Sophizona

Adventures in the borderlands.

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what's outside the window?

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conversations with customs

nogales, az:

"porque vas a mexico?" "por trabajo con no mas muertes a grupo beta" "habla englais?" "yeah"? "oh good. how old are you?" "20?" "you must get the young thing all of the time. I thought you were 14! but then you spoke and i figured you must be older.." "haaaaa?" (this conversation occurred standing next to a group of about 20 people being deported into Nogales, Sonora)

nogales, sonora: "what were you doing in Mexico?" "working at grupo beta." "is it safe for you over there?!" "yep. I'm fine." "well be careful."

oh and also: "any drugs or arms? weapons?" "nope." "alright, cause you know that if you turn around they'll put stuff on you." 

I can't decide if men in perceived positions of power hitting on young women bothers me more, or if it's when they question my safety. I know my limitations as a 5'2 female with large breasts, thanks man. 

also perturbing was the conversation I had at grupo beta (mexican government run shelter for repatriated migrants) where a guy asked me if it was legal for border patrol to kill someone for crossing the border. I told him absolutely not and he said that he thought so, but wasn't sure because he was chased around by an agent in the desert who kept yelling "I'm going to kill you, you motherfucker! you know I can!" 

on the bright side, I can hold an hour long conversation about migration law in spanish!

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sleeping chis

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language// travel// blogging!!!

Meeting with NISGUA seemed like a fitting way to start our travel seminar. We were going to meet a former Border Studies student, from Oberlin nonetheless, and see how she was moving forward after college. It was also going to be a look into how one can use their privilege of US citizenship in a potentially productive manner in another country. This was an exciting way to begin after already spending a lot of time questioning my passport privilege and wondering if it is possible to do solidarity work in countries other than my own.  

This first platíca was in english, so it took a little while before it hit me: spanish. I would need much better spanish to work with NISGUA. What help could I be if I couldn’t even effectively communicate with the people I was trying to work with? This feeling of dread was solidified in our next meeting with HIJOS as I struggled to understand what was happening around me.  Afterwards, getting someone to review the points of what had just been talked about felt wrong.   I thought back to readings that we had done for Katie’s class that spoke of the importance of hearing people’s experiences first hand.  Was getting a translation comparable to hearing the HIJOS members speak? Was this first hand or second hand communication? 

This theme of language continued to manifest itself in different ways throughout my time in Guatemala and Mexico. I continued to wonder how much I was missing. I worried that the people we were meeting with could tell that I could not fully understand what they were saying to me; that every time we met eyes they could not see interest and focus, but fear. When people from home asked me in emails about the people that we met, I felt almost guilty telling them about conversations, much of which had been recapped for me. I felt like I was co-opting the experiences of the students who had translated or summarized for me, as if only hearing was enough to make it my own, and that experiencing a person without their words was not.  The question still stood: did it still count as a first hand experience if someone had to translate it for or explain it to me? This was complicated by the fact that in some of the communities that we visited, some members did not speak spanish, but indigenous dialects that were translated into spanish by others, and that for some reason, I did not question if this was getting a second hand experience. I only did so with english.

Now, back in the United States, I am thinking more about the role that language plays as I navigate sharing my travel experiences with others.  I have questioned whether or not, even if my spanish were stronger and I had gathered the majority of our platícas on my own, it be truly accurate to now convey that story to others who had not been there in english. Through this thought process, I have begun to see that my discomfort is not with having people translate things that I do not understand for me, but with the english language, one that is so associated with the power relations we have been studying.  The real question is not of translation but of what an effective and appropriate way is to share the stories of people effected by issues of power and oppression in a language that presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Puerto Ricans need to learn if they want statehood. 

In both spanish and english, I have heard stories from individuals in the migrant shelters we have spent time in, from women deported to Nogales, from the many activists and community leaders we spoke with, and from people that I have worked with here in Tucson.  And I have not quite known what to do with them.  I now think back, once again, to a pre-travel seminar reading that spoke of the importance of speaking with someone rather than for them. I still am not sure how to do this, particularly when that someone is not there to speak for themselves. Especially when I am not speaking their language. I hope to spend my last month in Tucson learning how to share these stories of the people that I have met in a way that is appropriate, effective, and in solidarity with their work. Even if it means I need some help doing so. 

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the places we went last month

hi im bad at blogging

Ciudad de Guatemala Xela, Guatemala Nueva Allianca Tapachula San Caralampio   San Cristobal  Caracol Morelia (caracol 2 de los zapatistas)  Ixtepec La Cuidad de Oaxaca Hutatulco DF

now I'm back, 5 more weeks, then back to the other worlds in my life. weird. 

[caragh]

Kony is terrible. How dare he go out and do something that ultimately ended in the very public nervous breakdown of a rich white man. Doesn’t he know how rich and white he is? How could he do this to Jason Russell? #Kony2012

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Vacation!!!!

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Obviously swooning over a baby bunny at Cideci, an autonomous school on Chiapas.

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A rooster I befriended in San Carlampio, Chiapas

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Guatemala City, Guatemala

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On the way back from San Martin, Guatemala

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They put it on there after meeting with us. Morelia Caracol, Chiapas

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A giant bone on the train tracks

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San Cristobal, Chiapas

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In San Cristobal, Chiapas

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Outside ixtepec, Oaxaca casa de migrantes

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A sort of timeline of border relations

we made this in class today. I've realized that I really like timelines. Also that there are other relevant events to add, because when is a timeline ever finished. 

1900-1929: The Era of the Enganche 

1882: Chinese Exclusion Act

1900-1920: Industrialization of Mexico, a lot of foreign commissions 

1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement

1914: Start of WWI, halt of European Immigration

1917: Literary Tests and Head Taxes (but not for Mexicans)

1920: Out-migration peaks

1924: Creation of Border Patrol- as symbolic agency at first 

1920s: US in the “boom years,” prohibition- bootlegging at the border 

1920-1929: Fluid migration period- nativism heightened 

1929: Stock market crash!!!!! 

*migration from Mexico is fluid, US needs workers, social capital built in Mexico

1929-1941: The Era of Deportations 

1929-1941: The Great Depression: internal migration increases dramatically 

1929-1934: The Dust Bowl 

1929-1930s: replacement of Mexican labor with “Oakies,” led to scapegoating of Mexican immigrants/laborers- Xenophobia and massive deportation- legal immigration drops 

1934: Cárdenas starts land distribution in Mexico to peasants

1935-1941: concentration of capital

1937: creation of PEMEX, oil nationalized in Mexico 

1941: US enters WWII

*Undermining of the legal status of Mexicans in the US, creation of future opportunity for controlling second class labor 

1942-1964: The Bracero Era

1942: Bracero program begins when US enters a boom and needs more workers, Mexican government and corporations increase role in economy under Cárdenas, Roosevelt’s New Deal to revitalize US economy

1940s: need for plentiful and cheap food post-war, 5 million workers cycled in and out of the US under the Bracero program, start of Green Revolution Studies, Japanese Internment 

1950s: Cold War begins, McCarthyist nativism begins

1955: The Vietnam war begins 

1960s: End of country-based immigration quotas, replaced with hemisphere limits- boom of undocumented migration solely because of law and policy change (still consistency in number of people migrating) 

1961: Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress” proposition to “develop” countries in Latin America 

1964: Civil Rights Act, end of the Bracero program, Immigration Exclusion Act Addressed 

1965-1985: The Era of Undocumented Migration

1965: Beginning of Border Industrial Program, introduction of Maquiladora Program to absorb Bracero program participants who were asked to return to Mexico-- women begin to get hired in Maquilas

1968: Massacre of Student Protesters in Mexico City, US starts restricting number of Mexican migrants permitted to enter 

1975: Avg. Mexican wage is 23% of manufacturing wage, end of Vietnam War 

1976: Peso devaluation, INA amendment saying kids cannot sponsor their parents to migrate

1977: INS offers more visas (temporary) for Mexican workers

1970s-80s: Height of the Cold War 

1982: Mexican Economic Collapse, “peso shock,” cut off for Amnesty by IRCA

1965-86: 5.7 Mexicans migrated to the US, roughly 2.8 million enter without documents

1985: Border factories begin to triple (through 1988)

*During this era: border patrol expands from 1500 officers to 3700, apprehensions rose from 55,000 to 1.7 million, defacto guest-worker program, unofficial labor system, functioning revolving door, focus on economics creating displacement--> cause for labor use in the US

1986-2000: The Great Divide

1980s: Maquila industry explodes 

1986: IRCA: Immigration Reform and Control Act 

1987: Iran-Contra Affair

1988: Increase of border factory workers to 400,000- 40% of “exports” are from Maquilas 

1980s: IMF’s Structural Adjustment Bailouts- Neoliberal Revolution in Mexico, Mexico begins to import corn and grain, US backed wars in central America, Sanctuary Movement begins 

1989: Fall of Berlin Wall

1991: Fall of Iron Curtain

1993: Operation Hold the Line, mass migration from Honduras 

1994: NAFTA goes into effect, Zapatista uprising, Operation Gatekeeper, peso devaluation

1996: Operation Streamline starts in Del Rio, TX along with “zero tolerance” policy, increase in private prisons and CCA 

1997ish: Clinton declares US support for Israel in conflict with Palestine 

*Creation of the militarized border as we know it today, creation of Global North and Global South

2001-2012: ?

2001: 9/11 

2003: Integration of immigration and customs enforcement into Homeland Security, War in Iraq begins as does training in border zones 

2000-2005: Mexican population in the US increases from 10-12 million 

2004: Bush re-elected 

2005: Proposal of HR 4437

2006: “Election” of Calderón, migrant marches in the US

2008: US recession begins, Obama is elected 

2010: SB 1070

2011: Ethnic studies and book banning, Occupy movement begins and gains attention

2012: the world ends suddenly in accordance with the Mayan calendar... how am I even writing this right now?!?

*Post 9/11 shift in scapegoating- xenophobia and racial profiling of Middle Eastern individuals, increased militarization of border, creation of imagined and real borders around US 

  WHAT IS THIS NEW ERA THAT WE HAVE FOUND OURSELVES IN?!

Era of Global Capital

Era of Securing the Nation State 

Era of Militarization

Era of Globalization

“Ism” Era

Era of Security (for who) and Criminalization

Era of Industrial Complex

Era of Othering

Era of Enforcement

Era of Attrition