Symposium

A Symposium sponsored by Latin American Studies, American Studies and the Provost

The Latin American Studies (LAS) 2019 symposium seeks to address the multifaceted ways migration is politicized in diverse geo-political contexts. Specifically, we will discuss the illegalization of particular migrant movements to first situate deportation as a sociopolitical regime shaping how we perceive border control and the exclusion of “undesirable” foreigners. Secondly, the symposium moves beyond a U.S. framework to examine the diverse ways Latin American governments exert their sovereign power over bodies, space, and “the nation” in their regulation of borders. It will offer a comparative perspective to illustrate an important and rich conversation surrounding Latin American migration movements and the effects it has on the Latinx community.

 10:15–10:30 a.m.  Introduction: Olga Gonzalez, Director of Latin American Studies
Panel I
 10:30 –12:15   Dislocations and Xenophobia at the Margins of the State in Latin America          
Speakers: Alejandro Velasco, Luciana Chamorro, Edward Paulino

This session emphasizes the diverse ways the state controls the lives of migrants. The U.S. deals with “illegal” immigration through deportation and incarceration, other governments exert their power via different channels of control. We will discuss those channels to understand how migration and borders affect the lives of Latin Americans today.

Studio Thalo Artists will create a mural based on the topics presented during panel 1

Panel II
2:00–3:45 p.m.   Visible and Invisible Borders at the Center of the State(s)
Speakers: Verónica Montes, Lorena Muñoz, Deborah Boehm, Xavier Tavera

This session emphasizes the U.S. by focusing on the Latinx community. Topics such as the Central American refugee crisis, mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, the rise of detention centers, media discourse, and the impacts of immigration policy will be discussed.            

3:45–4:00 p.m.   Closing Remarks
Erika Busse-Cardenas, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Lizeth Gutierrez, CFD Postdoctoral Fellow, American Studies

4:15 p.m. Performance by Mi Peru – Minnesota (Peruvian Dance Group),  Note Performance will be in the Lowe Dayton Art Commons

 ALEJANDRO VELASCO, Associate Professor of Latin American history at New York University. His teaching interests are in the areas of social movements, urban culture, and democratization. His most recent book, Barrio Rising, offers an in-depth history of Venezuela’s urban political politics in the second half of the twentieth century. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Duke University.

 LUCIANA CHAMORRO, Doctoral candidate in Anthropology at Columbia University. Her dissertation, ‘Love is Stronger than Hate’: populist authoritarianism in post-revolutionary Nicaragua, seeks to understand the nature of popular support for authoritarian rule in post-revolutionary Nicaragua. Luciana is a visual artist and produced and directed a documentary film on the memories of displacement of Nicaraguans hard-hit by the Contra War.

 EDWARD PAULINO, Associate Professor of global history at CUNY’s John Jay College. He is the author of Dividing Hispaniola: the Dominican Republic’s Border Campaign against Haiti, 1930-1961. He is a co-founder of Border of Lights (www.borderoflights.org) and also a board member for the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

 STUDIO THALO They are a collective of three artists: Donald Thomas, Olivia Levins Holden, and Nell Pierce. They collaborate to create community-driven murals, live-paintings, and graphic recordings centered on liberation, dignity, and deep listening. They operate their artistic practices out of their studio in South Minneapolis, where they host organizations and groups at the intersection of art and social justice. We are fortunate to be able to have them join us as they create a visual documentary of the topics covered in our first session.

 VERÓNICA MONTES, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bryn Mawr College. Her research falls in two areas: immigration from Mexico and Central America to the United States and on the intersection between the process of homemaking, belonging and migration. Her research interest in migration draws from her personal experience as a Mexican migrant at the age of 18. Her publications have appeared in Gender & Society; Gender, Place and Culture; Apuntes; Contexts; and Global Dialogue. She is a recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral and recently began her term as Treasurer of the Sociologists for Women in Society association.

 LORENA MUÑOZ, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota, is an urban/cultural geographer whose research focuses on the intersections of place, space, gender, sexuality, health and race. Her transdisciplinary research agenda has been focused on the Latinx community in the global south, particularly in the areas of the (in)formal economy, labor, health and productive/transformative agency. She is currently working on two collaborative, comparative projects. The first is a study of informal systems of access to food, labor and health in three different urban populations of migrant and immigrant laborers in the Global South: Colombia, Mexico and the US. The second project is a comparative study on immigration and the impact of family separations in South Africa and the United States.

 DEBORAH BOEHM, Professor of Anthropology and Women’s Studies/Gender, Race, and Identity at the University of Nevada, Reno. She is the author of Intimate Migrations: Gender, Family, and Illegality among Transnational Mexicans (New York University Press) and Returned: Going and Coming in an Age of Deportation (University of California Press), and co-editor of a forthcoming volume, Illegal Encounters: The Effect of Detention and Deportation on Young People (New York University Press). Her current research projects focus on U.S. immigration detention regimes and the experiences of young people who migrate alone to the United States.

 XAVIER TAVERA Castro, Term Professor of Art at the University of Minnesota. After moving from Mexico City to the United States, Xavier Tavera learned what it felt like to be part of a subculture-the immigrant community. Subjected to alienation, he has transformed the focus of his photographs to share the lives of those who are marginalized. Images have offered insight into the diversity of numerous communities and given a voice to those who are often invisible. Tavera has shown his work extensively in the Twin Cities, nationally and internationally including Germany, Scotland, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay and China. His work is part of the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Plaines Art Museum, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Minnesota History Center, Ramsey County Historical Society and the Weisman Art Museum. He is a recipient of the McKnight fellowship, Jerome Travel award, State Arts Board, and Bronica scholarship.

 VERÓNICA MONTES, Stuck in Tijuana: the Caravan at the Closed Gate of the U.S.
This talk describes what happened to thousands of participants from the Central American Caravan once they reached the US-Mexico border in Tijuana, specifically the challenges they faced after the Trump administration announced it would deny the right to request asylum to anyone who failed to apply at an assigned entry port. I will also discuss the Mexican government’s response in this regard and about the humanitarian crisis at the U.S. border.

 LORENA MUÑOZ, South to South Transnational Motherhood and Economic ‘Failure’: Zimbabwean and Latinx Immigrant Domestic Workers
This comparative study, illustrates how motherhood materializes through the emotionally-heavy choices that female immigrants make as they strive to take care of variably vulnerable populations often located simultaneously in different locations. This project illustrates how domestic labor takes shape along with women’s strategies for navigating the most intimate relationships across a global stage fraught with economic and political challenges. This research is situated in relationship to transnational feminist thought by highlighting the strategies that women use to navigate motherhood within a larger context that connects their experiences and strategies across places.

 DEBORAH BOEHM, Families On the Line: U.S. Immigration Enforcement in the 21st Century
The politics of family separation and immigration enforcement have taken center stage in the U.S. Each day, tens of thousands of individuals are apprehended, detained or deported—far from loved ones, with reunification unlikely. Based on research about the impact of migration, deportation, and detention on family life, this talk outlines how U.S. immigration policy—and an absence of comprehensive immigration reform—fragments families and communities throughout the U.S. and beyond its borders.

 XAVIER TAVERA CASTRO, Borderlands and Memory
While the concept of nations is modern, the actual physical and geographical space of the borderlands carries generational scars of collective memory and identity. In order to attempt to comprehend the current political problems regarding immigration, race, and identity, I documented the aesthetics of the borderland landscape. Arid and rugged, the landscape is divided by a man-made scar that snakes through the topography in fragmented sections from west to east along the continent. Most Latinas/os living in the U.S. are deeply marked by the notion of the border. The concept of the border as material or ideological barrier helps construct our identity. As protagonists of Latina/o history, it is up to us to define and preserve jointly that memory.

 ALEJANDRO VELASCO, What Next in Venezuela’s Migrant Crisis?
Since Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro has presided over a fast deepening crisis of historic proportions: hyperinflation, widespread shortages, social unrest, massive economic contraction, political impasse, collapsing oil production and public services. As the nation descends deeper into chaos, over three million Venezuelans have fled. While some countries like Peru, Chile, and Argentina have offered assistance, in others like Columbia, Ecuador, and Brazil –there has been a spike in xenophobia directed against Venezuelan migrants. As Venezuela’s domestic political crisis seems at a tipping point pitting regional and global powers in a stalemate, Venezuelans themselves stand to suffer even more. What do various scenarios–from a direct foreign intervention to a lingering stalemate to a negotiated transition–bode for Venezuela’s migrant crisis?

 LUCIANA CHAMORRO, The aftermath of Nicaragua’s April uprising
In April 2018, Nicaraguan government forces used live ammunition against student-led demonstrations opposing social security reform, killing fifty-four people over four days. Continued repression and President Ortega’s refusal to take responsibility led to a nation-wide uprising. To stop the demonstrations, the government armed paramilitary forces that engaged in extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and abuse of detainees. Death threats and criminalization of those that participated in the civic uprising have forced over fifty thousand Nicaraguans to seek refuge in neighboring Costa Rica. Against the backdrop of recent events, this talk considers forced migration of key population groups as one of the desired effects of state terror. It investigates how the Ortega regime seeks to redraw the boundaries of the nation by killing, incarcerating and also forcing into exile “undesired” citizens that threaten its continuation in power.

EDWARD PAULINO, Before Tijuana and Chile there was Santo Domingo: Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic and the struggle for citizenship
Haitians have long struggled to be recognized as equal citizens in the Dominican Republic. They have simultaneously occupied the very center and margins of Dominican society comprising an indispensable source of cheap labor in various sectors. Yet they are politically and socially marginalized and many denied the universal right of a nationality. This talk shows how anti-Haitian policies represent larger global issues including xenophobia, neo-liberalism and authoritarian democratically elected governments that target historic outsiders as scapegoats to deflect attention from issues such as corruption and gender violence against women while defining what it means to be a national citizen in the 21st century.

 Border wall illustration above by Vicente Wong-Busse, age 7  “It is not fair, reminds me of the border wall that separates Mexicans from Americans.”  (January 17^th, 2019)