Voices of Mexico no. 127

Our Voice

This issue of Voices of Mexico presents university voices dealing with a multi-faceted phenomenon in today’s North America: human mobility in the political context dominated by a U.S. government openly hostile to migration. In the Trump 2.0 era, migration to the United States is characterized by the criminalization of both male and female migrants, the strategic use of disinformation, and a state apparatus that reinforces mechanisms of physical and digital control. Given that, this issue brings together analyses that dismantle myths, recover direct experiences, examine the long history of exclusion, and reveal the complexity of the new forms of migration governance.

The texts we present show the distance between the official narratives and the day-to-day reality of people crossing borders. On one hand, they document the contributions migrant workers make to sustain entire sectors of the U.S. economy despite facing persecution and precarious working conditions. On the other hand, they present testimonies that reveal the corporeal lessons of the crossing, community care strategies, and the mechanisms migrants use to transform fear into collective memory. They also review historic episodes showing the contemporary resurgence of eugenic and nativist discourses that underpin today’s deportation and exclusionary policies.