“In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself”
Frantz Fanon one of the twentieth century leading intellectuals, addressed colonization and identity through the relationship between colonizer and colonized. In his book Black Skin, White Masks Fanon explores how the abuser/colonizer does not recognize the other/colonized as a human being. Without mutual recognition, the abuser has no problem deceiving, hitting, belittling etc. However, Fanon’s also saw the inverse possibility in which the objectified person will have a chance to heal and the opportunity to recreate themselves rather than only being a prisoner to “history” or what others designate them to be. Fanon captures this powerful statement in his quote “In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.”
Though Fanon’s insight rings true as a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit, our own identities and mobility are still largely determined by what our passports say and the places we are born. Despite the ease of consuming multiple lifestyles and the ability to instantly connect with others oceans away thanks to the internet, our own identities and prosperity are still subject to how the world wishes to internalize and act upon them. For example as Sonali Kolhatkar points out in her article on the Syrian refugee crisis “legal definitions of who can go where have often been the difference between life and death for many of the world’s refugees and migrants.” In the current context of global migrations and interconnectedness it is necessary and important to question how and who gets to decide who belongs or not. While I cannot offer a simple policy recommendation on how to integrate or improve the lives of the millions of people who chose to leave their birth places for better opportunities, I can offer my story and advocate for a reframing of the conversation.
I was born in El Salvador amidst the nations’ decade long civil war in 1986, to a second generation Guatemalan German-Jewish father and a Honduran-Catholic woman. By the age of 10 I had lived in the UK, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. By 28, I could add Honduras, Canada, the UK for the second time, Guatemala and the United States to that list. Most of these moves were out of my control as they were dictated by my father´s profession in International Development. This nomadic lifestyle — far from being a struggle like the harrowing journeys most migrants face — afforded me with many privileges. I attended International Schools, which made me fully bilingual from an early age and paved the way for me to study abroad in Canada and the United Kingdom. Despite living in so many places, I never viewed myself as an immigrant or considered the potential flaws of living in countries that did not match my Guatemalan nationality. Sure, when I was student in Montreal and the small English town of Loughborough I lived under restrictions that legally binded me to study at one university, pay higher fees than local students prevented me from working more than 20 hours a week, and restricted my access to health care. But did I view myself as immigrant? Not really.
After legally working for two years in the UK on a post study work visa (which is no longer an option for International Students) I needed to apply for a Tier 2 Sponsored Visa, to account for my non-European Union nationality. I was used to applying for visas as part of my transient life, but never had I been rejected. This one would be rejected due to failure in communication with my employer and the company’s Human Resource office. My rejection letter stated that my passport was being held by the Home Office and I would need to declare within a week whether I would appeal the decision, leave voluntarily, or face deportation. Instantly I was like thousands of others around the world in a country that I had no “legal” right to be in, despite being employed and paying taxes.
One of the main problems with immigration and its legal and cultural constructions is its mutable and changeable nature. In other words, immigration is contradictory, as there are multiple ways in which the migrant is imagined and legitimized. Take for instance those who are classed as immigrants, refugees, economic migrants, and temporary workers v.s. those who are classed as expats, tourists and or even backpackers. Relocation for the former are generally negatively racialized and classed while the latter are viewed as exotic, courageous, independent, and open minded.
Where did I fall into this spectrum? As a citizen of everywhere and nowhere, I thought of myself as blank slate being able to navigate the world. Yet that position naively assumed that I could divorce my identity from my Guatemalan passport. Guatemala: one of the poorest and most violent countries in Latin America that also has the 3 rd highest rate of undocumented migrants in the United States. This was a lesson in coming to terms with how the legal constructions of immigration are severely disconnected from the human experience. Rather, they are nothing more than a complex system of random injustices — and a myriad of papers that confer legitimacy or criminality on people.
Maybe in our current globalized age it is time we seriously consider a world without borders. Not because it is a utopian goal, rather as numerous studies have shown, a modest relaxation of barriers to human mobility between countries would bring economic prosperity. Similarly as it has been pointed immigration rules are not fixed forever, society decides who is or is not a member of the relevant club and migration like I learned, is only negative when we place restrictions and don’t allow people the inherent right to create themselves
