The paradox of movement
I was born in a small industrial city just outside of Mexico City and lived there for most of my life. I didn’t like it very much to be honest. I thought it was boring, gray and too small for my aspirations. My family is strictly mexican. I don’t have any direct descendance from another country, just from different states within Mexico. I have an account for possibly every social media site. I like to educate when I post things so I became “that girl” who was always sharing some article on something people needed to know.
My migration stories are privileged and manifest themselves in the form of going away to other countries by myself when I was young or by having extended travels through different continents. As much as those travels have taught me, they were optional and wanted. I moved out of my state as soon as I finished highschool. People from Mexico City don’t have a very good reputation in other states. They’re called “chilangos” and are portrayed as arrogant and annoying. Even when I wasn’t from Mexico City I experienced the rejection of people from other states. My liscence plates were from Mexico state, which is near and around Mexico city. People assumed I was a “chilango” and would be rude to me on the road and sometimes vandalize my car. I changed the license plates and the incidents stopped. It makes me think about the violence people go through when they go somewhere they “don’t belong”. Things like these make me think about how belonging plays such a huge role in our lives. I don’t think my community is very welcoming so I’ve decided to be as welcoming as possible.
Migration is a very important topic in mexican politics but we rarely talk about the thousands of people using our country as a transition to get to the United States. I’m especially preoccupied with LGBTQI migrants since they can’t change their licence plates and be done with it. Mexicans have made it hell for southern american migrants to get to the United States. There is xenophobia, racism and violence. Hunger, lack of work and opportunities and violence are listed as common denominators that push south americans to flee their countries.
Transgender people don’t only face these hardships but are also exposed to sexual violence and discrimination. Relocating seems imminent for them. Such is the case of Nicoll, a guatemalan trans woman tired of being sexually assaulted and beaten in her own country. She applied for political asylum in the United States and was held at a male detention facility of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Arizona. Here she was sexually assaulted and humiliated yet again. She was there for four months, enduring what she had fled from in the place she had thought safer.
I chose this as my community even if I am not transgender because I am a woman and that is enough for me. Not only do we need to help these women, who don’t need to be in detention facilities in the first place but there is a huge demand for gender education. Those women deserve the same respect as any other human being. The media must pay attention to other types of issues, these types of stories should also be exploding in social media. There should be informed people claiming justice and respect. Being born something doesn’t mean you have to stay that way. The search for a better life should not be paved with thorns and it’s our responsibility, as agents of change, to help clear these paths.
This personal narrative was written at the 2016 Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. It exists as part of a digital publication called MOVE which aims to educate readers on the social, political, and cultural impacts of global migration. All stories published in MOVE were created at the 2016 Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change by students and faculty from around the world.