MigrantRoots: We Are All Migrants

A frame of global justice really requires activists and bloggers to step outside the narrow definitions of power that most use to make change in the United States.  It's difficult enough to get U.S. citizens to vote for the oppressed in their own country, much less the oppressed in the majority world.  Some would say a global justice frame might not be the most practical to make change. 

Anyone that's been reading Citizen Orange for some time probably notices this tension in my writing.  The millions of migrants living in fear in the U.S. need change right now.  I struggle between building in a way that will help migrants in the U.S., now, and building in a way that will tackle the root of the problem, which is global inequity. 

Ultimately the two are the same.  The dichotomy between the local and the global is false, because they are one.  Still it is important to define one's role in this unity.  My role will continue to evolve and change, but for now, increasingly I see the need for an articulation of the roots of the problem.  Often when I speak of the need for a more global approach to the U.S. migration debate, people nod their heads and say, "Yeah! NAFTA sucks!".  I'm fortunate that progressives often see the wisdom of approaching the U.S. migration debate from a global lense, but I'm sad to say that there is a lot of liberal elitism in the way of a clear vision of global justice.  I will attempt to arrive at clarity with the help of the collaborative nature of the blogosphere.

I will begin by admitting a mistake in the way I've characterized migrants.  It's happened sort of unknowingly.  As I've gotten involved further in the immigrant movement in the U.S., I've noticed that I've never really considered myself an immigrant.  Even though I was born and raised in Guatemala, and spent 18 years of my life there, I never thought that by moving to the U.S. and living here for the last three years that I would be an immigrant.  Maybe it's something about a U.S. passport that makes you feel like you own the world, maybe it was part of not wanting to let Guatemala go, but I've finally realized that I'm an immigrant to the U.S.

By that same token, for the last two years, I generally characterized migrants as a sort of "them".  Even though its accidental, as many of these systemic ways of thinking are, I have been separating myself from the migrants whose injustice I want to bring to light.  I've always talked about the fear other migrants have been dealing with and the injustice other migrants have suffered.  I've meant well, of course, but in seperating migrants from myself I've given into the forces that seek to define migrants as others.  More importantly though, I ignore the fundamental truth that if another migrant lives in fear -- I live in fear; that if another migrant suffers an injustice -- I suffer an injustice.  This is because we are all one.  An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

We are all migrants.  We move somewhere everyday.  Whether its something as simple as going to work or school, or it's something as significant as moving half a world a way, we all move in someway or another.  That is what it means to be a migrant, to migrate.  The problem here is that millions of people, for one reason or another, have been criminalized for the simple act of moving. 

Certainly there are distinictions and complications that need to be logically and philosophically worked out, but they don't change the fact that there is a fundamental inequity in the way movement is criminalized.  The vast majority of the millions of migrants characterized as illegal in the U.S. are good people that contribute to U.S. society and are simply pursuing opportunity and happiness.  This, while a U.S. passport allows U.S. citizens to travel around the world with very few restrictions.  Again, while there are complications that have to be worked out, this situation, at its core, is unjust.

In a series of posts entitled MigrantRoots I hope to address some of these issues from the lense of global justice.  I'm going to catch flack from both anti-migrant and pro-migrant factions for what I have to say, I imagine, but I can only hope that people will consider it and grow along with me as we find a solution.