaro. Ni una cosa ni la otra. Péndulo caótico. Hablo en el lenguaje del aire. Sueño en el lenguaje del agua. Callo en el lenguaje del cactus. En la aurora, el metal perfora hondo y su vaho sale por mi boca. (De Preguerra, San Salvador: Editorial Kalina, 2017) refugio questa a 2388 m.s.n.m. el lago portette ahoga los últimos trozos de hielo la tarde es engullida por el vino el aroma a polenta se engarza en el cuenco el canto de alpinistas materializa al partisano 35

montículos de piedras átomos entraña de alpes marítimos pólvora & guerra la mujer caminante hospeda moléculas de otra guerra que corroe la tarde que el vino engulle su cuerpo es estallido de laberintos piedra espesa niebla sinuosa (De cables polvo verde, inédito)

María del Carmen Pérez Cuadra (Nicaragua, 1971) ¿PARA QUÉ VINISTE, ISONAUTA? Cada frontera es una trizadura en mi ojo La frontera es una zona de muerte, de captura, de tráfico ilegal Es una lengua que no entra en tu cuerpo aunque te maten a garrotazos La frontera es un pulpo de bocas ásperas, y no se parece en nada a las fotos de revistas de turismo Sobre todo si no te aprueban la visa Sobre todo si nunca has tenido una cuenta en el banco Sobre todo cuando no puedes vender una casa que nunca has tenido Para pagar al co-io-ri/co-yo-te que te regrese a casa Ese lugar de donde nunca debiste haber salido. (De Isonauta. Managua: Parafernalia Ediciones Digitales, 2020)

ANIMAL VIAJERO «Pasar una noche de perros no es de humanos» Dijo la ninfa desde su pantalla de intercomunicación global mientras se ponía una bolsa de hielo en la cabeza. Ser un Animal Inédito… tampoco. Dijo su amiga sin poder comunicarse, enclaustrada en la burbuja de su propio pensamiento. El viaje es demasiado largo.

(Inédito)

Alexandra Lytton Regalado (El Salvador, 1972) CARAVANA MIGRANTE Beyond this bridge, ash-blue clouds nestle their faces into the collarbone of earth. They trick us into thinking they are mountains brooding over downtown’s buildings checkered with darkness & light. Evening weaves her cascade of hair among the trees, her fingers pull all color from the world. Triangles of birds point to directions we intuit. Before us, there is only the long stretch of road, & yellow street reflectors guide our path, illuminated breadcrumbs our tires devour, leaving no trace for the return. (Inédito)

ODE TO LA MATRIA From the starched white sky, the sun  sparks the tin roofs on Easter Sunday, slants a sheen on the banners of satin  and lace that arch over the congregation. Women hooded in makeshift kerchiefs—  the folded square of a hand towel—bow their heads as girls itch their spangled, stiff skirts.  Fans stir the hot air above rows of plastic chairs, as men stare into the empty bowls of their straw hats;  their sons play catch, others munch on fried plantains or suck on copper-colored sodas in plastic bags. Teach yourselves not to want, the priest says, the things of this world. The sun glints into this. ** Salvadoran woman,  walking home from church, the only thing  between you and the noon flash is the flowered nylon  of your umbrella. You admit  your back-lit silhouette, the outline of your calves, but I walk  alongside, invisible,  while your canvas flats track prints in the dust. Rays cut through cloud;  in this landscape are the two of us no more significant than leaves scraping across pavement? **

Each year the country witnesses two seasons of thrive or survive; summer smothers the idyll green, unmasks heaps of roadside trash, plastic bottles in nests of dried leaves. The cicadas let loose their sirens, wailing  and mating until it all goes up in flames. But the bare trees insist; unafraid  to stand naked, unable even to feign death— wait they tell us, just wait— we can live beyond this. ** O Salvadoran woman, who is me and yet not me; we travel beneath a mantle of white. Are we like the right hand  that pinches the left hand?  One stands by, giving their flesh to be nipped, while the other knowingly tweaks the skin? I’ve had the privilege  of pretending, but  not without consequence. Look into the light— what does the sun know about observer’s guilt? Petals cover the tinder-dry grass with their light  pink skins. **

Maquilishuat blossoms cling  like puffs of spun sugar snagged in bare branches—were it not for them  the entire countryside would believe it is dying. Who taught you, Salvadoran woman  with your head bowed, veiled in lace, to begin again with nothing more than the promise of green? (De Matria, Black Lawrence Press, 2017)

Balam Rodrigo (México, 1974) Sermón del migrante (bajo una ceiba) Declaro: Que mi amor a Centroamérica muere conmigo. Francisco Morazán Y Dios también estaba en exilio, migrando sin término; viajaba montado en La Bestia y no había sufrido crucifixión sino mutilación de piernas, brazos, mudo y cenizo todo Él mientras caía en cruz desde lo alto de los cielos, arrojado por los malandros desde las negras nubes del tren, desde góndolas y vagones laberínticos, sin fin; y vi claro como sus costillas eran atravesadas por la lanza circular de los coyotes, por la culata de los policías, por la bayoneta de los militares, por la lengua en extorsión de los narcos, y era su sufrimiento tan grande como el de todos los migrantes juntos, es decir, el dolor de cualquiera; antes, mientras estaba Él en Centroamérica, esa pequeña Belén hundida en la esquina rota del mundo, nos decía en su sermón del domingo, mientras bautizaba a los desterrados, a los expatriados, a los sin tierra, a los pobres, en las aguas del agonizante río Lempa: “el que quiera seguirme a Estados Unidos, que deje a su familia y abandone las maras, la violencia, el hambre, la miseria, que olvide a los infames caciques y oligarcas de Centroamérica, y sígame”; y aún mientras caía, antes aún de las mutilaciones, antes de que lo llevaran al forense hecho pedazos 40

para ser enterrado en una fosa común como a cualquier otro centroamericano, como a los cientos de migrantes que cada año mueren asesinados en México, mientras caía con los brazos y las piernas en forma de cruz, antes de llegar al suelo, a las vías, antes de cortar Su carne las cuadrigas de acero y los caballos de óxido de La Bestia, antes de que Su bendita sangre tiñera las varias coronas de espinas que ruedan sobre los rieles clavados con huesos a la espalda del Imperio Mexica, el Señor recordó en visiones a su discípulo Francisco Morazán y le dio un beso en la mejilla, y tomó un puñado de tierra centroamericana y ungió con ella su corazón y su lengua, y recordó que Morazán le preguntó una vez, mientras yacían bajo la sombra de una ceiba, aquella en la que había hecho el milagro de multiplicar el aguardiente y las tortillas: “¿Maestro, qué debemos hacer si nos detienen y nos deportan?” a lo que Él respondió: “deben migrar setenta veces siete, y si ellos les piden los dólares y los vuelven a deportar, denles todo, la capa, la mochila, la botella de agua, los zapatos, y sacudan el polvo de sus pies, y vuelvan a migrar nuevamente de Centroamérica y de México, sin voltear a ver más nunca, atrás…”. 14°40’35.5”N 92°08’50.4”W — (Suchiate, Chiapas) Este es el origen de la reciente historia de un lugar llamado México. Aquí migraremos, estableceremos la muerte antigua y la muerte nueva, el origen del horror, el origen del holocausto, el origen de todo lo acontecido a los pueblos de Centroamérica, naciones de la gente que migra. Vine a este lugar porque me dijeron que acá murió mi padre en su camino hacia Estados Unidos, sin llegar a ver los dólares ni los granos de arena en el desierto. Bajé de los Cuchumatanes, desde los bosques de azules hojas de la nación Quiché, desde la casa en donde habitan la niebla y los quetzales hasta llegar, cerca de Ayutla, a la orilla del río Suchiate.

Abandoné el olor a cuerpos quemados de mi aldea, la peste militar con sus ladridos de “tierra arrasada” mordiendo hueso y calcañar con metrallas y napalm, su huracán de violaciones y navajas que aniquilaba a los hombres de maíz con perros amaestrados por un gobierno que alumbra el camino de sus genocidas con antorchas de sangre y leyes de mierda. Huí del penetrante olor a odio y podredumbre; caminé descalzo hasta el otro lado del inframundo para curarme los huesos y el hambre. Nunca llegué. Dos machetazos me dieron en el cuerpo para quitarme la plata y las mazorcas del morral: el primero derramó mis últimas palabras en quiché; el segundo me dejó completamente seco, porque a mi corazón lo habían quemado los kaibiles junto a los cuerpos de mi familia. Dicen algunos que en la ribera de este río se aparece un fantasma, pero yo sé que soy, que he sido y seré, el unigénito de los muertos, guardián de mi propia sombra, negro relámpago de mi pueblo, bulto ahogado en esta poza en donde inicia Xibalbá. Dos fichas de cerveza Gallo pusieron en mis ojos: todos los días veo cruzar por estas aguas a los barqueros de la muerte, a los comerciantes del dolor que llevan en sus canoas de tablas y cámaras de llanta, las almas de los migrantes enfiladas puntualmente hacia el tzompantli llamado México. Dicen polleros y coyotes que ven mi fantasma en la ribera, por eso se santiguan y rezan al cruzar las aguas rotas de este espejo seco en el que escriben su nombre con el filo estéril de las hachas votivas. Todos los días veo pasar a las hileras de muertos, a los que migran sin llegar a Estados Unidos: 42

parvadas de cuerpos en pena, tristes figuras humanas, barro entre los insomnes dedos de Dios. Yo, primogénito de los migrantes muertos, los recibo con un racimo de filosos machetes en lugar de brazos, iluminado por la cara oculta de esta luna leprosa: bienvenidos al cementerio más grande de Centroamérica, fosa común donde se pudre el cadáver del mundo. Bienvenidos al abierto culo del infierno. (De Libro centroamericano de los muertos. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2018)

Mauricio Espinoza (Costa Rica, 1975) Patria de la lluvia Ha dejado de llover en mi memoria. Tu recuerdo es un desierto de voces sin respuesta. Las nubes cruzan a veces, pero son alejadas por los vientos de la desidia. Aquí hubo una vez un río, un manglar desbordado de nutrias y de almejas. Ahora, cuando truena, los rayos acribillan la tierra seca. Es como si una palabra tuya me llegara de lejos, reverberando en la maleza desnutrida de las peñas— pero al entrarme al oído no es más que un murmullo de polvo y de silencio. Aquí hubo una vez un bosque y una laguna. Pero hoy has dejado de llover, vos, que eras la patria de la lluvia. 43

Lluvia Llueve aquí, pero no llueve. Lluvia fría y débil. No es la lluvia tibia, constante, vital, sin cuidado de los trópicos. La precipitación despreocupada de la infancia y los primeros besos. La lluvia que yo extraño sólo existe en mis recuerdos. No está hecha de agua: está hecha de tiempo. (De Barzakh, No. 11, Primavera 2019)

Dennis Ávila (Honduras, 1981) FRONTERA Traigo –en el fondo de mi encuentro– dos mitades. Vienen de un lejano verano, inmersas en su hora necia, y antiguas como la edad misma de los acantilados. Arrastran dos ganas de llegar, intentan huir a lo deseado; han escuchado que es ahí donde las cosas viven. Una quiere quedarse; la otra, solo quiere cumplir un sueño, para que dos mitades en un bus, en una calle, en un cuerpo no tropiecen. En esta cábala de esperas seguirán buscándose. Cada una se quemará por dentro. Soy mi ciudad. Soy mi país. Soy un pedazo de tierra. Traigo en el fondo de mi encuentro las mitades de un río que juntas se apedrean. 44

ROPA AMERICANA La Navidad nos encantaba por los estrenos: ropa para el 24 y para el Año Nuevo. Nos zambullíamos en prendas alineadas como montañitas en desiertos de sal. Allí encontré una camisa que olía a Estados Unidos. Su cordillera de colores preparaba algo más que la resignación del tiempo. Años después supe que Ropa Americana y Ropa Usada eran la misma cosa. Me hubiera gustado encontrar al verdadero dueño de mi camisa para contarle que la usé hasta los últimos días de mi infancia. (De Ropa americana. Madrid: Amargord Ediciones, 2017)

Carlos M-Castro (Nicaragua, 1987) patria rellena de aire pinchada pisada pateada tirada asaltada vaciada tomada ocupada usurpada trancada rellena otra vez perseguida atrapada golpeada violada quemada ignorada amoldada vendida amoblada alquilada baldía espoleada explotada expoliada gaseada turqueada baleada capada asfixiada electrocutada rendida dormida soñada pequeña chiquita minúscula de quién otra cuál dónde qué

irreal

imaginada

absurda

patria seis letras y olvido patria grave palabra llana (en llamas y en llano cabalga) patria jodida ¡buscá vida! dejá vivir

(De Revista Temporales, abril de 2019)

Última visión (desde el sitio antes llamado patria) I Restos de mi voz descuartizada asoman desde la ceniza, fragmentos sin valor de cambio alguno, apenas útiles al decorado del desierto. Necia garganta autónoma en el monte de piedad por unos pocos centavos empeñada de futuro. El ojo insiste en capturar la imagen que lo envuelve y le da forma; inútiles murallas conceptuales intentan contener la realidad, como si fuese una y no un millar: furiosas turbas vengativas saqueando e incendiando las ridículas aldeas racionales.

II Yo sostuve la cabeza del primer muerto en las protestas. Yo levanté el primer adoquín contra el gobierno. Yo recibí el primer balazo en la garganta y en el pecho y en la frente. Yo fui el primero al que mató el gobierno. Yo me senté frente al gobierno a negociar el precio de la muerte. Yo era la muerte acorralada por la bulla de las botas y los bates y los botes, y [los traficantes me llevaban. Yo era el espectador comiendo palomitas ante el cristal de la pantalla enrojecida. Yo disparé el primer balazo en la garganta y en el pecho y en la frente de los terroristas. Yo di la orden de callar la voz y el corazón y el pensamiento de ese falso pueblo. Yo era otro traficante lanzando mi atarraya en las revueltas aguas. Yo era un banquero calculando beneficios. Yo había sido Yo fui Yo era Yo soy Yo seré Yo. III Aquí no se rinde nadie. No. Aquí no se come, no se duerme tranquilo, no se baila tranquilo, no se bebe guaro tranquilo. Viven del pobre. Sí. Aquí vivimos como mierda. Así. Así vivimos nosotros aquí en El Dite. Y ellos muy bien gracias a costilla de nosotros. Todos viven de los pobres. ¡Esta verga es un chorizo! (Inédito)

La nación, la identidad y el cuerpo.

Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood in la Frontera Lola Michel-Infante A través de un archivo personal de retratos y relatos de familia, el texto híbrido de Norma Elia Cantú traza una geografía de la experiencia en la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México. La relación entre las imágenes elegidas por Cantú y los relatos que cuenta le permite enfatizar la artificialidad de la división física entre estos dos lugares y sus culturas, las cuales se encarnan en los sujetos de las imágenes que presenta. La noción de la frontera domina el libro: fronteras entre la imagen y la narración, entre el tiempo y el espacio, entre la memoria y la realidad y finalmente, entre dos culturas separadas simplemente por un límite artificial e impuesto, pero que se ven unidas por las identidades de un solo cuerpo. Las imágenes del archivo familiar de Cantú, junto con los relatos que las acompañan, contienen discrepancias que interrumpen la narrativa, lo cual sirve para desafiar las ideas preconcebidas del lector sobre la nación, la ciudadanía, la identidad y el cuerpo como una frontera simbólica entre culturas que obstaculiza la frontera física y artificial impuesta por la sociedad. En 1994, Cantú escribió la primera edición de Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood in la Frontera a partir de un archivo personal de fotos familiares con fotografías tanto de su niñez como de la vida de sus antepasados y otros familiares. En 2014 Cantú publicó una segunda edición del libro, en la cual añadió fotos y les otorgó a sus personajes sus nombres verdaderos, algo que había ocultado en la primera edición para velar el elemento autobiográfico del libro. En “Lo que bien se aprende, no se olvida / Lessons well-learned are not forgotten: Introduction to the Updated Version”, Cantú escribe que en esta edición, “[I] no longer use pseudonyms for them. I learned many lessons from these incredible people who touched my life; I honor their memory. ¡Qué en paz descansen!” Esto demuestra un cambio crítico por el que Cantú acepta y fomenta su voz autobiográfica, la cual sirve para fortalecer las historias y las experiencias que relata. Al convertir su vida privada en una lectura pública, Cantú ha podido representar una realidad mucho más amplia sobre la vida en la frontera, la cual traza desde una herencia cultural que siempre ha valorado el relato:

I am not naive enough to think that this one manuscript will be enough to change our world for the better. Perhaps, though, it will inspire many others to also write, to use writing the way the ancient tlahcuilos, the ‘writers’ of the Aztec and Mayan codices, did to chronicle life, testimoniado, leaving behind our stories (Cantú).

Por lo tanto, al leer Canícula uno debe recordar quién es la voz narrativa, de dónde viene, y qué nos quiere contar sobre su vida y la de muchos otros cuerpos fronterizos, cuyas experiencias particulares desafían la frontera artificial del estado.

Estas experiencias se relatan a través de muchos capítulos cortos que cuentan la vida

cotidiana de sus personajes e incluyen eventos como fiestas de cumpleaños y quinceañeras, primeras comuniones, mudanzas, viajes para visitar a la familia, funerales, y todo aquello que forma parte de la vida de la gente. A pesar de iluminar experiencias cotidianas y familiares, los capítulos mismos contribuyen a la ambigüedad que domina la narrativa, ya que no están en orden cronológico ni geográfico, sino que rompen las fronteras del tiempo y del espacio, creando una narrativa dislocada que se asemeja a la manera en que existen nuestros recuerdos en nuestra memoria. Como bien escribe Cantú en la introducción de Canícula, su libro es: a collage of stories gleaned from photographs randomly picked, not from a photo album chronologically arranged but haphazardly pulled from a box of photos where time is blurred. The story emerges from photographs, photographs through which, as Roland Barthes claimed, the dead return; the stories mirror how we live life in our memories, with our past and our present juxtaposed and bleeding, seeping back and forth, one to the other in a recursive dance. Nuestros recuerdos no existen de manera ordenada, sino que forman parte de la realidad inconexa en que vivimos dentro de nuestra propia memoria y las experiencias que allí residen, las cuales no ocupan ni un espacio ni un tiempo fijo. Al contrario, al marcar tan claramente la ausencia de un espacio temporal y espacial concreto, Cantú enfatiza que el espacio importante es aquel que ocupa el individuo en sus múltiples versiones, en toda su complejidad y multidimensionalidad. La frontera es un concepto que intenta crear mundos binarios, separados y categorizados, cosa que se complica por los cuerpos fronterizos como los de Cantú, los cuales se van mutando, ajustando, repitiendo y reforzando a sí mismos para poder reconciliar varios espacios, culturas y realidades que no pueden ser separadas por una frontera estatal artificial e impuesta.

Los capítulos se presentan como secuencias de escenas de su memoria porque, como escribe

en su introducción al libro, tuvo que recrear los relatos a partir de sus recuerdos de las fotos de su archivo familiar. Melissa Birkhofer ofrece un análisis de este modo narrativo: Cantú explains that through this process of remembering and reconstructing the stories based on her memory of photographs that were not with her at the time of writing, she ‘was able to confirm the theory of how memory actually frees the past and photos freeze the moment’. Hence, the discrepancies between the photographs and the accompanying stories are not the crux of the novel. What is at stake in Canícula rather, is how the images and text function as an objective correlative to the U.S.-Mexico border invoking an 49

emotional response from a wide range of readers (51).

Entonces, se puede dar por entendido que los recuerdos, las fotos y la memoria de las

fotos personales y privadas de Cantú sirven para subrayar una realidad amplia sobre la vida en la frontera que provoca reacciones emocionales, no sólo para aquellos que se consideran cuerpos fronterizos, sino para todos aquellos que se dejan impactar por la historia de Cantú.

El impacto emocional que provoca Canícula se debe en gran parte al uso de la fotografía, la

cual muestra escenas íntimas y privadas de una familia que el lector llega a conocer muy bien a lo largo de la narración. Casi todas las imágenes que Cantú decidió compartir son retratos familiares e individuales posados. La pose es un concepto que ha producido mucha literatura teórica en el ámbito fotográfico, ya que propone una tensión importante para los sujetos y los espectadores de una foto. En Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes comenta: I lend myself to the social game, I pose, I know I am posing, I want you to know I am posing, but (to square the circle) this additional message must in no way alter the precious essence of my individuality: what I am, apart from an effigy. What I want, in short, is that my (mobile) image, buffeted among a thousand shifting photographs, altering with situation and age, should always coincide with my (profound) ‘self ’; but it is the contrary that must be said: ‘myself ’ never coincides with my image; for it is the image which is heavy, motionless, stubborn (which is why society sustains it), and ‘myself ’ which is light, divided, dispersed…” (11-12) Aquí Barthes señala la gran tensión de la pose: todos queremos que nuestro ser profundo y auténtico se comunique a través de nuestros retratos pero lo que verdaderamente construye nuestras identidades, lo que consideramos que nos hace quienes somos, es algo cambiante, disperso y sumamente complejo que no se puede recoger en una imagen posada y consciente. Mientras consideramos las posibles limitaciones de la pose, también es interesante reflexionar sobre la manera en que solemos fotografiar y posar en los momentos más significativos de nuestras vidas, no sólo porque los queremos guardar para la posteridad, sino porque representan parte de nuestra identidad más íntima e importante. Aunque las imágenes que comparte Cantú no revelan la identidad completa del sujeto, nos dirigen hacia elementos críticos de su identidad, cosa que se fortalece a través de los relatos que las acompañan.

La identidad del “yo” de Canícula se ancla en las nociones complejas de nación y

ciudadanía, las cuales se pueden definir a través de las imágenes del libro. En su libro, Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldúa trata mucho estas ideas de la identidad derivada de elementos culturales y nacionales, en particular la identidad mestiza que se produce en lugares fronterizos. Anzaldúa enfatiza el hecho que la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México es un lugar indeterminado e innatural que está en un estado constante de transición (25), lo cual 50

naturalmente influye en la construcción de la identidad del cuerpo fronterizo. Es más, al subrayar la tendencia hacia el cambio y la transición, Anzaldúa señala que la nueva mestiza desarrolla una tolerancia hacia la ambigüedad y aprende a ser mexicana en el contexto estadounidense: “she learns to juggle cultures. She has a plural personality, she operates in pluralistic mode…” (101). Sin embargo, como demuestra en el siguiente poema, esa pluralidad contiene la tensión de una contradicción constante, que se juega en el propio cuerpo fronterizo: Una lucha de fronteras / A Struggle of Borders Because I, a mestiza, continually walk out of one culture and into another, because I am in all cultures at the same time, alma entre dos mundos, tres, cuatro, me zumba la cabeza con lo contradictorio estoy norteada por todas las voces que me hablan simultáneamente (99) La frontera ocupa un espacio físico delineado, arbitrario y artificial, que, por intentar separar dos lugares, dos naciones y dos culturas de manera rígida, provoca inmensas tensiones dentro de las fronteras corporales y psíquicas de los cuerpos fronterizos que se ven en un estado igual de transitorio y cambiante que la frontera física que pretende ser fija e inmutable. En el caso de la novela de Cantú, como escribe Ellen McCracken, “the inclusion of photos and the playful deceptions Cantú engages in with them ask readers to understand the self as multiple and unitary at the same time, as both fixed and changing, and as unfinalized” (266). El cuerpo fronterizo desarrolla una identidad mestiza de la ambigüedad de una frontera impuesta con la intención de separar dos culturas y dos espacios, creando un ser múltiple, cambiante y sin terminar. Sin embargo, además de actuar como una frontera entre culturas, el cuerpo fronterizo también actúa como un ser que une ambos lados de una sola frontera, que reconcilia dos naciones y que desafía la distinción entre un “yo” y un “otro’’.

Canícula se apoya en fotografías personales que ilustran el proceso de la construcción del

“yo” cuya identidad se ve anclada en las nociones de nación y ciudadanía y que se construye en gran parte a partir de ceremonias privativas para su cultura, tales como la primera comunión y la celebración quinceañera. En el capítulo “Nenas Quinceañera”, Cantú describe justamente eso, la celebración en familia de un momento sumamente significativo en la historia de una familia y de una joven. El capítulo comienza con la siguiente imagen seguida por descripciones del momento que reflejan la misma alegría y felicidad que se puede ver en los rostros de los sujetos fotográficos. Este retrato posado se usa para resumir todo un día de celebración porque al verlo se reproducen escenas en la memoria de aquellos que lo vivieron. Cantú recuerda la manera en que su familia 51

La Quinceañera de Nena

le cantaba a Nena: “They belt out the familiar song, ‘Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el rey David’… They sing on and on, and Nena feels close to tears, her heart full of love, full of their voices. The tiny kitchen is packed; the song fills her heart” (12). Al recordar el evento a través de la foto, Cantú pudo también recordar los sentimientos de aquel día, el amor que llenó los corazones de todos, y así lo pudo comunicar con los lectores, quienes hemos sido invitados a participar en este momento tan importante, íntimo y crítico en la construcción de la identidad colectiva de la familia e individual de la joven quinceañera. La foto misma no canta, pero sí revela la felicidad de la familia, el vestuario elegante y festivo de los sujetos, el aire de celebración que le otorga importancia al evento y, por lo tanto, a la imagen. Sin embargo, al leer la descripción de la foto en sí vemos una pequeña discrepancia: For the photo, in the front patio, she sits on a kitchen chair surrounded by the neighborhood children.They frame her; she can feel the warm caress of the sun that January day. Nena shivers, though, as a gentle cool breeze blows. Derechita, Mami urges, making her sit straight for the photo (12-13). La foto que describe Cantú no es la que vemos publicada en el libro. Quizá porque Cantú escribió a partir de los recuerdos que ella tenía de las fotos conmemorativas, o quizá porque nos quiso ilustrar varios momentos de toma de fotos distintas del mismo día, aunque ambas fotos son retratos posados. Esta discrepancia ilustra una de las muchas ambigüedades de Canícula, en este caso, la ambigüedad entre el texto e imagen y entre la memoria y la realidad presentada por la evidencia fotográfica. 52

El capítulo titulado “Tino” también presenta estas mismas ambigüedades al trazar la

historia de Tino, el hermano de Norma Elia Cantú. En particular, este capítulo rompe fronteras temporales y espaciales al presentar una cronología ambigua: “Although a handwritten inscription on the photo itself delimits it as ‘Easter 1952,’ the text below suggests that the occasion of the photograph is Tino’s ninth birthday party in which he wields a toy gun, proleptically imaging his own death in Vietnam ten years later” (McCracken 267).

El capítulo comienza con esta foto y presenta a Tino, el niño a la derecha que apunta su

mano en forma de pistola.

Tino: El Niño Soldado

He did it at four. And again at nine. He stands to the side with his hand out as if pointing a gun or a rifle. Everyone else is crowded around me; the piñata in the shape of a birthday cake sways in the wind above our heads… And he’s playing, even in the picture, at being a soldier. Only ten years later, 1968, he is a soldier, and it’s not a game. And we are gathered again: tías, tíos, cousins, comadres, neighbors, everyone, even Mamagrande Lupita from Monterrey, and Papi’s cousin Ricardo who has escorted the body home (16). Como señala McCracken, no se sabe con certeza si en el momento de la toma Tino tenía cuatro años o nueve, ni tampoco se sabe si la foto representa las celebraciones de Semana Santa o de un cumpleaños, ya que los elementos festivos de un cumpleaños que describe Cantú no aparecen en la foto. Lo que sí se sabe es que Tino, quien jugaba a ser soldado de pequeño, se convirtió en uno de verdad y murió luchando en la guerra de Vietnam en 1968. Cantú usa la dislocación del tiempo para narrar un acontecimiento trágico usando una fotografía de un pasado aún más lejano, lo cual borra fronteras espaciales además de temporales al insinuar el movimiento corporal de los sujetos de la foto. Al ser americano, Tino luchó por su ejército en un país lejano y cuando no pudo volver con vida, fue su familia mexicana la que cruzó la frontera a los Estados Unidos para reunirse 53

con él por una última vez.

A través de las imágenes y sus relatos, Cantú nos demuestra que la vida fronteriza y la

identidad que produce requiere un proceso de reconciliación entre ambas culturas que puede ser bella tanto como puede ser dolorosa. De hecho, Anzaldúa describe la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México como “una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country – a border culture” (25). Por lo tanto, tenemos que entender que la identidad mestiza y su construcción pueden dar lugar a costumbres bellas como las celebraciones de comuniones, quinceañeros y semanas santas, pero también pueden ser la raíz de inseguridades personales. La tensión interna y personal que produce la frontera se ve claramente en los capítulos “China Poblana One”, “Body Hair” y “Mexican Citizen” las cuales demuestran cómo el cuerpo actúa como una frontera entre culturas de manera que puede producir fronteras corporales y psíquicas para los seres fronterizos.

“China Poblana One” empieza por presentarnos una foto de Norma Elia Cantú de

pequeña, sonriente, posando en su vestido de china poblana. Ella y su madre acaban de volver a casa de un desfile. “Mami has braided my shoulder-long hair, adding volume and length with yarn—green, white, and red—verde, blanco y colorado, la bandera del soldado” (52). Pero hay alguien que cae fuera del marco de la foto que cambia por completo la historia que cuenta el rostro sonriente de la pequeña que posa con orgullo en su vestido: Raúl. I know Raúl is hiding behind his dad’s car to make fun of me; I pretend not to notice. Instead of his teasing though, I hear a whistle—a wolf whistle—and I become even more

China Poblana

upset than if he had called me skinny or wetback, yelled his favorite taunts, ‘mojada’ or ‘flaca.’ I mustn’t move because Mami wants me to stand perfectly still until she takes the picture. I resist the urge to grab a stone, hit Raúl with it. My aim is good and I know exactly where he is, if only I could (52). La narración de Cantú revela que además del orgullo que parece reflejar la foto, la identidad mestiza del sujeto también puede causarle dolor y enfado al reaccionar a los insultos dirigidos hacia su identidad. Este dolor perdura en la adolescencia, como podemos ver en “Body Hair”, que demuestra la manera en que el cuerpo físico y cambiante de Cantú durante la adolescencia marca las diferencias culturales entre ella y sus compañeras de clase que no gozan de identidades mestizas ni mexicanas. Al escribir a partir de su retrato escolar de octavo grado, Cantú recuerda:

Adolescencia

They’ve been after me to pluck my brows, shave my legs… ‘No les hagas caso a esas pendejas’ … I feel torn; these same ‘pendejas’ are sometimes my friends and we work on school projects together… Many Chicana classmates behave like gringas, but my friends, most of us who ride the Saunders bus, we don’t yet shave, much less pluck our eyebrows, or wear makeup -- our parents forbid it (81-81). A pesar de ser una experiencia universal, la adolescencia se manifiesta de maneras diferentes dependiendo de la cultura a la que pertenezcas, lo cual se complica para una joven quien está en el proceso de desarrollar su propia identidad individual y de aprender a manejar la reconciliación entre su identidad cultural y su identidad como adolescente en los Estados Unidos rodeada de otras jóvenes que no comparten sus experiencias fronterizas de la misma manera.

Por último, “Mexican Citizen” enfatiza la dificultad de identificar a un cuerpo de manera 55

categórica y binaria y las consecuencias que esta calificación puede llegar a tener para cuerpos fronterizos con identidades mestizas. A diferencia de las fotos posadas de retratos familiares, este capítulo incluye dos documentos de identificación de identidad de Cantú:

Mexicana Antes

Mexicana Siempre

Al describir la foto en “Mexicana antes”, Cantú escribe: “In the photo stapled to my official US immigration papers, I am a one-year-old baldy, but the eyes are the same that stare back at me at thirteen when I look in the mirror and ask, ‘Who am I?’” (30), lo cual enfatiza la ambigüedad creada por el mestizaje y por la frontera misma que, al intentar separar una cultura de la otra, crea confusión sobre la identidad de un individuo que une ambas culturas. Cantú demuestra confusión al preguntar: “who am I?”, porque al vivir en un mundo que define la cultura, la ciudadanía y la pertenencia a la nación de manera categórica y binaria, no se siente ni lo uno ni lo otro, aunque en realidad sea porque es ambas a la vez. Es más, esta identidad ambigua y mestiza se revela y se complica en ambos lados de la frontera. Cantú relata que el consulado de México la declara una ciudadana mexicana: I am declared a Mexican national. I can travel back to Mexico without my parents… now I’m off to Monterrey with Mamagrande where my cousins will tease me and call me ‘pocha’ and make me homesick for my US world full of TV… I’m homesick and I don’t have a word for it… (30-31). Como escribe Anzaldúa, “the pocho is an anglicized Mexican or American of Mexican origin who speaks Spanish with an accent characteristic of North Americans and who distorts and reconstructs the language according to the influence of English” (78). Es decir, pertenece a ambas identidades y a ninguna, su realidad es la realidad fronteriza. Pero ser nacional va más allá de ser “declarada” mexicana o americana por cada país, tiene que ver también con el sentimiento, con la identidad personal y cultural. La gente no existe de una manera binaria que pretende establecer 56

fronteras artificiales impuestas por gobiernos. Es más, nuestros propios cuerpos funcionan como evidencia de que podemos pertenecer a varias culturas, y podemos cruzar las fronteras entre identidades y naciones constantemente porque la identidad, como la cultura, es mutante y transitoria y está llena de complejidades ambiguas.

Podríamos decir que se trata de una narración preposicional que entra en conversación con

la fotografía, sobre la fotografía y muchas veces contra la fotografía. Cantú convierte su historia personal en una realidad pública que nos hace reflexionar sobre nuestro entendimiento de la nación y de la identidad. Hace visible la manera en la que el cuerpo, tal y como se ve representado en la fotografía, actúa como una frontera simbólica entre culturas y tiene el poder de reunir las geografías dispersas y divididas por una frontera política. El cuerpo y la memoria, a través de la imagen y la palabra, se afirma como un solo ser multidimensional y complejo que desafía el mundo categórico y binario impuesto por las fronteras artificiales entre naciones y culturas. Bibliografía Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute

Books, 1999.

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Traducido por Richard Howard, Nueva York: Hill

and Wang The Noonday Press, 1981.

Birkhofer Melissa D. “Norma Elia Cantú’s Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood En La Frontera.” Rocky Mountain Review, vol. 66, 2012, 48. Red. Cantú, Norma Elia. Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood in la Frontera. Albuquerque:

University of New Mexico Press, 2015.

McCracken, Ellen. “Hybridity and the Space of the Border in the Writing of Norma Elia Cantú.” Studies in 20th Century Literature, vol. 25, no. 1, dic. 2001, 261–280. Red.

El comité editorial de Esferas 12 desea agradecer a Norma Elia Cantú por ceder los derechos de autor para la publicación de las fotos que aparecen en este trabajo.

A Lorena Borjas,

la pájara migrante más grande Laura Rojas

Hay tantos niños que van a nacer Con una alita rota Y yo quiero que vuelen compañero Que su revolución Les dé un pedazo de cielo rojo Para que puedan volar. Pedro Lemebel

En 2018 empecé un trabajo como voluntaria en New Sanctuary Coalition (NSC), una organización sin ánimo de lucro en Nueva York, que ayudaba y acompañaba a migrantes en distintos aspectos, pero especialmente en sus solicitudes de asilo. Los primeros meses asumí el rol de intérprete, trabajé con diferentes personas, la mayoría de Centroamérica y México, traduciendo sus experiencias y ayudándoles a completar su formulario de solicitud de asilo, el I-589. Meses después, mi rol cambió en la organización, empecé a ser parte de un equipo de investigación que se encargaba de reunir la documentación necesaria para sustentar las solicitudes. Artículos académicos, reportajes de periódicos, documentales, informes del Departamento de Estado, estadísticas oficiales eran algunos de los materiales que archivaba para cada caso individual, y que funcionaban como la prueba y el registro de que cada solicitud de asilo tenía un sustento válido.

Gracias a ese trabajo en NSC conocí a una de las mujeres migrantes más extraordinarias

y fascinantes que hayan existido en la tierra: Lorena Borjas. Lorena fue una activista mexicana trans, quien me ayudó a ver y conectarme con otra organización que ayuda a migrantes en Nueva York, el Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo. Las personas que conocí a través de Lorena y 58

por supuesto la propia Lorena, me hicieron entender la migración desde un lugar completamente distinto.

Lorena Borjas murió de COVID-19 el 30 de marzo de 2020. Lo más difícil de su muerte

fue, dadas las circunstancias de la pandemia, no poder hacer un duelo en comunidad. Un año después, cuando la situación en relación al COVID-19 mejoró un poco, desde TRANSgrediendo se pudieron hacer algunas actividades para poder darle cierre a su partida y compartir en comunidad lo que significó su pérdida. Uno de los aspectos que más me llamó la atención al participar de estas actividades, que se llevaron a cabo desde el 16 de marzo de 2021 al 1 de abril de 2021, fue la cantidad de testimonios que escuché sobre cómo Lorena les había cambiado la vida a todas estas mujeres trans migrantes reunidas para honrar su memoria y la forma en que Lorena les había dado auxilio cuando apenas empezaban su vida en Nueva York. El impacto tan alto que tuvo Lorena en la vida de todas estas chicas me ayudó a entender por qué las actividades que realizan en el Colectivo y su rol como agentes de cambio en Estados Unidos, independientemente de su situación legal en el país, es tan significativa y tiene tanto valor.

Mientras despedíamos a Lorena en el cementerio, una de las chicas del Colectivo me dijo:

“Anoche soñé con Lorena, soñé que yo me convertía en ella, sentí que me estaba hablando. Y es que ella y yo tenemos historias muy parecidas, yo también fui drogadicta, alcohólica, y trabajadora sexual. Bueno, lo último todavía lo sigo siendo. Pero el colectivo le dio un sentido a mi vida. Muchas me dicen que yo me volví más creída desde que estoy en el colectivo, pero no es así. Yo quiero ayudar a más chicas como Lorena, y ahora todos los días tengo una motivación, un sentido, me gusta el trabajo que hago actualmente”. Me pareció muy poderoso lo que me estaba contando.

Hay una anécdota de la que siempre hablo cuando pienso en Lorena. Cuando conversaba con

ella o cuando nos veíamos para trabajar me decía: “Bueno abogada, nos vemos en tu oficina” Yo me reía y le decía: “Lorena, no soy abogada y tampoco tengo oficina. Estoy en la Universidad y hago un doctorado”. Ella también se reía y me decía: “Pero tú para qué estudias eso, mejor ponte a estudiar derecho y así puedes ayudar a más personas”. No me acuerdo cuántas veces tuve que aclararle a Lorena que yo no era abogada, pero que desde el lugar del doctorado podía ayudarla a diligenciar el formulario I-589 para solicitar asilo de alguna de sus chicas. Aunque parecía un chiste inocente, meses después entendí que no lo era. El día del homenaje a su legado, un año después de su muerte, conocí a la abogada Christina Rosalin Peña, quien me contó que ella se hizo abogada por Lorena, por todas esas veces que insistentemente le dijo que si quería ayudar a mujeres migrantes, debía estudiar una carrera que se lo permitiera. Ahí volví a entender su magia, la manera en que extendía su capacidad hacia otrxs, el poder de su perseverancia. 59

A Lorena la vi ayudar a chicas sin casa, sin documentos, sin un tratamiento hormonal. La vi

con su carrito de un lado para otro, y sus múltiples bolígrafos colgados en el cuello tocando todas las puertas posibles para ayudar, ella misma, a quien lo necesitara. La vi llorar el día que recibió, luego de más de 20 años de estar en Estados Unidos sin documentos, su ciudadanía. La vi marchar y gritar por los derechos de las mujeres trans trabajadoras sexuales en su anual “Marcha de las putas”, una manifestación que ha sido una muestra colectiva de apoyo y solidaridad con las trabajadoras sexuales y a su vez, una toma del espacio público para reclamar en las calles de Jackson Heights, Queens; por sus derechos, por la legalización del trabajo sexual.

Ahora, el Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo está bajo la dirección de Liaam Winslet,

a quien Lorena dejó designada como la persona para hacerse cargo del colectivo y de su legado. A veces, conversando con Liaam, entiendo la carga y la presión que tiene bajo sus hombros de mantener vivo el legado de Lorena, de continuar con su lucha y seguir dándole visibilidad y apoyo a la comunidad, de ser refugio de cientos de chicas trans que necesitan ayuda. A Liaam le gustaría tener una casa propia para el colectivo, un lugar para poder recibir y hospedar a chicas que cruzan la frontera. Justamente, el sueño más grande de Lorena era poder tener su propio espacio, sus propias oficinas. Aunque no pudo disfrutar de esto en vida, hoy TRANSgrediendo cuenta con un espacio renovado desde donde se pueden hacer talleres, conferencias, clases de inglés, alfabetización, clases de Zumba, donaciones de alimentos, un clóset comunitario y muchas más actividades pensadas para ayudar y acompañar a la comunidad Trans Latina.

La experiencia del duelo se manifiesta desde lugares distintos. En mi caso, aunque haya

pasado más de un año de su muerte, a veces me gusta ir al teléfono y releer sus mensajes de texto, allí la siento cerca. Nuestro último intercambio, y la última vez que la vi fue el 4 de marzo de 2020: “Laura hola, estoy llegando 6:20 p.m.”, “Estoy aquí en la entrada, puedes venir aquí pls”. Como cada miércoles en que ocurría la clínica legal de NSC para ayudar a distintas personas en sus casos migratorios, Lorena siempre se aparecía con la esperanza de que pudiera ayudar a quienes ella acompañaba. Esa era Lorena, nunca abandonaba, nunca un: “Ve a esta clínica legal el miércoles a las 6”. No, ella era: “Yo te acompaño y te espero y hago todo lo posible para que te incluyan en algún equipo”. Esa primera persona fue la que tocó y cambió la vida de tantas personas, incluyendo la mía.

En la imagen superior que tomé en 2019, Lorena acababa de compartir la noticia de que luego de más de 20 años de estar en el país, por fin había recibido la noticia de su ciudadanía. Fue muy emotivo estar ahí. La abraza Liaam Winslet.

Objetos migrantes Nadia Villafuerte El laboratorio Las imágenes empiezan en un laboratorio. En la foto vemos una repisa con bolsas y etiquetas de clasificación. Las bolsas parecen urnas crematorias. Preservan en su interior una serie de objetos tocados por la tierra. Incompletos y todo, constituyen un vestigio. Son posesiones que en un pasado demasiado reciente pertenecieron a esos cuerpos perdidos en una zona de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México. Estos objetos narran una trama en su forma silenciosa de estar debajo de las bolsas de plástico. Los cuerpos no llegaron hasta donde querían (a esas personas les arrancaron los pasos), pero los objetos, a su modo, formaron parte de la travesía. Es posible que un cepillo de pelo hubiese estado en la habitación de un migrante, un cuarto en un barrio mexicano u hondureño, y que el cepillo de pelo compartiera sitio con una gorra con el logo de New York Yankees, porque quizá Nueva York ya estaba en el horizonte de esa persona como forzoso o común destino. Este cepillo de pelo fue depositado en una mochila una noche y la mochila acompañó la ruta de un migrante que tomó un autobús y después otro y allá se detuvo en un shelter para dormir y seguir camino al día siguiente, con su tierra impenetrable y un llano calcinante y un río torturado por las piedras. En algún punto de la frontera el cuerpo no pudo avanzar. La mochila quedó botada entre las matas secas: adentro venían el cepillo de pelo y otras pertenencias contingentes: un carnet de identidad, una libreta con direcciones postales, el ticket de autobús con la hora detenida. Entonces vino alguien y rescató estas cosas para llevarlas a donde se encuentran ahora: el laboratorio.

Las posesiones a las que me refiero forman parte del proyecto Undocumented Migration

Project (UMP), un ejercicio interdisciplinario resguardado en la Universidad de Michigan en el que participan estudiantes, investigadores, curadores y artistas. Estos objetos representan un tiempo en tensión. Y aunque esta no es una obra estética sino documental/archivario, el conjunto sensorial domina. Resguardados ahí, funcionan como eventos de la memoria pero también como artefactos. Para decirlo con Jane Bennett, “son entidades que dibujan, en su materialidad, una biografía idiosincrática”. Y son, para acotarlo con Jonathan Culler, “un modo de ratificar el hecho de que no hay acciones deliberadas de los seres humanos sobre el mundo material que no pongan en funcionamiento su sistema de exclusiones”. Encontrados in situ, esta materia ha trazado su propio recorrido en un mapa en el cual el territorio adquiere también relevancia: los objetos migrantes bosquejan un agitado trayecto y luego enmudecen al terminar detenidos en ese límite territorial en 63

el cual operan múltiples transacciones derivadas de las relaciones de poder entre múltiples países. El itinerario que recorre un par de zapatos de un tianguis al desierto es diciente: de una maquila, un zapato hace su travesía a las garitas polvosas de los pueblos fronterizos (donde circula la mercancía del cruce), para terminar más o menos en el mismo perímetro. En los objetos está contenido un régimen espacio-temporal: las actas con tachaduras, el cepillo de dientes, la foto desleída, los aretes huérfanos o la ropa mutilada, son espectros geopolíticos.1 La marca geográfica de los objetos se desplaza con ellos: un peine, un prendedor herrumbrado, un anillo en medio de las piedras, nos devuelven la condición física del destierro. Antes de ser entendidas por su valor emocional, por el animismo que se les da a las cosas para poder juzgarlas, antes de imponerles un sentido y una ética y una moral e incluso una trama, yacen en las bolsas del UMP como entidades orgánicas, aun vivas, extensiones del paisaje: vinieron de ese mundo material que las convirtió en entidades construidas cultural y económicamente y que les atribuyó significados específicos. A su modo, estas cosas hicieron un enloquecido tránsito desde que fueron hechas, adquiridas, usadas, hasta el momento en el que terminaron apiladas como resto o excedente en esa costura política entre naciones reventada por la migración global, en una frontera que contiene “aquello que permanece cuando la modernización ha corrido su curso”, “aquello que coagula cuando la modernización progresa: su residuo” (Rem Koolhaas).

Unas monedas, un rastrillo, una pasta dental Colgate, el dije de Santo Toribio, protector

del caminante, una cartera manchada de lodo. Encajan en lo que Barbara Gimblett llama “una demolición selectiva de ruinas donde el poder reside en su capacidad de significar la circunstancia destructiva de su creación”. Ya en fragmento o en conjunto, conservando incluso el remanente vegetal, fungoso y la aspereza de la tierra de la que fueron arrancados, o haciendo visible la mancha que dejan en la superficie, exhiben un lado poco estudiado de la migración: su materialidad.

Aun cuando se trata de una curaduría científica, el UMP se inscribe en la tradición de

investigaciones en torno a la política y la poética de la memoria, en un contexto social compartido donde la violencia ha dejado un vacío ontológico para discutir la violencia del desplazamiento forzado y ha desemantizado toda posibilidad de representarlo. Analizo el archivo del UMP a partir de los conceptos de Jane Bennett en su libro Vibrant Matter, y de Jonathan Culler en su indagación sobre la semiótica de la basura. También indago en la co-agencia del paisaje, ya que el desierto es mecanismo de control y repositorio de los objetos dejados por los migrantes en su camino. 1. Pero también objetos o materialidades geopolíticas, ya que portan inscripciones multi locacionales que componen una biografía objetual. Y ello habla de regímenes transnacionales de producción y por tanto de subjetivación, así como de su condición desigual (neocolonial/imperial, bio/necropolítica, etc.)

Por un lado discuto la agencia de los objetos en su inmanencia física (la materia vibrante de la que habla Benet) y en su función como archivo polisémico (el componente lingüístico del que habla Culler). Pero también menciono la relevancia del paisaje en tanto co-actante, ahí donde la tierra se espesa por la marca física del incesante cruce y donde los objetos dejan su propia escritura. El paisaje Todo empezó en 2009 cuando Jason de León realizaba un trabajo de campo en Arizona. Del recuerdo de las pertenencias alrededor de un cuerpo en el desierto, surgió la pregunta de si un trabajo interdisciplinario que se valiera de la antropología, la etnografía, la lingüística y la ciencia forense podía intervenir en una zona donde los migrantes se quedaban sin posibilidades de ser reclamados. De la antropología importaba rescatar la forma en que los objetos eran percibidos. De la historia, su manera de verlos como signos determinando posiciones sociales. De la lingüística, el concebir a los objetos como textos a través de los cuales eran construidos los significados y modificados o reproducidos según las relaciones de poder. De la etnografía, su método de estudio para describir la identidad de un grupo desenvolviéndose en un ámbito sociocultural concreto: el de la comunidad migrante. De la ciencia forense podía aprovecharse el potencial metodológico para la identificación de los cuerpos a través de los objetos, pero también para entender las circunstancias en las que los objetos aparecían en la frontera como parte de una historia de infracciones a los derechos humanos de los cuerpos ausentes.

Confrontando los límites académicos y metodológicos, nació el UMP. Su objetivo fue

establecer un vínculo entre el estudio de la cultura material con la historia específica de una región: la frontera entre Arizona y México, en una temporalidad que pensara, desde el presente, los objetos abandonados por los migrantes como enseres capaces de inscribir, en el futuro, la memoria de su travesía, un vestigio material de su ausencia y su presencia. Para Jason de Leon, el cruce interdisciplinario no buscaba “producir” una verdad sino un enfoque distinto en el que la relación entre objetos y sujetos despojados de su estatuto como personas, los dotara de capacidad enunciativa. Dato importante: el trabajo etnográfico buscaba rescatarlos de una peligrosa trivialización en la que a veces incurren ciertas obras que, ignorando las relaciones capitalistas en las que la obra misma se inscribe, terminan enunciando hechos sin denunciar, fomentando una visión alienante que, en apariencia, deja lugar para la empatía pero no vislumbra las relaciones de poder de las que el propio trabajo artístico o académico forma parte y tampoco las condiciones de su propia invisibilidad. Debían aparecer las palabras claves para entender el contexto en su versión

más abstracta: racismo, capitalismo posthistórico, law enforcement, limpieza social, poblaciones redundantes, vida desnuda, estado de excepción.

Para de Leon los objetos suponían por igual un método para analizar otros procesos

implicados: la presencia tecnológica,2 la burocracia migratoria, la huella efímera y permanente del cruce escrita en el desierto toda vez que los objetos acumulados en las rutas fronterizas convertían al suelo en un palimpsesto vivo,3 así como ciertos métodos de control usados por la Border Patrol, en los cuales la topografía y las condiciones climáticas han hecho el papel sucio de detener al migrante en el camino, dejando en evidencia que el paisaje es no solo ese “medio de intercambio entre lo humano y lo natural”, sino una constelación de procesos en los cuales lo humano impone su dominio sobre lo no humano.4 Una evidencia de la subordinación neocolonial inscrita en el mapa topográfico.5

Jason de Leon quería, sobre todo, desenmascarar el mecanismo legal llamado “prevention

through deterrence”, iniciado en 1994 —justo en el año en el que se firmó el TLC—, una forma de agresión pasiva usada por el control policiaco para disuadir al migrante de cruzar “el hostil paisaje”: ahí donde se advertía sobre los riesgos de las temperaturas extremas, las mordeduras de serpientes venenosas, los comedores de carroña rasgando la carne humana del hueso y los riesgos de la profundidad del horizonte (alucinación durante el día y oquedad en la noche), pero donde en realidad eran determinantes las paredes de acero, los sensores de tierra remotos, los drones como omniscientes panópticos neoliberales volando en el cielo.

Debido a que la agencia es un proceso dinámico y continuo y porque en el desierto ocurre un

número considerable de interacciones entre los elementos humanos y no humanos, Jason de Leon 2. Un eco a lo que dice Ricardo Domínguez cuando habla de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México como una escena donde desde hace tiempo se ha desarrollado investigación militar: pasó durante la guerra en Vietnam y después mediante acciones escenificadas para controlar los carteles de droga, el contrabando y el cruce de los migrantes. El Transborder Immigrant Tool surgió como un tipo de respuesta que entre el arte y el activismo pensaba el paisaje como una cartografía para contrarrestar dicha estrategia militar, así como el uso de la tecnología para permitir que el migrante pudiera bregar y sobrevivir en el desierto. 3. El término viene de Jens Andermann en su capítulo “El giro ambiental”, en el libro Tierras en trance. Arte y naturaleza después del paisaje. Metales Pesados, 2018. 4. Pasa lo mismo con esa pintura de José Gamarra titulada “Tropelías ocultas”, en Operación Coca, en la cual se advierte cómo el paisaje fue aliado de la fuerza humana que se convirtió en un agente político durante la guerrilla de los ochenta en El Salvador. 5. Recuerda el capítulo que Gloria Anzaldúa dedica a esa herida sin cerrar que constituye la frontera: “The homeland, Aztlán”, en su libro Borderlands. La autora hace un recuento de los diversos éxodos étnicos atravesando esta franja de tierra, incluida la batalla de Álamos en 1848 (en la cual México pierde parte de su territorio), para recordar que esta zona ha estado marcada por la perpetua disputa económica y por un trasunto histórico cuya memoria está escrita físicamente en la tierra.

plantea que la patrulla fronteriza inició de forma intencional el mecanismo “prevention through deterrence” como una estrategia en la que se podía recurrir a la agencia de los muchos elementos en la geografía híbrida del desierto, para detener al migrante y al mismo tiempo absolverse de cualquier responsabilidad relacionada con las lesiones o las pérdidas de vidas. Si bien en esta zona todos los organismos nativos se han adaptado para hacer frente a las fluctuaciones de temperaturas extremas y sobrevivir, para la policía federal, en su lenguaje intimidatorio, el desierto es “una bestia” donde solo hay “garras del diablo, acacias, cactus alfileteros y criaturas desagradables con espinas, leones de montaña, ocelotes, osos negros, jabalines, centípodos gigantes, escorpiones de corteza, serpientes de coral y viudas negras que reverberan en el paisaje como una amenaza” (de Leon, 2015).

El papel estratégico de los actantes en el desierto ha sido conveniente para la ley

norteamericana y ha permitido conceptualizar las lesiones y las muertes que resultan de los enfrentamientos fronterizos como “resultados naturales” o sin vínculo alguno con las políticas federales migratorias. En los testimonios que de Leon ofrece está el de un policía que, cuando se le preguntó sobre los cuerpos humanos en descomposición hallados en la frontera, dijo: “el desierto no discrimina”. La verdad es otra, pues mientras ciertos eventos en el desierto son aleatorios, el “prevention through deterrence” está diseñado para ejercer una agresión indirecta a los migrantes. Detrás de eso que los agentes llaman “actos de la naturaleza” se oculta una estrategia en la cual la Border Patrol monitorea a los migrantes y los deja continuar caminando en el desierto por periodos prolongados antes de aprehenderlos. En la materialidad del paisaje, según Tim Ingold, se incluye al cielo y el horizonte incluso si no pueden tocar; la luz del sol en tanto la vida depende de ella, la presencia del agua pero también su escasez, la ausencia de sombra de una roca, la presencia del fuego. Pero esta materialidad se encuentra distorsionada por el factor humano cuando los agentes migratorios llaman a estos “actos de la naturaleza”: así, mientras que la luz del sol no tendría que actuar en contra de ningún sujeto, esta se convierte en un elemento material actante cuando un migrante debe caminar bajo esa luz6 (que otra circunstancia es vida) hasta deshidratarlo o, en su ausencia, cuando la noche lo expone a una oscuridad donde se imponen otros peligros.

Jason de Leon sigue atento la hipótesis de Jane Bennet en torno a desmitificar las relaciones

sociopolíticas para comprender cómo funciona la agencia, dado que se tiende a ocultar la vitalidad de la materia y a reducir la agencia política a la agencia humana. Pese a que de Leon concilia con el giro ontológico hacia los actantes no humanos como actores políticos del que habla Bennett, admite que es incapaz de desconectar las agencias no humanas de las estrategias de imposición y 6. La ‘estrategia’ migrante de refugiarse en territorios ‘inhóspitos’ es también una especie de eco lejano de la guerrilla latinoamericana de los 60/70 y su intento de replegarse hacia zonas marginales.

los propósitos del control fronterizo. La agencia es relacional en este caso, dice Jason de Leon, y se produce como parte de la reacción en cadena inducida por la agencia humana. Esta reacción en cadena se pone en marcha porque el cuerpo humano se involucra con el mundo material y lo dirige. Por lo tanto, el medio que permite el movimiento y la percepción, también los limita y los cerca. Esa gama de elementos que constituyen el mundo material de los pasajes fronterizos y proporcionan fundamentos físicos necesarios para la vida humana y no humana, se convierten entonces en una estrategia para su debilitamiento y su muerte.

Hay otra forma de analizar al paisaje como co-actante: a través de las fotografías del UMP,

cuando estas documentan los estragos de la tierra, ahí donde plástico, tela, metales y materia orgánica forman una mancha irregular y se apilan en las rutas a lo largo y ancho del borde geopolítico entre Estados Unidos y México. Lo que estas fotografías revelan es que, en tanto concepto, la frontera forma un lienzo móvil, un espacio-tiempo de las materialidades objetuales y corporales que convergen y vibran ahí. Los elementos que la componen son geográficos, geológicos, y sobre ella se registra el trasiego material de una comunidad en desplazamiento. Dado que la naturaleza no es puramente cultural ni puramente materia cruda, y de nuevo pensando en el término “hybrid collectif ” que Jason de Leon retoma para entender la interacción entre lo humano y lo no humano, el fenómeno migratorio deja también la huella física de esa travesía en el paisaje. Si el espacio es tiempo contenido, los diversos tiempos de un proceso como el de la migración se amontonan físicamente en la superficie del desierto: no solo se desplazan los migrantes en un ciclo que se reitera, sino que la tierra atravesada por la huella migratoria expresa esa temporalidad. En las rutas físicas puede apreciarse el rastro del éxodo. Los migrantes se convierten no sólo en cartógrafos abriéndole atajos inéditos al mapa, sino en los habitantes materiales de un lugar, así este sea transitorio. En las fotografías del UMP estos objetos se convierten en una extensión del paisaje, una iteración. La frontera es configurada primero como un lugar signado por el desplazamiento de materia, cuerpos y mercancía, después como sitio de descomposición, desgaste, depósito y fisura.

Mientras tanto, las cosas a la intemperie o semienterradas en el paisaje despliegan múltiples

sentidos. Por un lado, son la “basura objetual” del desplazamiento, una acumulación de signos políticos, económicos y sociales que exigen una interpretación. Por otro, son materia vibrante: excedentes vitales que sobreviven a los cuerpos. Esta materia sedimentándose en la tierra ratifica a la vez la vastedad territorial de un proceso que no comienza ni termina en los límites fronterizos, pues bastaría hacer el recorrido de cada objeto para trazar un mapa de rutas que no aparecen en los registros oficiales. Estas cosas también denuncian, en su calidad depreciada, a un régimen económico que genera todo un mundo material con el que una clase social explota a otra. Los 68

objetos apilados en la tierra visibilizan, además, el ethos del lugar, pues se exhiben los alcances de una economía cuya capacidad destructora se mide por esta topografía transgredida y por los “desechos”, sean estos materiales o humanos, ya que los migrantes se vuelven, en este ciclo de capital global, cuerpos descartables, basura. Estas cosas abandonadas o perdidas en el desierto comparten con esa otra materialidad del paisaje (las piedras o la arena de las dunas, por ejemplo) un proceso de metamorfosis: leer la palabra “América” grabada en la corteza de un árbol es ver la marca simbólica de una era geológica afectada por la actividad humana, como lo describe una foto del UMP.

Que el proceso migratorio sea burocrático es otro recorrido trazado por la materialidad.

El registro que Jason de Leon hace en The Land of Open Graves, el libro donde explica el trabajo detrás del UMP, es siempre visual. Ahí están los objetos rescatando, por ejemplo, el estatuto de las personas. Algunos objetos contradicen el término de “comunidad indocumentada”, pues muchos documentos hallados por el UMP confieren a esos cuerpos una identidad: ahí están sus nombres y sus rostros, sus edades, sus lugares de origen. La recuperación de los carnés obliga a cambiar la forma en que el lenguaje institucional los nombra: no son indocumentados sino personas cuyos documentos los hacen visibles en un país pero los hacen desaparecer en otro.

Estas “cosas” también aparecen esbozando elipsis y trayectorias, lugares de espera, paisajes

afectivos. De una rutina de la aduana emerge sobre todo lo objetual: “camionetas” “dinero”, “rifles”, “material de contrabando”, pertenencias dentro de bolsas de plástico en cuyas etiquetas se lee: “Property”, o “Personal effects”, mochilas negras confiscadas que hablan del proceso de deportación ocurriendo en un ciclo sin fin. En The Land of Open Graves, los objetos dan cuenta de las deportaciones en los centros de detención o de la experiencia en los albergues, donde los utensilios usados por los peregrinos acompañan a los migrantes ya sea en la espera o en la continuación o al regreso fallido del cruce. No están los cuerpos pero sí puede deducirse a partir de ellos su sentido: ¿para qué sirven durante el cruce los teléfonos celulares, las pilas, la ropa, los enseres domésticos, sartenes, termos de café, bolsas de plástico con restos de comida, papel higiénico, los preservativos, los medicamentos? ¿Qué reclaman los testimonios como un test de embarazo envuelto en una bolsa? ¿Qué expresan las imágenes religiosas pinchadas con dólares en los albergues? Manchados por la tierra, los objetos resignifican la materia vibrante de la superficie de la que fueron extraídos. Los objetos no sólo espejan un repertorio de eventos, un espectro fragmentario que demanda evidencia. Expresan, en su forma física, otras aristas del proceso de desplazamiento frente a esa narrativa “autorizada” que ha contado la migración desde la nómina de la estadística o desde el punto de vista del aparato mediático.

Analizar el fenómeno migratorio desde una perspectiva material inscribe a estas cosas en

la tradición del archivo como documento de ausencia y presencia. El del UMP, en su aparente estatismo, es mucho más que un testimonio arqueológico, etnológico y forense. Constituye también un hecho de lenguaje. Sólo que a diferencia de otros lenguajes, es un acecho material que ilumina otros sentidos de conflicto. Esta es la dimensión polisémica y física que enseguida exploro. Los objetos Contrario a la noción de que las cosas son un componente pasivo, bruto e inerte, propongo entender esta materia como archivo de un “afuera” en el que ha agonizado o desaparecido una vida, pero que colectada por el UMP es “materia vibrante”, según el concepto de Bennett, y remanente semiótico, según Culler. ¿Qué podrían decirnos estos objetos en su turbulencia orgánica, en su silencio físico ocupando el espacio? ¿Son capaces de enunciar múltiples sentidos y de exhibir todo aquello que está fuera de lugar en el sistema en el que circularon y en los lugares en los que fueron hallados?

Esto trae a la discusión, en principio, a Rancière, quien al proponer la “repartición de lo

sensible” habló de la historicidad contenida en la materia. Rancière recuperó las reflexiones de Marx sobre la fantasmagoría detrás del objeto, el sujeto inmerso en las prácticas del capitalismo, el deseo de posesión y la cosificación del sujeto por igual, dominado por las cosas y convertido en cosa también. Marx redefinió la distinción entre valor de uso (es decir, “la utilidad de una cosa”) y valor de cambio (la proporción en que se intercambian valores de uso de una clase por valores de uso de otra clase). También destacó, de las mercancías, el valor de trabajo que estaba detrás de ellas, y sobre todo se refirió a ese otro atributo de las cosas: su carácter místico pues “a primera vista, una mercancía parece una cosa trivial, de comprensión inmediata” pero en un análisis, un objeto puede ser “rico en sutilezas metafísicas y reticencias teológicas”. En La vida social de las cosas, Arjun Appadurai se remite a la biografía memorable de una cosa, pues esta “se convierte en la historia de las diversas singularizaciones experimentadas por ella, en la historia de las clasificaciones y reclasificaciones a las cuales ha estado sujeta en un incierto mundo de categorías cuya importancia varía con cada modificación menor de contexto”. En esa línea de pensamiento Peter Peels considera que “las cosas tienen voz propia y eso está inscrito en sus formas, usos, trayectorias: las cosas están vivas “porque están animadas por algo ajeno a ellas”, algo que se acerca por cierto a la definición de agencia. Peter Stallybrass por su parte afirma que “los objetos no son entidades indiferentes pues tienen un nombre y un pasado. No son ‘meras cosas’ sino los materiales con los cuales se construye una vida”. También lo dice Walter Benjamin, para quien 70

los objetos esperaban al desconocido venidero al cual habrían de pedirle, desde el pasado, de nuevo nombrarlos: “Provenientes de los lugares más disímiles, poseen una carga semántica vagando en su centro: el pasado reconocido en el instante de su manifestación presente”. El teórico Rem Koolhass ha llamado junkspace a los espacios inestables y periféricos donde la materia cobra relevancia. Pero hay dos enfoques que me interesan para entender esta materia desde su naturaleza orgánica y su componente polisémico. “Aún la basura, que no tiene valor de uso, ni valor en el sistema económico de cambio, posee una función significativa que radica en la de dejar una huella”: lo dice Jonathan Culler, quien luego agrega: “Depreciados de valor, convertidos en basura, en su carácter de resto, los objetos pueden existir en un limbo fuera de tiempo y tener la oportunidad de ser descubiertos y ser transformados en algo perdurable”. Para Culler la remanencia propone, además de la refutación de la idea de progreso, una dimensión semiótica. Es ahí, en el estudio de los signos y los sistemas, donde los objetos y eventos recuperan sus significados. En la basura está la acumulación de lo inservible, el común denominador de las sociedades consumistas y el carácter utilitario de la materia. Pero la impureza o la suciedad, lo no gramatical, lo que disgusta y repugna, aquello que tiende a no incluirse en el valor estandarizado de una comunidad, se convierte en el evento ambiguo y anómalo para denunciar un sistema, a la vez que proporciona una clave para analizarlo. Ahí, un objeto ya no tiene valor de uso en el sistema económico de intercambio al que pertenece, pero posee aún la función del signo por ser descifrado. Los objetos se convierten en signos, en una acumulación: cientos de historias aún no contadas o no narradas, materia en cuyo silencio late una sentida abstracción: un evento de la memoria capaz de ser convertido en lenguaje.

De orden ecológico es la definición de Jane Bennett. Si Peter Peels reconocía el animismo

como poder en la materia, esta idea aún permanece atrapada en un discurso que opone lo mental a lo material sin poder aceptar las propiedades activas de los objetos. Por eso Bennet insiste en que más allá de estar reducidos a su agencia humana, la materia es actante. Según su análisis, el componente orgánico es una entidad que modifica a otra entidad, una competencia física que se deduce de su desempeño en vez de postularse antes de la acción. Según este enfoque, la materia rebasa la posibilidad de ser percibida como una extensión corpórea, pues “lo material, en la medida en que yace, posee capacidad de regenerarse o agotarse en el entorno, esto es, posee movimiento”. Bennett observa en la materia el componente espontáneo de la naturaleza, una vitalidad que está más allá de lo humano y que, al poseer agencia, emite trayectorias, propensiones o tendencias propias. La vitalidad entonces no sólo es la energía de la materia, sino la independencia de las cosas cuando estas exceden su estatus de objetos, y cuando se expresan más allá de nuestra propia experiencia con ellos. 71

Los objetos de los migrantes poseen estas dos dimensiones, la polisémica y la orgánica. Por

un lado, se explican en el espacio donde se les encontró, según la energía material que aún emanan sus componentes físicos. Por otro, son signos a descifrar al haber perdido sus vínculos con dicho exterior. Es decir, lo mismo hay en ellos una visión testimonial sobre el fenómeno migratorio, que poseen agencia al margen de su campo semántico pues constituyen un territorio autónomo en el ámbito de lo viviente. Son un aspecto “abstracto” del lenguaje que los convierte en un punto de partida para reflexiones sobre su papel en los procesos de desplazamiento. Su presencia constituye una anomalía: son un rastro físico que nos devuelve una ausencia, mientras que el signo redime dichas ausencias de la desaparición. La relación entre lenguaje e imagen refleja y despliega la relación entre imagen y lugar, cada una conteniendo pero también vaciando a la otra. No es casual que en su carácter ecfrástico nos remitan a la desarticulación del lenguaje que propone lo poético: sin fetichizarlos, sin estetizarlos, estos objetos son como la fragmentación que rompe con las certezas de un discurso. En su condición fragmentaria estos objetos son producto del agotamiento más que de la creación”. Constituyen lo que Robert Smithson llama “a dying language but never a dead language”.

Como entidades actantes, intervienen en la historia porque su fisicalidad visibiliza el sistema

al que los objetos pertenecieron y las condiciones de violencia en las que estuvieron inmersos. El UMP los recuperó y resguardó físicamente para hacer de ellos testimonio e interpretación. Un trozo de ropa o la herrumbre de un arete o la mancha de un zapato no solo son “cosas” sino materia vital porque en ellos se preserva la geografía que, en forma de tierra descontextualizada, regresa. Si el polvo es la carne del tiempo, como lo ha dicho Joseph Brodsky, estos objetos reclaman un territorio físico que continúa emitiendo la historia que originó su desarraigo. El polvo es, en este caso, una presencia material que lo mismo nos habla de desintegración, separación, fragmentación, que de la fragilidad y la urgencia de narrar a través de ellos la historia de los cuerpos ausentes.

En este archivo se concentra lo contingente, sólo que estas cosas, al estar vacías y al apelar

a una nueva significación, vuelven a llenarse, a redimirse de su silencio, a perturbar el entorno al retener las razones políticas del desplazamiento. En esta materia vibrante está contenida la relación espacio-temporal de su peregrinaje por diversos lugares. Estos objetos estuvieron en la vida y regresan a la vida a través del lenguaje. Mientras consignan los hechos pasados en forma de archivo, a la vez se mantienen en un paradójico umbral del viaje-acción siempre aún por acontecer, en la medida en que son un espacio semiótico a interpretarse. Resulta inquietante que en su apariencia familiar se tornen extraños metidos en las bolsas de plástico. Remiten a las particularidades de cuerpos atravesados por el proceso de desplazamiento forzado, en el cual se tensan las dinámicas 72

de género, raza y clase. Aunque estos objetos encarnan a las vidas de las personas (que ya no están ahí para reclamarlos), también aluden a la paradójica funcionalidad que alguna vez tuvieron dentro de las redes económicas de un sistema basado en la acumulación y la exclusión. Estas cosas pasan de ser mercancías surgidas en el corazón mismo del sistema económico imperante, y se convierten en la basura del capital. En ese sentido no solo reflejan e interpretan la crisis del contexto fronterizo sino que la producen organizando la revuelta de los signos, para decirlo con Nelly Richard. A la vez, son inmanencia orgánica. Como los cientos de zapatos que se exhiben en el Museo del Holocausto y como otras obras latinoamericanas en las cuales se busca emancipar a los objetos de su mera representación o relacionarlos con un paisaje agredido,7 estas cosas buscan su espacio de reconocimiento. Están en un laboratorio con su tensa calma expresando un mudo disturbio, una fuerza vital en su desgaste. Por un lado, hay una intención de hacer física, a través de sus superficies marcadas por el polvo o la tierra, la vulneración al paisaje y hacia los cuerpos a los que pertenecieron. Por otro, el objeto, al ser signo lingüístico, reemplaza la ausencia de un cuerpo y la herida al paisaje por la abstracción del lenguaje, de manera que ahí donde había una fricción entre cuerpo, paisaje y objeto, de pronto existe una fricción entre lenguaje, reflexión y memoria. Un cepillo de pelo hecho de madera está vivo o “respira” por el flujo de materiales a lo largo de su superficie. Un vestido manchado de sudor o tierra ha cambiado después de haber sido trasladado del desierto al archivo: el agua que alguna vez lo empapó se ha evaporado y está ahora seco. Sin embargo, sobrevive la mancha de tierra, que constata no sólo la vulnerabilidad de la vida sino la fuerza de una impugnación política. Y esa coloración oscura en la superficie, ese borde haciendo su propio mapa en el vestido, todavía importa, aún en su ambigüedad.

Por supuesto, otras cuestiones se inscriben al margen del archivo. ¿Cuáles son las

complejidades éticas de un proyecto donde la materia se convierte en un medio para contrarrestar ausencias? ¿Cómo se evitan los riesgos de fetichizar la subjetividad expresiva de estos materiales? ¿Hasta qué punto los objetos colectados distorsionan o desdibujan el horror del sufrimiento de los cuerpos? ¿Y qué pasa con ese desajuste que emana de este material precario, o con lo que se espera que exprese la economía del signo? ¿Cuáles son las oportunidades y limitaciones de este proyecto? Si emplazar la memoria implica exponer la intimidad de los sujetos, ¿cuáles son los riesgos involucrados en llevar la memoria al dominio de lo público? ¿Es posible que su sola presencia sirva para entender los trayectos futuros? Estas preguntas también forman parte del debate. 7. Es el caso de Doris Salcedo y otros artistas contemporáneos cuyo fin ha sido explorar la forma en que la violencia de Estado en sus respectivos países ha transgredido los espacios más íntimos como el cuerpo y aquellos colectivos como el paisaje.

Bibliografía Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press, 1998. Andermann, Jens. “El giro ambiental: del marco al medio”. Tierras en trance. Arte y naturaleza

después del paisaje. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Metales pesados, 2018.

Anzanldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La frontera: The new Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books; 4 edition (June

12, 2012)

Appadurai, Arjun. “La vida social de las cosas”. Perspectiva cultural de las mercancías. Conaculta, 1991. Benjamin, Walter. Iluminations: Essays and Reflections. Schocken, 1969. Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter. North Carolina: Duke University Press Books, 2010. Bochetti, Carla. “La écfrasis homérica”. Centro de Estudios Griegos y Bizantinos. Universidad de

Chile, 2006.

Brown, Bill. A Senses of Things. En Critical Inquiry, 2001. Red. Chari, Anita. A Political Economy of the Senses: Neoliberalism, Reification, Critique.

New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

Culler, Jonathan. “Junk and Rubbish: A Semiotic Approach”. Diacritics 15.3, 1985. Red. De Leon, Jason. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. University of

California Press, 2015.

–––––. Entrevista con Denise Dazer en: american ethnologist.com. Enero, 2016. Domínguez, Ricardo. “Border Research and the Transborder Immigrant Tool”. Media Fields Journal, No.12, 2017. Esposito, Roberto. Bios, Biopolítica y filosofía. Amorrortu, 2007. Foucault, Michel. Las palabras y las cosas. Una arqueología de las ciencias humanas.

México: Siglo XXI, 2010.

Ingold, Tim Ingold. “Los Materiales contra la materialidad”. Papeles de Trabajo, Año 7,

N° 11, 2013. Red.

Kirshenblatt Gimblett, Barbara. Destination Culture. Turism, Museums and Heritage. “Objects of

Ethnography”. University of California Press, 1998.

Marx, Karl. El Capital, crítica de la economía política. Libro primero: el proceso de producción del capital, México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1975. Pels, Peter. “The Spirit of Matter: On Fetish, Rarity, Fact, and Fancy.” Border Fetishisms: 74

Material Objects in Unstable Places. Patricia Spyer (ed.). New York: Routledge, 1988.

Pletz, William. “Fetishim and Materialism: The Limits of Theory in Marx. En Fetishism and

Cultural Discourse. Ithaca: Cornell, UP, 1993.

Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Literature. Project Muse, vol. 33, 2004. The Emancipated Spectator. Verso, 2010. Richard, Nelly. Convulsiones y dispersiones: el arte, la política. Stallybrass, Peter. “Marx´s Coat”. En Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in Unstable Places.

Patricia Spyer (ed.). New York: Routledge, 1998.

Smithson, Robert. A sedimentation of the mind: Earth Projects.

H-Lab: Asylum and Im/migration Sibylle Fischer Ellen Noonan Benjamin MacDonald Schmidt The Responsibilities of Scholars During the long and harrowing years of the Trump administration, nativist rhetoric—not a newcomer in U.S. politics, of course—showed itself again as an apt vehicle for channeling the forces of political resentment and white supremacy into a torrent of cruel and violent antiimmigrant action. It played out on the streets and in the halls of Congress. It also seeped into the directives, protocols, and staffing decisions that shape immigration policies and border enforcement in the U.S. Those bureaucratic measures affected the lives of people who had come to the U.S. imagining it would be a safe haven.

Attempts to make immigration to the U.S. more difficult, revoke existing protections

like DACA for undocumented residents who were brought into the country as children, end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants from countries deemed too dangerous to allow forceable repatriation, and reduce the numbers of visas granted to foreign nationals mostly failed, often due to legal challenges. However, there was one strategy that worked remarkably well: closing the door to individuals seeking asylum in the U.S.

The Trump administration could not simply terminate existing asylum processes, since the

U.S. is signatory to international treaties that protect the right to claim asylum for individuals who have a credible claim to protection from persecution by state- or state-like agents in their country of origin. Instead, the administration issued a slew of policies and regulations that clogged the pipelines. The “Big and Beautiful Wall’’ President Trump peddled in his rallies was largely symbolic, and its impact, largely environmental.1 The real, and vastly more effective, wall was a bureaucratic maze of policy directives and funding cuts. These were not laws passed by Congress. The translation of inflammatory rhetoric and presidential executive orders into the realm of practicality happened through internal memos issued by mid-level bureaucrats, decisions to reassign personnel, instructions to immigration judges, or foreshortened document destruction 1. Reese, April. “Some Ecological Damage from Trump’s Rushed Border Wall Could Be Repaired.” Scientific American, January 25, 2021

schedules for government agencies. Yet, this wall remained largely invisible to the U.S. public. Meanwhile, the process of asylum application slowed down to a crawl. In 2019 there were 990,562 cases pending in U.S. Immigration Courts, 121,385 of them in New York City alone. In December 2018, the Trump administration announced a new program, cynically labelled “Migrant Protection Protocol” (MPP) and often referred to as the “Remain in Mexico” policy. Under MPP migrants from third world countries (mostly, Central America), who crossed the southern border of the U.S. to claim asylum were sent back to Mexico to await a decision while sheltering in extremely dangerous informal camps in Mexico. According to the American Immigration Council, at least 70,000 people were caught in these encampments. Very few ever managed to find legal counsel. Only about half of the cases were ever heard in Immigration Court. By the time MPP was terminated, only 638 individuals had been granted relief in Immigration Court.2 In the meantime, Mexico and Guatemala entered agreements with the U.S. to stop migrants before they could ever reach the border in the first place and thus make an asylum claim. The true number of individuals who were caught in the militarized machinery deployed on both sides of the border to stop migration will never be known.

Then came the pandemic of COVID-19. Invoking Title 42, a seventy-five year-old public

health law that gave border personnel the authority to quarantine individuals (regardless of citizenship status) before entering the country, the Trump administration effectively closed the border for asylum seekers.

Extensive reporting by some U.S. media, human rights advocacy groups, and activist

groups has revealed a humanitarian disaster of extraordinary proportions. These were stories of families torn apart at the border, children kept in jail-like detention centers for unlawful lengths of time, migrants denied medical care, and asylum applicants being forced to tell and retell, via tele-conference, their most traumatic life stories to overtly hostile U.S. officials, oftentimes without a translator for their native language. As of April 2021, the parents of almost 500 migrant children who were separated at the border had yet to be found. Apparently, government record keeping was so careless that it was impossible to identify or track down the parents of detained children. As to the conditions in the camps on the southern side of the border, the advocacy group Human Rights First documented 1,500 publicly reported cases of murder, rape, kidnapping, and other violent assaults against asylum seekers that were forced to remain in Mexico under MPP. The true numbers are an entirely different matter since most crimes would 2. The “Migrant Protection Protocols.” American Immigration Council Fact Sheet. October 6, 2021.

never be reported.

It was in response to this anomic and utterly confusing landscape surrounding

im/migration and asylum in the U.S. that an interdisciplinary group of NYU faculty and graduate students from the Departments of History and Spanish and Portuguese secured funding from the Bennett-Polonsky Foundation and the Humanities Center at NYU to convene a yearlong Humanities Lab about asylum, migration, and record-keeping. While the disciplinary background of the H-Lab participants varied considerably, many had been volunteers in the legal clinics that help asylum seekers with their applications. Many of us—faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students—had experienced first hand, or through the stories of the people we were trying to assist, the arcane state bureaucracy clients have to confront.

As volunteers, we knew: when asylum seekers cross the border and are apprehended by

border patrols, the first step in the process of applying for asylum is the so-called “Credible Fear Interview,” in which the applicant has to make a compelling argument that returning to their home country would place them in grave danger. An immigration officer takes notes at the time of the interview. Applicants who pass the interview have a year to file the I-589, as the form for “Application for Asylum and For Withholding of Removal” is called.3 While the narratives that are gathered on the form are necessarily strategic and framed by the limited number of criteria that establish eligibility for asylum in the U.S., any compelling narrative will delve deeply into an applicant’s history. Unlike criminal defendants, asylum seekers are not entitled to free legal counsel. Most refugees have to confront an overtly hostile immigration system on their own, or are assisted only by volunteer organizations that have set up a limited number of pro-se (the Latin term for acting as your own attorney) legal clinics. Most refugees have little understanding of what would make their story compelling or indeed how to edit their lives in ways that fits the genre of the affidavit. Having interpreted for immigration lawyers and volunteers who did not speak Spanish (or other relevant languages), translated documents, filled out forms, made phone calls, always with the instructions to keep careful records at every step, we wondered—what happens to these hundreds of pages of documents, once the case has been decided? Whether, how, and where these stories are preserved is often rather unclear. What is clear, however, is that the government has unlimited access to files, while advocates, lawyers, and asylum seekers themselves are often forced to go through a cumbersome process of requesting files through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) system, which often results in denials, produces surprising 3. “I-589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

redactions, or random exclusions of parts of the files. And it can be costly.

While most FOIA requests for immigration court records concern individual cases or

a specific class of cases, a different approach has recently been adopted by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a public service research center at Syracuse University. Their standing FOIA request for all records of immigration court cases has led the Department of Justice to release, and update monthly, raw data pertaining to 24 million individual scheduled court dates in 6 million different cases. While journalists regularly use summary statistics from TRAC to count the size of the backlog, these hour-by-hour data points about the functioning of the largely secretive proceedings of Immigration Courts may have unexplored possibilities for linking the stories of individual immigrants with the story of the administrative machine in which they are caught up. Figuring out how to “read” a database of this size and complexity is of course a challenge and requires specialized skills most students and scholars do not have.

There were thus disturbing questions at the start of our project. What should we, as

students, scholars, and teachers, do when faced with a government that is hell-bent on producing recurring “border crises” but then suppresses the records? Are we, as students, scholars, and teachers, complicit in the suppression of a human rights catastrophe from public memory when we do not mobilize the tools we have to counteract government strategies that turn vulnerable populations into aggressors and the U.S. into a victim? Will future historians and cultural critics have the sources to be able to write this story? It is difficult not to think of the parallels to what happened to records during the genocide of European Jews under Nazi rule. The essay by Benjamin Gladstone and Bita Mousavi (who joined our team as researchers the summer of 2021) brilliantly explores just that question and takes it into an intriguing new direction: given the problematic nature of government archives, should we be thinking about counter-archives? What would it take to make archives available that would serve the people rather than government bureaucracy? Is it possible to contest an adversarial state bureaucracies’ monopoly for record keeping—a monopoly that always operates under the imperative to “protect,” while at the same time shielding immigration proceedings from public scrutiny—and still protect the privacy of vulnerable populations? How, in other words, might we confront a system in which the right to privacy becomes indistinguishable from the state’s right to erasure? Practicing Public Humanities As we dug deeper into the history of immigration and government record keeping, we learned that these problems neither began nor ended with the Trump administration and its troubling 80

approach to record keeping. In the first semester, H-Lab faculty and graduate students discussed readings across a range of disciplines, analyzed how archives record the history of immigration, took a deep dive into big data collections, and consulted with experts in various fields. In the second semester, H-Lab faculty members and graduate students team-taught an interdisciplinary undergraduate course on the H-Lab’s theme. There were sessions on rhetorical analysis, legal history, digital history, archive science, media studies, and U.S. imperial history. Source material included recent literature on the migrant experience, podcasts, visualizations of statistical materials on the web, archival documentary sources and print media sources. But we also wanted to give students an opportunity to learn how to write for the public—how to practice “public humanities,” how to translate complex scholarly materials into something ordinary readers can understand; in other words, how to turn the knowledge from a college class into something that is alive, and how to turn an arid archival file into a story. At the core of the Asylum Lab’s work was thus the question of public history and memory: given media representation (or lack thereof ) and opaque government records, how will this story be remembered and understood? To make a meaningful intervention in public understanding of the asylum crisis, how can we balance powerful narratives of individual experience with an interrogation of much larger systemic and historical conditions?

The essays by our undergraduate students, the graduate instructors, and the graduate

researchers are a tremendous testimony to the energy and passion everybody brought to the H-Lab. We are grateful for the opportunity to share our far-flung investigations into the complicated history of immigration and asylum in the U.S. and the brilliant original research done by our undergraduate students in this special issue of Esferas, the undergraduate journal of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at NYU. Once More Once? The undergraduate seminar started meeting at the end of January, only a few days after Joe Biden had been sworn in as President. During the election campaign, Trump’s immigration policies had been a major target of attack and Biden had gestured toward a more humane approach to migration and asylum. No more MPP, no more family separation, no more denial of medical care for people in custody. The grotesque display of state violence against individuals who claim to flee persecution at home gave way to a discourse that struck an empathic note. Temporary Protection Status for Haitians residing in the U.S. was renewed in May 2021 in light of the growing insecurity in that country. On June 1, Biden issued an executive order terminating MPP. Yet, in 81

the months since inauguration day, a far more complicated picture has started to emerge. In June, on a state visit to Mexico and Central America, Vice President Kamala Harris made it clear to a Guatemalan audience: “do not come.” In early August, the Biden administration announced an extension of Title 42, allowing border personnel to turn refugees away on public health grounds, before having had a chance to file for asylum. The online news outlet Vice reported on August 18 that some senior officials in the new administration were discussing a resumption of MPP, if perhaps with an approach that would at least consider basic human needs such as shelter, safety, and food.4 We may never know how far these discussions went. On August 24, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that MPP must be reinstated, on the grounds that appropriate government procedures had not been followed when it was terminated on June 1. On September 3, 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported that after the bulldozing of the Matamoros encampment on the Mexican side of the border in March—an encampment where NGOs had made considerable efforts to create a minimal infrastructure for those caught in MPP—a new camp has now sprung up in Reynosa, where conditions are considerably worse and the criminal cartels are painly in control.5

In the meantime, the migratory pressures only continue to grow. The number of

unaccompanied minors arriving at the southern border is at a 21-year high. The Haitian crisis continues to deepen after the assassination of the president in July and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in the southern peninsula, followed by a severe hurricane. TPS protects Haitians residing in the US from deportation, not Haitians who might try to flee the environmental and security threats to their lives. After the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, tens of thousands of Afghans are trying to flee. While the Biden administration promised to get U.S. citizens out of the country, there seems to be no specific plan for addressing the plight of Afghans who supported the U.S. backed Afghan government. The International Rescue Committee estimates that some 300,000 Afghan civilians are at risk and warns that “operational flaws” in a special visa program for Afghans initiated in 2014 are likely to hamper even the processing of the applications of those privileged groups.6 On August 26, it was reported that the Afghan staff of the New York Times and the Washington Post could not obtain 4. Green, Emily. “The Biden Administraiton is Considering Reviving Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy for Migrants.” Vice News, August 18, 2021. 5. Hennessy-Fiske, Molly. “Biden vowed to close a border migrant camp, then a worse one emerged under his watch.” Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2021. 6. On the Special Immigrant Visa category for Afghans, see also: Kimball, Kelly and Gramer, Robbie. “Expedited Visas for Vulnerable Afghans? Many Have Been Waiting for Years.” FP Insider’s Access. August 19, 2021.

visas for the U.S. in time for a safe departure. In the end, Mexico came to the rescue and issued emergency visas for the Afghan journalists. Asked about this “surprising” turn of events by a U.S. journalist, the Mexican foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard mildly pointed out that it was not at all surprising, but rather in keeping with Mexico’s tradition to offer safe haven to refugees, from the republican exiles after the Spanish Civil War and European Jews fleeing the Nazis to exiles from military dictatorships throughout Latin America in the 20th century.7 One might add, however, that while offering a safe haven to some relatively prominent Afghans, Mexico has been complicit with the U.S. government in the implementation of MPP at the border and the denial of entry to Central American refugees.

Clearly, im/migration and asylum is an explosive political issue, in the U.S. and many

other parts of the world, where people might seek protection from political and environmental threats to their lives. If we just consider public rhetoric, the current administration and the previous one might appear to be on opposite sides of the spectrum. But when we consider what actions of the Trump administration were most effective; when we then consider the specific actions taken by the new Biden administration so far, it is difficult not to note the threads of continuity. Some of that may be related to the particular political moment we are living in. The rhetoric of a “border crisis” has become the third rail in U.S. politics and the midterm election of 2022 are around the corner. This may be obvious to any reader of this special issue. What is less obvious, but absolutely key to any understanding of the issue, is the role of what is sometimes called the administrative state—the complex apparatus of agencies and departments that are charged with border control, law enforcement, and the administration of justice. Record keeping and the Administrative State: A Humanist Intervention During the Trump years, it was not the “Big and Beautiful Wall” that kept people out of the country or in legal limbo. It was the operations of the state bureaucracy and the vast system of immigration courts, with timelines, waiting periods, fee schedules, hostile interview strategies, and forever changing application forms that could be rejected on account of the most trivial mistake or omission. Journalists and advocates have done an admirable job reporting the facts on the ground, but very little (if any) work has been done regarding how records are being kept of the crisis that has been unfolding before our eyes. What happens to the stories people tell when they claim asylum? What happens to the client files compiled by advocacy groups? What kinds 7. Smith, Ben. The New York Times. August 6, 2021.

of files are kept by the government, what might be destroyed before anyone sets eyes on the documents? Who is in control of the story?

You may of course wonder: even granted that these questions are pressing, why would

humanists like us dive into the operations of the administrative state? Is that not a subject of study for social scientists and legal scholars? How could humanists turn the arid material of agency regulations, department statistics, and government archives into something that can be studied with the means we as humanists have at our disposal? What can we contribute to the critical understanding of the operations of the state? These are crucial questions for anyone hoping to develop a practice of public humanities, and we pursued them through the Fall and Spring semesters. The undergraduate essays and essays by the graduate instructors and the graduate researchers are a testimony to the many ways in which we, as scholars in the humanities, can intervene in the recurrent, and recurrently reproduced, crisis.

We hope that the sheer range of topics of the essays included in this dossier, their

historical reach, the variety of discursive genres, and the complementarity of disciplinary perspectives illustrate how a complex political issue like asylum and im/migration requires cooperation across customary and deeply entrenched boundaries in scholarship. No one person can possibly claim specialist knowledge or mastery of all the issues covered here. The essays also show that there is a dire need to analyze state operations in ways that link data points, archival metadata, and statistical evidence back to narratives and individual stories; a dire need, too, to explore how readily available statistical information may be linked back to specific historical or individual narratives. The pieces by our graduate and undergraduate students show how humanists can mine immense relational databases that originate within the Department of Justice to understand practices of government record keeping, and how the metadata in the immigration files that are housed in the National Archives might allow us to reconstruct individual stories. The contributions of the History group in the Dossier, led by the NYU History graduate students Alexia Orengo Green and Bryan Zehngelt-Willits are an example of precisely that work (see Orengo Green’s and Zehngelt-Willits’s contributions in this volume for their explanation of the pedagogical strategies that supported students in their engagement with digital public history.) The Spanish group, led by Bárbara Pérez Curiel, a graduate student in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, by contrast, invited students to explore non-academic forms of writing (see Bárbara Pérez Curiel’s contribution) and how to develop an understanding of the “border” that is not caught in U.S.-centric narratives of redemption. Drawing on what they learned in our plenary sessions, the students were introduced to various genres in journalistic writing, from 84

book reviews to op-ed pieces. The essays included in this volume are a sample of the work the students did in the course of the Spring semester. The undergraduate class “Asylum in Crisis” was an experimental class, conducted in the spirit of public history—not from the perspective of the knowing specialist, but from the viewpoint of an engaged public. It offered students a unique interdisciplinary workshop setting, with almost as many teachers as students in the room, as one of our undergraduate students noted, with a wink, in the feedback we asked for at the end. But our students thought that, unusual though it was, it really worked. So did we. Many thanks to our undergraduate students, graduate instructors, and researchers, all of whom contributed so much to what was, truly, a laboratory for thinking politically and publicly, as humanists.

Archiving and Counter-Archiving US Asylum Records: Historical and Ethical Implications Bita Mousavi and Benjamin Gladstone In Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala, Kirsten Weld writes of the two distinct “archival logics” that guided the organization and reorganization of the formerly secret documents of the Guatemalan police (Weld 6). The feared National Police had produced tens of millions of documents for the purposes of state surveillance and terror and, accordingly, an archival logic of silence and secrecy prevailed. But after Guatemalan activists rediscovered this trove in 2005, they re-archived it, this time according to a new logic of “democratic opening, historical memory, and the pursuit of justice for war crimes.” The archives of the American immigration regime are due for such a democratic opening, but the prospects of one remain elusive. Although the conciliatory rhetoric of the Biden administration is far removed from that of his predecessor, actual immigration and asylum laws and policies have not changed radically in the last year. The administration hardly entertained activist demands to abolish US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but in recent months it has also made clear that it is unwilling even to revoke Trump’s invocation of Section 265 of US Code Title 42, which, in the Trump and Biden administrations’ expansive interpretation, capitalizes on the dangers posed by COVID-19 as a justification for preventing asylum-seekers and other immigrants from entering the country.

A host of ethical and intellectual questions confront historians of immigration and asylum

today, most fundamentally: In the absence of any decisive effort to remedy the US’s cruel and arbitrary asylum regime, how might we at least safeguard the records of recent years as proof of the seismic shift in standards asylum-seekers are made to meet? How can we pursue an archival logic of openness without reinforcing the archival logic of ongoing state surveillance? These are some of the questions, among many others, with which NYU’s Asylum H-Lab is grappling.

Currently, the US government holds a near monopoly on archiving American immigration

history. The logic of the modern state demands that migrants, and especially those seeking asylum, not only register their movements with the state, but also perform their worthiness for asylum by conforming their life stories to set narratives. One of the earliest forms of contact that many asylum-seekers have with state authorities is either the Credible Fear Interview or Reasonable Fear 86

Interview, during which an immigration official makes the (sometimes life-or-death) determination as to whether or not the persecution that the interviewee has experienced in the country of origin matches a “nexus.” Asylum, under the international principle of non-refoulement, will only be granted if the migrant has been persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, “membership in a particular social group,” political opinion, or “coercive family planning,” yet the violence an asylum-seeker faces must also be individualized, that is non-systemic (USCIS). The studied ambiguity of this system is clear: persecution must tow the line between the personal and the pervasive, and people who have experienced gender-based persecution, fled from criminal organizations operating with the (tacit) consent of threadbare states, or escaped conditions of poverty will often have difficulty aligning their stories with one of the six “nexuses” that could save their lives.

For the historian, moreover, the Credible Fear Interview indicates a larger problem with

over-reliance on government documents: The state’s determination to sort people into the simple categories of a Credible Fear Worksheet strips asylum-seekers of human complexity. The asylumseeker must judiciously avoid revealing any information about their past that might lead an officer to invoke one of several “possible bars” to entry, whether that is the commission of a crime, the instigation of a “terrorist” threat, or even firm resettlement in another country. That an asylumseeker may have been pressed into a gang before they fled, or may have protested (i.e., “terrorized”) a despotic regime, are subtleties lost in government documentation. The bar prohibiting those who have “firmly resettled” in another country before entering the U.S. denies government documents, and thus all of posterity, accounts of the long, transnational journeys migrants often make for several years. Aside from the incentive to silence weighing on the asylum-seeker, immigration officers are also likely to misrepresent stories in order to justify detention and deportation. Understanding such biases is an important historical project in its own right.

Despite its control over document production, the state cannot be trusted to archive the

very records it produces, records that could reveal the increasingly elusive targets asylum-seekers have to meet. As US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) disclaims on its “Researching Deportation Records” webpage: “Not all deportation and exclusion records survive. If, however, the event occurred after 1892 there is a chance records may still exist.” Even as chances of preservation improve with age, USCIS makes no promises regarding accessibility: “When searching for deportation and exclusion files from before April 1, 1944 it is important to remember two facts: First, not all of the files survive….Second, there is no public name index for the INS immigration case and correspondence files at NARA” (USCIS). For the researcher, this is a double conundrum: 87

On the one hand, the US government is the most assiduous record-keeper of the legal travails of migrants and asylum-seekers; on the other, it has proved itself the most willing to destroy the paper trail these people leave behind.

As research assistants at the Asylum H-Lab, we sought to understand how USCIS and other

state institutions manage and mismanage the documentary trail with which we narrate American asylum and immigration history. One of the available tools for learning which records the state has preserved for posterity and which it has sloughed off and whether there are any discernible patterns between the two choices is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Under the Freedom of Information Act, USCIS, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and other federal agencies are required to make their records, with certain exceptions, available to those who request them. But many factors make the process of actually accessing government documents much more difficult than the submission of a simple electronic FOIA request suggests. To begin, before making a FOIA request, one has to know which federal agency to petition. And this means parsing a complicated patchwork of government agencies. Should requests be sent to NARA or to USCIS? Which federal agency has jurisdiction to approve or deny requests? And how do you even begin to target your requests of immigration records (or “Alien Files”) of individuals with little biographical information to work off? We decided to send our first requests to NARA, since they have an index of Alien numbers for immigrants born before 1918 available online, meaning we had a biographical base to build our requests on. We filed Freedom of Information requests with NARA, however, only to learn that NARA is not fulfilling FOIA requests during the pandemic. With this avenue closed, we submitted FOIA requests to USCIS.

However, USCIS is known to reject most records requested by parties other than the

subject of the search, meaning months can be passed in a back-and-forth of denials and appeals before a FOIA request is fulfilled.1 And our experience bore this out: Despite attaching state death certificates to our requests for A-Files (since, for privacy reasons, FOIA requirements dictate that an unauthorized third party can only access the records of the deceased), we generally received one of two responses. Either the requested file could not be located, or else USCIS claimed that we had not met the requirements necessary to release the records (i.e., proof of death). The inefficiencies of this system not only drain the time, energy, and resources of immigrants, family members, and scholars looking for a foothold into this opaque archival system, but undermine the principle of government transparency supposedly underwriting FOIA. The maintenance of records as well as decisions about 1. A conversation with Alec Ferretti, a professional genealogist based in New York, helped us understand these dynamics.

when records can be accessed and by whom are determined at the discretion of government agencies and their subcontractors. Courts, in this scenario, are a last recourse, accessible only to those with the money, time, and wherewithal to litigate. Government agencies certainly have both the incentive and the means, then, to tamper with, destroy, or delay access to documents that may challenge their hegemony or their integrity.

The current archival logic of government record-keeping, then, runs counter to the principles

of both historical and legal accountability. While asylum-seekers’ stories and experiences cannot be captured by the narrow parameters of I-589s (the formal application for asylum and “withholding of removal” that asylum-seekers submit) or Credible Fear Interviews, which narrow the personhood of each migrant to questions of eligibility, these records are nonetheless valuable sources for charting the changing landscape of asylum. The erosion of asylum will go unrecorded as long as state actors hold the keys to the archive. How, then, can scholars counter the archival hegemony of the state with archival practices and logics of their own? How do we promote archives capable of holding the humanity of immigrants and asylum-seekers?

As the state pursues its archival logic of surveillance the need to create an archive critical

of state exigencies of surveillance and deportation amounts to a call for counter-archiving. This might include filing FOIA requests and obtaining state-produced documents that scholars can organize according to a different archival logic than the state’s or can simply hold as an assurance against future tampering. It might include gathering and making publicly available the archives of immigrant advocacy organizations that help migrants to navigate an esoteric system stacked against them. Oral histories can similarly form the basis for archives that run entirely counter to the state’s documentary record, or that supplement it in meaningful ways. The Densho Digital Repository (with funding from the National Park Service), for example, holds recordings of many victims of the American government policy of “interning” Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II, which it makes available to the public, and tens of thousands of oral histories related to the Holocaust are publicly available online on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.

Today, dozens of small organizations and clinics, and likely a much larger number of

informal volunteer networks, are operating across the US to provide legal services to struggling migrants. They are surely producing large troves of interview notes, internal case documents, court records, casenotes, and email chains that may be lost to time if they are not, in some way, organized and archived with the help of the Asylum Lab or a similar group. The American Jewish Historical Society offers a remarkable precedent: its Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement includes 89

the records of organizations and movements large and small, the papers of prominent individual activists, and a special collection of oral histories.

The benefits of counter-archiving practices are multiple. Asylum-seekers may use publicly

available documents and sample cases to navigate the application process. Advocacy organizations and policy advisors could use FOIA-ed A-files to better understand which narrative strategies and legal arguments are most likely to bear fruit. Lawyers and activists are potentially responsible for coaching an asylum-seeker for their Credible Fear Interview, and the ways in which they frame documents they submit to immigration courts may have very meaningful impacts on the lives of their clients. Finally, the state simply cannot be relied upon to record its own misdeeds for posterity. The scholars of today have an opportunity to prepare the ground for future historians’ inquiries into this moment in American immigration and asylum history.

Counter-archiving, however, is no panacea. It poses ethical challenges of its own. By

collecting data that the state may not already possess and sharing the data that it does, historians risk making sensitive data vulnerable to state seizure and public scrutiny. More mundane - but also important - questions of personal privacy will also haunt any such project. Protecting the privacy of asylum seekers is especially urgent, since many, having fled predatory partners, relatives, and criminal organizations, are vulnerable to the abuse of public information about them. Thanks to the state’s documentary capabilities and to pushes to democratize access to government records, this information has never been more plentiful, but our initial forays into FOIA requests reveals accessing it remains daunting. So while we at the Asylum Lab continue to mull over these ethical questions, we will keep submitting FOIA requests, hoping some of them soon come back fulfilled. Bibliography American Soviet Jewry Movement. Web. Densho Digital Repository. Web. USCIS, “Questions and Answers: Credible Fear Screening,” Web. USCIS, “Researching Deportation Records,” Web. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. Weld, Kirsten. Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala. Durham, NC: Duke

University Press, 2014.

The Hypocrisy of Naturalization Monserrat Gabisch Throughout American history, immigrants have faced significant barriers on the way to naturalization. In specific cases like the Chinese Exclusion Act or the Barred Zone Act (which specifically barred those of Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian descent), legislation was used to target certain nationalities, races, and genders from entering the United States. The arduous immigration process is complicated as is but with the enactment and withdrawal of additional discriminatory laws, immigrants often face confusion regarding their eligibility for legal entry. Additionally, this impermanence questions the legitimacy of the naturalization process. For many, the US Immigration Bureau’s regular position reversals signify ethical baselessness and reveal the true motivations behind immigration policy: money and power.

George Yuke Lee, a Chinese immigrant who successfully became naturalized during the era

of the Chinese Exclusion Act, serves as a rare exception to an exclusionary immigration policy that has since been overturned. Lee’s case, including the legal obstacles he had to overcome in order to become a US citizen, further sheds light upon the morally contentious nature of the American naturalization process.

The United States Immigration Bureau and its supporters unwaveringly defend the validity

of its policies, arguing that the United States government ought to value present citizens over prospective ones; high immigration levels contribute to overcrowding and high unemployment; and integration of members of other cultures conflicts with American values. Whether these arguments have factual validity or not, their persistent use has made American discriminatory measures against immigrants a major part of the nation’s legacy. For immigrants of Asian descent, it began as early as 1864, when Chinese immigrants were hired to build the transcontinental railroad. Nearly 20,000 immigrants contributed to building the American railroad system while being underpaid, discriminated against, and malnourished. Hundreds died from explosions, landslides, and rampant disease (Kennedy 1). Despite Chinese immigrants’ massive contributions to American infrastructure, anti-Chinese rhetoric grew across the nation during California’s post-boom economic depression in the 1870s. Politicians took advantage of the public’s xenophobic sentiments and became politically successful by appealing to “the racist white majority” (Gerber). Anti-Chinese propaganda eventually gained much of the nation’s support; many Americans blamed the Chinese for causing lower wages and the economic depression. Eventually, this turn in popular opinion 91

George Yuke Kee Lee’s official Alien Registration Form.

culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned nearly all Chinese immigrants and declared all Chinese immigrants ineligible for naturalization. Immigration ports immediately began to scrutinize and interrogate all Chinese immigrants, requiring much more elaborate documentation that the comparatively simple process millions of Europeans seeking entrance experienced during this era.

Shortly after World War I, the United States fell into another economic depression and

its citizens once again began to search for a scapegoat to blame for their poverty. Feeding on Americans’ fear of immigrants taking over unskilled labor sectors, US politicians passed another exclusionary law: The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924. Using a quota system, this act put a global cap on the number of immigrants granted United States residency depending on the nation from which they came. While this act contained little explicit criticism of immigrants and praised their capacity for work and many sacrifices to achieve self-improvement, it also included a provision excluding from entry to the United States any immigrant who, by virtue of race or nationality, was ineligible for citizenship. Existing nationality laws excluded people of Asian descent from becoming naturalized, and as a result, the 1924 Act meant that even Asians not previously barred from immigrating—the Japanese in particular—would no longer be admitted to the United States.

Despite the racist legislation and popular opinion of this era, some Chinese immigrants were

able to enter the United States and lead successful lives. George Yuke Lee, born in 1906, lived in Canton, China for 16 years before he arrived at a port in San Francisco in 1922. He was a maritime crewman who entered without facing much inspection; this allowed him to live a life undetected by the immigration system. One day in 1957, Lee began the official immigration process by completing his alien registration form, which stated his original date of entry, personal information, and family history—information required of all immigrants to the United States. On the same day, Lee filed for an Application to Create a Record of Admission for Permanent Residence (RAPR), otherwise known as an application to prove past residency in the US. Attached with the RAPR came a series of letters, certificates, and a social security number— information crucial to understanding the life Lee had lived in the past 35 years. Contrary to popular belief, some noncitizens can obtain a social security number (SSN) if they have been authorized to work by the Department of Homeland Security. However, Lee entered the US illegally, so how he obtained an SSN remains unclear.

In order to complete his RAPR, Lee also had to provide evidence of employment throughout

his time in the US. These records reveal that when Lee first arrived, he immediately began working as an apprentice in a Chinese-owned barbershop and later became a certified barber. His file also includes a notarized letter from his boss confirming his employment and moral character, 94

demonstrating the lengths to which RAPR applicants must go to prove their past employment.

Shortly after initially applying for RAPR, Lee began his process towards naturalization.

Initially, the Petition for Naturalization is where immigrants sign, “It is my intention in good faith to become a citizen.” Then, the immigrant must complete the Naturalization Petition Worksheet and Application to File Petition for Naturalization. In Lee’s application to file a petition for naturalization, he stated where he had lived, disclosed his criminal history, and detailed his past employment. Under the criminal record section, Lee had a vagrancy charge from 1937. During this time, homelessness was viewed as an active choice to refrain from contributing to society, rather than a condition imposed upon people as a result of poverty. Immigrants were expected to be morally outstanding residents who actively improved American society. As is visible on Lee’s application, immigration officers verified his vagrancy charge, confirming the perceived relevance of committing this ‘crime’ to Lee’s overall character. The edits in red reveal that naturalization officials already had access to all of Lee’s information prior to his application submission but still asked him to provide it in great detail—a fact that implies purposeful complication of the naturalization process with the express goal of weeding out applicants.

Lee’s success with obtaining naturalization despite his undocumented status and possession

of a criminal record can be attributed to the Chinese Confession Program, which operated from 1956 to 1965—after shifts im American popular opinion led immigration policies barring Asians from entry to the US to end. Sponsored by the American Immigration Bureau and FBI, The Chinese Confession Program (CCP) regularized the status of many Chinese Americans who had entered the US using some form of immigration fraud under the discriminatory Chinese exclusion laws (Immigration History). This landmark program served to acknowledge formally that fraudulent activity was bound to happen under discriminatory legislation by allowing previously ‘illegal aliens’ vulnerable to deportation to become United States citizens. It also solidified the Eisenhower administration’s political stance on the previous exclusionary policies. By allowing individuals who committed immigration fraud under past laws, the Immigration Bureau and FBI acknowledged the unethical nature of those laws, thus calling into question the ethical validity of all American immigration policies in existence today.

The United States naturalization process requires immigrants to show an intense level of

commitment and a great deal of moral character, especially regarding a lack of past involvement in criminal activity. However, the institution of the CCP in 1956 formally recognized the immoral nature of the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, among other exclusionary immigration policies, shedding light upon the ethical flimsiness of many American policies, including those to which 95

immigrants were expected to adhere. Is the United States immigration system built on morality and equal opportunity, as the phrasing of its policies is bound to suggest, or does it only serve to perpetuate existing economic, social, and racial disparities in favor of economic, social, and racial elites? Amongst the uncertainty, it is clear we should think twice about chastising those deemed undeserving of citizenship by a system built upon fluctuating social and political opinion, particularly when so many of its policies have been permanently overturned.

George Yuke Kee Lee’s official Certificate of Naturalization document.

George Yuke Kee Lee’s official Application to Create Record of Admission for Permanent Residence.

References “Chinese Confession Program (1956-1965).” Immigration History, 27 Sept. 2019. Web. “Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts.” Office of the Historian. Web. Gerber, D. A. American Immigration, a Very Short Introduction. OxfordOxford University Press, 2011. “The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act).” Office of the Historian. Web. Kennedy, Lesley. “Building the Transcontinental Railroad: How 20,000 Chinese Immigrants

Made It Happen.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 10 May 2019. Web.

Francesca and Syngman Rhee:

Fair Admittance and Treatment, or Bent Immigration Laws? Elijah VanderMolen One notable A-File contained within the NARA database is Francesca Rhee’s, an Austrian woman born in the year 1900. Francesca lived in the US for multiple years and became naturalized in 1940. She eventually married a Korean man named Syngman Rhee, and in 1948, she moved with him and lived in the newly-formed South Korea under the First Republic of Korea, its first government. There, she not only became a citizen of the new country, forfeiting her Austrian and American citizenship in the process, but she also became the country’s first lady through her marriage to Syngman. In 1960, after a series of student-led riots protesting Syngman’s government, Francesca and Syngman left their country and traveled to Honolulu, USA, and resided there for 5 years until Syngman’s death. Upon his death, she returned to South Korea to live with her adopted son.

US immigration and asylum policy is infamously rife with equity issues. Some ethnic and

national groups deserving of entry according to US immigration and asylum policy have been denied entry due to foreign policy objectives. Francesca and Syngman’s admittance, then, is an interesting and notable case to consider. Their admittance to the US raises a number of questions about the country’s immigration and asylum policies of the time. Was their admittance to the US justified by existing immigration law and policy, or were they allowed to enter due to their VIP status as foreign leaders? Did they receive special treatment from the US government, or were they dealt with like any other immigrant? After examining Francesca Rhee’s A-File and its enclosed documents closely, the answers to these questions, as well as their implications on US immigration and asylum policy history, become clear. Francesca and Syngman Rhee undoubtedly received special treatment from the US government by being flown to the US via CIA plane, having a direct line to US officials, and potentially receiving fast-track status on visa renewals. Despite this, their status legitimately qualified them for the visas they received. While the logistics of the Rhees’s entry and stay in the US were irregularly privileged, no immigration policy or law was bent or broken to accommodate them.

Document 42. Form I-94: Arrival-Departure Record Francesca’s Arrival-Departure Record. Note the Airline of Arrival: CAT.

Before analyzing Francesca and Syngman’s entry to the US, the history of Korean

immigration to the US must be understood to provide context. Prior to 1924, Korean immigration was not notably rare, nor was it considered unusual. However, the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924 changed this status quo by banning all Asian immigrants from entering the US. The notable exception to this exclusion were students, as Asian students were permitted to study at U.S. universities. Political refugees and intellectuals took advantage of this, attending U.S. universities in order to enter the country. Syngman Rhee was among these individuals. After serving his prison sentence for his membership in the Independence Club, a group of young Koreans that asserted Korean independence from Japan, he immigrated to the US as a student. He would earn a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Two key changes ushered in a new phase of Korean immigration in the 1950s and early

1960s: the passing of the McCarran and Walter Act and the start of the Korean War. The McCarran and Walter Act of 1952 nullified the Asian immigration ban, making many more Koreans eligible to immigrate into the US. The Korean War also began during this period; with many hoping to flee the conflict, the Asian immigration ban lifted, and South Korea’s strong existing ties with the US, many Koreans immigrated to the US. Around 15,000 immigrated during the war itself, and Korean immigration to the US continued even after its close.

During the period when the Rhee’s immigrated to the US, Korean immigration was

relatively common. Thus, their timing did not differ much from the average Korean immigrant. Instead, their differing immigration experience stemmed from their significant international status 100

as former leaders of a state.

As foreign leaders, Francesca and Syngman Rhee received a number of irregular benefits

that are not afforded to standard visa and asylum applicants. The first instance of the Rhees’ special treatment by the US government is evident from how they entered the country. On numerous documents contained in her A-File, Francesca notes she entered the country via “CAT airplane,” with “CAT” being an acronym for Civil Air Transport. This airline, only a few years after its creation, was secretly acquired by the CIA. A 4-volume booklet entitled CIA’s Clandestine Services: Histories of Civil Air Transport revealed the CIA’s acquisition of the airline and the covert operations it ran alongside its public, commercial side. Felix Smith, Permanent Honorary Chairman of the CAT Association, describes CAT’s status: “CAT was now the bona fide Air Arm of the CIA, a dynamic instrument of America’s foreign policy in Asia. Legally we became employees of the U.S. Government, albeit secret. Our cover was CAT’s passenger schedule which continued, while the CIA’s covert flights appeared to be CAT’s cargo charters.” Bearing in mind CAT’s role as an “arm of the CIA,” its transport of the Rhees’, two individuals of major international importance, was undoubtedly a CIA operation. Most immigrants are not afforded the privilege of being escorted into the US by a US government vehicle—it was, however, afforded to Francesca and Syngman Rhee.

Document 14. Memo Written by John F. O’Shea, a District Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Details a conversation between him and Francesca.

101

More obvious instances of the special status the Rhee’s held while in the US are the close

tabs the government kept on their activities and the direct line of communication the two could maintain with key US government officials. Contained in Francesca’s A-File are various untitled memos on the Rhee’s activities, local news coverage about them, and updates on Syngman’s deteriorating health. These memos were all personally written by John F. O’Shea, the District Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It is unclear how large the district he had jurisdiction over is, as information about it online is scarce; regardless, this indicates the US took a special interest in the two. Furthermore, the Rhee’s even had a direct line to O’Shea, indicated by another memo contained in Francesca’s A-File reporting a conversation the two had in which Francesca “informed [O’Shea] in confidence of a plan by some un-named political leaders of the present Junta ruling Korea to have Syngman Rhee returned to Korea.” Francesca shows a level of trust of O’Shea and the US government in general; it is unlikely many other people admitted to the US had this sort of personal relationship with a member of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Document 24. Form I-539: Application to Extend Time of Temporary Stay. Francesca Rhee’s first application to extend her visa. Applied for on November 14, 1960.

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A final hint that the Rhee’s received special privileges is contained in Francesca’s I-539

documents. An I-539 government form is a form visa holders fill out to request extensions to their visas. Throughout the duration of her stay in the US, she extended her visa 10 times. Evidence of special treatment afforded to her may be observed in how quickly each of these applications were approved. At least half of her I-539s were approved on the same day Rhee filled them out, and the longest she had to wait for an approval was five days. Considering the notorious inefficiency of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, it is more than likely that Francesca—and doubtless her husband, as well—were tended to with urgency and were given priority over other applicants.

Document 40. Form I-530: Report of Action - Nonimmigrant. Grants Francesca Rhee a 6-month extension to her visa. Note the date of the report is the same day she submitted her application, meaning her application was received, reviewed, and approved on the same day.

A New York Times article written by David E. Rosenbaum and published in 1979 cites an

unnamed State Department spokesman as saying: “The general principle is that the United States does not distinguish between the most humble of the crown’s citizens and the crown itself. If they’re eligible for asylum, we grant it. If not, we don’t,” in reference to international diplomats. The three ways the US government provided special treatment to Francesca and Syngman Rhee clearly contradict this statement. As leaders of a foreign nation, the two were afforded some type of unofficial VIP status, proving the inequities of the US immigration system. Despite this recognition, one key point that puts the already-shaky integrity of the US immigration system into question: did Francesa and Syngman Rhee qualify for entry into the US legitimately, or did US officials disobey immigration policies in order to accommodate the two VIPs?

As alluded to earlier and indicated in many documents contained within her A-File, 103

Francesca, and presumably Syngman, as well, gained entry rights via a B-2 Visa. This visa is given “for tourists on vacation and people coming for medical treatment, a social event, or participation in amateur contests for no pay.” On her first I-539 form, an application to extend time of temporary stay, Francesca listed her reasons for coming to the US as follows: “to visit—also medical treatment,” satisfying the first two conditions of the B-2 Visa requirements. It is worth emphasizing that these reasons given are wholly legitimate and are not fabricated by the US government in an illegal scheme to allow them entry. Syngman’s deteriorating health condition is well-documented throughout Francseca’s A-File in reports written by O’Shea: “Dr. Rhee’s physical condition extremely poor,” to the point where Francesca said he “is incapable of making any decisions on his own.” Considering Syngman died after five years in the US, it is reasonable to conclude his poor health condition was not a ruse.

Document 15. Memo Report written by O’Shea. Reports Syngman’s “extremely poor” health condition.

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After a comprehensive review of evidence from Francesca’s A-File and of US immigration

law, it is clear that the Rhee’s presence in the US was legal and above-board. While the two were afforded various privileges due to their international importance and the vested interest the US government had in them, clearly being distinguished from “the most humble of the crown’s citizens,” their status as B-2 visa holders was justified by existing policy and law, and no rules were broken to provide them with said visas. While the US immigration system is often subject to inconsistent policy driven by separate foreign policy objectives, no policy was bent or broken to admit Francesca and Syngman Rhee. References Felix Smith, “HISTORY.” CAT Association. Web. Linda Greenhouse, “The Supreme Court; High Court Backs Policy of Halting Haitian Refugees.”

The New York Times, June 22, 1993.

Rosenbaum, David E. “U.S. Gives Asylum to Some Deposed Leaders, but Not All; a Doctrine

with a History.” The New York Times, 9 Dec. 1979. Web.

Soojin Chung, “History of Korean Immigration to America, from 1903 to Present.” Boston

University School of Theology: Boston Korean Diaspora Project. Web.

USA Gov. “Apply for Nonimmigrant Visas to the U.S.”. Web.

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Metadata Dilemmas:

Immigrant Records and the Making of a Digital Public History Project Bryan Zehngut-Willits In the spring of 2021, I had the privilege of joining Professors Ellen Noonan, Sybille Fischer, and Benjamin Schmidt and fellow graduate student instructors Alexia Orengo-Green and Bárbara PérezCuriel in teaching a most unusual and exciting course at New York University. In a weekly plenary session, all six instructors joined our twelve enrollees for an interdisciplinary dive into the depths of the U.S. immigration and asylum system. While the faculty typically planned and led the plenary sessions, we also had weekly colloquia in which half the students joined Pérez-Curiel to study immigration narratives, especially as they appeared in journalistic accounts. The other half joined a session planned and taught by fellow graduate instructor Alexia Orengo-Green and myself, which examined the history of U.S. immigration policy over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The colloquia also aimed to provide students with practical skills, and in the case of our colloquia, we intended to provide students with experience and know-how for building a digital public history project. We had located a cache of publicly available immigration documents that our students could use to work collaboratively and build a digital collection. Using what they learned and read about immigration policy over the course of the semester, students would then create digital exhibitions for their final projects that would draw on our collection and analyze various aspects of U.S. policy and immigration.

Given the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic, the course had to meet virtually, which

required adapting my experience and pedagogy to this unfamiliar teaching environment. Over the course of many years working as an educator, my “classrooms” and lessons have taken many forms. Whether communications classes with professionals in conference rooms, lectures in auditoriums, public programs at monuments and memorials, tours in museum exhibitions, or lectures and colloquia in higher education, I’ve learned to be flexible and to expect surprises. There are different variables with different groups and teaching environments, and while you can try to control for them all, there is always a rogue element that can catalyze a class in any direction. Indeed, as any seasoned educator knows, no amount of planning can make a lesson go exactly as intended. Students’ backgrounds, interests, and enthusiasm can imbue a class with excitement, or cause it to 106

carom off into a series of inexplicable digressions. The learning environment, too, can be filled with distractions or interruptions, and so I wondered what challenges would arise for students trying to learn through their computers at home. In short, Orengo-Green and I made plenty of room for contingency and damage control in our lesson planning.

What was more, none of our students were history majors, and none had set foot in an

archive, let alone spent any time thinking about building collections. So when it came time to teach them about metadata, we anticipated several grueling sessions with students grudgingly following along at best. Yet despite the minutiae of the task at hand, to our absolute astonishment and satisfaction, the class debates surrounding the implications of metadata fields and how to structure a metadata schema sparked some of the most engaging and lively classes of the whole semester. The absolute vim with which these students took to the task of analyzing what was at stake in creating a digital collection proved one of the most surprising of my career. Of all things to electrify the class, it was metadata? The word itself is sleep inducing if you asked me, but the students’ palpable passion for getting it right pushed me and Orengo-Green to update the syllabus and add extra sessions for further debate.

All of the objects in our collection were held by the National Archives and Records

Administration (NARA) and make up files known as “Alien Files” or “A-Files” for short, which are the collected documents relating to an immigrant’s interactions with the U.S. immigration system. While naturalization was handled on the state, county, and municipal level from the nation’s founding through the nineteenth century, the federal government began collecting naturalization and immigration records in the early twentieth century, and of course continues to do so today. Any A-File belonging to the deceased or to anyone born over one hundred years ago falls into the public domain and should, in theory, be publicly available and usable by anyone. Some of these records can be viewed in digital format on the National Archives website, but the vast majority of A-Files remain in hard copy only. In record group 566, the records of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, NARA has digitized 92 A-files, which represent 0.006% of the entire group. We asked our students to look through this smattering of digitized files to think about how we could repurpose them in our own collection, and to think about how they might describe the categories of data that these documents contained. This, in effect, began the process of creating our metadata schema, a necessary component of any collection.

The term “metadata” gets used in many different ways, but in the case of our class project, it

refers specifically to the structured data that describes the digital objects in our collection. Imagine a spreadsheet with column headings that signify the kinds of data that go into the cells of that 107

column. One heading might read, “date of birth,” another, “country of origin.” These columns create the fields that structure the data that gets collected from each document. NARA provides a few metadata fields with their digitized collection, namely, date of birth, date of entry, port of entry, and country of birth, but little else. So we tasked our students with suggesting fields that they thought would be useful to researchers or anyone with an interest in using our collection. Simple as that may seem, we also wanted to avoid reassigning categories like race or gender used to discriminate against immigrants. So how do you represent, for example, the government’s own racist categorization of an immigrant who had been banned from entry on the grounds of race without effectively reinforcing the idea that race is anything but a construct?

To solve this, the students suggested that we needed two levels of description in our schema.

Some metadata would refer specifically to the immigrant, while other data would describe the government’s categorizations. Fields like date of birth, occupation, port of entry, country of origin would all be immigrant specific, but if a government form or other document included data about the race, gender, class, or political views of an immigrant, the students decided the best approach would be to make it clear in the metadata that the government used those categories, and that our collection only identifies that fact. Instead of having a “race” field, they decided to indicate “government assigned race.” This made clear that we had no intention of assigning race to people, but still acknowledged that the government did. “Government assigned sex” the students felt made better sense than a field for “gender,” since the government did not use gender as a category in the way that we understand it today. Moreover, the students contended, we could not possibly pretend to know how any of the subjects of these A-Files actually identified in terms of their gender anyhow, so what business did we have in using a gender field in the first place?

“Date of entry” also agitated debate, since many immigrants entered the country more than

once. We therefore had to be sure to allow for the possibility of having multiple entries. This detail, petty as it might seem, stood out as one of the most important for the students since over the course of the semester they had learned to identify the pernicious effects of the “deserving immigrant” narrative. The archetypal deserving immigrant scrapes together what they have to make a one-way trip to the United States, finds their way towards social and economic betterment and all the while, jettisons their old cultural traits and mores and acculturates towards their new American way of life. While this might be a story that matches the historical experience of many, it hardly encompasses the full extent of migratory patterns for non-citizens who cross U.S. borders. But if our metadata presumed that immigrants only have one date of entry, does that not buttress the narrative of the archetype deserving immigrant? The students insisted that highlighting multiple border crossings 108

mattered since this served in its own small way to chip away at that tired old tale. As they learned through the other components of the course, the archetype deserving immigrant narrative made less and less sense as the government amplified its efforts to restrict immigration over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We aimed to highlight those mechanisms of control and restriction, while avoiding any thoughtless replication of harmful narratives or invented categorizations.

At the heart of it all stood a quandary where we wanted to avoid replicating or reifying

categories like race, class, gender, and political ideology that served American imperialists as a means of repression and exclusion. Yet we also understood that researchers approaching our collection would be interested in finding these very things. So how do you build a digital collection and public history project using government immigration documents that express these very means of exclusion, make it accessible and useful to researchers, and still avoid replicating power structures and the imperial nature of a government archive? This vexing dilemma might never be fully solved, but to the credit of our students, they made a fine attempt. At the very least, we had the sense that they finished the course with an understanding of what it takes to build a collection of historical documents, and the knowledge that archives are not neutral spaces, but sites of power.

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Alien Enemy Min (Emma) Jeong

According to the United States National Archives and Record Administration, alien enemies

(also referred to as “enemy aliens”) are defined as “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of countries with which the United States is at war.” Similar to the British during the War of 1812 and German nationals and their allies throughout the First World War, people from Germany, Italy, and Japan were labeled as enemy aliens during the Second World War (National Archives). Having come across the phrase “alien enemy” for the first time ever while scanning the National Archives’ Alien Files (A-Files), I was immediately struck by the choice of words that the government had decided to use to categorize humans, regardless of their status as nationals of countries the United States was in war with or not. The words “alien enemy” seemed to scream and point to the long history of otherization and disregard for immigrants and refugees as equal humans deserving of due respect and rights in the United States. Only now, since the 2021 presidential election, has the administration expressed desire to move away from the word “illegal” and use “undocumented” when describing immigrants. How words are used, especially to designate a group of people, is extremely important because it plays a major role in the way public sentiment and acceptance is formed around these people. Sugai Tomojiro’s A-File sheds light on the unique experience of someone who was labelled as an alien enemy during World War II.

It is evident in the documents gathered in Tomojiro Sugai’s A-Files that he was treated quite

differently from other immigrants or refugees. Nearly all of his documents are marked with the words “Alien Enemy” whether in the form of a stamp or text. Unlike most other immigrants who were only required to fill out Alien Registration Forms for personal details, Tomojiro had to write out an additional form, Report of Alien Enemy, which requested information about his parolee status and agency at which he was apprehended. Although he was simply a regular produce buyer, Tomojiro was monitored for his parolee status; his only crime was being born in Japan.

I wanted to draw attention to these specific documents because while immigrants and

refugees faced extreme difficulties and obstacles in acquiring their status as legal citizens or residents in the United States, these so-called “alien enemies” likely faced even harsher restrictions and forms of oppression that are unknown to many. Shedding a light on the kinds of ways these individuals were othered in even more direct and harmful ways is crucial to form a deeper understanding of U.S. immigration policies and history. 110

Report of Alien Enemy

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While Tomojiro’s A-File did not consist of affidavits that were routine in most other A-Files,

it did contain numerous government letters, memos, and reports from one Alien Control Unit officer to another. Most of them were information regarding Tomojiro’s parolee status or personal details such as place of residence. I initially thought it was interesting that there was constant communication between these officers about Tomojiro’s information including those that indicated the kinds of files or reports Tomojiro had filled out, but I later realized that this must have been essential to keep a consistent record of Tomojiro’s actions and status during the early to mid 1940s when people had no internet access. The consistent communication between directors and officers of the Enemy Alien Control Unit alludes to the intense monitoring of Tomojiro’s activities.

Example of government letter for comunication between Alien Enemy Control officers

So what is this “Alien Enemy Control Unit”? It is defined as a special division in the

Department of Justice that oversaw the operations of the Alien Enemy Control Program (a government program run by the Department of Justice which implemented policies specific for alien enemies) and Alien Enemy Hearing Boards (boards considering the release, internment, or parole of alien enemies). Some of the specific jobs that the Alien Enemy Control Unit did were: reviewing the decisions of the Hearing Boards, requiring further investigation on potential internees, making recommendations to the Attorney General, or determining eligibility for rehearings for alien enemies. When I read into the job description of the Alien Enemy Control Unit and the various sectors that the government created specifically for alien enemies, I was disappointed but not surprised at the number and extent of resources that the government was willing to spend on alienating individuals. Given that the U.S. government continues to spend millions of dollars annually for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other immigration systems such as 112

deportation courts today, it was no surprise that the government had done so previously, especially during World War II when sentiments of nationalism were at its height. It made me think about how monetary and human resources have been and continue to be allocated in such unproductive ways; the government could instead be spending those millions of dollars in healthcare or education programs rather than institutionalised systems that other and oppress human beings. The misplaced use of valuable resources that could be used to alleviate nationwide problems in the U.S. is extremely distressing and saddening especially considering that racial alienation is a continued problem today with anti-asian hate crimes prevalent throughout the country. The lack of justice served to Asian-Americans who have suffered historically exclusionary policies all the way from The Anti-Coolie Act in 1862 to discourage Chinese immigration to California to the Immigration Act of 1924 that restricted nearly all immigration from Asia is deplorable and immoral.

We cannot dismiss the psychological stress and trauma that Sugai Tomojiro must have

undergone. As someone who is often regarded as a “foreigner” myself because of my Asian appearance, I know what it feels like to be treated and viewed as “less than” or “other than” American. However, I do not know what it feels like to be called an “alien enemy.” Tomojiro was forced to fill out government reports and forms where he had to identify himself officially as alien enemy for 3 years. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to have to sign your name under “Signature of alien enemy” and be forced to identify yourself with such criminalizing words. The U.S. government completely disregarded Tomojiro’s lived experiences as a resident of the United States and a human worthy of respect and dignity, by merely categorizing him as an “alien enemy”. We need to try to recognize the emotional trauma and suffering these immigrants endured in order to understand the lasting harm produced by the government’s immigration policies. While these immigrants’ A-Files may merely seem like simple official black-and-white documents, their language and meaning reveal the lived experiences of those forced into suffering and alienation.

Sugai Tomojiro’s A-File does not give us a full picture of the extent of harm caused by enemy

alien control programs to immigrants whose only crime was being born in the country they were born in. The documents give us a snapshot of the life of an immigrant who hoped for a better future and the American dream, and the power of language and labels to criminalize and produce categories of alienation. I believe that more awareness of the various divisive words used by the government when dealing with immigration is crucial for a more comprehensive insight into the bitter realities of the US immigration system.

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Example of document with Alien Enemy stamp

Repatriation during World War II Eunbin Kim Tetsuji Hanzawa was one of the many Japanese residents living in Hawaii in the 1940s. After his arrival in the United States in 1913, he lived there as a permanent resident for nearly 30 years. For fifteen years, Uta Hanzawa, Hanzawa’s ill wife, lived in Japan while Hanzawa worked as a retail store manager to support his mother and his family of five US-born children. He had not left the country since his initial entry—except for a short visit to his wife in Japan in 1941—nor wished to, as he expressed his expectation to remain in the US permanently in the Alien Registration form written in 1940. However, Hanzawa’s plan to spend the rest of his simple, family-oriented life in Hawaii was disrupted when the government classified him as “Alien enemy.” As tensions between Japan and the United States began to escalate following the Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Americans and immigrants like Hanzawa were targeted for the US’ unilateral decision for repatriation and internment. Hanzawa’s A-File vividly exemplifies the US government’s attempt to expel its resident Japanese population during World War II. This reveals the discrepancy in US foreign policy involving the racial discrimination against the Japanese that did not exist against German and Italian Americans.

Address Report Card Bottom line requires “Signature of Alien”

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Despite its promotion of democratic values, the American government infringed upon

the civil rights of immigrants like Hanzawa through compulsory travel orders and relocation to internment camps in the name of national security. This shows America’s interest in self-preservation over human rights during WWII. Hanzawa’s name on the list of invitational travel orders demonstrates that he was scheduled to be transported back to Japan and therefore was transferred to an internment facility in New Mexico where he had to file the Report of Alien Enemy form? six times in the year of 1945.

The Application for Non-Repatriation written in 1945 is an important document proving

not only that Hanzawa had a chance to make an appeal for him to stay but also that the initial decision to repatriate him was unilateral. The US government approved Hanzawa’s application because he expressed his loyalty to the United States and had dependents and property in Hawaii. The fact that they attempted to deport Hanzawa, despite his almost 30 years of living in the US, where he spent more than half of his life and raised his five children, shows the realistic side of US foreign policy that is often hidden by the display of democratic ideals by the government. We see that during this time, the national narrative surrounding US involvement in the Second World War was promoted as just intervention to save Europe from the Nazis despite its prior commitment to isolationism. However, the incarceration of the people of Japanese descent in America during the war was one of the most atrocious violations of human rights that the US government had committed. Hanzawa’s A-File serves as evidence of what Japanese individuals residing in the US at the time had to endure due to US foreign policy.These documents highlight the US’ priority for national interest over human rights protection despite its emphasis on the fundamental rights of freedom.

This finding further leads to a question of why specifically it had to be the Japanese who were

targeted for the extreme mistreatments. While it is true that all the citizens of Axis powers and those with any relation to these countries were labeled as the “Aliens of Enemy nationalities” and suffered under the same regulations prohibiting them from traveling and possessing or using certain media such as camera, the Japanese were particularly singled out when considering the distinct effort by the US to remove them.

Although the United States was fighting the Nazis, the Italian Fascists, and the Japanese,

the number of Japanese who were interned was relatively large compared to Germans or Italians. Over 120,000 Americans of Japanese background were evacuated from their homes, compared to about 11,000 and 10,000 for German and Italian Americans. Not only was there the difference in the degree of persecution among them, but also many Italian and German people were given the 116

Partial list of names ordered for transfer and internment following the Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Includes Hanzawa (underlined).

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chance to prove their loyalty by serving in the US military during the war. In particular, more than 1.5 million Italian Americans served in the armed forces, being recognized for their loyalty and patriotism for the nation. Moreover, despite the existence of organizations like “German American Bund,” which consisted of American citizens of German descent who openly promoted Nazi ideologies, German Americans still faced less harsh standards than the Japanese. Each of the cases of German Nationals was examined individually by the Department of Justice, However, individual examination was not even considered in the cases of Japanese individuals like Hanzawa, who were directly sent to the internment camp without being able to submit any documents appealing for loyalty (Farelly).

The staggering number of the Japanese people who were interned contrasted with those of

Germans and Italians speaks to the magnitude of how much the US government wanted to expel them from the country. The anti-Asian prejudice dates back many decades before WWII. The “Yellow Peril”—the fear that Asians will disrupt the western values—existed since the 19th century where Asians were seen as a threat to its white-only immigration policy in the US. The first law to ban immigration solely based on race was the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, suspending Chinese immigration for ten years and prohibiting Chinese immigrants from naturalization. The racism and xenophobia in the US towards Asian Americans continued in the 20th century. Even though the majority of Japanese Americans and residents like Hanzawa were residing in Hawaii at the time,

Hanzawa Application for Non-Repatriation

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only about 1,330 Japanese from Hawaii were interned whereas approximately 120,000 people were at the risk of repatriation on the West Coast. This suggests the attempt at mass removal of the Japanese people in the West was racially motivated since if the US truly prioritized national security, most of the population should have been removed from Hawaii. Moreover, a government review initiated in 1980 reveals that there was no evidence of military necessity to support the removal decision and concluded that the injustice was fueled by racism (Nagata, Kim, and Wu).

Looking at the A-File of Tetsuji Hanzawa reveals more than one person’s life and what

he had to face as a Japanese immigrant in the United States during the time when Japan and the United States were enemies. It also provides insights on what numerous other Japanese people in the same circumstances had to experience because of the consequences of massive injustice that was committed by the government. Hanzawa’s documents highlight the hipocracy of a democratic nation that emphasizes its core principles grounded in liberty, equality and justice, considering that it is the same government who created these documents to practice injustice and discrimination. Perhaps Hanzawa’s A-File would not even exist if such violations of the rights of the Japanese people did not happen. Although there still remains the question of the ethical dilemma of accessing the A-Files like that of Hanzawa, it is evident that his A-File sheds light on race-based historical trauma, unjust imprisonment of Japanese Americans, and the shameful acts of the American government fueled by racism. Hanzawa’s A-File still remains a crucial record of history that should not be forgotten and the inhumane treatment towards an ethnic group that should not be repeated in the future.

Bibliography Farelly, Elly. “Not Widely Known—The Internment Camps of Germans in America During WW2.” War History Online, 26 Jan. 2019. Web. Nagata, D. K., Kim, J. H. J., & Wu, K. The Japanese American wartime incarceration: Examining

the scope of racial trauma. American Psychologist, 31 Jan. 2019, 74(1 36–48). Web.

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A Journey into the A-Files:

A Digital Public History Project is Born Alexia M. Orengo-Green As with many projects of this type, our journey into creating a public history project began from the desire to create a conversation between history and the public on a topic, such as immigration, that has only become more politicized in the United States in recent years. Hence, in the History Practicum of the 2021 “Asylum in Crisis” undergraduate course, Instructor R. Bryan ZehngutWillits and I strived to provide our students with not only a background on nineteenth and twentieth century American immigration history, but also guidance on how to apply their knowledge while using public history as a tool. As none of our students were history majors and had not worked with primary sources previously, the historical background proved to be essential and served as an anchor for their final projects. For their final projects, using digitized and publicly available Alien Files (A-Files)1 from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), students began to develop online exhibitions in which they applied the knowledge they acquired in both American immigration history and public history. Since students were going to develop a public history project, it was essential for us to teach them how to think as public historians, and how not only to interrogate the sources that they used, but also to understand the complexity that a digital public history project entails. To teach our students both about American immigration history and public history, Willits and I decided to divide most of our practicum sessions in two. In the first part of the sessions, we provided students with necessary historical background and taught them how to interrogate their primary and secondary sources. These sections were essential for the creation of the students’ individual digital exhibitions as students became more familiar with the A-Files they chose, began to create connections between their A-Files and readings, and noticed patterns in their A-Files. Many of the discussions we had during these sessions, on topics such as immigration restriction, became the basis for several of our students’ digital exhibitions. In the second part of the sessions we provided students with lessons on how to think and write as a public historian. We centered our discussions around the question of what makes a digital public history project successful. We answered this main question by introducing the students to current public history debates, on topics such as radical public history and notions of power, and showing them various digital public history projects including “The Real Face of White Australia” 1. The Alien-Files (A-Files) that our students worked with were digitized and publicly available through NARA since they belonged to individuals who were born in 1918 or prior.

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and the Densho Digital Repository. By integrating students in current public history debates and showing them how these influence public history projects, we were able to expand our discussion to encompass accessibility, impact, purpose, representation, audience, and serving an intended audience. These conversations allowed students to recognize and question their role as the creators of a public history project. In our public history discussions, it was important for students to understand that just because you put a public history project online, it does not mean that it is going to be accessible to your audience, or even successful. Hence, with every digital public history project we explored in class, we dissected its methods. Through our discussions we discovered how each project was successful, how it was not, and how the students might have tackled such a project. By teaching them to not only interrogate the information that is presented, but also how it is presented, students learned that each digital public history project has a purpose and an aim. This helped students focus their own digital exhibitions topic as they each explored how they were going to represent the narrative to their intended audience. Learning to interrogate how information is presented also allowed us to have a discussion on the impact of public history projects, and in our case, to have sensitive information available digitally. This led to amazing conversations on the positive and negative impact that our project could have on privacy issues and accessibility. It was through these discussions that we decided that it would be useful to add a “take down policy” of any of the documents that are part of the exhibition. Although the A-Files are publicly available through NARA’s website, we recognized that the subjects of the A-Files, even if deceased themselves, might still have family members alive, and we wanted to acknowledge their rights to privacy. Conversations such as this made students aware of the implications that one has to consider when creating a digital public history project. As it was for the creation of our digital public history project, it is essential to have as an anchor both a historical background of the topic and public history. By teaching our students how to implement the information they learned about American immigration into their project, we gave them tools to create a bridge between academia and the public. To do this, they not only had to think about the sources with which they were working, but also how they were going to represent each narrative and the impact of their digital exhibition. Moreover, our students learned about the difficult decisions that historians and public historians must make when it comes to creating a public history project. The digital public history project we developed with our students serves as an example of the considerations that one needs to have before creating a public history project. References Densho Digital Repository. Web. The Real Face of White Australia. Web. 121

Ethical Dilemmas in Publishing A-Files Sophie Annabelle Klein Digital archives offer a vast amount of knowledge and platforms for sharing documents and data. By gathering information and publishing it on the internet, virtual permanence can be secured. The potential of this action—allowing everyone access to art, historical documents, music, thoughts (the list here is endless) is revolutionary and mind-blowing. We no longer have to travel to a museum to see a painting—it is online. We no longer have to go to a library to find a book—it is online. The amount of information and power is limitless, yet with this power comes great responsibility. When we publish work online, we have to consider the consequences of our actions.

The case files we are looking at are, by definition,

personal. They are the collection of documents the government possesses for individuals immigrating to the United States. These files are released 100 years after the individual’s date of birth, although they may be requested earlier. The files include photographs, personal declarations, and narratives. The A-files push past reasonable information and into fully invasive territory when they are published online. For example, in the following document from Dimitry Kadoshnikoff’s file, one would learn both his parents and his wife were dead, he knew no one in the United States, and Kadishkonoff had an identifiable scar on the left side of his neck.

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This A-file, belonging to Antonio Desantis, contains a large exchange of letters and

memoranda explaining Desantis’ deportation. One of the letters, included below, outlines his crime and the reason he is being deported. Although his crimes (assuming they are true) are despicable, the fact they are published online without his knowledge is questionable and violates his rights as a person.

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The A-file attached below belongs to Sarah Black, a Polish immigrant who arrived at Ellis

Island. In this document, one can find the names and addresses of her children.

Kadoshnikoff, Desantis, and Black’s A-files all demonstrate the information that we have in

our possession. As we publish this information on the internet, we have to think of the implications of sharing these stories, especially when we consider that we have not asked for permission. 125

Generally, we have to think about the context of our work. Eira Tansey, the Digital Archivist

Manager at the University of Cincinnati, points out, “there is something really unsettling about archivists, particularly those from institutions which don’t have a great track record of supporting their most marginalized workers or constituents, suggesting that the historical record should be a high priority while people are trying to keep their shit together and attempt to not die.”

As students of New York University, all of the work we do is to some degree a representation

of our institution. With that in mind, we should consider more closely questions like what is NYU’s historical relationship to immigration and minority groups? What is happening today with immigration and are we being sensitive to those groups and their needs? Are we supporting people who need support?

In line with reflecting on the context of our organization, we should also turn our attention

to the source of our information. The files we are using are comprised mainly of documents produced by the government. The labels and restrictions reflect the systemic problems and disparities that immigrants face today. Are we reinforcing negative ideals of the government? Even in the code of our website, we use labels that the government requires such as sex, race, and nationality. Although we are just quoting these files, does that exempt us from their implications? Is there not irony in trying to capture the efforts and journey of these individuals, but then using the labels that the government has created to systematize immigration efforts? Casually, we use labels such as “stateless”, “female”, “from the USSR.” Is that how the person would want to be characterized?

Furthermore, we must ask ourselves if we are being as sensitive as we can be. Documenting the

Now provides four recommendations for archivists. These recommendations are specifically meant for social media and are presented by progressive activists, but they raise valid points that we should consider. One recommendation is that “archivists should engage and work with the communities they wish to document.” We have put serious effort into learning about the history of asylum over this semester, but have we worked to reach this community? It is complicated because many of the people we are trying to reach have since passed away. Yet if our purpose is to illuminate the issues and intricacies of immigration policy in the U.S., are there different measures we should consider taking?

Another guildine from Documenting the Now is “documentation efforts must go beyond

what can be collected without permission from the web and social media.” When this information was collected, there was no way the government or these immigrants would have foreseen the public access we have today to these resources. However, it is important to note that these immigrants did not consent to their information being published online. While being realistic about our resources, we should consider if it is possible to obtain consent. 126

Our goal is to be ethical in the treatment of these files while sharing as much information

as possible. Historian Holly Smith’s goal is similar to our own, “I wanted to tell these stories that I felt people would not know. I came to love history in a way that felt very personal to me. Before I had the language and praxis to describe it, or the profession to practice it, I had long ago started to ingrain principles of radical empathy in regard to my passion to tell the stories of historically under documented communities.” Radical empathy is “the ability to understand and appreciate another person’s feelings, experiences, etc.” The purpose of our archive is one of radical empathy—we want to do justice to the people we are representing. References Documenting the Now. Web.

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The Desired Laborer but Undesired Migrant Celia Martinez Over the course of fifteen years, Nodie K. Sohn, a Korean immigrant, submitted multiple applications for re-entry into the United States. Nodie’s forty-six files, consisting of the permits, applications, and other supplemental documents, allow one to see her immigration journey as she entered and re-entered the United States. Although many of the files contain similar information, there are some inconsistencies with her listed occupations. From 1953 to 1968, Nodie listed drastically different occupations in various applications, such as being a factory worker at Kahala TH, a housewife, a professor at Seoul National University, a director of the Office of Procurement of the Republic of Korea, and then eventually: retired. Nodie was not only required to list her occupation; she also had to provide supplemental documentation verifying her occupations. In her file, a letter from Nodie’s employer directed to the District Director of Immigration and Naturalizations Services explains that Nodie had accepted a position as the Director of the Office of Korea’s Procurement and confirmed her employment. The required supplemental documents are an example of the additional requirements that migrants, like Nodie, were forced to procure. The

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A-Files give a glimpse of the extra barriers that migrants, like Nodie, had to surpass in their process of entering and re-entering the United States. As the years pass, immigration agencies require more information and documentation for migrants to be cleared to enter the United States. Whether that be proof of new employment or previous work experience, often these requirements denote what type of migrant is wanted, someone who can give more to the United States rather than “take.” As a result, basic information listed on immigration documents such as gender, race, and ethnicity can play a significant role in how a migrant’s immigration process plays out and how that supplied documentation is seen. The

United States Immigration Services did not begin tracking gender until the mid-1800s. Then, the process of entering the United States became based, among other factors, on one’s documented gender. Gender, although a cultural construct, has often shaped immigration policies, and one sees different patterns in the immigration system correlate with gender. Similar to the differences in the immigration processes between men and women, different groups of women face harsher forms of discrimination in the immigration system. The experiences of all women are not synonymous due to other factors such as race and ethnicity. In the United States, race and ethnicity in immigration have long been used to other and demonize those who do not fit the construction of the “ideal migrant.” These attitudes towards race and ethnicity can be seen reflected in the immigration process. The immigration process mirrors the United States’ notions of gender, race, and ethnicity. In the United States, gender became a determining factor in the mid-1800s peak of migration. Many migrants came to the United States due to issues concerning economic sustainability in their home countries. The United States was seen as the “land of opportunity” because of the chances the emerging industrial market had presented. Migrants believed that if they continued to work hard and consistently they would eventually achieve the “American dream.” Industrialization shifted how foreigners saw the United States, but the shift changed women’s role in the labor market. Industrialization opened new labor opportunities for women, especially those in the lower class. While women overall were still associated with domestic life, having the chance to work allowed women to support themselves and their families. They were no longer solely associated with domestic life and work but were now desired laborers in the emerging industrial market. The labor market plays a role in how gender impacts the immigration process. In 1889, geographer Ernest Georg Ravenstein wrote “The Laws of Migration,” a case study in the United Kingdom in which he expands on how men and women process migration differently. Ravenstein explains that although society associates women with domestic life, women often leave their home country searching for better employment opportunities (Ravenstein 198). The relationship between gender and the labor market is seen in different ways. For example, different labor industries appeal more to women than men. Female labor is often more sought after than male labor because women are paid less, thus helping the industries raise productivity at a lower cost. With industrialization, women became more sought out in the market in the search to maximize profits. Ravenstein concludes that one of the universal laws is that “females are more migratory than males” due to these patterns (Ravenstein 199). So, if women are considered the ideal laborers, why were they not the ideal migrants? The immigration system has made it more difficult for women to go through the process of entering the United States. In the immigration process, since women are tied to their families, they will go through a family-based process. Until the 1920s, whenever women would enter the 129

United States, they would have to disclose information about their parents or husbands. Unmarried women, or those without ties to a family, were seen as a threat and as unwanted migrants. From the beginning of the immigration process, marking one’s gender added another reason why one could not be let into the United States. Women were subject to different requirements that often complicated and elongated their entry. One of the first changes against the gender discriminatory policies in immigration was the Cable Act of 1922, also known as the Married Women’s Act. The act allowed women to enter the immigration process without their husbands. Although the act refers explicitly to obtaining citizenship, it gives insight into how gender discriminatory immigration laws were enacted against women. For specific groups of women, like Asian women, the process continued to compound. Although women were often the desired laborers with the emerging industrial market, not all women were desired migrants. Instead, certain groups of women posed a threat to the labor market, thus threatening the immigration system. On top of the existing gender discriminatory laws women face, Asian women were bound to racially discriminatory policies in the immigration system. Multiple anti-immigration policies, such as the Page Act, added extra barriers to the immigration process for Asian women. The Page Act set regulations that prohibited any east Asian woman who was a sex worker from entering the United States. The result of this law, however, was that Asian women were unjustly targeted in immigration policies. The majority of Asian women did not have ties to sex work, but like many other women, they participated in the market. As a result, Asian women became targets, and the stereotype of Asian women being prostitutes was perpetrated. In addition, they were labeled “promiscuous” and said to be carrying diseases to further the anti-women and anti-Asian immigration agenda. Although the Page Act imposed a barrier for Asian women who were sex workers, all Asian women were profiled in the process; additional documentation was required for all Asian women, delaying what should have been a simple stamp of approval on their immigration documents. While women were considered desired laborers, Asian women were considered a threat to the United States because of racist stereotypes perpetuated by immigration policies. Asian women, like Nodie K. Sohn, had more steps to complete in their immigration processes because they not only had to provide information on who they were but also prove who they were not. Reference Ravenstein, Ernest Georg, “The Laws of Migrations”. Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 1885. Web. 130

Nodie K. Sohn: Report for Permit

Un lugar, digamos, excepcional Bárbara Pérez Curiel “Hempstead es un hoyo de mierda, lleno de pandilleros, igual que Tegucigalpa”. En estas palabras se condensa la idea más importante del ensayo Los niños perdidos (2016) de Valeria Luiselli. La frase se le atribuye a Manu, un adolescente que llega a los Estados Unidos en busca de asilo tras salir de Honduras huyendo del acoso de pandillas como la MS-13 y Barrio 18.

A partir de esta idea, Luiselli rechaza la imagen del Río Bravo como una “línea divisoria

entre la ‘civilización’ y la ‘barbarie’” y redibuja la geografía del continente para colocar a Honduras y al estado de Nueva York en un mismo plano, como parte de una misma geografía de la violencia. En este mapa, las fronteras y los centros que hemos internalizado se mueven, difuminan y hasta desaparecen.

Si la historia de Manu fuera contada por algún medio de comunicación convencional,

probablemente terminaría, en un tono redentor y optimista, con la aprobación de su solicitud de asilo. En cambio, Los niños perdidos nos da la inusual oportunidad de seguir la historia una vez que acaba la pesadilla burocrática y jurídica (pesadilla que, para la mayoría, termina con el rechazo y la deportación al lugar del que venían huyendo). En esta continuación que más bien parece un retorno, Manu recibe asilo y se instala en Hempstead sólo para volver a sufrir el acoso de las mismas pandillas que había sufrido en Honduras.

En el semestre de primavera de 2021 impartí, junto con los profesores Sibylle Fischer,

Ellen Noonan y Benjamin Schmidt, y los estudiantes de posgrado Alexia Orengo Green y Bryan Zehngut-Willits, un curso interdisciplinario sobre la historia del asilo en los Estados Unidos.

Yo llevé una parte del curso en la que analizamos las narrativas mediáticas sobre asilo

y migración que comenzaron a inundar la conversación pública en Centroamérica, México y, notablemente, los Estados Unidos desde 2014, con la llamada crisis migratoria de menores –un fenómeno que, en gran medida, ha sido manufacturado como una crisis por los mismos medios de comunicación. La construcción mediática de la crisis se exacerbó en 2018 cuando la atención se fijó obsesivamente en las caravanas de migrantes, que reúnen a miles de centroamericanos y mexicanos decididos a viajar juntos para protegerse de la violencia letal que los amenaza a lo largo de su paso por México.

En nuestro grupo conversamos sobre las aristas de esta crisis discursiva: hablamos de la

producción de información en diversos ambientes institucionales, la relación entre distintas 132

técnicas narrativas y la posición de autoridad frente a la producción del conocimiento, la transparencia de fuentes, el afán de representación y el efecto que estos marcos estructurales y decisiones formales tienen en la constitución de la conciencia social.

El propósito del seminario no fue sólo examinar las historias que han representado

el fenómeno migratorio en los medios de comunicación en los últimos años. Nuestras conversaciones a lo largo del semestre también sirvieron de base para que las estudiantes crearan sus propios proyectos periodísticos, en los que examinaron muchas de estas preguntas.

Dedicamos buena parte de nuestras clases a hacer análisis detallados de noticias, reportajes,

crónicas, entrevistas, reseñas y ensayos. Juntas descubrimos que muchas de estas narraciones, tanto las más comprensivas como las más hostiles, replican el mismo mensaje implícito o explícito: para los migrantes latinoamericanos, migrar a los Estados Unidos significa seguir el camino del progreso. Así, un encabezado, una noticia, un reportaje tras otro van consolidando la imagen de los Estados Unidos como un lugar de redención, radicalmente distinto a los lugares violentos y caóticos de donde vienen los migrantes: el centro de la civilización en el contexto americano. Un lugar, digamos, excepcional. *** Tanto mis estudiantes como yo tenemos distintos grados de conexión con países latinoamericanos, sobre todo con México y Centroamérica. Desde esa perspectiva hasta cierto punto externa, la pregunta por el centrismo estadounidense que domina las narrativas mediáticas y culturales del fenómeno migratorio surge casi de forma natural. Sin embargo, considerando que nuestro curso exploraba la migración y el asilo en los Estados Unidos, también surge la pregunta sobre si es posible estudiar algo que sucede en los Estados Unidos desde una perspectiva distinta. ¿Cuál sería el punto de desplazar del centro a nuestro objeto de estudio?

El centrismo estadounidense o americentrismo (usando el concepto americéntrico, que

reduce un continente entero a un solo país) es una forma de entender fenómenos transnacionales partiendo de un marco que, explícita pero sobre todo implícitamente, coloca a los Estados Unidos –una idea hegemónica de lo que es los Estados Unidos– como el referente a partir del cual se juzga otras dinámicas culturales, sociales y políticas.

El americentrismo usualmente está vinculado a idearios de excepcionalismo, cuyo foco

en la cultura, historia y política estadounidenses es sumamente selectivo. Lejos de pintar un panorama realista, esta selección produce una mitología que, paradójicamente, oculta el papel central que juega la política exterior e interior estadounidense en crear condiciones que llevan a miles de personas a migrar: desde su papel en el pasado (y presente) colonial del continente y su 133

intervencionismo histórico en Latinoamérica y el Caribe desde el siglo XIX hasta las catástrofes que está provocando el cambio climático en estas regiones. Un ejemplo reciente es la devastación que causó el paso de dos huracanes en Honduras en el 2020, en plena crisis por la pandemia de COVID-19.

Otra consecuencia paradójica del centrismo estadounidense es que conecta las dos

posturas más comunes en la discusión sobre migración, la conservadora y la liberal. La primera exige restringir o directamente acabar con la entrada de migrantes y refugiados latinoamericanos mientras que la segunda aboga por un flujo migratorio “ordenado” y “legal”, y con frecuencia se fundamenta en una separación discursiva entre inmigrantes buenos y malos, dignos o no de ser aceptados y asimilados.

En ambas posturas la prioridad es la nación como entidad abstracta –ni siquiera la gente

que la habita– y la pregunta central es si la existencia de migrantes beneficia o perjudica a esta entidad. Así, las miles de personas atrapadas entre la destitución histórica y la vulnerabilidad a nuevas formas de violencia sistémica quedan supeditadas al bienestar de una idea de nación, y su desplazamiento, forzado en un gran número de casos, es leído como una decisión irracional, obstinada y hasta caprichosa.

El americentrismo no respeta las fronteras políticas oficiales, ni se queda en el plano

simbólico. De la mano de la proliferación de estos imaginarios sobre la migración como una amenaza real o potencial que debe ser puntualmente controlada ha habido un reacomodo significativo de las fronteras de facto en Norte y Centroamérica. La frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos se ha ido recorriendo cada vez más al sur con la complicidad de los gobiernos mexicano y guatemalteco, al grado de que estos países se han convertido en extensiones de la frontera sur estadounidense. Este proceso también puede interpretarse como el fortalecimiento de lo que Justin Campbell llama “conjunto de fronteras”: un grupo de fronteras con características y objetivos similares que operan en conjunto (esta idea la cita Todd Miller en su libro de 2019 Empire of Borders).

Este proceso ha conllevado la militarización de la frontera entre México y Guatemala

que, de acuerdo con declaraciones recientes del secretario de Defensa Nacional mexicano, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, tiene como “principal objetivo detener toda la migración”.

Generalmente, estas políticas antiinmigrantes se expresan mediante eufemismos. Por

ejemplo, el gobierno estadounidense anterior implementó un programa llamado Protocolo de Protección a Migrantes (MPP, por sus siglas en inglés) que obliga a los solicitantes de asilo en los Estados Unidos esperar en México mientras se resuelven sus casos. El gobierno mexicano 134

ha cooperado con esta medida que obliga a los refugiados a permanecer largas temporadas en condiciones sumamente precarias del lado mexicano de la frontera.

Otro ejemplo de este lenguaje de eufemismos es la manera en la que las autoridades

mexicanas reportan sus detenciones de migrantes centroamericanos: las llaman “rescates” y los medios mexicanos suelen replicar este vocabulario que enmascara la violencia estatal vinculada al control migratorio. Sin embargo, recientemente el presidente mexicano Andrés Manuel López Obrador usó una expresión que, si bien probablemente esta no fue su intención, refleja de manera franca lo que está detrás de la transformación de la frontera sur mexicana. En agosto, después de que la Corte Suprema estadounidense fallara a favor de la reinstauración del MPP, López Obrador prometió “ayudar” a los Estados Unidos “en el tema migratorio”.

Resistir el centrismo estadounidense en nuestro seminario significó resistir la visión del

mundo distorsionada que emerge de los idearios excepcionalistas que, por una parte, colocan a los Estados Unidos en un papel de víctima o redentor (o una mezcla de ambos) y, por otro, hacen que la migración contemporánea parezca un fenómeno excepcional que afecta a los Estados Unidos de manera particular, cuando se trata de un fenómeno global, multifactorial y con una historia tan larga como la humana.

Resistir el americentrismo no es sólo, ni principalmente, una postura política. Es primero

que nada un afán de precisión.

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The Real Crisis Is Not Migration

but the Language We Use to Describe It Rachel Berkower In March 2021, the Vice President for Standards of The Associated Press cautioned news reporters from resorting to emotive language, like “crisis,” when describing migration at the southern border. His reasoning was that the current situation at the border does not accurately fit the classic dictionary definition of “crisis,” which is: “A turning point in the course of anything; decisive or crucial time, stage, or event,” OR “a time of, or a state of affairs involving, great danger or trouble, often one which threatens to result in unpleasant consequences [an economic crisis].” In turn, the news agency has received backlash from right-wing outlets. For example, the New York Post claims that the refusal to regard the current situation as a crisis “keeps in step with the White House’s repeated refusal” to address the “out-of-control surge of illegal immigration.” With immigration and U.S. border policy back in the media spotlight, it is particularly important for American news outlets to choose accurate and neutral language when describing the situation. However, the excessive use of incendiary terminologies like “surge” and “crisis” from media across the political spectrum has resulted in highly sensationalized news coverage that fosters fear amongst American citizens and dehumanizes Latin American migrants.

The increasing attention on immigration issues by the American public has brought about

a variety of theories regarding whether or not this increase can be linked to Biden administration policies. However, a Washington Post analysis of U.S. Customs and Border Protection data has found that there is no clear correlation between Biden administration policies and the recent increase in border crossings. In fact, the current increase is part of a much more predictable pattern of seasonal changes in undocumented immigration in conjunction with a backlog of demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus on short-term immigration statistics without consideration for seasonal patterns and global contexts has led to the use of misleading and harmful rhetoric in both liberal and conservative news outlets.

One of the misleading expressions that has emerged as a popular go-to amongst mainstream

media is the term “surge.” Media outlets from NPR to the New York Times have openly endorsed phrases such as “surge at the southern border,” “new surge in migrants,” and “surge of migrant children” when discussing the current issues of immigration. The problem with using these phrases was outlined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while addressing the child migrant detention 136

centers that have been re-opened under the Biden administration. According to Ocasio-Cortez, the term “surge” invokes a militant narrative and implies the presence of insurgents. She argues that the term communicates the sentiment that the arrival of foreign individuals is automatically an invasion of American values. She goes on to describe how this belief is a reflection of long-held “white supremacist” ideology in the United States. Regarding the people arriving at the southern border as insurgents paints a militaristic and destructive image in the minds of the American public. It insinuates that migrants are inherently dangerous people and the only way the country can respond to them is by reinforcing the southern border and treating them as war criminals.

Another term that is often used in conjunction with contemporary migration news coverage

is “crisis.” The depiction of migration on the southern border as a “crisis” reflects a narrative that invokes sentiments of fear, destruction, and danger at the hands of the people who are trying to enter the country. There is no doubt that the sharp increase in migrants at the border, especially unaccompanied minors, is a serious problem for the country and a political challenge for the current administration. The number of children arriving in Mexico seeking to cross into the U.S. increased nine-fold from January to March of 2021. On average, 275 children enter the country each day. However, conjuring images of war and natural disasters appeals primarily to the emotional charge of the American public and suggests that migrants will have a negative influence on their lives.

In truth, there are several legitimate crises that the U.S. needs to address immediately. For

example, there is a humanitarian crisis for which the government does not have the means to provide sanitary conditions and humane lodgings for migrants. The emergency shelters currently being deployed for unaccompanied children are hardly appropriate and have been referred to as the “least bad” choice by the Washington Office on Latin America. In the meantime, the Biden administration is being pushed to establish better accommodations. There is also a historical humanitarian crisis—made worse by years of failed US policy in Central America—that has forced millions of migrants to flee their home countries. Likewise, the climate crisis and the rise in extreme weather events also disproportionately affect people living in countries that rely on consistently high agricultural yields. High greenhouse gas emissions and outsourcing industries from the U.S. and other wealthy countries have been the main contributors to the growing flow of environmental migrants from all over the world.

Unlike these humanitarian and climate emergencies, migration is not a crisis: it is a

consequence of many years of both inaction and destructive action from countries like the US. To refer to it as a “crisis,” “surge,” or any other inflammatory rhetoric is to completely disregard the historical patterns of migration in the region. This language also absolves the U.S. policies and 137

corporations that have most contributed to the real humanitarian and displacement crises along the southern border. What is happening at the border is not new. The crisis rhetoric serves only to sensationalize the current situation and dehumanize the people who need to be helped. References Abi-Habib, Maria. “U.N. Reports Surge of Migrant Children Entering Mexico, Destined for U.S.”

The New York Times, April 28, 2021. Web.

Daniszewski, John. “AP Definitive Source | Describing What’s Happening at the US Border.” AP,

November 15, 2018. Web.

Isacson, Adam, et al. “Putting the U.S.-Mexico ‘Border Crisis’ Narrative Into Context - Mexico.”

ReliefWeb, March 17, 2021. Web.

Italiano, Laura. “Like White House, Associated Press Won’t Use ‘crisis’ to Describe Migrant Surge at

Border.” New York Post, March 26, 2021. Web.

Rose, Joel. “Despite “Ample Warning,” U.S. Was Unprepared for Latest Surge of Migrant Children”

National Public Radio, March 22, 2021. Web.

Russonello, Giovanni. “What’s Driving the Surge at the Southern Border?” The New York Times,

April 10, 2021. Web.

The Climate Reality Project. “Climate Justice 101: Climate Migration.” Climate Reality, January 25,

2021. Web.

United Nations. “The Climate Crisis – A Race We Can Win.” United Nations. Web. Vallejo, Justin. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says Acknowledging ‘Surge’ of Migrants on Border

Pushes White Supremacy.” The Independent, March 31, 2021. Web.

Wong, Tom, et al. “The Migrant ‘Surge’ at the U.S. Southern Border Is Actually a Predictable Pattern.” Washington Post, March 25, 2021. Web.

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The Pandemic Is Exactly What the Government Was Waiting for to Close the Border María Herrera Félix May 6, 2021 It’s a weird feeling, after being trapped in Phoenix unable to go back to Mexico for most of your life, to see the border close up again. A mix of anger, sadness and realizing that the trauma of being undocumented will never go away, despite having that plastic card. My dad and I recently went to Nogales, Mexico to buy medicine; it's cheaper and he says he trusts it more. On the way to Phoenix, the line to cross the border was long, as usual. You see people living on sidewalks with their families. They are also waiting but you know they don’t have the visa or papers to cross safely like we do. We rolled our windows down, and my dad handed our papers to the agent who pulled his mask down as he read our names. I couldn’t help but think about the risk of it all, crossing during a pandemic, no coronavirus test or vaccine card needed. Just the green cards. The border is only open for citizens and green card holders right now. This is legally upheld by Title 42—a “public health” measure to reduce the spread of coronavirus that closes the border for tourists and migrants. The most affected by this policy are asylum seekers. In the past year over half a million people, mainly from Central America and Haiti, have been denied the right to petition for asylum. If Title 42 was truly a public health intervention, migrants would be tested and treated for COVID-19 when they arrive at the border. Of course that is not the case.

Like with most humanitarian and public health crises, the most marginalized in society

are the most affected. Enacted in 1944, when the US closed its borders to Holocaust refugees, this “public health” policy gives federal agencies, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protections (CBP), the power to impose restrictions on not what, but mainly who comes in. It is legally upheld only in exceptional circumstances and, since then, hadn’t been used, until now. The most important part here, however, is that these restrictions do not apply to asylum seekers or refugees.

Asylum seekers, by agreements laid out in the United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees (UNHCR) and the Refugee Act of 1980, should never be met with closed borders in the US. However, we have seen a violation of refugee rights all throughout the Trump presidency, with the use of Migrant Protections Protocol (MPP) and the termination of the Central American Minors (CAM) program. For decades, ICE and CBP have been the best functioning 139

actors to completely close the border and to uphold this as the only option during the current deadly pandemic.

Trump’s invocation of Title 42 is hypocritical. The man who instigated and escalated so

much doubt and misinformation about the necessity of masks and social distancing as proven safety measures against COVID-19, took a “heroic” stance on combating the pandemic by closing the border. Biden’s upholding of it, is only another reminder about how US immigration policies are just bipartisan agreements of preserving a white supremacist, colonial history.

The justification for Title 42, that migrants are spreaders of COVID-19, is not only

factually incorrect but also a legacy of the very American tactic of scapegoating immigrants. Since the 1800s, “non-white” immigrants have been blamed by the public and medical health professionals as being carriers of disease due to their arrival from usually impoverished backgrounds. This fear by “white” citizens was based on ideologies of race and class tied to dangerous and harmful constructions of cleanliness. Yet there is a relatively low risk of immigrants transmitting diseases to populations in their host country. We see during this pandemic how even the seemingly biological nature of an airborne virus becomes politicized into an existing landscape of racism and fear of foreigners in this country.

After one hundred days in office, the Biden administration has no plan to end Title 42.

They decided whose lives are more important and it is extremely clear how dependent this is on racial, ethnic and class-based hatred. What we are seeing with Title 42 is a classic bipartisan pact of anti-immigrant legislation and it is not a public health intervention, but rather an exacerbation of the pandemic’s deadly consequences. The government has weaponized a virus to push forth racist and restrictive immigration policies. Regardless of formal declarations, these policies should not be considered heroic acts of public health, but rather criminal human rights abuses. Resources Ewing, Walter; Loweree, Jorge; Reichlin-Melnick, Aaron. The Impact of COVID-19 on

Noncitizens and Across the U.S. Immigration System. American Immigration Council.

September 30, 2020. Web.

Erfani, Azadeh; Elshiekh, Nefertari. The Biden Administration is Continuing Trump’s Unlawful

‘Expulsions’ of Asylum Seekers In the Name of Public Health. National Immigrant Justice

Center. Mar 12, 2021. Web.

Q&A: US Title 42 Policy to Expel Migrants at the Border. Human Rights Watch. 140

April 8th, 2021. Web.

Robles,Frances; Jordan, Miriam. “Covid on the Border: Migrants Aren’t Tested on Arrival in U.S.” The New York Times. April 28, 2021 Updated Aug. 12, 2021. Web. Narea, Nicole. “Biden is quietly enforcing one of Trump’s most anti-immigrant policies.”

Vox. Apr 29, 2021. Web.

Victor, Daniel; Serviss, Lew; Azi Paybarah. “In His Own Words, Trump on the Coronavirus and Masks.” New York Times. Oct. 2, 2020. Web. Markel, Howard; Minna Stern, Alexandra. The Foreignness of Germs: The Persistent

Association of Immigrants and Disease in America Society. Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan, 2002.

Abubakar, Ibrahim; Aldridge, Robert W; Devakumar, Delan; Orcutt, Miriam; Burns, Rachel;

Barreto, Mauricio L; et. al. “The UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health:

the health of a world on the move.” The Lancet. December 05, 2018. Web.

O’Toole, Molly. “Biden promised change at the border. He’s kept Trump’s Title 42 policy to

close it and cut off asylum.” Los Angeles Times. March 19, 2021. Web.

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Biden Is Failing to ‘Get It Right’ Tatiana Ramirez Joe Biden finally admitted that the Obama administration’s deportation policy was a “big mistake” during his presidential campaign, and that they’d taken too long to “get it right” (Barrow). Now that 100 days have passed since Biden’s inauguration, it is time to see where his own administration stands on immigration. The unfortunate reality is that despite promises of a “humane” approach to the issue, migrants continue to be mistreated under Biden’s current policies (Ordoñez). His conservatively liberal views and previous history with immigration policy dampens the hope that his administration will vastly improve the lives of migrants.

Biden is still endorsing the same harmful views on immigration that he held back in

the Obama era. In 2014, he was tasked to handle an influx of undocumented migrants from Central America crossing the US-Mexico border. His meetings with the presidents of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras resulted in the creation of The Alliance for Prosperity, a program agreed upon and designed by the Northern Triangle leaders to address causes of migration (Office of the Press Secretary). This was to be accomplished through police training, economic development, and reduction of inequality, amongst other projects. However, the majority of US funding went towards security, which allowed corrupt Central American governments to increase militarization with little oversight. This led to greater human rights violations in the region (COHA). It is no surprise, then, that asylum and refugee applications increased by 58% from 2016 to 2017, shortly after the program was implemented in 2015 (Mathema).

Biden’s proposed US Citizenship Act of 2021 implies the same dangerous stance by again

aiming to address “underlying causes of migration” (The White House). Just as in the past, this aid will likely not improve the lives of migrants in Central America. In fact, we can already see this happening as Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras militarize their borders and detain allegedly US-bound migrants following agreements with the Biden administration to curb migration (Heavey). What we are truly seeing here is Biden’s own contribution to the devastating legacy of US involvement in Central America. Biden has departed from Obama in some ways. He addressed immigration issues within his first weeks in office, issuing several executive orders to reinstate DACA, end Trump’s travel ban, and halt construction of the infamous border wall (Narea). He also ordered a 100-day halt of deportations, although it was quickly banned from taking effect by a federal judge (NPR). Still, 142

his response has been more proactive than that of Obama, who did not introduce immigration legislation until a year after his inauguration (Congress). In addition, Biden’s US Citizenship Act of 2021 outlines innovative pathways towards citizenship for all undocumented immigrants. The entire bill as a whole is not likely to pass in Congress. However, it has been able to make gains through the introduction of “piecemeal” reforms for populations with the most bipartisan support, such as DREAMers and farmworkers–bills for which have already been passed by the House (Narea).

Nevertheless, Biden’s continued implementation of Title 42 eclipses these improvements.

Title 42 is a US health code from 1944 that prohibits people from entering the country if doing so would cause a public health emergency (Cornell Law School). Trump had first invoked it in March of 2020 on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. From the start, this rationale did not make any sense, as the US has had significantly higher rates of COVID-19 infections than those of migrants, according to CDC experts (Callahan). For example, less than 6% of migrants at the US-Mexico border tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week of March 2021, whereas the Texas seven-day average positivity rate during the same week was 7.4% (Sganga). There was also a clear underlying agenda in enacting Title 42: to reject as many incoming migrants as possible.

Undocumented migrants are the sole targets of this order that otherwise allows any traveler

with documentation to enter the US without opposition (CDC). Moreover, a memo for Border Patrol agents advised them to immediately deport migrants without any sort of asylum processing— the one exception being if they happen to spontaneously declare a fear of being tortured if returned to their country of origin (CDC). Expelling asylum seekers and refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic is not only a human rights violation according to the United Nations, but is also xenophobic, racist, and classist (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). In spite of the abundant evidence proving Title 42’s moral and scientific illegitimacy, Biden has continued it under the same false pretense of public health concerns as Trump (O’Toole).

There is plenty of uncertainty about how Biden will handle immigration throughout the rest

of his presidency. His first 100 days of office demonstrate a shift towards more progressive policies, although much of it seems to be the result of pressure from immigrant rights advocates rather than a genuine change of heart. His past actions also cannot be excused, as we see Biden continue to endorse the same harmful, ineffective stances that target migrants and place them in precarious situations. Therefore, it is critical that we do not accept Biden’s inhumane approach to immigration, that we continue to pressure him until he enacts positive change–until he finally “gets it right.”

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References Barrow, Bill. “For First Time, Biden Calls Obama Deportations ‘Big Mistake’.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 15 Feb. 2020. Web. Callahan, Patricia, et al. “Inside the Fall of the CDC.” ProPublica, 15 Oct. 2020. Web. Coha. “The Alliance for Prosperity Plan: A Failed Effort for Stemming Migration.” COHA, 21 Nov. 2019. Web. Cornell Law School. “42 U.S. Code § 265.” Legal Information Institute. Web. “COVID-19 CAPIO.” CDC. Web. Heavey, Susan. “Mexico Doubles Migrant Detentions with Troop Surge, White House Says.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 12 Apr. 2021. Web. Mathema, Silva. “They Are (Still) Refugees: People Continue to Flee Violence in Latin American Countries.” Center for American Progress. Web. Narea, Nicole. “Biden Is Already Rolling Back Trump’s Immigration Legacy.” Vox, Vox, 20 Jan. 2021. Web. Narea, Nicole. “The House’s Piecemeal Immigration Reform, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 12 Mar. 2021. Web. NPR. “Judge Bans Enforcement of Biden’s 100-Day Deportation Pause.” NPR, NPR, 24 Feb. 2021. Web. Office of the Press Secretary. “Fact Sheet: Support for the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle.” National Archives and Records Administration. Web. “Order Suspending the Right to Introduce Certain Persons From Countries Where a Quarantinable Communicable Disease Exists.” CDC. Web. Ordoñez, Franco, and Joel Rose. “Biden Signs 3 Immigration Executive Orders. Activists Want More.” NPR, 2 Feb. 2021. Web. O’Toole, Molly. “Biden Promised Change at the Border. He’s Kept Trump’s Title 42 Policy to Close It and Cut off Asylum.” Los Angeles Times, 20 Mar. 2021. Web. “S.3992 - 111th Congress (2009-2010): DREAM Act of 2010 .” Congress. Web. Sganga, Nicole. “FEMA Chief Says Covid-19 Positivity Rate among Migrants Is Less than 6%, Lower than Texas Average.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 16 Mar. 2021. Web. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Key Legal Considerations on Access to Territory for Persons in Need of International Protection in the Context of the COVID-19 Response.” Refworld. Web. The White House. “Fact Sheet: President Biden Sends Immigration Bill to Congress as Part of His Commitment to Modernize Our Immigration System.” The White House, The United States Government, 25 Jan. 2021. Web. 144

El viaje del héroe en Los ríos profundos Siri Ranganath El monomito en la cultura andina Muchos mitos, antiguos y modernos, siguen el modelo del “monomito”, un término acuñado por Joseph Campbell. En la literatura comparada, el monomito describe el viaje del héroe, donde un joven se embarca en una peligrosa expedición, sale victorioso y regresa a su hogar completamente transformado. Vemos esto en la Epopeya de Gilgamesh, el Ramayana y la Odisea. Las historias modernas también siguen este modelo, desde Star Wars hasta Harry Potter, y tal vez esto sugiera una fijación humana en el viaje del héroe y un deseo duradero de aventuras.

En su novela, Los ríos profundos, José María Arguedas amplía el monomito en el contexto

de la tensión entre los criollos y los indígenas en el Perú. Ernesto, un joven de 14 años, confronta la realidad de la violencia y opresión de los indígenas en el siglo XX, continuando casi 300 años después de la conquista Española, durante su breve paso por el colegio de Abancay. Su viaje es único porque tiene lugar dentro de su psique en lugar de manifestarse como una expedición física, un cambio radical para un joven cuya vida ha transcurrido como un vagabundo.

En el segundo capítulo, “Los viajes”, se describe el vagabundeo de Ernesto de ciudad a

ciudad mientras su padre busca sin éxito empleo como abogado. Ernesto enumera sus viajes en sucesión, como para agruparlos bajo esta vaga noción de “los viajes” y hacerlos insignificantes en comparación con el verdadero viaje que tiene por delante en Abancay. En cada pueblo, él descubre un nuevo aspecto de la divinidad de la naturaleza y cómo se manifiesta en los ríos, las piedras y la luz, configurando la majestuosidad del ambiente en el que se desarrolla este “mito”. Sin embargo, este es un viaje físico y su viaje emocional aún no ha comenzado. Ernesto aún no se ha convertido en un verdadero héroe. Se establece que “en los ríos anchos y grandes no todos llegan hasta las piedras” (68) y solamente “los nadadores, los audaces, y los héroes” (68) lo hacen. El uso explícito de la palabra “héroe” aquí alude poderosamente a la inminente transformación de Ernesto, donde tendrá que convertirse en alguien valiente, alguien que pueda atravesar los ríos profundos, para sobrevivir.

Su llegada a Abancay, una ciudad del abuso de los colonos (que es tan diferente a las

otras ciudades de los comuneros), subraya el estado emocional de Ernesto antes de su viaje, específicamente su falta de valentía y su resistencia a desafiar la injusticia. En el quinto capítulo, titulado “Puente sobre el mundo”, Ernesto tiene que acostumbrarse a su nuevo colegio en la 146

ausencia de su padre. Los estudiantes mayores son violentos con la mujer que se llama “la demente” y los otros estudiantes menores, pero el Padre Director nunca interviene. Ernesto carece de agencia, ya que se ve obligado a observar estos actos atroces. Sobre todo, él se siente corrompido. Arguedas yuxtapone este sentido de corrupción cuando presenta el río Pachachaca como símbolo de pureza y permanencia. Pachachaca significa “puente sobre el mundo” en Quechua y, metafóricamente, actúa como un puente sobre este pueblo moralmente desamparado para Ernesto.

El río es el único lugar cerca del colegio que “despejab[a] [su] alma, la inundab[a] de

fortaleza y de heroicos sueños” (112). Eventualmente, el río se convierte en más que un escape al final del quinto capítulo. Ernesto comienza a identificarse con el río. Él dice en el último párrafo que “había ser como ese río imperturbable y cristalino, como sus aguas vencedoras” (113). Arguedas usa lenguaje dramático sobre el heroísmo con respecto al río para que los lectores asocien la fuerza del río con el héroe del cuento, Ernesto. El río Pachachaca se convierte en un vehículo para explorar más el foco del viaje del héroe de este monomito.

Para convertirse en el Pachachaca, nuestro héroe tiene que sacrificar su capacidad de

relacionarse con sus compañeros, que son menos comprensivos con la causa indígena, pero el zumbayllu funciona como un bálsamo para su soledad. El sexto capítulo, “Zumbayllu”, comienza con un análisis lingüístico de los dos sufijos quechuas yllu e illa. Yllu significa “la música que surge del movimiento de objetos leves” (114) y illa indica “a los monstruos que nacieron heridos por los rayos de la luna” (114). Los objetos con nombres que terminan en yllu o illa muestran la dualidad de la luz y la música como pura y seductora.

Cuando Ernesto ve a Antero lanzar el zumbayllu, un trompo musical, inmediatamente siente

el deseo de ejercer él mismo el poder místico del instrumento. Su canto “avivaba en la memoria la imagen de los ríos, de los árboles negros que cuelgan en las paredes de los abismos” (119). Debido a que el zumbayllu evoca la majestuosidad de la naturaleza, actúa como “un lazo que [se] unía a ese patio odiado, a ese valle doliente, al Colegio” (120). En el capítulo anterior, Ernesto se alineó con el río Pachachaca, como este ser incorregible e imparable, y en el proceso, se aísla emocionalmente de sus compañeros. Pero en este capítulo, el zumbayllu hace que Ernesto se sienta menos solo y que el río Pachachaca parezca menos solitario en su grandeza. De verdad, es el zumbayllu el que le da a Ernesto el consuelo que necesita en medio de turbulencias internas y externas.

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La Pachamama como la guía del viaje En el séptimo capítulo de Los ríos profundos, “El motín”, las chicheras sacan sal del depósito del gobierno para redistribuir entre las mujeres del Patibamba. Doña Felipa, la lideresa de este culto, simboliza a la diosa andina Pachamama, que reina sobre la tierra, los ríos y las montañas. Hay una comparación sincrónica entre la Pachamama y la Virgen en América Latina. Está claro que ambos símbolos convergieron durante la conquista y ocupación española, pero son muy distintos. La Pachamama sirve como fuerza de justicia y compasión, pero la Virgen solo es venerada por su pureza. Esto quizás refleja la diferencia entre cómo los criollos católicos y los indígenas ven a sus mujeres; los católicos se preocupan más por la virginidad de la mujer y los indígenas priorizan su poder. Al ver doña Felipa, Ernesto se da cuenta de esta diferencia al contrastar cómo sus compañeros masculinos brutalizan a “la demente” y cómo las chicheras luchan por otras mujeres.

La dualidad de misericordia y venganza en el culto de doña Felipa (y por lo tanto de la

Pachamama) se asemeja a las diosas madres de otras religiones politeístas. Por ejemplo, Durga, la diosa madre en el hinduismo, cultiva la tierra con amor y promete matar a los injustos que amenazan este amor terrenal. Ella representa el poder cósmico que preserva el orden moral y la justicia en la creación. En el enfrentamiento con el Padre Director, este símbolo humano de la Pachamama muestra este mismo fervor de Durga. La chichera grita “Dios castiga a los ladrones, Padrecito Linares” (146) y las otras, “¡Sangre! ¡Sangre!” (147). Sin embargo, una chichera también tiene la amabilidad y la calidez de consolar a un angustiado Ernesto y escoltarlo al colegio. Los cantos quechuas para invocar a la Pachamama también se parecen a los mantras sánscritos para invocar a Durga. Existen las mismas similitudes con respecto a figuras como Deméter en la antigua Grecia y Nut en el antiguo Egipto.

Es lógico que en el camino de Ernesto para combatir la opresión de los indios y la brutalidad

contra las mujeres, adquiera el espíritu feroz y la ternura de la Pachamama. Los monomitos tienden a tener figuras míticas que sirven como guías en el viaje del héroe. La diosa Atenea actúa como guía de Telémaco para descubrir qué le sucedió a su padre y cómo deshacerse de los pretendientes de su madre en la Odisea. En el Mahabharata, es Vishnu encarnado Krishna quien ayuda a los Pandavas a vengar el despojo de su reina, Draupadi. Y también, ¿no es curioso cómo en estos tres casos, en los Andes, en Grecia y en la India, los viajes de estos héroes están relacionados con la justicia de una mujer? El monomito nunca se ha asociado con la feminidad, sin embargo, muchas de las grandes leyendas, a pesar de tener protagonistas en su mayoría masculinos, canalizan la esencia de la Gran Madre. 1. Chichera: una mujer que produce y vende chicha, una bebida característica de las culturas indígenas andinas.

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Convertirse en el Pachachaca En el noveno capítulo de Los ríos profundos, “Cal y canto”, doña Felipa roba armas del ejército y monta una mula por las montañas. Los guardias la persiguen sin éxito. Ernesto se anima con su valentía y espera su regreso, a diferencia de sus compañeros del colegio. Esto queda especialmente claro cuando Antero visita a Ernesto y los dos chicos discuten el destino de las chicheras y los colonos. Antero recuerda los colonos en la hacienda de su familia y cómo, al ser brutalizados, lloraban. Dice que su “madre sufre por ellos” (205) y que él se uniría a ellos en su llanto. Antero enfatiza su compasión para los colonos de manera exagerada, pero cuando Ernesto muestra apoyo a su rebelión, Antero inmediatamente objeta, revelando su hipocresía. Él predice que los colonos quizá “seguirían quemando ellos más cuarteles, más campos de caña; e irían, como ganado que ha agarrado espanto, cuesta abajo buscando el río y a los chunchos” (206). Ernesto está molesto por la falta de empatía de Antero, pero Antero afirma superioridad porque viene de una familia de dueños que aparentemente entienden la realidad de los colonos. Esta es la primera vez que vemos a Ernesto contar con sus valores con respecto a alguien muy cercano a su corazón.

Este intercambio enciende el coraje de Ernesto, cuando finalmente se da cuenta de que

nadie hablará sobre la injusticia hasta que él lo haga. Frente a toda la ciudad, cuando el Coronel habla de la derrota de doña Felipa, Ernesto le grita a la multitud en quechua y se dirige a la lideresa ausente: “Un soldado ha dicho que te mataron ¡pero no es cierto! ¡Qué soldadito ha de matarte! El Pachachaca, el Apu está, pues, contigo” (221). Él convoca la fuerza imparable de los ríos profundos, de doña Felipa, de las chicheras, del Patibamba en su voz apasionada. Al hacerlo, descubre el poder de su voz, no solo como una herramienta para comunicarse con su padre a través del zumbayllu, sino como un instrumento de rectitud. Le devuelve el zumbayllu a Antero cuando Antero revela que brutalizó a Salvinia por supuestamente coquetear (en realidad, simplemente reír) con Pablo, el hermano de Gerardo. Ernesto expresa su indignación, llamando a Gerardo y a Antero perros ansiosos, ladrones y cerdos (264). Le dice a Antero que él puede “hacer otros iguales” (264) con respecto al zumbayllu, y aquí, nuestro héroe finalmente asume la responsabilidad de sus acciones y desarrolla agencia sobre su voz.

Esta transformación emocional culmina con Ernesto pidiendo humildemente el perdón de

“la demente”, en nombre de toda la brutalidad que sufrió a manos de sus compañeros y su silencio antes de que ella muera de tifus. Es lo suficientemente valiente como para enfrentarse a sus amigos y lo suficientemente compasivo como para afrontar la trágica muerte de una mujer. Esta convivencia de fuerza y amor es la dualidad de la Pachachaca y la Pachamama, y más específicamente, es la dualidad presente en todos los grandes héroes. 149

El heroísmo combinado de Ernesto y Arguedas No sabemos adónde va Ernesto después de que deja Abancay. Contempla ir al Viejo, pero recuerda el pongo2 y decide no hacerlo. Sin embargo, Los ríos profundos es un trabajo de autoficción, y quizás podamos imaginar lo que Ernesto hará en el futuro a partir de Arguedas. Mencioné la dualidad de ternura y coraje en los grandes héroes y cómo Ernesto completa el viaje de su héroe cuando logra esos rasgos de carácter. En muchos sentidos, Arguedas refleja ese viaje también a través de su escritura. Demuestra amor por su tema, así como voluntad para discutir contenido incómodo. Cuando se escribió la novela, algunos escritores latinoamericanos estaban contando del continuo abuso de la población indígena en los Andes, y muchos se apresuraron a retratarlos como víctimas mansas o como criaturas místicas. Arguedas se aparta de esta narrativa en blanco y negro al basar al indio en la realidad. El indio tiene una conexión más profunda con la naturaleza, pero no es menos humano que un criollo o un mestizo, ni el indio nacido sumiso sólo porque los colonos han sido constreñidos por el orden social. Como cualquier otra gente, los indios son luchadores y víctimas, espiritualistas y pragmáticos. Se necesita una cierta dosis de valentía para escribir sobre la gran doña Felipa, tanto como se necesita empatía para escribir sobre la trágica violación de “la demente”. Arguedas ejerce su voz, no a través del sensacional zumbayllu, sino como el héroe de su propio monomito, y quizás esto es lo que le pasa a Ernesto después de su partida de Abancay. Bibliografía Arguedas, José María. Los ríos profundos. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1978. “Deep Rivers”. World Literature and Its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historic

Events That Influenced Them. Encyclopedia.com. Red.

DeVlieger, Kristi. “The Monomyth: The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell”. Grand Valley State

University Libraries, Grand Valley State University. Red.

2. Pongo es el nombre en el Perú para los cañones fluviales de gran profundidad y longitud que atraviesan cordilleras.

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Exile and Adaptation in Remedios Varo’s

Exploración de las fuentes del Río Orinoco (1959) Audrey Vo During the aftermath of WWI, surrealism grew as an artistic movement in Europe. It was best known for its unnerving and illogical aesthetics that sought to harness the creativity of the unconscious mind (Hibbitt, “Surrealism: The Art”). According to art historians Robert S. Short and Fraser Hibbitt, surrealism was revolutionary in essence, often intertwined with political causes, such as communism and anarchism, as a reaction against Facism in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century (Short 3; Hibbitt, “Surrealism: The Art”). Surrealist artists and writers grappled with these realities in their craft by uniting an alternate fantasy world with everyday life. One prominent figure in the movement was Remedios Varo, a Spanish painter born in the Catalan town of Anglès in 1908. Varo spent most of her childhood in Spain and received her artistic education at Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando. Throughout her upbringing, her father recognized Varo’s artistic gift and made an effort to educate her in the fields of scientific illustration, mysticism, and philosophy—integral cornerstones of surrealism—, taking her to Spanish museums such as the Prado where she found inspiration in the work of El Greco and Francisco de Goya (Lusty 56). However, she fled Spain in 1936 due to the Spanish Civil War, settling in Paris, only to relocate again in Mexico in 1942 in order to escape Nazi occupation (Kaplan 14). Varo then spent the remainder of her life in Mexico, except for a brief period between 1947 and 1949, when she joined a French expedition in Venezuela in search of gold. Her status as an exile had a profound significance in her artistry. Academic Janet Kaplan described Varo’s career thus: “Exiled from her homeland, she embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage, committing herself to a search for self-knowledge, restlessly looking in any direction that might offer new ways of knowing” (Kaplan 14). To Kaplan, Varo’s art—her life’s work—was a vessel to cultivate her personal exploration and discover “new ways of knowing” (14). I will investigate how Varo employed surrealist methods to translate her psychological experiences of exile and displacement in her 1959 painting Exploración de las fuentes del Río Orinoco, inspired by her time in Venezuela. This analysis will center around the subject of Varo’s piece: a solitary voyager surrounded by a mysterious body of water, searching for its elusive source. I will conduct this research by examining the painting’s iconography and formal aesthetics elements such as 151

occultism, situating them within surrealism. Finally, I will look at the title and inspiration for the painting—the Orinoco River in Venezuela—to address Varo’s exile as a journey of adaptation and creative exploration.

Varo’s 1959 oil painting depicts a brightly-lit dramatic dreamscape, in which the main

subject is a lone female traveler navigating an indefinite river, enveloped in a rounded orange vessel that bears uncanny resemblance to a fish, with machinery shaped like fins and tail. The river’s environment is mysterious and bizarre, with multiple barren trees that are partially underwater in the flooded woods, atop which black ravens perch and overlook the scene. A greygreen fog shrouds the river and intensifies beyond the trees, obscuring the dark environment beyond the painting’s foreground. Consequently, the subject is illuminated: a traveler of intention, guiding her ship, reaching the end of a quest for the “source of the Orinoco.” The androgynous-presented woman, dressed in a beige trench coat and black bowl hat, displays an aura of respectability and intrepidity, defying the unsettling state of solitude. In search of her destination, she uses two main pieces of gadgetry: a pair of bird wings pinned to the vessel’s apex and a miniature compass placed at the crest of the boat. The wings connect to strings that the woman controls, guiding her way in her mission.

The apotheosis of the daring voyager, or the way in which she reaches her final destination,

is telling of her psychology. What she discovers at the end of her voyage is a large tree hollow with a wooden round table, on which sits a wine glass with water miraculously spilling out of its brim—eliciting the holy grail—, creating the river of her travels: the Orinoco River. The tree hollow appears to bear a pathway beyond the wine glass, leading somewhere further than the tree could logically contain. These supernatural, magical attributes of Varo’s piece reflect the fascination with the occult among surrealist circles of the 1930s, including exiled artists Leonara Carrington and Wolfgang Paalen who were colleagues of Varo’s in Mexico (Bauduin 143). According to historian Tessel Bauduin, Varo employed occultism resolutely to integrate the unconscious into external world concepts. He explained that for Varo, “the magical and marvellous was an unhidden part of the real; [Varo] did not experience such a contradiction between the real and surreal” (Bauduin 136). In these ways, Varo’s exploration of occultism— an element of surrealism—allowed her to integrate her psychology into her painting’s real-life inspirations seamlessly. In Exploración de las fuentes del Río Orinoco, Kaplan similarly noted that Varo’s art is “double edged—both fanciful and autobiographical. The vest-coat bloat and flooded woods are wonderfully evocative dream-like images of subconscious travel. They also refer to real travels that Varo undertook in life”—namely, her exile from Spain and France (Kaplan 15). 152

The divine object at the end of the voyager’s journey is, then, perhaps not just Varo’s imaginary character embarking on a journey, but an expression of psychological transformation based on her experiences of exile. The painting’s boat situated within the massive body of water reflects that notion; it is a vessel for a lone traveler in a harrowing transatlantic voyage, an experience that Varo herself had to endure when she was exiled to Mexico as the Germans occupied France in WWII (Kaplan 14).

Despite the solitary condition of the voyager, Varo does not center on the suffering

or psychological pain of exile in her painting. Instead, Varo depicts the self-discovery and imaginative processes that come with geographic displacement through the voyager discovering Orinoco’s “source.” The intrepid posture exhibited by the female voyager, her refined clothing, and her mystical vessel suggest a hopeful sentiment, conjuring an atmosphere of grandeur on a fantastical stage. The figurative doorway beyond by the wine glass and its surreal path into the tree also reflects this idea of imaginative discovery and hope. To Varo, the solitude experienced as an exile may not be such a defamiliarizing experience, but one of enlightening exploration.

The scholar Camilla Sutherland noted that the voyager’s vessel “unsettles the conventional

association between dwelling and stasis, suggesting the possibility of intimacy and security of home accompanying one through ever-changing environments [...] and [...] proposes that home is inherent to a being’s body, or, more pertinently, that the dwelling place of most singular importance is, in fact, the self ” (Sutherland 28). Thus, Varo suggests, through her voyager’s boat, that displacement from homeland does not subtract from the psychological comfort of “home.” Instead, even within a transient environment, one finds the comfort of home in the self and the psyche. The painting’s environment is what the woman makes of it in her solitude. For Varo’s heroic voyager, her psychological journey is one of imagination, exploration, and discovery, namely for the “source of the Orinoco River.”

Remedios Varo’s outlook on the psychological experience of exile and movement can

perhaps be elaborated on by her experience in Venezuela, which was the inspiration for the title of her piece, Exploración de las fuentes del Río Orinoco. In 1947, Varo joined a Parisian expedition in search of gold, which was ultimately unsuccessful. However, the cultural dynamics of the exploration of Venezuela and the Orinoco River inspire much of the concepts in Varo’s piece. The notion of “gold” holds connotations of a quest for precious treasure similar to Varo’s “spiritual pilgrimage.” The mystical and mythologized discourse surrounding this source of the Orinoco during Varo’s expedition embodies the voyager’s journey for self-discovery and transformation in a new land. Natalya Frances Lusty summarized this cultural narrative regarding the Orinoco: 153

“Speculation concerning the possible discovery of the headwaters of the Orinoco preoccupied the media as a number of explorers came close to reaching the source of the great Orinoco … The “source” of the river had long been mythologized as one of the possible sites for the lost city of El Dorado” (Lusty 66). The river’s source, as described by Lusty, was a point of unfamiliarity but also intrigue for many European explorers, especially historically being a site of Spanish colonization. Combined with the expedition’s search for gold, the mythology of the Orinoco accentuates the painting’s holy grail and the personal transformation the voyager undergoes. Kaplan puts it this way: “The search for Varo’s protagonist here must be understood primarily on a psychological and spiritual level: here the gold is philosopher’s gold, the alchemical liquid of transformation [...] Varo uses exploration of the river’s source as a metaphor for the search for the self, enlightenment, the truth” (Kaplan 15). Here, Kaplan argues that the source of the river also functions as a source of creative enlightenment, offering a hopeful vision for the voyager in Varo’s piece. Exploration, then, becomes a way of dealing with exile and adapting to profound change in geographical and political circumstances.

It is important to note that Varo crafted Exploración de las fuentes del Río Orinoco nearly

10 years after her expedition in Venezuela, and nearly 20 years after her exile to Mexico. Her themes of self-discovery and transformation are enduring in nature, lasting within the identity of the explorer long after their journeys: this is precisely the encapsulating theme of Varo’s painting. But while her solitary state may suggest desperation and struggle, everything about this voyager suggests otherwise: her refined clothing, her magical vessel, her self-assuredness, and her destination. The fearless female voyager is on an expedition in search of the river’s elusive source and discovers it to be a wine glass of alchemical liquid brimming with endless magical substance. Varo suggests through the journey of her subject that the security and intimacy of homeland does not necessarily lie in the physical space itself, but rather, the individual and their psychological transformation in discovering this source. She uses the cultural mythology surrounding the source of the Orinoco River to establish that, when experiencing exile and geographic displacement, one can also see it as a process of exploration. Using surrealist art, Varo depicts exile as an experience and process in which a solitary individual can embark upon a transformative, fantastical journey of self-discovery, adaptation, and creation. As she faces change, Remedios Varo also finds artistic inspiration: she proposes to us how to live meaningfully in a very turbulent political environment.

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Bibliography Bauduin, Tessel M. “Magic in Exile.” Surrealism and the Occult: Occultism and Western Esotericism

in the Work and Movement of André Breton, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,

Amsterdam, 2014, 133–158. JSTOR.Web.

Hibbitt, Fraser. “Surrealism: The Art Of The Unconscious Mind.” The Collector,

August 12, 2020. Web.

Kaplan, Janet. “Remedios Varo: Voyages and Visions.” Woman’s Art Journal. 1980; vol. 1, no. 2,

13-18. Web.

Lusty, Natalya Frances. “Art, Science and Exploration: Rereading the Work of Remedios Varo.” Journal of Surrealism and the Americas. 2001; 5: 1–2, 55–76. Web. Short, Robert S. “The Politics of Surrealism, 1920-36.” Journal of Contemporary History. 1966;

vol. 1, no. 2, 1966, 3–25. JSTOR. Web.

Sutherland, Camila. “Shifting Realities: Surreality in the Work of Remedios Varo.” Opticon 1826,

vol. 13, 2012, 23–32. Web.

Varo, Remedios. Exploración de las fuentes del río Orinoco. 1959. Oil on canvas, Collection of

Antonio Souza, Mexico City. Web.

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Lejanía Alberto Quero Pienso en mi país. No el que es ahora, ni siquiera el que yo recuerdo durante las horas calladas y después de tanto océano de por medio, sino el que yo hubiera querido que fuera. Ninguno de ellos existe ahora. Un día, no hace mucho, mi hogar se volvió irreconocible, así que mi viaje comenzó de repente y continúa, lentamente. Me acostumbré a deambular por paisajes invisibles, a ahogar mi miedo y a creer que siempre hay un refugio donde puedo pasar la noche Pienso en la ciudad en que nací, como si no hubiera tenido que huir de ella acosado por algunos de mis propios compatriotas, rostros misteriosos que decidieron mi exilio. Mis anclas tal vez persistan, pero descubrí que siempre seré extranjero porque las fronteras son maleables en este silencio donde coinciden todos los furores

Pienso en mi ciudad Ella, espejismo. Yo, caminante solitario. Pienso en mi país. Él nunca terminará de existir. Yo nunca terminaré de volver. 156

Trans-Caribbean Thought:

A Manifesto for Renewal of Dutch Caribbean Studies in the Age of the Anthropocene Francio Guadeloupe & Charissa Granger All of the Antilles, every island, is an effort of memory; every mind, ever racial biography culminating in amnesia and fog. Pieces of sunlight through the fog and sudden rainbows, arcs-en-ciel. That is the effort, the labour of the Antillean imagination, rebuilding its gods from bamboo frames, phrase by phrase.—(Walcott, The Antilles: Fragments of epic memory) But islands can only exist if we have loved in them.—(Walcott, “Islands”) Mas muzik, mas ritmo, mas sonido: taking in and giving out as I-and-I vibrating

♪1

Tumba, gaita, aguinaldo, tambú, muzik di zumbi, simadan, séu: music. Gogorobi, wiri, agan, chapi, triangle, benta, bamba, bastel, carco, voice: instruments. Tree roots and trunks, bone, horn, shell, calbas/gourds, bamboo, metal, breath: materials.

♪♪ Let us be done with individualism! Let us be done with “I” and “You.” Let us be done with “us” and “them.” Instead of the implicit politics of separability bolstered by these pronouns—yes, grammar too enables coloniality!—in this manifesto that introduces Trans-Caribbean thought, “I,” “You,” “We,” and “They,” are replaced for I-and-I: a notion borrowed from the mystical strands and intentional language practices of Rastafari. Such a languaging aesthetic overstands that every person is actually singular-multiple, and contends that singularities are inextricably and opaquely related to all that is; in other words, to matter perpetually mattering, which is another name for earth dancing or rather “Relation!” I-and-I keeps the ipseity of self and other, as well as the division of singular and plural, under permanent erasure. Embodying an ethics of collectivity, first, second and third person collapse under the scrutiny of I-and-I as it revamps language to point to the impossibility of a single self.

Reverence for Relation, as that Martinican savant Édouard Glissant averred, is about

refusing to acquiesce with the imaginary borders between peoples, as well as between the varying expressions of life: bacterial, plant, insect, animal, chemical and mineral becoming. Closing 157

borders, seeking to disentangle life, hails symbolic and physical death: For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. (Baldwin 2017 [1964], 31). Trans-Caribbean thought as offered in this manifesto for Dutch Caribbean studies in the age of the Anthropocene is not new, but it is rather inspired by Baldwin, Glissant, Rastafari, and music praxis, a renewal of critical habits of action. It seeks to imagine and act beyond the aforementioned boundaries, starting from a specific place.

The I-and-I composing this manifesto in intertwined singular becoming depart from the

musics and instruments that are the sounds of the Papiamentu/o speaking Dutch Caribbean islands. Thinking and feeling from this epistemic location, geography matters because taking notice and caring specifically for the ground that sustains I-and-I matters. Do not, however, mistake this for methodological nationalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sounds of the Dutch Caribbean islands are in their very specificity regional and outernational, for as the Cuban theorist Antonio Benitez-Rojo (1996) explained long ago, el Caribe son islas que se repiten (the Caribbean is a repeating island).

Percussion instruments in the Dutch Caribbean are responsible for the riddim of the

various musical styles specifically expressing “Relation.” Most are handmade with materials sourced from nature, offered up from the plantation, from the kunuku. In communion with animals, in such a way that there is no separation between human and nonhuman, sheep, goats, donkeys and cows are part of the becoming of the islanders—their skins, horns, breath and jawbones are part of the islanders’ musicking and community meaning making practices across islands. There are intricate rituals and incantations of taking life from these creatures or using their remains. They live on every time the instrument is played as the life of the islanders is fused with theirs: a relation to earth, nature, environment, and critters that is brought about by sound and is germinal to music. In musicking I-and-I blow breath and speak through the cow horn— cachu—the islanders hear and recognize “Relation” in that act.

This music makes ambiance ambiente—esta un ambiente! so that knowledge can be

imparted through story-telling, daaance1, and sounding. To acquire knowledge about how to

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harvest, how to plant seeds—sembra simiya, a deep relation with the environment is needed, a temporary release from the clock time of capitalism is a prerequisite, to know when to pick or to dig up roots to make the rims of drums, tambú—only at full moon. Only this will produce a satisfactory sound to keep the islanders in “Relation.” Working the cow horn with glass, and the sheep skins with chalk and salt, all to produce a sound that is true to becoming without dominating the rest of what is.

As musicologists and anthropologists, I-and-I am concerned with the relationship

between music practice and adaptations to climate challenges. Within conventional Dutch Caribbean studies on climate challenges, music and dance among larger artistic practices receive little attention. What would such an attention, questioning and thinking through yield/offer discussions of climate change challenges to the Dutch Caribbean Island(er)s? I-and-I submit that in musicking, corporeal authority and community-authorship takes place that makes space and shows reverence for multiple existences and multiple ways of existing. A praxis of human-ing that embraces and is based on relationality and intimacy with life, here riffing on the Jamaican philosopher Sylvia Wynter (1984). Human-ing refuses individualism and self-interest, eluding identity politics that are ultimately premised on humanism. A deep engagement with the music, instruments, dances, and how these allow for gathering recognizes the sacrality of life; acknowledging “Relation” undoes humanocentrism. I-and-I contend that Dutch Caribbean music as part of larger Antillean practices, such as jouvay (the midnight revealing during the carnival season), in proper accord with life helps I-and-I to unwork a notion of human: a conception of creaturely life separable and separated from the rest of life. Through music, sounding, and other art practice I-and-I can think again the questions: What is this human? What would it mean to unravel the notion of human? What of human-ing? Dutch Caribbean musicking offers ways to think human-ing rather than the human, thus not a call to merely expand the post-enlightenment notion of human, or think alternative humanities, which unwittingly opens the doors to polygenesis, but a practice that already recognizes multiplicities. Without such a rethinking of the human, land exploitation, resource extraction, animal cruelty and extinction (even in the excolonies) will continue uninhibited, invested in and sustained by the capitalist project. A claim 1. Dr. Stines at the 2021 Philip Sherlock lecture. “Dance haal is revolution of the body”: “… If I was looking at daaance, I had to look it through the eyes of the dance and I had to become naked … I had to start from scratch … therefore if I become naked and yuh have zsight from my lived experience, resulting in my overstanding of Jamaica and the African retentions, the word dance was then becoming a problem. And so it became daaance with the 3 a’s so nobody a say dem a go a one dance hall, nobody say dem goin to the dance, you hear the people dem say me a go a one daaance.”

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to decolonization and decoloniality cannot really be earnestly made while maintaining and being maintained by this particular worlding. And what else is this worlding than the confluence of varied humanocentric weltanschauungen under the hegemony of North Atlantic polities.

The few music-making practices I-and-I discuss here undermine this exploitative and

extractive capitalist way of being, pointing to other ways of being in the world. Dutch Caribbean music offers much to think about in terms of sustainability and how to face climate change challenges as island(er)s. Another way is offered, music extends another imagined possibility to which attention must be paid. This requires a radical politics of care and a love such as that inspired by works of Derek Walcott (2004), Édouard Glissant (1997), James Baldwin (2021), Antonio Benitéz-Rojo (1996), Sylvia Wynter (1984), Toni Morrison (1987), as well as those who explicitly refer to themselves as black feminist and decolonial thinkers and feelers such as Hooks (2006), Lorde (2007), Lugones (1987), and June Jordan (2003).

Musiciking in the dark slavocratic and colonial times enabled the imagination and practice

of new forms of singular-multiple becoming, respectful of the nurturing ground of the islands. Those who had awakened from the colonial slumber respectfully used the bounty of the islands and those which arrived on ships to make music as a hymn to “Relation.” These hymns, to quote the Saint Lucian poetic tinker-thinker Derek Walcott, were “[p]ieces of sunlight through the fog and sudden rainbows, arcs-en-ciel. That is the effort, the labour of the Antillean imagination, rebuilding its gods from bamboo frames, phrase by phrase” (2004, 37). And since their gods were thus to be both there and here, boundaries were implicitly being deconstructed. In the 21st century that awakening through imagination and practice continues challenging sexism, xenophobia, ageism, transphobia, anti-blackness, nationalism, the nation-state, and the neatness of ontological borders. Today I-and-I can bid farewell to wanting to be human for human-ing, for care, which occasions this manifesto.

In confluence with this manifesto and a forthcoming edited volume (van der Pijl and

Guadeloupe 2022)², Sharelly Emanuelson, a Curaçaoan-Aruban artist and cultural critic who through her film-making amplifies sonic reconceptualization of the Dutch Caribbean islands, deserves mention here. Her latest offering is Yamada, a film documentary that celebrates the longevity and philosophy of Grupo Serenada, the oldest functioning choir on Curaçao, that is an integral part of island knowledge transmission, and is instructive on how to care. 2. The volume, entitled Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean (2022), contains essays by Charissa Granger and other scholar-artists on the Dutch Caribbean that seek to work from a Trans-Caribbean perspective.

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Emanuelson’s documentary shows how the very being of Dutch Caribbean

island(er)s is bound up with and in sound, showing how that music; its making; the memory, teachings and rememberings (in the sense of coming together or bringing back together) beckon I-and-I to become singular-multiple, and that this can only happen through a radical politics of care. Here is a summoning to the islanders to care for the body they are and do. The choir does this by inviting their audience to sing and dance along and therewith become conscientious of all the riddims and sounds in the bodies that iteratively constitute Curaçao, the Dutch Caribbean island(er)s, and the region at large, reviving the hymn to “Relation.”

Imparting knowledge that is bound up with pleasure, in other words, viscerally engaging

with the island and all the life that it nurtures, leads the islanders to an eventful carnal cognition. I-and-I in the many years studying with the islanders have experienced this fleshly enchanting knowledge, too. The latter is best conceptualized as a practice of Trans-Caribbeaning, which is to daaance flesh to flesh, human intellectual rhyming being enriched and thus undone by the nonhuman, the epitome of which is sound—again, human-ing. “In the beginning was the sound and they all knew what that sound sounded like” (Toni Morrison 1987: 305). Iron-sound, metalsound, sea-sound, river-sound, pond-sound, earth-sound, air-sound, plant-sound, animal-sound all reeducating human-sound, instructing on different ways of embodied being while baptized in motor oil, mud and paint, clouded in a dust of powder during jouvay. “when the riddim get away … the riddim sets yuh free, IzWE.” we want the world to see how the riddim gon’ set yuh free IzWe .....

Kes feat. Etienne Charles & Laventille Riddim Section—Esta un ambiente!

What I-and-I draw from listening and dancing to some of the sounds of the Dutch

Caribbean, in studying with the islanders, in Trans-Caribbeaning, is that there is no separation between human and non-human. Musicking offers a possibility to reimagine, rethink, and practice living in line with care for the environment. That care allows one to hear the crying earth.

The Anthropocene, which as Sylvia Wynter (2003; 1984) explained is a reckless attempt of

European Man to be culture relegating the rest of life to nature, is one of the preoccupations of Trans-Caribbean thought. How could it be otherwise! Can Trans-Caribbean thought, which is an ethical living that is always singular-multiple, always studying with the islanders, always I-and-I caring for matter, contribute to righting the wrong that is climate change?

Beyond what musicking does concretely in practice—namely, spreading awareness about 161

eating habits, working the land, and sustainability like wildfire in the form of harvest songs— antica di piki, the reaping songs, the planting songs that use plantation tools such as the chapi (the garden hoe) for making music; conceptually, with the islanders I-and-I can think through how such practices encourage an embrace of a politics of care for those parts that make up the islands (animal, plant, water, mineral, soil). But it all starts with eventful carnal cognition. What emerges from the Trans-Caribbeaning is a Trans-Caribbean thought, the basic premise of which is that one cannot tackle racisms, economic dependency, animal extinction and exploitation, and the Anthropocene, which are the European gifts bequeathed to the world, without a serious interrogation of humanocentrism.

♪2

Gathering in the hofi (yard) as the example of musical ensemble Grupo Oriri, parading

for seú festivities (the Curaçaoan harvest festival), and parading during jouvay can be imagined as a time, and performance, where music invites us to an interrogation of humanocentrism. The early morning or late night holds many forms of imaginings. Imagining other alternative ways of living, unsettlings that are performed in darkness, its colorful and dirty residue are only revealed at day break. Working with repurposed materials to make instruments that enable those multiple parts of oneself to resonate; or to make a costume or an evocative character, whether to instill fear or to lure and entice during jouvay, there is a refusal of capital consumerism, a call to construct something different, making such performances generative artistic spaces to think through humanocentrism. Moreover, in such practices of Trans-Caribbeaning, a different organizing system is made possible by moving, shouting, and revealing where the individualism and selfinterest is eluded and an ongoing act of building the communal is offered and sustained, even after the musicking event is concluded. This is a temporary space and a short-offered time of love, joy, and embracing the erotic, where how I-and-I daaance and move in jouvay, make instruments and sound out nature as part of ourselves allows for different futures to be imagined and new forms of human-ing that embrace a relation with the environment, other animals and ecosystems that refuse exclusion and make inequity inexact. And spirits? Yes, espiritunan, geesten, angels and orishas, and hauntings. In jouvay there is an ongoing conversation about how to human in singular-multiple ways as it instructs dancers, makers, and practitioners on how to live otherwise, an offering of how to live differently with each other, sensitive to relations between species, spirits, saints, mythical characters and various devils. A whole other ecosystem, disenchanted by difference, is imagined 162

and temporarily created in daaance and in music, particularly in riddim, making liberation possible. This is where art-making and imagining is the cure, according to Sylvia Wynter, in unworking humanocentrism, not to erase the human but to radically interrogate it. To human in accord with life processes. The importance of Trans-Caribbeaning is unworking, disaggregating humanocentrism. Living in a deeply relational way—caught up in the sound of the riddim that I-and-I become with all that materializes in the act of slowly bending a tree branch to make a benta, or hollowing out a tree trunk to make a drum, gaging the moon so that the necessary roots might be dug up or at 4a.m. under the strong buzz of the high voltage bass, the network of characters moving through the temporary time, space and place, while feeling ungoverned and ungovernable joy that cannot be co-opted. Small eruptions of freedom, to imagine, create, and be are embodied and carried out of that in-tune and attuned space and time. It is generative, germinating love, eluding the politics of difference, it is embodied in our very way of being, notwithstanding location, genre, or cultural praxis. This is Trans-Caribbeaning. I-and-I stand as relation to the environment through musicking. When I-and-I think and otherwise act, I-and-I think and otherwise act in accord and as a chord in order to become to-get-there, to maintain, to create ambiente. Glossary Rastafari: Religious and political movement that began in Jamaica in the 1930s. It was adopted by many groups around the globe, combining Protestant Christianity, mysticism, and a pan-African political consciousness. Rastafarianism has no official dogma, formal ‘church’, or conversion process. Anthropocene: A proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change. Jouvay: Derived from French patois and means ‘daybreak.’ Jouvay marks the official start of the two day carnival celebrations in Trinidad & Tobago. Weltanschauungen: Means “worldview” in German. Espiritunan: Spirit. Geesten: Spirit. In Caribbean folk belief, the Geesten spirit is the vital principle or animating force within all living things. Orishas: Spiritual mediators between the human and spiritual realms. 163

Bibliography Baldwin, James. Nothing Personal. Boston: Beacon Press, 2021 [1964]. Benitez-Rojo, Antonio. The Repeating Island: the Caribbean and the Postmodern

perspective. Second Edition. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.

Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of Relation. [Translated by Betsy Wing] Michigan: University of

Michigan Press, 1997.

Hooks, Bell. Love as a Practice of Freedom in Outlaw Culture. New York: Routledge, 2006. Hooks, Bell. All about love: New visions. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Hooks, Bell. Salvation: Black people and love. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Hooks, Bell. Communion: The female search for love. New York: Harper Perennial, 2003. Jordan, June. Some of us did not die: New and selected essays. New York: Basic Civitas

Books, 2003.

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007. Lugones, María. Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception,Vol. 2, No.2, pp. 3-19. Cambridge: Hypatia Inc., 1987. McKittrick, Katherine, ed. Sylvia Wynter: On being human as praxis. Durham: Duke

University Press, 2015.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Vintage International, 1987. Walcott, Derek; Hallengren, Anders. The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory in Nobel

Laureates In Search Of Identity And Integrity: Voices of Different Cultures. Singapore:

World Scientific Publishing, 2004.

Wynter, Sylvia. Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the

Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument’ The New Centennial

Review, Volume 3, No. 3, pp. 257-337. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press,

2003. Wynter, Sylvia. The Ceremony Must be Found: After Humanism, Boundary 2, Vol.12/13, No.

3, pp. 19-70. Durham: Duke University Press, 1984.

Van der Pijl, Yvon; Guadeloupe, Francio (editors). Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean: Ways

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of Being Non/Sovereign. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, forthcoming 2022.

Migración y poscolonialismo: una literatura de distinción Juan Rivera Arroyo Dice Borges: “Es un error suponer que todas las palabras deben usarse”, y da el ejemplo de la palabra azulado y sus aparentes sinónimos azulenco, azulino, azuloso. Al argentino le parece que sólo azulado se puede escribir porque es la palabra más común, la que la gente ocupa en el habla. El resto son vanidades barrocas del escritor; aunque sean ligeramente diferentes, transmiten la misma idea, dice. Víctimas consecuentes de esta lógica pragmática, la palabra migración y sus afines han diluido sus significados y han terminado por ser, en la conciencia popular, tan diversas como dos lágrimas. Migración, inmigración y emigración, por ejemplo, han corrido con la suerte de la familia de la palabra azulado, y se han vuelto conceptos de colores tan iguales que a la hora de pintar un cielo da lo mismo usar uno u otro.

Para comenzar a hablar de la relación entre migración y colonialismo, se requiere un ejercicio

contrario al que propone Borges: ver en los mínimos detalles disparidades atroces.

La migración es el desplazamiento geográfico de un grupo de personas. Es un viaje con dos

perspectivas posibles. Se llama emigración desde el lugar del que parte el grupo; inmigración, desde el lugar al que llega.

Esta delicadez léxica encierra la clave narrativa de la literatura poscolonial.

Primera clasificación de esta relación: determinar si el que narra es el nativo, el extranjero, o

solo un observador.

Heredera de la complejidad, la literatura poscolonial se niega a reducir la variedad de

narradores a tan limpia tercia; lo sutil comienza cuando la obra literaria es engendrada por el descendiente de las dos razas, la nativa y la extranjera. Entonces el espectro de azul se vuelve mucho más refinado. El hombre de raíces coloniales que viaja al imperio y adopta las costumbres extranjeras; el hombre de raíces extranjeras que viaja a la colonia y adopta las costumbres nativas. Azules que coquetean con el blanco y el negro.

Ensayemos: México nombra emigrantes a sus hijos que se marchan a Estados Unidos;

allá los bautizan inmigrantes. Los inmigrantes en México son los centroamericanos que quieren cruzar la frontera norte; en sus países, los nombran emigrantes. Todos son migrantes. Estados Unidos fue fundado por trece colonias de ingleses; se trataba de inmigrantes, pues la tierra que 165

pisaban y que designaban suya, de entonces en adelante, le pertenecía por antigüedad a una rica variedad de nativos. Y aquí una constante: quienes acusan de inmigración a veces son ellos mismos inmigrantes. Se cree que los nativos norteamericanos migraron desde el continente asiático, a través del estrecho de Bering, hace doce mil años. Quienes acusan de inmigración a veces son ellos mismos inmigrantes.

La disputa de procedencia en una esfera no es sensata: la propia forma de la Tierra sugiere

unicidad. No se valora qué parte del balón entró primero en el arco; el gol es la redondez entera. Si el nomadismo establecía el orden social desde la prehistoria, es probable que los primeros cantos del hombre eran ya poscoloniales.

La literatura poscolonial se encarga en buena parte de hacer un ejercicio mellizo al de

disimilitud entre las palabras migración, inmigración y emigración. Es su afán distinguir la sustancia de dos palabras, de dos naciones.

Quizá recaiga en este ejercicio el valor de la literatura poscolonial: distinguir los unos

de los otros. En principio, la literatura poscolonial lucha contra tres tipos de generalizaciones: la geográfica, la racial y la religiosa o de costumbres. Incluso en tiempos tan informados como los de ahora, la distracción, la pereza y el desinterés dominan el humor popular; resumimos en una caricatura todo un continente, una raza, una creencia. Por ejemplo, de tanto oír los hechos bélicos de los pueblos de Medio Oriente, el hombre occidental termina por imaginar una sola área de conflicto: en su mente se borran las fronteras. Y de ese modo permanece el vicio de ver en un negro a todos los negros y en un blanco a todos los blancos, vicio tan antiguo como falaz. La generalización es una consecuencia de ignorancia, mas se trata de una ignorancia cándida, pues para eliminarla tendría el hombre que dedicar la vida entera a la visita de naciones y tribus por el mundo y al estudio de identidades, y terminaría entonces por desenraizar su propia existencia. Y así la suerte del lingüista obsesionado con la especificidad de cada una de las palabras del diccionario: al final sólo conseguiría enrarecer su habla al límite de manejar un lenguaje distinto al materno.

La literatura poscolonial tiene la virtud de completar el viaje, de abolir esa ignorancia

cándida, sin mover más que las hojas.

Otra sutileza del léxico que se debe tomar en cuenta es la del término poscolonial y las

palabras vecinas.

Empecemos por colonia. Dentro del campo semántico que nos interesa, la palabra tiene tres

acepciones, y ascienden en nivel de perversidad. La primera es la de un conjunto de personas de un país que van a otro con el fin de establecerse ahí; colonia es gente que sueña. La segunda acepción es la del lugar donde esta gente se establece; colonia es tierra firme. La tercera es la de un territorio 166

dominado por una potencia extranjera; colonia es tierra violentada. La sucesión de estas acepciones es una representación del propio proceso de colonización. Por lo general, la conciencia popular sólo conoce el tercer significado.

Una palabra clave es colonato, que se refiere, según la Real Academia Española, estrictamente

al sistema de explotación de las tierras por medio de los colonos. Lleva en su variación ortográfica el hervor del colonialismo europeo.

Desempato las palabras colono y colonizador. Aquél es, según su raíz etimológica, quien

cultiva la tierra, y éste el que la maltrata. El colono la habita con trabajo y estirpe; su motivación es la permanencia: morirá ahí. El colonizador la invade y le exprime riquezas a costa de los nativos; su motivación es la economía: añora su patria.

El prefijo que lleva la palabra poscolonialismo delata su temperamento natural: la resaca. El

después es la génesis de la literatura poscolonial, pero puede hablar de lo que sucedió antes o de lo que sucede ahora. La condición de resaca le otorga madurez en la reflexión: hablar de embriaguez al momento de beber es confuso y la premura afecta el discurso; en cambio, la resaca significa recapacitación. A menudo, la más sobresaliente y objetiva ponderación de lo sucedido –la guerra, la esclavitud, la invasión– ocurre cuando la sociedad nativa vive algunas décadas en total soberanía: el preso entiende de verdad la libertad varios meses después de su restitución. Las obras poscoloniales parten de la asimilación de su propia identidad; se reconocen como el resultado ulterior de una tragedia; quieren ser bálsamo para sus compatriotas y denuncia para el resto del mundo.

Algo de macabro tiene el hecho de que la urbanización actual recaiga, en muchos casos, en

el establecimiento de colonias dentro de las ciudades. Pertenecer a una colonia es tan ordinario para el poblador que su dirección postal incluye el dato. Algunas colonias tienen mayor prestigio que otras; algunas colonias definen el estilo de vida de sus hijos. Nada distinto ocurrió con las antiguas colonias europeas.

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The Avenue Del Encanto A Photographic Essay

Rachel Yaker Graham Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn has been named “Avenue of Puerto Rico” and has been the center of a Puerto Rican-American neighborhood since the 1950s. From the moment you step on the block, you are saturated with national pride. Even the street signs are decorated with banners that are the colors of the Puerto Rican flag. The neighborhood contains a rich cultural history, dating back to the 1940s, when Puerto Rico’s economic hardships and labor tensions led to mass unemployment, resulting in migration from the land known as “la isla de encanto” to the United States. At the time, New York City was a major industrial location with vast job opportunities. Today, the Avenue of Puerto Rico is home to an abundance of people and businesses that carry on Puerto Rican traditions. Many second and even third-generation Puerto Ricans are still keeping their culture alive.

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Photography has the power to reveal, underscore, state and provoke. In this photography research, I found a clear statement of the grounding of Puerto Rican culture and its symbols through the occupation of space, the construction of cultural and business landscapes, the endurance of linguistic practices and the symbolic embodiment of culture. My vision led me at times to see a harmonious blending of U.S. and Puerto Rican symbols in spite of the real ideological dissonances that do exist between the U.S. and its colony. Through the images we are able to see the lasting influence of Puerto Rican culture on the streets of Brooklyn. By focusing on the people, their social values, and their historic cultural ties, photography becomes a reaffirmation of Puerto Rican society and culture in the neighborhood.

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Boricua College is a Puerto Rican institution founded in 1974. It is situated along the Avenue of Puerto Rico and is the center for higher education within the community. The school’s ideal placement helped to diminish the education gap within the Hispanic community by providing equal education and leadership opportunities to minorities. One of the unique principles of the school is its curriculum, which makes culture and education inseparable. This unbreakable bond begins with the very name of the school: the term “Boricua” comes from “Borikén,” the name the Taíno population gave the island of Puerto Rico. It serves to ground Puerto Rican identity firmly outside of any colonial power. Boricua College is also different from other schools, requiring all faculty and staff to be well versed in both English and Spanish. This multicultural approach to learning is one of the many ways that the school has adapted to the needs of the “unique student population” (Boricua College, “Missions and Goals”). 171

Many of the side streets are also filled with Puerto Rican history, as seen on Moore Street. In the early years after the Great Depression, Moore Street was known for its abundance of street vendors. In 1941, Moore Street Market opened to the public. Moore Street Market, also known by the community as “La Marqueta,” consists of a series of distinct vendors that provide unique products to the community. Some of the vendors include Hispanic produce stands, restaurants, and religious institution shops. Moore Street Market caters to its community and is a “haven for immigrants and low-income people in the community to get affordable foods and products” (Gomez, Log in or Sign up to View). The market is more than just a place to shop; it is a location dedicated to serving the community. The market ensures that everyone is welcomed by displaying signs in both languages and creating activities in which everyone can participate. The market hosts biweekly free social events, bringing the community together. The market is a primary example of how the Hispanic customs are integrated and preserved in Brooklyn. 172

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Newspapers, Immigrants, and Expats:

Non-Spanish-Speaking Populations in Argentina Sophia Moore Introduction—How does the language of immigrants maintain itself while facing the pressure of assimilation? As part of an NYU Buenos Aires internship, I interned with the newspaper Buenos Aires Times, dedicated to providing a variety of news in English. My work with them sparked a series of questions regarding the relationship of newspapers, immigration, and the maintenance of heritage culture. I will focus on European-Argentine non-Spanish-language news publications in order to examine the status of the non-Spanish speaking communities in Argentina, particularly Buenos Aires, coming from Europe. What kind of groups make up these communities? Are they inward facing or integrated with national culture? Are they transient, new arrivals, or have their families lived in Argentina for generations? And, broadly, what is Argentina’s history as it relates to a multifaceted, multilingual national culture? My study concedes that the European migration is only a fraction of the voluntary or forced migrations into Argentina, and understands that other studies are needed to explore the substantial immigration to Argentina from non-European countries.

I have utilized a literature review process in order to analyze and extrapolate pertinent

information from an existing academic body of work concerning European ethnic groups in Argentina and the status of their respective languages. English was a particular focus due to my internship placement. I was able to locate and speak with members of the Anglo-, Irish-, Italoand German-Argentine communities, all of which have news publications currently produced in their own native languages. Additionally, I facilitated several original interviews with editors of foreign-language publications in Argentina, members of official foreign-heritage associations and expatriates living in Argentina. Background According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Argentines are “a people who are almost all of European ancestry.” It was “a great wave of European immigration after the mid-1800s” that “molded the present-day ethnic character of Argentina.” Indigenous and Black Argentines were gradually integrated into the larger white population as a substantial number of Europeans immigrated into the country. 180

Britannica reports that “almost half of the European immigrants in the late 19th and

early 20th centuries were Italian, and about one-third were Spanish.” Other important ethnic groups were the British, Russians, Poles, Germans, and French. By the 1910s, about a third of the population was foreign-born, and in large cities the ratio could be closer to two-thirds. According to the 1914 Argentine census, 80% of the population at that time were either immigrants themselves, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants (Rock). Between the 1850s and 1950s, over 6.6 million Europeans arrived in Argentina, taking part in one of the largest influxes of immigration in history (“Inmigrantes”).

In Buenos Aires, the largest port city and a hub for immigration, “Immigrant Hotels”

were built in the early 20th century to accommodate these waves of European migrants, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands per year (“Hoteles”). The capital was popularly dubbed “the Paris of South America,” and the inhabitants “porteños,” emphasizing the importance of immigration, principally from Europe, by sea.

In the year 2000, over 86% of Argentines were of purely European descent, plus an

additional 6.5% mestizo population, meaning a mix of European and Indigenous heritage (Chart). Clearly, Spanish conquest and later waves of European immigration left a lasting mark on the ethnography, and therefore culture, language, and traditions, of the Argentine people.

Despite Spanish’s status as the de facto official language of Argentina, and Spain’s

undisputable influence over Argentine culture, other European cultures have certainly taken root and perhaps even surpassed Spain’s influence. In the following subsections, I will introduce the four ethnic groups in question, as well as their respective newspapers: Italians, Germans, Irish, and English. Academic and other research will constitute the background information, which will be supplemented by analysis of interviews with current community members of these groups. In addition, the influence of today’s English-speaking expatriates and English learners (as opposed to non-Spanish-speaking members of heritage communities), and the implications of the dominance of English language in education, business, and commerce will be discussed. Italian-Argentines and L’Italiano Argentina, as well as other American countries, began to receive a large influx of Italian immigrants in the period between the 1880s and 1920s, amounting to over 2 million individuals within that time period (Baily 52). The majority of those who emigrated to Argentina originally hailed from central and northern Italy, according to Herbert S. Klein’s “The Integration of Italian Immigrants into the United States and Argentina: A Comparative Analysis” (308). According to Klein, 181

“farmers and farm laborers made up […] over two-thirds of the Italians arriving in Argentina” (313). This was consistent with the labor force in their native Italy, where over half of the total adult male workforce labored in the agriculture market. Many were attracted to Argentina by the relative abundance of farmland and opportunities within reach to become self-sustaining farmers (320). They “were concerned with accumulating savings through the higher wages available in the Americas,” and “assumed that those savings would be invested back in Italy” (328). However, “in the Argentine situation the relative economic opportunities were such that many immigrants were attracted to invest their savings in the local economy” (328), staying in Argentina and becoming a part of the permanent national fabric.

Later, Italians went on to “dominate the manufacturing sector” in Argentina (323), the

gateway to future business control and economic power. Klein suggests that the fact that Italians shared the same linguistic root and Catholic faith with the existing Spanish Argentine culture allowed them to assimilate easily (317). “In Argentina, the Italians were among the first massive group of immigrants to arrive and could establish immigrant norms of integration,” Klein wrote. In fact, Italians made up 39% of foreign-born residents and 12% of the entire population in the 1914 Argentine census (318). As a result, “rapid integration of the resident Italian population into the national economy” of Argentina soon followed. “Italian-born Argentine residents were well represented in every occupation of the nation and were generally over-represented in the category of land owners” (323), wrote Klein, even though around half of all Italian immigrants from this period eventually returned to their homeland. By 1914, the Italians had shown “extraordinary success for a people who had only just entered the national economy and were still overwhelmingly of the first generation.”

Italian immigration to all countries dropped off after the first World War and the

development of Fascism in Italy, stopping by the start of the Great Depression. After World War II, another 380,000 Italians emigrated to Argentina (Mignone 213). In 2011, the National University of La Matanza estimated that up to 30 million Argentines today, or more than 60% of the country’s population, have at least one Italian ancestor (“Inmigrantes”). Over 500,000 Italian citizens were living in Argentina in 2004 (“Italiani nel Mondo” 3), according to a report by the Catholic Diocese of Turin. According to Brittanica, “The Italian influence on Argentine culture became the most important of any immigrant group, and Italian is still widely spoken in Buenos Aires” (“Argentina”).

Italian is spoken by more than 1.5 million Argentines, and is considered the second most

common native language (Lewis). Beyond that, the sheer amount of Italians in Argentina even 182

affected the Spanish dialect of the nation, especially in the area around Buenos Aires, providing many slang and loan words as well as affecting speech patterns and accents (Colantoni 107-119).

I focused my work on L’Italiano, an Italian-language newspaper based in Italy but first

published in Argentina in 2006. While there were most likely Italian-language periodicals published in Argentina in the past, I have yet to find a reliable record of these. Additionally, it is unclear whether L’Italiano is still in print, as the official website appears to be defunct and no member of the paper’s staff was available for comment. One interviewee, Marcelo Bomrad of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Argentina, worked at L’Italiano as co-director from 2013 to 2016, but did not have any current information (Bomrad).

What is known for sure is that L’Italiano was created in 2006 by Gian Luigi Ferretti, to

serve not only Italians in Argentina but worldwide: it would be “the only newspaper for Italians in the world published in Italy and distributed abroad to address all Italians in the world and not those of certain countries or areas.” Ferretti, the director, hoped for an eventual circulation of 100,000 copies by the second year of operation, and said he would employ “professional journalists and first-rate publicists” and other “important people” with experience in the journalism field (L’Italiano).

In 2010, the paper switched gears, becoming fully focused on the Italo-Argentine experience

while still being published fully in Italian. In a YouTube video Ferretti explained that the objective of the paper would now be to “ensure that our reality as Argentine Italians is also known in Italy,” and to “bring Italians in Argentina to the Italians in Italy” (Ferreti). Editor-in-chief Stefano Pelaggi explained in the same video that the new iteration of L’Italiano would be entirely focused on Argentine happenings: “We look forward to new news, always from Argentina.”

According to archives of the official website, L’Italiano was/is a daily paper running from

Tuesdays through Saturdays in the Buenos Aires metro area, with a reported circulation of 10,000 copies in addition to on-line access.

The publication also took it upon itself in 2011 to curate a collection of historical and

social research about global Italian emigration entitled “Italia nel Mondo.” Ferretti and Pelaggi explained that the project’s purpose would be to “make available to a wide public a series of works to promote the historical understanding of the Italian migratory phenomenon, the perspectives of the organizations that deal with Italians in the world, the possibility of interaction between Italian descendants and institutions that deal with the promotion of Italian culture abroad and the internationalization of markets” (“Nasce con L’Italiano”).

Clearly, from these examples alone it is obvious that the presence of an Italian-language 183

newspaper in Argentina facilitates the continuation of not only spoken and written Italian, but also an appreciation of Italian culture and values, as well as exploration into the Italian diasporic community of the area. This is not to say that these activities and interests would not have occurred without L’Italiano, but rather to emphasize the point that a vibrant, involved local news publication can have a profound effect on a community’s sense of culture and belonging. German-Argentines and Argentinisches Tageblatt German migration to Argentina stretches as far back as Italian migration, although it did not have as significant an impact on Argentine culture. According to Ronald C. Newton’s 1982 paper “Indifferent Sanctuary: German-Speaking Refugees and Exiles in Argentina, 1933-1945,” 100,000 German speakers had migrated to Argentina by the 1914 census (Newton 397). A significant number of these were Volga Germans, who originally settled in the Volga Valley of Russia during the 1700s, but were persecuted by the Russian government by the late 1800s. Some Volga Germans decided to flee to other nations, among them Argentina, where an 1881 census of the community counted over 1,500 Volga German individuals in six villages (Gottig).

During the 1920s, Argentina was seen as a “land of the future,” a dream which “exerted a

great pull on the German imagination.” More than 130,000 more Germans arrived in Argentina at that time, though Newton believes up to one half left eventually due to lack of funds (Newton 398). The Slovenes were also a part of the historically Germanic Habsburg monarchy. Between 1876 and 1910, Slovenes accounted for 10% of all immigration to Argentina from the Austrian Empire, according to “The Slovene Immigrant Community in Argentina Between the Two World Wars” by Rado Genorio. According to Italian statistics cited by Genorio, over 10,000 Slovenes were recorded emigrating to Argentina from Fascist Italy between 1926 and 1934, with the actual number probably being much higher; from 1919 to 1939, over 2,000 additional Slovenes emigrated from Yugoslavian territory to Argentina to settle permanently.

When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, Argentina “received more Jewish refugees

per capita than any other country in the world except Palestine,” numbering at about 43,000 mostly German speakers (395). Additionally, “in the years to 1945, Argentina also experienced a smaller influx of non-Jewish Germans and Austrians, an indeterminate portion of whom were anti-Nazi exiles” (396). Germany’s cooperative relationship with Argentina had been longstanding. German and Argentine scientists had worked together at the University of Córdoba since the 1870s, with “German academics [gaining] influence in all the university science faculties, particularly those at Buenos Aires and La Plata” (399). More importantly, Argentina’s neutral 184

position during the First World War had been “a fact of great importance to German industrialists and policy planners,” wrote Newton. “German capital holdings in Argentina actually increased during the war years and were augmented again in the early 1920s by major investments, notably in dependencies of the great German chemical, pharmaceutical, metallurgical, electrical, and heavy construction combines” (398). In the 1930s, Nazi Germany continued to invest heavily into Latin America, facilitating even more profits. “Lavishly funded ‘cultural exchanges,’ most of them organized by the Argentine-German Cultural Institute (ICAG) of Buenos Aires” for professionals were common through the 1930s, bringing “young influentials” from Argentina to see Nazi Germany in a favorable light and exposing them to German history and culture (400). Newton believes that this was “a concerted and well-financed campaign to win adherents on the Argentine right, civilian and military, with excellent results” by the German diplomatic mission and the intelligence services (401).

Despite the effort by the Nazi Party and the right wing of both nations, “a steady

movement of German leftists and republicans to Argentina” began in the 1920s (402), creating and strengthening many organizations of the same left-wing and Socialist inclinations. The daily newspaper Argentinisches Tageblatt, which began as a weekly German-language paper in Buenos Aires in the 1870s, and became a daily in 1889, was one of those institutions (Christoph). The paper continues to be published fully in the German language today, both in a weekly print edition and online. As for its readership, according to the German Embassy, an estimated one million Germans and German descendants lived in Argentina in 1994 (“Story: Years of Work and Growth”). In 2007, the descendants of Volga Germans alone in Argentina were estimated at over 2,000,000 by the Center of Argentine-Volga German Culture (Schimpf ).

German culture and language live on through initiatives such as the Argentinisches Tageblatt,

which has an estimated print circulation of 15,000, and German-language schools such as the Pestalozzi Schule, founded by Ernesto Alemann in 1934 as a K-12 school for over 1,200 students focused on the promotion of “education for freedom and the encounter of cultures,” according to the school’s official site. Anglo-Argentines: From The Southern Cross, the Bulletin, the Buenos Aires Times

The following information regarding British history in Argentina is mostly derived from a

telephone interview in July 2021 with Ian Gall, editor-in-chief of the Bulletin magazine produced by the Argentine-British Community Council. Gall, whose father is Scottish and his mother English, is also a first-generation Anglo-Argentine. 185

“To a certain extent, we all assimilated,” says Gall. According to him, the British first began

arriving in Argentina from the late 1700s to early 1800s, with representation from all four British kingdoms—English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish. British forces arrived from the South African Cape Colony in order to take over Argentina, which was at the time a Spanish colony. Facing tough opposition, the British were unsuccessful. Some of the defeated soldiers remained in Argentina.

Businessmen began arriving shortly after, augmenting the growing British community in

Argentina. The Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation Treaty of 1825 between Argentina and Great Britain helped cultivate a close relationship between the two nations. The Britons recognized Argentina’s new independence from Spain, with Argentina reciprocating the gesture by allowing British investment and trade in Argentina. By the 1830s, over 3,000 English speakers were living in Argentine territory (Tocalli-Beller 109). Britain spent a substantial amount of capital in Argentina, establishing the railway, waterworks, gas systems, telephone, banking, and a large number of British social clubs.

According to “The Irish in Argentina: Irish English Transported” by Carolina P. Amador-

Moreno, over 40,000 mostly English-speaking Irish emigrated to Argentina during the 19th century, “becoming the largest Irish community in the Spanish-speaking world” (Amador Moreno 289). Over 60% of Irish immigrants in 1869 worked as “rural laborers” in the Argentine wool sharecropping industry, with many moving up the ranks to eventually become landowners (293). Irish settlers in Argentina prioritized preserving their language, customs, and culture “for three or even four generations”, an initiative that was only aided by their tendency to isolate themselves in small farming communities away from the big, multicultural city (290). According to AmadorMoreno, Irish-Argentines did not become Spanish-English bilingual as a group until the generation born after the Great War (295). Today, about 700,000 Argentines have Irish heritage, with the community now being fully bilingual (298).

A newspaper, The Southern Cross, was founded in 1875 by a Catholic priest named Patrick

Dillon, and was originally written entirely in English, “immediately assum[ing] an entirely Argentine identity … in having held on throughout the years to a treasure common to both Irish and Argentine cultures, which is undoubtedly the Catholic faith” (“Quiénes somos”). Currently, The Southern Cross is published monthly and covers domestic and international news as well as cultural and social matters pertaining to the Irish-Argentine community. Due to the Spanish language’s increasing grip on the Irish-Argentine community, the publication has all but completely switched to Spanish. 186

Members of all four British kingdoms continued to arrive through the 1800s, with the last

to arrive after the Second World War. Some new arrivals married other Ango-Argentines, while others intermixed with the larger culture. According to Gall, nearly all Anglo-Argentines today speak Spanish and attend regular Argentine schools, with many descendants being the result of mixed marriages between Britons and Spaniards or Italians, and between the Anglican and Presbyterian faiths (which are typically British) and the Catholic faith (which was typical of other ethnic groups). Some families are no longer fully bilingual with English, often due to the number of successive generations removed from the initial immigrants.

The Bulletin magazine, which Gall edits, was founded during the Second World War

“to promote the welfare of the Argentine British Community in Argentina,” according to its official website. Gall has worked there as a graphic designer since 2003, and as editor since 2006. According to him, the magazine is a “repository of everything Anglo-Argentine and British in history.”

Currently, 750 copies of each issue are printed per quarter, entirely in English, down from

a previous circulation of 2,000 issues. Other readers access The Bulletin completely online. The project is managed and funded by the Argentine-British Community Council (ABCC), which was founded by British Ambassador Sir Esmond Ovey in 1939 as a means of synergizing the war effort among Britons living in Argentina (“About the ABCC”). The ABCC also sponsors events throughout the year to fundraise and bring the community together, including tag sales, a family fair, Christmas market, and opera ball held at the British Ambassador’s residence in Buenos Aires.

Sandra Handley, manager of the ABCC and active participant in the Anglo-Argentine

community, estimates the size of the “core” Anglo-Argentine population to be around 10,000 individuals—“very small for a city with thirty million people” (Handley). She added that the ABCC has representatives in 19 of the Argentine provinces.

In addition to The Bulletin, another English-language publication has been influential in

Argentina since its founding as a weekly paper in 1876 by Scotsman William Cathcart. The Buenos Aires Herald later became a daily print, reverting back to a weekly edition in 2016. The Herald’s courageous reporting on forced disappearances during Argentina’s military regime earned it the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding reporting on Latin America in 1976 (Moli). Editor-inchief Robert Cox was critical of the Argentine military regime’s human rights abuses of the 1970s and 80s, and was forced into hiding because of his exposés.

In a statement from 2016, a representative said, “the Herald has been facing difficulties for a

while now … [the change to a weekly edition] also reflects a media industry in crisis.” At that time, 187

circulation of the Herald was reported as 29,000 from Monday to Saturday and 35,000 on Sunday, with the web edition boasting more than 160,000 unique users and 1 million page views monthly (Moli). After 140 years of continuous English language publication, the paper shut down in July 2017 due to financial difficulties (“Cierra el Buenos Aires Herald”).

Only a few weeks later, a new English-language paper began to be published, following

in the Herald’s footsteps. The Buenos Aires Times (BA Times) is now run by editor-in-chief James Grainger, a British expatriate and former Herald employee. According to Grainger, at the time of the Herald’s closure, the level of circulation was not enough to justify a standalone 32-page daily, or even weekly, edition (Grainger). To “kill two birds with one stone,” Grainger decided to format the BA Times as a printed weekend edition tucked inside the Saturday and Sunday copies of Perfil, a Spanish-language industry-leading paper.

According to Grainger, while the Herald was a very Anglo-Argentine and British expatriate-

focused paper, social media has largely replaced the functions the former publication used to serve in the community: sports results, letters, life announcements, classifieds, and the like. Under Cox’s leadership, the Herald became political, more than just “an expat paper.” Now, the BA Times is a multipurpose paper, featuring local stories for the community, world news, economy, politics, culture, and opinion and analysis. Regarding the print audience, Grainger believes it mostly reaches the traditional Anglo-Argentine community, young non-Anglo Argentines with English skills who desire an unbiased news diet, and other English-speaking expatriates and diplomats like himself. I served as an intern at the BA Times. Regarding the expatriate and English-speaking community in Argentina According to 2006 data from the British Broadcasting Corporation, there are approximately 8,300 British citizen expatriates living in Argentina today, with only 1,000 living in the Falkland Islands/ Malvinas (“Brits Abroad: South America”). Considering this small number, English language holds a disproportionate influence on the business, economic, academic and other sectors in Argentina due to Britain’s historic investment in Argentine infrastructure and resulting elevated social status.

English has been taught in private Anglo-Argentine schools since the 1830s (Tocalli-Beller

109-110). The public Colegio de la Unión del Sud hosted the first English class in Argentina in 1818, and in 1826 the University of Buenos Aires premiered its first course of English (TocalliBeller 113).

In Argentina, due to its being a multiethnic and multicultural society, “linguistic and

cultural diversity is a familiar phenomenon in people’s daily lives,” wrote Melina Porto in “The 188

Role and Status of English in Spanish-Speaking Argentina and Its Education System: Nationalism or Imperialism?” English, however, is seen as a “language of international communication, lingua franca, or global language,” with these factors also transmitting status and prestige. Since 2007, English has been a compulsory class in Argentine primary and secondary schools, an initiative that began with the first introduction of English as a foreign language in public schools in that country in the 1960s (Porto).

In a different 2016 study, Porto found that English-language curriculum had not been

executed properly in all regions of Argentina, with “significant provincial disparities in terms of implementation and development,” especially those lacking a population of English heritage speakers (Porto 21). According to a source cited by Porto, English language education “is a way of ensuring that all [Argentine] children, notwithstanding their contextual circumstances, can have access to an international language that can facilitate their participation as citizens of the world” (Porto 21).

For those Argentines seeking employment or higher education since the 1990s, English is a

“symbol of prestige and modernity, a ‘means of social ascension’,” wrote Paul Maersk Nielsen in his 2003 paper “English in Argentina: a sociolinguistic profile.” Maersk Nielsen called English skills an “essential requirement,” due in large part to the United States’ ascension as a global economic and communications powerhouse.

Researcher Patricia Friedrich came to the same conclusion in her own 2003 report, “English

in Argentina: attitudes of MBA students.” Friedrich found a “close association between English and the job market” among Argentine graduate students due to the “global spread” of English as the language of business (Friedrich). Conclusions The various European ethnic group-based communities in Argentina described above are alive and well in the 21st century despite a trend toward assimilation with broader Spanish-language Argentine culture. For the British community in particular, this survival could be impacted in part by a general push for English-language instruction in Argentine schools, regardless of British heritage. The persistence of language-based organizations and news publications have contributed to the persistence of non-Spanish ethnic groups in Argentina. Newspapers especially have anchored communities over the course of decades, even centuries.

For the most part, the ethnic communities in Argentina I studied are made up of third-,

fourth-, and fifth-generation immigrants, with some members whose heritages stretch back further 189

and some recent immigrants and expatriates. These groups, while remaining mostly bilingual, have integrated into Argentine society and with one another through intermarriage. Some groups, like the Italians, have even permanently affected the base fabric of Argentine culture, with other groups like the British being responsible for essential infrastructure (for example, Argentine train infrastructure bears the mark of British development).

Both sheer numbers of immigrants speaking in their native tongues and factors such as

pride, utility and ease of using a communal language were key factors in the retention of nonSpanish languages in Argentina. Further, due to resources within communities, including acquired wealth and a larger share of the Argentine population, European non-Spanish languages and cultures amassed influence and control over commerce and other sectors of Argentine society. International relationships helped cement this intra-dependency: for example, foreign investment in Argentine infrastructure and reciprocal trade agreements resulted in prosperity for both parties. The utility and benefits of knowledge of world languages in order to facilitate business and other relationships encouraged even those Argentines without non-Spanish heritage to learn other languages. Other unifying factors, such as religion, also influenced the outside cultures’ integration in Argentine society.

On the whole, Argentina has succeeded in developing a multiethnic, multicultural “melting

pot” society. One aspect not mentioned in the above sections was the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment in the early 20th century from established Argentine intellectuals, who blamed recent immigrants for Argentina’s economic woes. This faction called for the “return to the values of the Argentine gaucho or cowboy,” according to “Making Sense of Modernity: Changing Attitudes toward the Immigrant and the Gaucho in Turn-Of-The-Century Argentina” by Jeane Delaney (Delaney 435).

A rise in anti-modern, xenophobic, nationalistic sentiment rose in Argentina, brought

to life by dual sterotypes of “the immigrant as the despoiler of Argentina and the gaucho as the embodiment of traditional values” (459). Anti-immigrant sympathizers did not only fear class conflict and economic displacement by immigrants, but also a changing moral and cultural landscape in Argentina (436-437).

Proponents of anti-immigrant sentiment sought to push the blame for Argentina’s

problems to marginalized members of society—immigrants—“fail[ing] to distinguish between the problems created by massive immigration and those generated by […] modernization” (459). These antimodernists aligned themselves with what they determined to be traditional Argentine values, “promoting themselves as the defenders of the true Argentina” (459). However, as seen 190

in this research, that version of Argentine history is, to use Delaney’s words, “more artificial than authentic.”

Even viewing only this subset of immigrants to Argentina shows that they have had an

irreversible and net positive impact on Argentine culture as a whole. The true Argentina is a mix of cultures and languages overlapping, some shrinking and growing with time, yet their mark never fading completely from view.

If I could extend this research further, I would consider polling large numbers of the

European-Argentine population in order to study a larger sample size of data, especially as regards to language use at home and integration into Spanish-speaking society. I would also utilize more material from the half-dozen interviews I conducted over the course of this research, interviews which overflowed with more information, stories and anecdotes than could possibly ever be included here.

Suggested next steps include a nationwide effort to facilitate understanding between both

ethnic cultures and Spanish culture in Argentina, and understanding bilaterally between ethnic cultures which might not otherwise be in contact. A deeper study of non-European, especially Indigenous and African, cultures in Argentina, including their newspapers, is urgently warranted. Bibliography “About the ABCC.” Argentine-British Community Council, April 2019. Web. Amador-Moreno, Carolina P. “The Irish in Argentina: Irish English Transported.” New Perspectives

on Irish English, 289–310. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company,

2012. “Argentina.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., July 12, 2021. Web. Argentine Ministry of the Interior. “Hoteles de inmigrantes en Buenos Aires.” Migraciones. Web. Baily, Samuel L. Immigrants in the Lands of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and New York City,

1870 to 1914. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Bomrad, Marcelo. Interview with Sophia Moore. Online (Zoom) interview. 22 July 2021. “Brits Abroad: South America.” British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC News, 2006. Web. Calatrava, Almudena. “Argentine President Sinks Himself over Boat Quote.” AP NEWS. Associated

Press, June 10, 2021. Web.

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la Argentina: Informe Anual Enero-Diciembre 1998, 1–34, 1999. Web. 191

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Agenzia Internazionale Stampa Estero, 20 December 2013. Web.

Colantoni, Laura; Gurlekian, Jorge. “Convergence and intonation: historical evidence from Buenos

Aires Spanish”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 7, no. 2 (July 2004): 107–119. Web.

Cristoph, Marcus. Interview with Sophia Moore. Videoconference (Skype) interview. 21 July 2021. Delaney, Jeane. “Making Sense of Modernity: Changing Attitudes toward the Immigrant and the Gaucho in Turn-Of-The-Century Argentina.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38, no. 3

(July 1996): 434–59. Web.

Departamento de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas de la Universidad Nacional de La Matanza.

“Historias de inmigrantes italianos en Argentina.” (14 November 2011). Web.

“Después de 140 años de historias, cierra el Buenos Aires Herald.” La Nación, 31 July 2017. Web. Ferretti, Gian Luigi. “L’Italiano - Redazione Buenos Aires.” YouTube video, 5:39, 26 October

2010. Web.

Friedrich, Patricia. “English in Argentina: Attitudes of MBA Students.” World Englishes 22, no. 2

(May 2003): 173–84. Web.

Gall, Ian. “The Bulletin: True Community Service.” The Buenos Aires Times, September 1, 2018. Web. Gall, Ian. Interview with Sophia Moore. Telephone interview. 19 July 2021. Genorio, Rado. “The Slovene Immigrant Community in Argentina Between the Two World Wars.”

Slovene Studies Journal 8, no. 2 (1986): 37–42. Web.

Gottig, Jorge L. “Volga Germans March 31, 1881 Argentina Census Colonia General Alvear Entre

Rios Province, Argentina.” 2005. Web.

Grainger, James. Interview with Sophia Moore. Videoconference (Google Meet) interview. 19 July 2021. “Guillermo MacLoughlin Bréard es el nuevo Director de The Southern Cross.” The Southern Cross,

2011. Web.

Handley, Sandra. Interview with Sophia Moore. Videoconference (Zoom) interview. 20 July 2021. Kazumi Stahl, Anna. Interview with Sophia Moore. Videoconference (Zoom) interview. 21 July 2021. Klein, Herbert S. “The Integration of Italian Immigrants into the United States and Argentina: A

Comparative Analysis.” The American Historical Review 88, no. 2 (April 1983): 306–29.

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(2014). Dallas, TX, USA: Summer Institute of Linguistics International.

““L’Italiano” is born, a newspaper for Italians around the world.” MarcoPolo, 4 November 2006. Web. Maersk Nielsen, Paul. “English in Argentina: a Sociolinguistic Profile.” World Englishes 22, no. 2

(May 2003): 199–209. Web.

MacLoughlin, Guillermo. Interview with Sophia Moore. Email interview. 17-22 July 2021. Mignone, Mario B. Italy today: facing the challenges of the new millennium. New York: Peter

Lang Publishing, 2003.

Mioli, Teresa. “English-language daily Buenos Aires Herald prints final daily edition after 140 years.”

Journalism in the Americas, the University of Texas at Austin, 27 October 2016. Web.

“Nasce Con L’Italiano Una Collana Di Studi Storici E Sociali Sull’emigrazione E Gli Italiani Nel Mondo.” Agenzia Internazionale Stampa Estero, 27 June 2011. Web. Newton, Ronald C. “Indifferent Sanctuary: German-Speaking Refugees and Exiles in Argentina, 1933-1945.” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 24, no. 4 (November 1982):

395–420. Web.

Chiesa Cattolica di Torino. “Italiani nel Mondo: Diaspora italiana in cifre.” Pastorale Sociale dei Migranti. (2004): 3. Web. Porto, Melina. “English Language Education in Primary Schooling in Argentina.” Arizona State

University Education Policy Analysis Archives 24 (August 2016): 1–29. Web.

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System: Nationalism or Imperialism?” SAGE Open 4, no. 1 (January 2014). Web.

“Quiénes somos.” The Southern Cross, 2011. Web. Rock, David. Argentina: 1516–1982. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. Schimpf, Gustavo. “Crónica 1a Jornada de Genealogía.” Centro Argentino Cultural “Wolgadeutsche”, 3 November 2007. Web. “Story: Years of Work and Growth, 1984-1997.” Hospital Aleman, 2007. Web. Tocalli-Beller, Agustina. “ELT and Bilingual Education in Argentina.” International Handbook of

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De aquí y de allá:

A Transnational Analysis of Undocumented Latine Healthcare Access and Utilization María Herrera Félix Introduction Living as an undocumented Latine1 immigrant in the United States means navigating a political environment that affects the most personal parts of your life, like your health and body. In the past few decades, public health scholars and activists have seen a pressing necessity to study the intersections between immigration, healthcare access and health outcomes (Painter 2020; Ren et al. 1999). Nativist laws, representations in the media, and the racialization of Latines have caused an unstable environment of exclusion where undocumented Latines are barred from accessing social security benefits, financial aid for education, employment opportunities, safe and stable housing, and healthcare services (Castañeda 2017; Marrow 2012; Menjívar 2016; Reeskens and van der Meer 2019).

With the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must consider the overlaps

in immigration studies and healthcare experiences. For example, in the past year alone, over half a million Central American and Haitian migrants have been denied their legal right to petition for asylum at the southern border. Migrants are forced to wait in Mexico or return to their home countries, both of which lead to deadly and life-threatening circumstances (Erfani and Elshiekh 2021). In the US, access to vaccination and testing sites for COVID-19 has been more scarce for Latine immigrants (Galvan et al. 2021; Romano et al. 2021). In addition, there is extensive research on how exclusions from public services and over-policing affect undocumented Latine immigrants’ healthcare outcomes and experiences (Documet et al. 2018; Hacker, K. et al. 2018; Kline 2017; Lemus 2020). This scholarship raises important questions about how these inequalities are created and sustained and what the complexities within Latine immigrants themselves look like. For example, we will study how different

1. The term “Latine” will be used in this paper to refer to people living in the US from Latin America or of Latin American origins. This term has been used in Latin America and is emerging in the US to include non-binary and gender non-conforming individuals as well as the most commonly used labels of “Hispanic,” “Latino/a,” and “Latinx.”

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social factors—beyond the undocumented immigrant status—may influence one’s life in the US. There are many complexities to consider for undocumented Latine immigrants, such as how their own experiences in their home or birth countries may have deep implications about their interactions with the state and specifically, with healthcare.

The health and healthcare experiences of immigrants specifically cannot be analyzed or

assessed in this unilateral and “start fresh” lens once they move to the US. While most people’s political situations and migrant statuses only have relevance once they arrive in the US, health is deeply influenced by the entire course of someone’s life, and even their parents’. Other factors like socioeconomic status, labor, and gender shape people’s understanding of health and their utilization of healthcare, and these specific markers tend to travel with people across borders.

In this research paper, I investigate how undocumented Latine immigrants in Phoenix,

Arizona navigate the healthcare system and their own perceptions of health. Through my conversations with 21 participants born in Central America and Mexico, I found that people’s level of accessibility over time, including their health experiences in their home countries and in the US, impacted their current perceptions of healthcare and their utilization of medical services. Systematic exclusion from healthcare systems occurs both in Latin America and in the US due to the privatization of healthcare and the low funding of public services. In Latin America, according to my participants, exclusion was based on affordability and affected those who worked the most physical jobs and were the most underpaid. The combination of these exclusions also shape people’s perceptions of their individual “need” for medical services. The US healthcare system mirrors this same class-based exclusion while further exacerbating it by creating documentation requirements and overpoliced immigrant communities. Specifically, we see that long periods of exclusion, whether that is in my participants’ birth countries or in the US, further pushes Latine immigrants away from using the healthcare system while shaping their perceived need for it as well. With this information, it is critical for public health officials and policy makers to address not only people’s immediate accessibility to healthcare but also the effects of cultural and socioeconomic legacies of prolonged exclusion on people’s perceived need and utilization of these resources.

To identify the patterns in healthcare experiences and perceptions among

undocumented Latine immigrants, I conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 21

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participants living in Phoenix, Arizona.2 The interviews were conducted in Spanish and were about 30-45 minutes long. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, all interviews were conducted over the phone.

The demographics of my participants reflect the fact that the majority of

undocumented Latines in Phoenix are of Mexican origin, as 19 of the 21 respondents were from Mexico. The other two are from Guatemala and El Salvador. 15 were female and six were male. 13 of the participants were undocumented and the eight who were not had been undocumented for many years before obtaining a green card or citizenship. Two of the participants had Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, which provides people access to a work permit and a social security number but still bars them from Medicaid and federal benefits in Arizona. Having participants who experienced being both undocumented and having some sort of documentation that grants them benefits like healthcare helped to illuminate the complexities of healthcare access and utilization. By comparing people’s use over time, we can see that factors like socioeconomic upbringing or the long term effects of accessibility are associated with healthcare utilization or a lack of utilization. Many respondents had US-born children who had AHCCCS3 or Medicaid and thus revealed contrasting experiences with their parents’ access and utilization of healthcare. Another important factor in the respondent’s answers was labor type. Five of my participants were working in construction or plumbing, five worked exclusively in the home, three in office jobs, two in restaurant or retail service, two were custodians at schools and four were unable to work due to illness or age. Seven out of the twenty-one participants had some form of health insurance. Two had Medicare benefits, and the other five received health insurance through their employers. Of the people who were insured, only one was undocumented, with DACA status.

As a former undocumented Mexican immigrant who also lives in Phoenix, I was

able to build rapport and trust with participants. I conducted the interviews in Spanish and explained the process to participants without needing a translator. My insider-outsider 2. This study focuses on undocumented Latine immigrants living in Phoenix. Arizona has a long history of immigration from Latin America and has been in the spotlight for immigration and border policy. Undocumented Latine immigrants in Phoenix live with harsh deportation laws, as well as a systemic exclusion from accessing public services, like education, stimulus checks, Medicaid and Medicare (Menjívar 2016). 3. The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) is Arizona’s Medicaid agency funded by both the state and federal governments. Undocumented immigrants as well as immigrants with less than five years of “legal permanent resident” status are inelligble for non-emergency Medicaid and AHCCCS (Arizona State Library 2020).

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position, especially being able to speak Spanish and sharing with the participants that I was from Phoenix and also an immigrant, helped establish a sense of trust. The confidentiality of information, specifically contact information and names, was emphasized, as most of the participants were undocumented. The following section is a reduced summary of my findings. Trajectory 1: Disruptions in Healthcare Access and Utilization Forces of Exclusion: Documentation Status Upon moving to the US, many undocumented Latine immigrants are confronted with a political system that determines their access to public resources like healthcare on the basis of documentation status (Broder et al. 2015; Hacket et al. 2015). All of my participants arrived in the US undocumented or on a travel visa, prohibiting them from acquiring Social Security numbers and benefits like employer-sponsored health insurance or Medicaid. In addition, the weight of being undocumented can produce feelings of fear and anxiety among Latine immigrants. There is a general fear of authorities among undocumented Latines, not only toward police and immigration officials, but also for all government offices and formalized systems of healthcare. The presence of government officials in medical spaces takes on a political weight that was new to my participants, who in Central America and Mexico were not threatened by these particular social forces like they are in the US. Luz expressed the pressure that her undocumented status produces when she goes to a clinic in the US: It’s hard not having papers. I don’t have health insurance to be able to make appointments and it’s hard to look for discounts. Everything would be so different if I had my legal status and everything in this country stems from that and it makes it hard to go to a clinic and make an appointment. They ask you for your ID or a Social Security number and that’s when you feel the pressure, like how much is it going to cost me because everything is expensive here … Small details like forms of ID can pose as threats of being unable to use these medical resources due to the fear of police or immigration officials getting involved. Luz’s narrative is an example of how accessibility for undocumented Latines is shaped not only by affordability but also by their documentation status and the presence of policing with IDs and Social Security numbers. Her experience coincides with the majority of scholarship that describes undocumented healthcare as being shaped by fears of policing (Martínez 2020; Hacker et al. 2015). For many undocumented immigrants, there is a specific situation of “legality” that is relevant only in the US. Documentation then becomes the most plausible explanation to understanding healthcare disparities because it causes the most stress for people navigating 198

these institutions in the US. However, utilization of healthcare can also be determined by other factors, like socioeconomic status and history of utilization of healthcare services. These barriers are also not unique to US society as they are found in most countries in Latin America where income inequalities shape the disparities of healthcare resources and accessibility. Time and Money All of the participants interviewed were from working-class backgrounds, not only in the US but also in their birth countries. However, there were a diverse set of differences in the accessibility to healthcare in Latin America. Some had access to private or public doctors and others to no medical care. For participants who had regular access to medical care in Mexico or Central America, whether that was public or private, they all experienced a disruption in care when they moved to the US. Fabi is currently 27 years old and at the time of the interview had been living in the US for five years. When she moved from Obregón, Sonora, Mexico to Phoenix, she was met with an increase in work hours and energy spent. Even though she comes from a working class background, she had a certain level of economic accessibility to university education and to a private doctor when she needed it. This history of familiarity with healthcare has an effect on her experiences seeking care in the US. In Phoenix, she goes to a discount sliding fee clinic4 that provides her with medical care at a relatively low cost. When asked what her biggest obstacle in visiting a doctor she responded: Time, because in that clinic, sometimes it gets really full and busy and they don’t have appointments until a month from today and even if you have a stomach ache and you’re in pain, they give you an appointment until a month. It’s not like you can go and they can quickly see you. And they don’t see you quickly when it’s full, it takes forever. And well, if I’m in a lot of pain, my mom in Mexico just goes to the doctor the next day and he gives her a prescription for my symptoms. When Fabi moved to the US, her regular access to medical care became disrupted in that she was met with a system that was slow and inefficient, of which she was not accustomed to in Mexico. This distinction from the care she would receive in Mexico is significant because it shows the differences in her socioeconomic status that occurred upon migration. Specifically, her access to a reliable private doctor before migrating reveals that she had some form of 4. Discount/sliding fee clinics provide free or relatively inexpensive medical care to patients who are uninsured or unable to pay for services. They determine qualification based on the federal poverty line, on a patient’s annual income, and household size (AZ Department of Health Services 2021).

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socioeconomic privilege. This system of care was disrupted due to the new social setting she was in in the US, where she had to work longer hours and had little spare income for medical care. Despite these changes in work and money availability, she is able to continue receiving some form of medical care. Her transnational support network, in this case her mom getting her a diagnosis and medication from Mexico, reveals a sort of loophole that she is able to have in order to get the medical care she needs. Fabi is an example of the tensions experienced by undocumented Latines who do not have disposable income or time to see a doctor in the US but did so in their birth countries and for the majorities of their lives. There is a disruption in the quality and the efficiency of care but at the same time, her familiarity with visiting a doctor and the family networks aiding her allow her to utilize the system in some way. Fabi’s move to the US is still relatively recent compared to my other participants and her perceived need for healthcare is not minimized or reduced because she has not experienced long term exclusions, as she is able to continue receiving some form of medical care. Fabi’s undocumented status is not the sole factor defining her accessibility to medications and medical care. Her social status and family networks back in Mexico are able to meet her current healthcare needs despite systemic exclusion she faces from the US healthcare system. Trajectory 2: Transnational Continuities of Scarce Access and Utilization Because, as in the US, Mexico has a healthcare system where access is dependent on socioeconomic status, for some people, the move to the US was not necessarily characterized by a decline in healthcare usage and access. Some of my participants did not have a history of visiting a doctor at all in their lives. These life-long continuities of not using medical care shape people’s own perceptions of their illness and can become exacerbated under environments of physical labor and economic demands. In combination with these labor structures, many participants referenced cultural norms of masculinity and Hispanic identity to explain their utilization and “need” for healthcare. In this trajectory, we see that despite increased accessibility to health insurance, legal documentation status, familiarity with US society, lifelong patterns of not having access to healthcare can shape people’s current understanding of its necessity. Masculinity The manifestations of masculinity were also commonly reflected in the participants’ reasons for not needing medical care. Ben and Luis are father and son, and their accounts revealed 200

perceptions of masculinity through an intergenerational focus. Ben worked as a brickmaker in Durango, Mexico. His labor was underpaid, physically exhausting and did not provide him health insurance. When asked if he went to the doctor in Durango, he replied, “No, I rarely got sick, I rarely got sick.” He then proceeds to tell me more about the chronic illnesses he has like diabetes and kidney failure. I asked him about his experiences with more mild illnesses when he lived in Durango and he responded: Back then, when I got a headache or a stomach ache, I took whatever medicine I already knew how to take. An alka seltzer or something like that, but one was young and healthy and it went away and nothing happened. When you enter an older age, that’s when your illnesses weigh more and it’s different. His son, Luis, mirrors this narrative when he says: I rarely get sick, thank God, but when I do get sick, I buy medicine here at the pharmacy. I don’t do home remedies, I almost always just push through the pain and only when it’s too strong, well then buy something from the pharmacy. Ben’s perceptions of youth and strength shape his rationalization of illness. He attributes not getting sick to being young and healthy, which is relatively evidenced in his narrative as he was able to keep working until he had to stop due to illnesses. While he does not specifically mention the potential relationship between his treatment delay and working through it as being correlated to the chronic illnesses he now has, it is important to highlight the significance of his narration. He seems to carry these values of strength into his current life in the US. Through his own perception of himself as a young man, it seems that being someone capable of pushing through pain was a sign of good health. Furthermore, his role as a husband and a father, and the cultural importance of that in a working class Mexican family, highlights a thread of masculinity being tied to his own perceptions of strength and health. His son Luis mirrors these ideals of masculinity in his own narrative.

Luis’s statement of “I rarely get sick” is contradicted later in the interview when he

tells me about the chronic back pain he has due to his job as well as the colds and fevers he gets quite often. There is a sense of reassurance that he is not the type of person to get sick. If we take into consideration the statement that Ben made earlier about youth being tied to strength, we see that this theme was ingrained in part of Luis’s own upbringing. The significance of these cultural values of masculinity and strength being shaped by socioeconomic status then travels with Ben and stays with him after his immigration, despite now being in a different position of economic security. In the US, Ben now has access to health insurance through his employer, of which he says he has used maybe four times in the 201

past twenty years. Despite having regular access to a doctor, as well as being able to speak English and consider himself comfortable speaking to medical professionals, Ben does not use the services. The explanation, while not mentioned to me explicitly by him, can perhaps be inferred through the upbringing he had and his family’s access to a doctor during his childhood in Durango. In these excerpts, we see the impact of generational perceptions of healthcare and masculinity quite clearly through the way that it ravels with these immigrants as they make their way to the US. The privileges he has with his documentation status, with employer-sponsored health insurance as well as being able to communicate in English at health centers become obscured by the trajectory he had for most of his life of not seeking medical care when sick and not perceiving himself to need medical care during these times.

While this publication is a very condensed version of the full paper, this research

highlights a new complexity to the way we are studying immigrant healthcare. It implies a necessity to take these transnational legacies into consideration when designing public health interventions for healthcare accessibility. Increasing access to health insurance is vital to promote affordability. However, the underutilization of this insurance has deep roots seeded in upbringings, along with the history of socioeconomic precarity and prolonged exclusion from healthcare systems not only in the US but also in Latin America. Further studies should be conducted to understand more about Latin American, Asian and African immigrants’ healthcare experiences. In addition, there is a need for transnational analyses on gender-based exclusions with attention on the experiences of LGBTQ individuals who face extreme discrimination both in the US and throughout Latin America. Future studies should also track the healthcare experiences of Haitian and Central American refugees making their way to the US, who many times traverse various international borders and multiple health systems. At a time when undocumented immigrants and refugees are being criminalized and targeted through hateful speech and policies, such analyses can lead to more just healthcare interventions to serve these populations more effectively. Bibliography Arizona Department of Health Services. “Sliding Fee Schedule Clinics,” 2020.Web. Arizona State Library. “Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS).”

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Reunión, lengua o muerte Dani Zelko Reunión. “Te escuchan hablar mal español y no te dan importancia, ¡seis días! ¡seis días esperando una ambulancia! No sé... Hossein y su mujer no pueden explicar bien, no pueden hablar bien español, ese es el problema, pero ese no es problema de ellos, es problema de los idiomas, es problema del gobierno” LENGUA O MUERTE / Movimiento Migrante por la Lengua Lavapiés, Madrid / 2020 Razib, Afroza y Elahi son migrantes. Nacieron en Bangladesh, viven en Madrid. El 26 de marzo, en medio de la crisis por el Covid-19, Mohamed Hossein, un paisano suyo, murió en confinamiento después de llamar durante seis días a los sistemas de salud y emergencia. Ningún médico lo atendió, ninguna ambulancia lo fue a buscar, hablaba poco español. Desde entonces, junto a otras organizaciones migrantes y sociales, están armando un movimiento por la lengua, exigiendo traducción oral obligatoria en centros de salud, escuelas, juzgados, oficinas del Estado. Interpretación ya para entender lo que les dicen, para hacerse entender, para vivir en su lengua. Durante abril de 2020 les llamé por teléfono. Me hablaron y escuché. Hice unas pocas preguntas y sonidos para que supieran que estaba ahí. Grabé sus voces. Apenas cortamos, las hice sonar y las escribí. Cada vez que hicieron una pausa para inhalar, pasé a la línea que sigue. Borré las grabaciones, les mandé los textos y los corregimos. Armamos este libro, que tiene una versión digital de descarga gratuita, un audiolibro y una versión en papel que distribuye la comunidad. —Dani Zelko Con Rakibul Hasan Razib, Afroza Rhaman, Elahi Mohammad Fazle y Pepa Torres Pérez. 208

Rakibul Hasan Razib Cuando un paisano mío o cualquier migrante tiene un tema médico o un tema de salud nosotros llamamos al SAMUR1 o a una ambulancia y cuando ellos escuchan nuestra voz saben que somos extranjeros solo con escuchar nuestra voz, más allá de cómo hablemos el idioma ya saben que somos extranjeros y entonces nos dan menos importancia. La falta de palabras la dificultad para explicar ya genera problemas no permite entenderse bien pero hay el problema más grande que viene antes de las palabras no depende de si hablamos bien o mal y es que cuando escuchan nuestra voz piensan, este es un migrante un migrante más, y entonces nos dan menos importancia. Eso sucede desde mucho antes de esta pandemia eso estuvo mal siempre pero ahora empeora. ¿Por qué? porque ahora con el coronavirus estamos todos en casa con los locales cerrados no se puede salir fuera entonces es más difícil ayudarnos ayudarnos entre nosotros ¿y qué pasó? mi tío tenía problemas de respiración hace casi un año él tiene un restaurante, como yo y cuando él escuchó que el coronavirus era muy peligroso para la gente que tiene problemas para respirar cerró su local, por ejemplo, aquí 13 de marzo nos obligaron a cerrar todo y quedarnos en casa 1 Servicio de Asistencia Municipal de Urgencias y Rescates

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pero él ya 6 de marzo se fue a la casa y no salió de la casa por el miedo y para cuidarse. El día 20 mi sobrino me llama y me dice, “Mira, mi papá se está poniendo un poco mal estamos llamando al SAMUR pero no viene ¿puedes llamar que tú hablas mejor español que yo?” “Vale, llamo”, llamé al 90010211222 y cogió una persona y me dijo, “Vale apunto tu número y te vamos a llamar dentro de media hora”, a la media hora me llama y me dice que quiere hablar con el paciente y le digo, “Mira, no estoy con el paciente estoy en otra casa lo llamo yo porque ni mi tío ni mi tía ni su hijo hablan bien español por eso llamo yo” “No, no, tenemos que hablar con el paciente” “Pero te digo que no hablan bien español esa es la razón por la que llamo yo”, hasta que le dije, “Bueno, pueden llamar a mi primo él habla poco pero un poco te podrá explicar”, y bueno ni lo llamaron ni fueron. Ese día llamé yo varias veces llamó mi primo, mi otro tío, otro paisano que trabaja en Valiente Bangla y no fue nadie. Pasan dos o tres días y él está empeorando y mi tía también está empeorando entonces yo pensaba, ¿qué puedo hacer si ellos no llaman y no vienen y yo no puedo salir de mi casa? entonces llamé un taxi y lo mandé a su casa para que lo lleven al hospital pero cuando mi tío salió estaba en muy mala condición y el taxista dijo, “Disculpen, no puedo subir a una persona así mejor llamen a una ambulancia”. Eso no funcionó así que seguimos llamando al 900102112 una y otra vez hasta el día 26. Día 26 tres y media de la noche 2 Teléfono de atención médica de la Comunidad de Madrid para la crisis del Covid.

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me llama mi primo y me dice, “Mi padre no respira” “¿Cómo que no respira?” “No está respirando” “¿Qué dices?”, pensé que era una broma o que estaba exagerando, “Bueno esperemos que ya se va a poner bien” y cortamos el teléfono, pero ahí me entró el miedo entonces tres minutos después le llamé y me dice, “No, en serio, no respira y parece que el cuerpo se está poniendo frío” me vestí y en dos minutos fui corriendo a las cuatro de la mañana a su casa y cuando llegué yo veo que mi tía está tirada en la cama medio desnuda y se nota que mi tío no está vivo, ¿sabes? Llamo otra vez al 900102112 y le digo, “ustedes en seis días no han venido yo entiendo que la situación está difícil que haya muchísimas llamadas pero no puedo entender que en seis días nadie pueda venir pero creo que ahora mi tío ya no está vivo necesitamos que alguien venga a ver qué le pasa a ver si está muerto”. A la media hora estaba la ambulancia en la casa, para ayudarlo no vino nadie en seis días para asegurarse de que estaba muerto vinieron en media hora, una mujer entró a la casa y declaró que estaba muerto hace más de media hora, viene la Policía Municipal y Nacional y todo eran las cuatro y media de la noche, yo salí a hablar con un policía y el policía me dijo, “Mira, en una hora, una hora y media viene un juez de guardia y van a declarar el fallecimiento y van a llevar el cadáver”, yo le pedí que llame a los médicos para que vean a mi tía que mi tía estaba mal también entonces vinieron a verla y dijeron que sí que mi tía estaba en muy mala condición y la llevaron con SAMUR al hospital. En casa quedamos yo mi primo y el cadáver, yo no tenía ni máscara Rakibul Hasan Razib

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ni guantes porque cuando mi primo dijo que mi tío no respiraba no pensé en nada me fui corriendo y dejé todo y yo soy diabético así que el coronavirus es muy peligroso para mí también. Ya eran las siete y media y todavia no viene nadie y llamé a la policía y le dije, “A ver me habían dicho que a la hora y media iba a venir el juez iban a declarar el fallecimiento iban a llevar el cadáver y ya pasan cuatro horas casi y aquí no ha llegado nadie”, mi primo estaba llorando en una habitación y yo con el cadáver sentado sin protección ¿qué voy a hacer? porque no sé qué va a pasar porque gracias a dios nunca un familiar mío se murió en España, y el policía me dice que no que al final el juez no puede venir “Entonces, ¿qué tenemos que hacer?” “Vosotros tenéis que ir al juzgado para coger el certificado de fallecimiento” “Pero no me digas, ¡dime antes! ¡ya pasaron cuatro horas!”, entonces va mi primo como una hora en metro hasta ese lugar él estaba llorando ¡y encima él estaba mal también! ¡y de hecho después salió positivo de coronavirus! y bueno, cogió el certificado y vuelvo a llamar a la policía y le digo, “Ya tenemos el certificado pero, ¿cuándo llevan el cadáver?” y me dicen que no pueden, que hay muchísimos muertos ahora “¿Pero qué voy a hacer entonces?” y me dice, “¿Ustedes tienen algún seguro?” “No”, le digo, “nosotros generalmente mandaríamos el cadáver a nuestra tierra pero ahora con todas las fronteras cerradas no lo podemos mandar” y me dice, “Nosotros no podemos hacer nada”. Yo ahí no sé qué tengo que hacer ¿qué hago? ¿qué hago? entonces llamo a mis paisanos a dos paisanos que conocen más de estas cosas Rakibul Hasan Razib

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y a Elahi, de Valiente Bangla, y le preguntó qué podemos hacer y me dice que hay una empresa marroquí que puede llevar el cadáver pero que tengo que pagar tres mil sesenta euros y yo le digo, “¿Qué dices? ¿ahora de repente a las ocho de la mañana? ¿de dónde saco ese dinero?”, entonces llamo a mi familia que vive fuera de España y me dicen, “Ahora mismo con la situación como está nadie puede mandar dinero porque está todo cerrado por el confinamiento”, y llamé a la empresa y me dicen que antes de que vengan a buscar el cadáver les tengo que pagar, ¿y de dónde saco todo este dinero? y entonces la llamo a mi mujer. Resulta que el año pasado tuve un problema de facturas en mi restaurant y tenía que pagar todo ese dinero ahora todo junto entonces tenía tres mil euros guardados para eso en mi casa y mi mujer me dice, “Mira dinero vamos a poder ganar otra vez pero lo que podamos hacer con el cadáver es ahora y solo ahora”, porque nosotros somos de cultura bangladeshi y nosotros enterramos y las empresas españolas cuando se lo llevan, lo queman y eso nosotros no lo hacemos, entonces mi mujer me dice, “Mira volveremos a ganar el dinero pero por favor no demos el cadáver a que lo quemen eso es una vez no tiene vuelta atrás y si no la tía que está en el hospital nunca va a saber dónde está enterrado su marido y no va a poder ir a verlo a su tumba”, ella me dio la fuerza y yo dije, “Vale entonces tráeme ese dinero y lo damos”. Trajo ese dinero y lo pagamos y aproximadamente a las dos de la tarde casi diez horas después de muerto logramos que se lleven el cadáver y estaba… ya tenía olor…

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A los dos días lo enterramos como a sesenta kilómetros de donde nosotros vivimos y a la tía la llevan al hospital y por todos esos días no sabemos ni dónde está ni cómo está ni si está viva ni si está muerta fue una situación que… no sé como describirte fíjate que yo tengo diecinueve años en este país y creía que me iba a quedar toda mi vida en España pero esa noche en que murió mi tío yo dije, yo me vuelvo a mi tierra me vuelvo a mi tierra no quiero morirme así no quiero morirme y que mi mujer o mis hijos en lugar de llorar o rezar tengan que ir corriendo a llamar a la policía al juzgado a quien sea para recoger un certificado luego pagar tres mil sesenta euros para que me entierren aquí yo quiero morir como bangladeshi no quiero morir en España no se puede morir en España no se puede morir como nosotros queremos morir, este país me dio todo es mi segunda tierra y de verdad le estoy muy agradecido pero yo quiero morir como un bangladeshi no quiero morir como un migrante que nadie quiere no quiero ser un migrante muerto, llevo veinte años viviendo aquí y sigo siendo un migrante más para el gobierno nunca dejamos de ser un migrante más y cuando me muera van a decir, “Bueno un migrante muerto”, y yo no quiero morir así esa no es forma de morir, dicen que España y los países de Europa son un modelo en el mundo de sanidad y de cultura pero la realidad es que mi tío murió después de seis días sin obtener ningún tratamiento sin que nadie lo llame sin que ningún médico venga a verlo y esa es la realidad para mí Rakibul Hasan Razib

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y esta realidad está lejos de ser un modelo, yo no tengo más que hacer en un país que deja morir a mi tío así sin un coche para llevarlo al hospital sin un coche para llevar el cadáver. La cosa buena es que mi tía después de diez días ya salió le dieron de alta y está perfecto y mi primo también está perfecto ahora los dos están mejor están tristes pero están mejor ya sabes mi tía y mi tío han vivido toda la vida como pareja siempre estaban juntos. Casi una semana después de que mi tío muera mi primo me mandó un mensaje me dijo, “El coronavirus nos ha regalado una cosa” “¿Y qué cosa?” “La posibilidad de cambiar como los actores” “¿Y por qué?” “Mi madre llora cuando estoy dormido y yo lloro cuando mi madre está dormida para no vernos y hacerle sentir al otro que estamos bien”. Ese mensaje es un dolor grande y también es la intención de estar bien. Esto que te cuento es lo más horrible que pasé y encima cuando lo enterramos con el coronavirus no se puede hacer nada así que en el entierro somos solo seis personas, y yo soy de un pueblo en el que mi familia es muy conocida tenemos muchos familiares y amigos y cuando muere un familiar mío nos juntamos en un gran campo de fútbol nos juntamos a rezar y hacer una despedida y en ese campo de fútbol no cabe una persona más está repleto e imagínate con mi tío muerto solo seis personas mi tía en el hospital tan lejos de casa fue horrible. Nosotros en Bangladesh somos muy de la cultura de la religión de la historia Rakibul Hasan Razib

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somos muy sociables somos del pueblo la familia es grande no es individual como aquí, familia es nuestros padres, nuestros tíos, nuestros primos, nuestros amigos nosotros a los primos los llamamos hermanos mi tío es igual que mi padre nuestra cultura es así mi madre y mi tía es igual mi hermano y mi primo es igual somos muy sociales, muy grupales no es como aquí que tu familia es una pareja y dos hijos en un apartamento allá las familias somos muchas, muchas personas somos muy unidos, cuando uno viene a España nota esas diferencias es muy individual nuestro mundo es parte indio, parte bangladeshi, parte musulmán idiomas diferentes, culturas diferentes, costumbres diferentes forma de ser diferentes así que es muy difícil cuando empezamos la vida acá es muy difícil no sabemos ni decir hola y además cuando yo llegué en el 2000 España era otra España la gente era más simpática tenían buena idea de inmigrantes pero cada día parece que los españoles están más hartos de los migrantes el disgusto crece el odio crece están molestos con nosotros con los migrantes, ya no veo esa España que había antes ha cambiado mucho sobre todo desde que fueron los atentados el atentado en Atocha donde murió mucha gente eso vino con una visión con un punto de vista con una prensa que hizo que los españoles dejen de querer a los migrantes. Yo soy muy sociable hablo mucho Rakibul Hasan Razib

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soy muy hablante disfruto de hablar con la gente y me relaciono mucho y he sentido cómo poco a poco el trato con los migrantes fue empeorando, y ahora con un partido político que se llama Vox eso se ve más claro, está muy, muy, muy contra los extranjeros y los vota mucha gente es gente que no quiere ver más inmigrantes aquí y bueno esos movimientos no nacen de un día para el otro vienen de ese proceso que te cuento. Yo no sé si somos buenos para España o no pero yo vine hace veinte años y puedo decir que España ha crecido mucho y creo que una parte muy importante de ese crecimiento tiene que ver con los migrantes con el trabajo que hacemos los migrantes, hacemos muchísimos de los trabajos que los españoles no quieren hacer el trabajo duro lo hacemos nosotros y por supuesto, por menos dinero a lo mejor un español, un trabajo de soldar por menos de dos mil euros no lo va a hacer entonces nos buscan a nosotros que lo hacemos por mil euros. Pero bueno basta no quiero contar todas cosas malas ¡hay cosas tan bonitas también! no quiero decir solamente negativo, mis padres y mis hermanos viven en Inglaterra yo estuve ahí y si comparo un inglés y un español en temas de racismo ¡un español es un ángel! no sé si conoces algún inglés te lo juro madre mía yo en Inglaterra, imposible estuve once días y le digo, “mamá lo siento mucho pero yo no puedo estar un día más acá”, los españoles son muy amables yo en mi restaurant recibo gente y hablamos mucho y tomamos cerveza Rakibul Hasan Razib

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son más abiertos el racismo está pero también está la amabilidad la buena voluntad esa es la balanza que hay que cambiar porque no es que la amabilidad no está pero si todo empuja hacia el racismo entonces estamos mal. Otra cosa bien bonita de Madrid (no sé si tú conoces) es que nunca se duerme a las cuatro de la mañana sales y hay gente andando hay restaurantes abiertos a las cuatro, cinco de la mañana puedes comer algo eso no pasa en todos lados en el mundo eso me gusta mucho yo soy nocturno hay cosas muy bonitas aquí ¡por supuesto! ¡si no no hubiera vivido aquí veinte años! La vida es entre bueno y malo pero hay situaciones que sacan lo malo y con esto del coronavirus lo malo se puso peor y recién empieza la economía de España va a estar muy mal va a haber mucha gente sin trabajo van a haber muchísimos amigos sin dinero yo no sé quién va a poder venir a un restaurante a comer va a estar muy dificil entonces hay que aprovechar para cambiar algunas cosas hay que ayudar a que cambien cosas para los migrantes aquí. Igual yo me vuelvo a mi tierra con todo lo que trabajé aquí tengo una parcela y creo que voy a poder vivir bien y está mi cultura mis amigos mi familia mi comida, voy a sufrir otras cosas en Bangladesh no hay medicamentos no hay comunicación ni metro ni nada de eso transporte es un desastre comida viene de mala calidad Rakibul Hasan Razib

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no es todo fresquito como aquí, sí hay cosas que voy a extrañar también pero bueno hay millones de hermanos bangaldeshi viviendo así, ¿por qué yo no voy a poder vivir así también? yo quiero vivir un poco en Bangladesh quiero vivir un poco como bangaldeshi en mi tierra pasé casi toda mi juventud aquí es tiempo de volver a mi tierra. Tienes que venir a visitarme a Bangladesh te va a encantar es un país verde, verde, verde está lleno de ríos ríos grandes te coges un barco pequeñito de madera te sientas ahí despiertas los ojos y el río te va llevando, te va a encantar es un país muy hermoso. Y a tí que te gusta la escritura te quiero contar una historia. En 1947, India es dividida en dos partes India y Pakistán supuestamente los hindúes se quedan en India y los musulmanes quedan en Pakistán y Pakistán también es dividido en dos partes Pakistán Este y Pakistán Oeste, en la parte Oeste que ahora es Bangladesh nosotros teníamos nuestro propio idioma que se llama bangla y en Pakistán Este se hablaba urdu pero Pakistán Este controlaba el Estado así que controlaba a Pakistán Oeste también y no querían que nosotros habláramos nuestro idioma querían que habláramos urdu nos querían obligar a la fuerza a que dejáramos el bangla entonces nosotros les dijimos que nosotros hablamos nuestro idioma que nosotros en parte somos nuestro idioma y ahí empezó a haber muchos movimientos Rakibul Hasan Razib

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de estudiantes de jóvenes peleando por la lengua peleando para no perder la lengua, se llamó Movimiento por la Lengua. De ahí pasaron los años y vino una guerra que duró como nueve meses, mi padre fue comandante guerrero en esa guerra por eso te decía antes que mi familia era conocida en mi pueblo porque mi padre luchó con mucha fuerza en esa guerra, en esa guerra murieron tres millones de personas y ganamos el 16 de diciembre de 1971 ganamos y ahí nació nuestro país que se llama Bangladesh. La liberación de nuestro país nació de la lucha por nuestro idioma, al día de hoy el 21 de febrero es el día de los idiomas porque fue el día en que hicimos una manifestación muy, muy grande para defender nuestro idioma el idioma bangla, el idioma bangla es el número ocho de lo más hablado en el mundo más que portugués y más que ruso el idioma bangla es el único idioma en el mundo por el que tres millones de personas perdieron la vida tres millones de personas dieron su vida por su idioma tres millones de personas murieron para defender su idioma. Y esta historia está con nosotros está con nosotros bangladeshi donde sea que vamos nosotros queremos vivir con nuestro idioma así que ahora nuestros colectivos migrantes en Madrid después de la muerte de mi tío vamos a luchar porque sea obligatorio que los médicos de cabecera que los juzgados que las escuelas que todos los sitios importantes tengan traductores para poder hablar en nuestro idioma y para poder entender lo que nos quieren decir. Somos más de cincuenta mil bangladeshi en España y más de quinientos mil migrantes Rakibul Hasan Razib

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ya no vamos a aceptar que por diferencia de idiomas alguien se muera no vamos a aceptar que por diferencia de idiomas no nos podamos entender.

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Afroza Rhaman Cuando yo llego en 2006 a España no conozco a nadie, soy la primera mujer bangla que vino sola a Lavapiés y desde el primer momento muchísimas personas me ayudan a conseguir mi tarjeta de residencia que sale en 2010 gracias al apoyo de Pepa y Maite y otras muchísimas ayudando, la comunidad te salva te ayuda a buscar trabajo aprender el idioma aprenderlo. He trabajado en muchos sitios en colegios he cuidado personas mayores he cuidado niños todo poco a poco porque para cada cosa necesitas un curso trabajas mucho y tomas muchos cursos, para cuidar a las personas mayores tienes que hacer un curso para cuidar a los niños tienes que aprender a cocinar comida española y entonces aprender el idioma es muy difícil no hay tiempo no tengo tiempo porque necesito ganar dinero para mí y para mandar a mi país para mi marido, mi hija enferma, mis cinco niñas. Donde más se aprende el idioma es trabajando cuando tú te vas a clases solo se aprenden los verbos pero las palabras no las aprendes, yo todavía no hablo tan bien español hablo algo pero no bien y es normal, los niños personas pequeñas aprenden rápido en cualquier lado aprenden rápido Afroza Rhaman

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ahora, las personas más grandes ya es más dificil, ¡el español es un idioma muy alto! ¡es bien diferente al bangla! necesitas cambiar los verbos todo el tiempo y cuando es con hombre tienes que usar O y cuando es con mujer tienes que usar A, escúchame, hermano yo hablo hindú pero no lo puedo escribir árabe puedo leer y escribir pero no tanto hablar con cada idioma hay una relación diferente. La distancia es problema también. En 2010, cuando recibí tarjeta de residencia fui a mi país ese momento fue una pena para mi vida porque muere mi padre en abril muere y yo voy a mi país dos meses después julio, hay dos meses de diferencia entre él y yo recién a los dos meses logro llegar, he sufrido mucho todavía cuando hablo con mi hija de su abuelo, lloro mi papá y mi mamá cuidaban a mis hijos en Bangladesh pero desde entonces mis hijos están acá conmigo. Mohammed Hossein es de la comunidad hace como veinticinco años él y su mujer vinieron antes que yo unas personas muy amables no pueden hablar bien español pero son muy, muy amables su mujer es mi amiga desde que yo estaba sola yo la llamo a su mujer: hermana y a Hossein: cuñado, cuando yo estaba sola siempre me decían, “No sufras, Afroza no sufras”, yo era una mujer bangla sola en España y ellos me apoyaron me decían, “Ven, trae a tu familia, a tus hijos, vive aquí”. Afroza Rhaman

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Yo cuando tenía tiempo por la tarde o por la noche iba al locutorio que Mohammed tenía ahí en Lavapiés siempre iba a charlar con su mujer, no conocía a muchas personas solo conocía a esa mujer y ese hombre que tenían el locutorio donde yo iba para llamar a mi país, me decían, “Tú vienes cuando tú quieres este local es tu local nosotros somos tus hermanos”, y ahí los fui conociendo más conversando más. Cuando tú te vas fuera de tu tierra y alguien habla tu idioma esa es tu familia ¡la alegría! ¡la alegría! ¡la alegría de escuchar personas hablando tu idioma! ¿sabes? Mohammed siempre llevaba una lata de Coca Cola y una comida para mí y yo, “No, no, cuñado, no quiero, estoy trabajando” “Pero yo lo he traído para ti” “¡Tú piensas que soy una niña!”, ¡él siempre pensaba que yo soy una niña! Cuando pienso que no hay más Mohammed Hossein en el mundo sufro mucho y me cuesta hablar de este tema es una persona muy importante para mí, muchos periodistas llaman piden nota pero yo no puedo hacer nota sufro mucho. Mira cualquier matrimonio discute ¿sí? cualquier matrimonio hace discusiones, bueno yo conocí a ellos por trece años y nunca, nunca veo pelea a veces los escucho hablar poquito más fuerte pero no pelea no discutir nada, nada, nada algunas veces yo llevo a su mujer a algunos sitios Afroza Rhaman

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a comprar y eso y luego vamos a su casa y entro y él prepara la ropa de su mujer lavar planchar ese era Mohammed nada machista nada machista esa palabra no tiene nada que ver con él siempre apoyando a todos apoyando a su mujer hasta maquillar todo hecho por él con amor para su mujer. La mujer ya salió del hospital ahora está en la casa es cerquita yo quiero ir a su casa pero como estamos en cuarentena no puedo tampoco no llamo muchas veces porque cuando llamo tiene muchos sueños con su marido y entonces me los cuenta y sufrimos mucho, nosotros tenemos muchas amigas que ahora viven Londres somos un grupo de mujeres bangla y muchas viven Londres ellas también la llaman y le preguntan cómo está, y está triste porque es una tristeza grande y porque, ¡seis días! ¡seis días! ¡Mohammed no tenía por qué morir! ¡seis días esperando que llegue una ambulancia! Llamaba Elahi, de Valiente Bangla llamaba su hijo llamaba su sobrino y a todos le decían, “Vale, vale, ya va”, escuchan hablar mal español y no te dan importancia nunca llegaron nunca llegaron no sé Hossein y su mujer no pueden explicar bien no pueden hablar bien español ese es el problema pero ese no es problema de ellos es problema de los idiomas es problema del gobierno, ¡casi el noventa por ciento de bangladeshi no puede hablar español! Afroza Rhaman

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y no solo de mis paisanos, de gran parte de los migrantes también ¡noventa por ciento! ¿ves por qué la interpretación es tan importante? es muy importante. Cuando la gente llega a buscar vida a España no logra aprender el idioma necesita buscar trabajo trabajar muchas, muchas horas por día en general busca trabajo en hotel, locutorio, alimentación que son los negocios que tienen sus paisanos bangladeshi y cuando ellos trabajan diez horas doce horas por día no tienen tiempo para aprender español no pueden ir a los horarios de clase solo aprenden las palabras del trabajo, “¿Cómo se dice esto?” “Manzana” “¿Cómo se dice esto?” “Cebolla”, no pueden explicar bien solo saben palabras y precios solo el idioma del trabajo trabajar y mandar dinero para su familia. Los niños cuando llegan sí los niños saben rápido pero, ¿qué pasa? como aprenden rápido no pueden traducir bangla porque llegan a España y aprenden idioma nuevo y muchas palabras bangla ya no las saben o las olvidan y no pueden explicar a mamá y papá, siempre ves a las familias y la mamá y el papá diciendo, “Explíquen, explíquen”, y los niños no tienen tantas palabras en bangla no pueden entonces papá y mamá saben un idioma niños saben otro nadie puede traducir se arma desconexión. Esto no es solo de banglas esto es de todos los migrantes migrantes migrantes 24 horas 24 horas se necesita traductora y traductor Afroza Rhaman

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porque si no se hacen muchos problemas, por ejemplo, va el médico o el servicio social a ver a un paciente y lo que paciente dice, médico no entiende y lo que médico dice, paciente no entiende ¡yo también pasé eso! tengo turno para el médico voy porque mi menstruación hace problemas duele mi tripa voy al médico y explico y médico no entiende yo tampoco me entiendo entonces el médico me dice, “Tú trae un traductor”, y yo conozco un chico, muy joven como diecisiete, dieciocho años y lo llevo y para mí eso es una vergüenza está ahí ese chico escuchando sobre mi menstruación con mucha atención y explicando al médico, es una vergüenza para mí no hay traductor ni en el hospital ni en el centro de salud entonces yo me enfado hablo al médico y le digo, “Tú habla inglés conmigo porque tú no entiendes yo tampoco y entonces, ¿qué hacemos? ¡es una verguenza! si eres médico aprende inglés y hablamos en inglés o hagamos una forma”. Cuando yo busco trabajo muchas veces dicen, “No tiene papel, no pasa nada pero necesita hablar español”, a veces es más importante idioma que papeles. 2007, yo voy a un trabajo a cuidar persona mayor en Lavapiés calle Tribulete esta señora mayor, Consuelo, me apoya mucho una mujer española me da mi primer trabajo Afroza Rhaman

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y con ella aprendo mi primera palabra aroz y ella me dice, “Afroza, no es aroz, ¡arroz! ¡arroz!”, todavía me río cuando recuerdo. Mira, cuando vosotros dices hola en mi país eso es una enfermedad entonces ya piensas en la enfermedad, cuando vosotros dices ¿qué tal? tal en mi país es una fruta entonces ya piensas en la fruta cuando vosotros dices ¡qué bien! bien en mi país significa la relación entre la suegra de mi hija y yo la relación entre esas dos mujeres es bien cuando vosotros dices ¿qué pasa? (esto es una broma contigo, no escribas) pasa en mi país ¡es culo!, entonces la gente te saluda con todas estas palabras bien simples y tú te pones a pensar todas estas cosas la enfermedad, la fruta, la suegra, el culo todo todo se mezcla en la cabeza. Una vez también yo trabajaba en un locutorio y tengo muchísimas marcas de recargas muchas marcas y yo estoy hablando a mi país a mi hermana y entonces llega una cliente (ay, es muy gracioso) y cliente dice, “Necesito recarga” “¿De qué marca?”, le digo y me dice, “Vodafone” y mi hermana dice, “¡Qué palabra tú usas!” ¡porque vuda, en mi país es vagina! y así muchas, muchas palabras muchas, muchas anécdotas. Afroza Rhaman

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Yo soy una suerte soy una suerte de mujer he venido sola y he conocido mucha gente que me ayuda, lucha mucha lucha pero también suerte y compañía, cualquier ayuda yo llamo mis paisanos y a veces ni tienes que pedir ayuda alguien viene y te dice, “Dame tu cuenta” “¿Para qué?” “Tú dame tu cuenta”, y ahí alguien te manda poquito de dinero para comprar comida. Las comunidades migrantes están muy presentes cuando no tienes dinero alguien te presta cuando no tienes comida alguien te da cuando estás triste alguien te llama, y más ahora con el aislamiento no hay trabajo no hay dinero. No queremos morir como Hossein no queremos morir no queremos morir así ¡no queremos morir por el idioma! así que ahora hacemos un grupo voluntariamente como quince personas un grupo para hacer comunicación y lucha, traducimos noticias del coronavirus como se puede y mandamos por internet a migrantes, también hacemos videoconferencia con gente para tratar de comunicar lo que pasa y buscar formas de apoyo, y también estamos haciendo campaña una campaña comunitaria para que el gobierno tenga que traducir ¡el gobierno tiene que traducir sí o sí! cuando un migrante vive en España es una cultura diferente

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una tierra diferente la familia no vive aquí hay amigos pero se van juntando de a poco y cuando viene una mujer sola... muy duro muy duro porque no conoce nadie y se pone burka y la gente no conoce eso y mira mal muy duro y por eso también es muy importante la traducción para hacerse parte y esto no solo para bangla también para senegaleses y africanos y árabes. El día 14 de abril nosotros celebramos año nuevo nobo borsho borsho es año nobo es nuevo, empieza el año 1427 año nuevo bangla siempre celebramos muy grande te voy a mandar fotos pero esta vez no podemos hacerlo por el coronavirus, con el coronavirus empeora mucho la situación no hay trabajo no hay calle por eso hacemos banco de alimentos damos comida a gente nada es suficiente nada es suficiente pero somos personas valientes mucha lucha nuestra vida es un libro abierto.

El comité de Esferas 12 agradece a Dani Zelko el permiso de reproducción de una selección de este libro. El libro completo puede leerse en https://reunionreunion.com/Lengua-o-Muerte.

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Biographies Rachel Berkower graduated from NYU in 2021 with a double major in Global Liberal Studies and Spanish and a minor in Environmental Studies. Focusing her studies on the intersection of environmental equity and human mobility, Rachel wrote her senior thesis on climate-induced migration and the current legal gap within international climate migration governance. Rachel will be continuing her studies in the London School of Economics where she will receive her Master’s degree in International Migration and Public Policy. Sam Cordell graduated in Spring 2021 from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where he studied the intersection between colonial histories, anthropology, and design. He has contributed layout and typography design to the previous three issues of Esferas. Beyond his love of design, Sam has a deep passion for aviation and holds a private pilot license. Photography contributor. j.d. is a Puerto Rican writer born and raised in New York City. Photography contributor. Jeremías Estrada was born in Guatemala in 1985 and migrated to the United States in 2004, where he remained for 10 years in hope of better opportunities. It was in the USA where he met his wife and they had 2 kids. In 2014, Jeremías returned to Guatemala to take care of his mother who was ill. During his stay in Guatemala, he was subject to threats and abuse by criminal groups, and was therefore forced to return to the USA to seek asylum. He handed himself into US immigration and customs authorities to seek asylum but they detained it to him. He was imprisoned for 14 months and subsequently deported back to Guatemala. He currently lives with his family and works in Mexico and is in the process of trying to appeal the decision of the US judge who ordered his deportation a few years ago. In his spare time, he writes stories and poems related to his experience as a migrant. His writings have been presented in Universities in the United States and have been published in books. Sibylle Fischer is an Associate Professor at NYU, where she holds appointments in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Department of History, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She has written extensively about Caribbean history and culture and is the author of Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, which received book awards from LASA, MLA, CSA, and CPA. Together with Ellen 231

Noonan and Ben MacDonald Schmidt, she convened the 2020-21 Humanities Lab on asylum and record keeping. Monserrat Gabisch is a junior in CAS studying environmental studies and public policy with a minor in Spanish. She is half Mexican and has spent most of her life moving from country to country including Tunisia, the Philippines, and South Korea. Due to her background, immigrant rights and immigrant narratives have always been of great interest to her. Her contribution for Esferas was written for “History of Asylum,” a course dedicated to the creation of a user-friendly database of A-files of immigrants who came to the United States over 100 years ago. Benjamin Gladstone is a third-year PhD student in the Departments of Hebrew & Judaic Studies and History and a research assistant for the NYU Asylum H-Lab. His research focuses on Yemeni and ‘Adeni Jewish migration in the 1940s. He has experience in both legal and political advocacy in support of asylum-seekers, and as captain of a volunteer legal advocacy team, he worked with RAICES and other organizations to win the release of undocumented migrants from ICE detention. María X. Herrera Félix graduated from NYU with a B.A. in Spanish and a B.A. in global public health and sociology. Born in Sinaloa, México and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, she is passionate about improving healthcare for migrants and LGBTQ-identifying individuals throughout Latin America and the U.S. Emma Jeong, a junior majoring in philosophy and minoring in economics, has always been interested in the ethical considerations behind the allocation of scarce resources and ensuring equitable outcomes. Having had the opportunity to dive deeper into the history and nuances of governing policies and documents as a legal intern and researcher, Emma recognizes the critical need for justice reform especially regarding immigration. She hopes to enter law school following her senior year to be better equipped with understanding how to advocate for fairer legal systems to advance equity for all. Sophia Klein is a senior at NYU majoring in public policy with a minor in peace and conflict studies.

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Jimi Mancia is a migrant and refugee from El Salvador currently living away from his country due to persecution from gangs in his country. In 2019, while trying to escape violence in El Salvador, he illegally entered the USA and was arrested and subsequently detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prison in the USA. Jimi was deported after 6 months in detention back to El Salvador. In his spare time, he writes poems which reflect on his experiences in life. Celia Martinez is a senior at NYU with a double major in global liberal studies and history and a minor in social and cultural analysis. Celia is interested in Latin American history and politics, human rights, education, immigration and asylum law, and social justice activism. As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, Celia has always been passionate about immigrant rights and giving back to her community. In the future, she plans on attending law school and pursuing human rights or immigration law. Marcia Mendieta Estenssoro (Bolivia, 1992) is a poet, narrator/storyteller, and communicator. She attained her diploma in Creative Writing from la Universidad Privada de Santa Cruz de la Sierra (UPSA) and the summer program in dictated narrative/aural narrative/spoken narrative/ aural storytelling at Casa de Letras in Buenos Aires. She has a Master’s degree in creative writing from New York University (NYU). Since 2015 she has been a member of the poetry group “Llamarada Verde”. In 2017 she published the poetry collection La casa que nos habita. She has participated in poetry festivals at Santa Cruz de la Sierra, New York, San Cristóbal de las Casas (México), Buenos Aires y Rosario (Argentina). In Rosario, she also participated in a residency for young poets. Her poems and texts have been published in anthologies and journals in Bolivia, Argentina, México, Uruguay, the United States, Perú, Spain and China. She served as poetry editor of the journal Temporales at NYU. She is part of the production and content team for the podcast “Tufillo de poeta.” Lola Michel-Infante graduated from NYU in May 2021 with a double major in global liberal studies and Spanish. She is now pursuing a Master’s at NYU in International Relations with a concentration in International Law. She is a Spanish-American and was born and raised in Washington D.C. She is passionate about both literature and photography and loves to explore the intersection between the two.

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Sophia Moore is a third-year student at New York University studying journalism and romance languages, concentrating in Portuguese and Italian. This past summer, she completed coursework and an internship placement through NYU Buenos Aires, culminating in her research project on Argentine immigrant communities. She hopes to complete an accelerated masters degree at NYU in international relations and continue studying cultural pluralism, especially in South America. Bita Mousavi is a PhD student in NYU’s joint program in history and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. She came to NYU in 2018 after completing her undergraduate education in history at the University of California, Berkeley. In her current research, she examines the connections between development, religious revival, and mobility in twentieth-century Iran. Her work with NYU’s Asylum Lab builds on her experience volunteering to help immigrants fight deportation and apply for asylum. Ellen Noonan is clinical associate professor of history, director of NYU’s Archives and Public History program and co-Director of the Asylum Lab. She has more than two decades of experience designing and implementing digital public history projects. Alexia M. Orengo-Green is a History PhD Student at the University of Southern California (USC). Her research interests include the Holocaust, Second World War, and the Spanish Civil War, with a focus on children, identity, memory, trauma, and public history. Originally from Spain and raised in Puerto Rico, Alexia graduated in 2019 from Dickinson College with a B.A in archaeology and history. In May 2021, Alexia graduated from New York University (NYU) with a M.A. in archives and public history. Her capstone project, “A New Look At Teaching the Holocaust: A Teacher’s Guide to Expanding the Holocaust Narrative Beyond Anne Frank,” provides resources and easy modifications teachers can apply in their lesson plans. The guide’s aim is to expand the Holocaust narrative through historical context on antisemitism, the modern state, victims, and the events that followed the Holocaust. Bárbara Pérez Curiel is a Ph.D. student and instructor at New York University’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She holds a Master’s degree in modern languages from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s degree in modern languages from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. For five years, she has worked as an editor, writer, and translator for Mexican and international media outlets and publishing houses. 234

Alberto Quero holds a BA in literature and linguistics, a Masters in Venezuelan literature and a Doctorate in Humanities by the University of Zulia, Venezuela. He has published six books of short stories and two books of poems in Spanish. His texts have appeared in several anthologies. He has been a Writer-in-residence at the Maison de la poésie de Trois-Rivières, Canada. He has also published many peer-reviewed articles for university journals. He is a member of several academic and literary associations. He is the volunteer literary reporter for Latin America at “Literary News”, a radio show aired on CKCU 93.1, a FM station which belongs to Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). Juan Rivera Arroyo (México, 1992) is the author of Albert Speer, un día (Vargas Llosa award) and La casa de la memoria rota (National Literary Award Laura Méndez de Cuenca). He studied literature in Casa Lamm, en la Scuola Holden and the Universidad de Sevilla. Tatiana Ramirez is a recent graduate of NYU with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Born to a family of Salvadoran immigrants, she has witnessed firsthand the challenges that many face when coming to the US to make a life for themselves. This personal connection has led her to delve deeper and explore immigration issues in both writing and research. Siri Ranganath is a writer, storyteller, polyglot, and Indian mythology enthusiast. Her fiction pays homage to her ancestors—the unsung heroes and villains of Channapatna—and tries to answer the questions they left behind for her as an Indian-American New Yorker in 2021. She currently studies finance, creative writing, and Spanish at NYU and teaches at a nonprofit Montessori school in Harlem. Miroslava Arley Rosales Vásquez - Ph.D. student in Literature (Romanistik) at Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany. She earned a Master in Hispanic-American Literature from the University of Guanajuato, Mexico (2019). She is part of the working group “Identities and Communities” of the International Latin American Network of the University of Oxford, Red Europea de Investigaciones sobre Centroamérica (RedIsca), and Red de investigación de las literaturas de mujeres de América Central (Rilmac). Her fields of research are masculinities, violence, Central American migration, and wars in contemporary Mexican, and Central American narratives. She is currently editing a book about Central American migration with professors Mauricio Espinoza (University of Cincinnati), and Ignacio Sarmiento (State University of New York at Fredonia). 235

Elijah VanderMolen is a second year student majoring in public policy and minoring in environmental studies. Concerned with matters of justice and the protection of lives as it relates to policy, he enrolled in the Asylum in Crisis course to gain a deeper understanding of how policy protects (or fails to protect) hopeful immigrants and asylum seekers. Nadia Villafuerte (Mexico), studied music and journalism. She has received grants from the National Fund for Culture and Arts, and the Foundation for Mexican Literature, along with a Mexican national grant for an artistic residency in New York City. Her published works are two books of short stories; Barcos en Houston (2005) and ¿Te gusta el látex, cielo? (2008), and the novel Por el lado salvaje (2011). She is included in the anthologies México20: New Voices, Old Traditions (Pushkin Press, 2015) and Palabras mayores, nueva narrativa mexicana (Malpaso Ediciones, 2015), among others. Her stories and lyric essays have been published in numerous journals and magazines, including Latin American Literature Today, World Literature Today, In Translation (Brooklyn Railroad), Tampa Review, Your Impossible Voice, and others. She received an MFA in Creative Writing at NYU and she is a PhD candidate at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures at the same university. Audrey Vo is a freshman studying political science and English at NYU. Her interests lie in the US government, protest movements, and modernist literature and art. She hopes to study abroad in Latin America during her time at NYU and learn more about the political history of the region. Her other written works can be found in the Politics Society’s In the Zeitgeist editorial, for which she is a contributing columnist. Rachel Yaker is a native New Yorker, born of Puerto Rican and Russian descent. She is currently a Senior at NYU majoring in Mathematics with minors in Business Studies, Psychology and Education. She hopes to continue to continue exploring Latin American culture in the future through culturally immersive hands-on experiences. Bryan Zehngut-Willits is a PhD candidate at NYU researching U.S. immigration and empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He also specializes in digital and public history, and has worked in museum education for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum and as a historical researcher for exhibition at the New York Historical Society. He currently serves as the Digital and Public Communications Coordinator for the Immigration and Ethnic History Society. 236

Dani Zelko, Argentina, 1990. His work is made up of words and people, that are put together through various procedures to generate actions and situations where political tension and language experiments act on one another. He wants an affective conceptualism. He has published a lot of books, among them North-border, El contra-relato de la doctrina Chocobar, ¿Mapuche terrorista?, Terremoto, y Las preguntas completas de Osvaldo Lamborghini (Gato Negro Ediciones, México). Some of them were translated into English and Portuguese. He has exhibited in museums and art spaces in Argentina, Paraguay, Cuba, Mexico, United States and Canada. He gave conferences and lectures in places like Museo Nacional Reina Sofía (España), Museum of Contemporary Art of Los Angeles, New York University, Princeton, UPenn (USA), Casa de las Américas (Cuba), Bikini Wax (Mexico), Universidad Nacional de las Artes, arteBA (Argentina). He is an art teacher and is part of the Liliana Maresca High School in Villa Fiorito, Argentina. He has received recognitions by Visible Award (United States), Braque Prize , Centre for Artistic Research, Ministry of Culture and National Fund for the Arts (Argentina), among others.

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