Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRDT) https://grfdt.com/, Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) https://mfasia.org/, and Center for Research on North America (CISAN) http://www.cisan.unam.mx/ organized the International Conference (November 2- 5, 2020) where the important session in Spanish language was chaired by Prof. Camelia Tigau on November 2, 2020. Some of the crucial inputs from the presented research papers have been mentioned in the report.
Regional migration and language in the context of interculturality: a socio-historical approach in the community of San Marcos Tlacoyalco. Prof. Ignacia Morales Reyes, Prof. Sabino Martínez Juárez & Prof. Olivia Castillo Castillo. Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP), Mexico
In the research carried out by Prof. Ignacia Morales Reyes, Prof. Sabino Martínez and Prof. Olivia Castillo Castillo, the importance of analyzingwas stressed from a multidisciplinary perspective, the incursion of migrants from native towns in a context of both national and international migration. The case on which this study focuses was that of the original community of San Marcos Tlacoyalco, Puebla. This community presents special integration dynamics in its international migration process. Despite not having a complete migration network yet, the original community of San Marcos Tlacoyalco presents two interesting migratory processes: an intra-regional migration process and later an international migration process. However, the study showed that their language ngiguahas represented a major difficulty for the integration of this native community in the United States.
Oscar Salvador Torres: Immigration Duels of Deportation: Narratives Expelled from the United States. Center of Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), Mexico
The question guiding the research is: how do people feel about being deported from the United States? According to Oscar Salvador Torres, the first thing to understand to answer this question is that deportation is not return. People who are deported do not live this experience emotionally as a return to their country but as a forced migration. The person who is deported, unlike a person who voluntarily returns, goes through a Detention Center. This has both emotional and legal implications. The concept of return does not do justice to this experience of the deported persons because it makes invisible the fact that they were expelled from the country. From the recognition of this fact, we can understand that the migratory mourning for deportation is a partial mourning because there is not a disappearance involved, but a separation from the host country. This mourning is not isolated from other migratory mourning caused by internal migration. Deportees have all these griefs linked to them. According to Oscar Savador Torres, this is what makes them suffer so much today.
Cristina Cruz Carvajal: The Puebla-New York circuit: transformations of a diaspora in movement. Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP), Mexico
According to Cristina Cruz Carvajal, the migration of people from Puebla to New York has been going on since the 1940s, mainly through the Bracero program. However, it was in the 1980s, because of the economic crises in Mexico, that this migration gained strength, especially in rural areas. The profile of urban origin was incorporated until the 1990s. When they migrate to the United States, the people show solidarity, openness, and kindness, which allows their networks to continue growing and to be strong and solid. With the presence of poblanos, New York has been so transformed that many poblanos even call it “Puebla York”. But Puebla also presents transformations, especially in rural communities where pizza stores, car washes, restaurants, and other businesses abound that reflect the knowledge learned in the United States. In Puebla, migrants are seen as brave, as those who are most loved. In contrast, those who do not migrate are seen as conformists. This perception has been reinforced by the political discourse of some Mexican presidents such as Vicente Fox, and by the fact that the income earned in New York is much higher than that earned in Puebla. Cristina Cruz Carvajal’s research shows that the different national and international crises, including the one generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have brought together the migratory networks of the poblanos in New York. The migratory networks are very strong, so this circuit continues with a view to maintaining itself.
Hazel Cerón Monroy & Arturo Larios Osorio: Tourism as an alternative for the economic reintegration of returning migrants: the case of Mariscala de Juárez, Oaxaca. Center of Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), Mexico
Mexico ranks second in the world in sending migrants abroad, 12.3 million people migrate to the United States; and sixth in tourism in terms of receiving visitors, 41.3 million international visitors. Based on the study of the municipality of Mariscala de Juárez, Oaxaca, Hazel Cerón Monroy and Arturo Larios Osorio showed how tourism can be an excellent opportunity for returning migrants. The economic and social reintegration of returning migrants is not easy. Faced with this situation, Hazel Cerón Monroy and Arturo Larios Osorio believe that nostalgic tourism is a good strategy for the development of activities and products that strengthen the local economy. Nostalgic tourism is of great importance to the state of Oaxaca, where people have a strong community identity based on family, the Catholic religion, the system of charges and mutual aid practices. Return migrants could generate tourism products that increase the level of satisfaction for circular migrants. For the research, a survey of a number of return migrants was conducted based on the optimal probability sample size for return migration and economic and social reintegration in the community of origin. Among some of its most important findings were that 34% of the returnees were engaged in tourism-related activities in the United States and 19% received training in tourism-related skills. This provides insight into factors that increase the likelihood of considering tourism as an economic reintegration strategy. Return migrants who return because of a failed condition may find tourism a much faster way to reintegrate.
Arturo Nieto: Governance, policies and migration management in transit through Mexico. National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico
What is the role of the State in migration? From a migration governance perspective, Arturo Nieto analyzes the migration policies that have been proposed on Mexico’s southern border. Although the State continues to play a preponderant role in the migration process, the challenges posed by migration have made society more self-managing and participatory. The State continues to be the main reference point for guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the population. However, no single State can meet the economic and security challenges of migration on its own. Therefore, civil society has been increasingly involved in decisions on migration. That is why Arturo Nieto proposes that the government should open the door to governance. The State must support itself and work horizontally with society to achieve better results. This is fundamental to face one of the challenges currently facing migration policy in Mexico: to stop making Central American migrants invisible. It is necessary to establish policies and work with civil society to treat Central American migrants as people with rights.
Fernando Gutiérrez Champion: The construction of citizenship and the struggle for the rights of queer migrants in New York in a context of necro-politics (2016-2020). National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico
According to Fernando Gutiérrez Champion, young undocumented migrants from the LGBTQ community are victims in the United States of necro-policies that condemn them to further marginalization and death. Necro-politics is the programming of death for certain populations in society. Necro-politics is successful when the subject dies either as a direct consequence of the device, because of letting die, or of suicide which is often the only escape from the realities experienced by this community. In the face of this, Fernando Gutiérrez Champion shows the mechanisms and practices of resistance that the immigrants of the LGBTQ community have had. Queer migrants are breaking with the restrictive and normative ways that assign a moral component to the control of what is considered “normal”, as opposed to “abnormal”. If fear is a device for maintaining control, then resistance is the counter-device. According to the survey conducted by Fernando Gutiérrez Champion for this research, 73% of those surveyed participate in some movement or resistance for the defense of LGTBQ immigrant rights. One of the most important findings in this research is that the lack of citizenship rights of these people begins in their country of origin and continues in the country of destination. The family is one of the main institutions in which they first experience such rejection, exclusion, and hatred. 42% of the people surveyed fled because of some kind of violence, and 69% would not return to their country of origin. This population never stops dying because the conditions of xenophobia, hatred, and discrimination that they initiate in their family remain in the receiving country.
Alejandro Mosqueda, Postdoctoral Scholarship Program at UNAM, Fellow of the North American Research Center (CISAN), advised by Dr. Camelia Tigau. Twitter: @otro_mosqueda