An immigrant’s view from Durango
How Migrahack CO will deepen my storytelling about local migrants
I am an immigrant from Mexico, and when I arrived to the United States in 2008, I never imagined the burden of being a foreigner in the land of opportunities.
My family and I live in a beautiful place in southwestern Colorado. People frequently rank Durango as one of the best towns in the country. Tourists from around the world come here to appreciate what remains of the 19th century frontier town. They ride the steam engine train and visit the ghost towns near old mining claims. And yet, while Durango is picturesque for tourists, for a growing number of undocumented residents, it is a place of fear.
Earlier this year, United Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched raids nationwide targeting migrant families. In Durango, locals began protesting ICE’s initiatives by hosting weekly protests outside ICE’s headquarters just south of the city.
Due to the lack of information available in Spanish, I, along with other members of the immigrant community, decided to start disseminating news in Spanish via digital media platforms. Our mission is to inform the local Hispanic community with quick, factual information about what is going on in Durango.
Naturally, achieving this without resources has been challenging.
Thanks to the Colorado Media Project, I had the opportunity to attend Colorado Migrahack 2019 at the University of Denver. As a representative of Noticias La Plata, I was able to make wonderful connections, which will help us grow as an organization. Migrahack also provided me with a range of skills — such as data analysis, journalistic research strategies, linguists and digital media design — that will help Noticias La Plata report on migrant issues moving forward.
Just as importantly, I was able to contribute to the development of a digital story about a young immigrant who lives in Durango. For the purpose of her safety, I’ll refer to this woman here as Paulina.
On August 21, 2019 — the day after Governor Jared Polis visited Durango — ICE detained Paulina’s husband shortly after he dropped his daughter off at a local elementary school. What Paulina had worried about only in her nightmares swiftly became a reality for her and her family. Although I knew her story well, my collaborations at Migrahack helped me gather information to tell her story.
Our work developed over the course of two days. As a team, we pored over the immigration data collected by Colorado Media Project for the Migrahack and began to make connections between Paulina’s story and local, state and national trends. As we listened to Pauline’s story over and over again, we began to reflect on the complexity of her case. In this way, we drew connections between DHS’ detention model, which is centered on the publicly traded business, GEO, and the costs Pauline’s family had to pay for her husband to be released from ICE’s detention center in Aurora, Colorado. We produced some analysis, and used it in a student video created at Migrahack, along with an interview I did with Paulina.
Our work at Migrahack has already led to direct results. Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center suggested Noticias La Plata make a series of videos about issues related to migration in Durango. The director of Compañeros, Matt Karkut added, “Projects like Migrahack are crucial to the national dialogue about immigration because they reanimate these issues by telling the raw personal story behind them, helping us to remember that these are real traumas being experienced by real people.”
Thanks to the tools that Migrahack instilled in us, Noticias La Plata is better positioned to serve its readership. And personally, after my experience at Migrahack, I see our mission in La Plata County as more important than ever.
As emeritus professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College, David W. Orr, once wrote, “The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.”
And I would add, more migrants. For the fabric of humanity is one woven by the collective stories of migrants.
Beatriz A. Garcia, a representative from Noticias La Plata, traveled to Migrahack CO thanks to support from PEN America.
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