Electoral Politics & Immigration Rights

The COVID-19 pandemic has made things complicated around the world, and America has been equally affected by this global health crisis and the impact it has had on society. The Radical Futures Now Podcast brought back professor Jason De León to help us understand and decipher immigration rights and electoral politics in America. In this episode, we dive deep into issues of diversity and differences between various minority groups in America in context of the political build up towards the upcoming national election. Jason De León also provides his professional thoughts and opinions about the re-opening of universities and other academic institutions amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resources:

Undocumented Migration Project webpage

Hostile Terrain 94 webpage

Land of Open Graves book


Transcript:

Intro:
Welcome to The Radical Zone Podcast, where we get updates on the current state of the world and how various communities are impacted from activists and organizers who are out there doing the work. The Radical Zone Podcast is housed under the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. I know you’re probably wondering what the Arcus Center is. The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership also known as ACSJL is an initiative of Kalamazoo College, whose mission is to develop and sustain leaders in human rights and social justice through education and capacity building. We envision a world where every person’s life is equally valued. The inherent dignity of all people is recognized, the opportunity to develop ones what potentially is available to every person and systematic discrimination and structural inequities have been eradicated. Listen to and engage in conversation with organizers and activists across the globe about social inequities that impact us all.  

Rhiki Swinton:
So welcome back to another episode on The Radical Zone Podcast. My name is Rhiki Swinton, and I will be your host. Today, I brought in Paige, who was a former student staff member of the Arcus Center. Paige, tell the people about yourself a little bit. 

Paige:
Hi everyone. I’m really excited to talk to Jason De León today. I recently graduated from Kalamazoo College. I’m a writer and organizer. I mostly do creative writing like poetry and plays. I also volunteer at APIENC, a queer and trans Asian Pacific Islander group out in the Bay Area. Shout out to APIENC and you can check out my writing at miublue.com, M-I-U-B-L-U-E. And follow me on Instagram @miupaige, M-I-U-P-A-I-G-E. 

Rhiki Swinton:
So like Paige said, we’re bringing back Jason De Leon, who is an anthropologist and executive director of the Undocumented Migration Project. If you haven’t heard our first episode with Jason, please go back and listen to that. You can hear more information about his work and the projects that are coming out of his organization. Jason, thank you for coming back to The Radical Zone. We’re so excited to talk with you.  

Jason De León:
No, my pleasure. Thank you for having me again.  

Paige:
I was recently just telling Rhiki actually this morning that I used to live in, Nogales, Arizona, which is a border state. I’ve been thinking a lot about that as we prepared to talk to you today. And so I’m really excited to learn more about your work. And I just want to start off by asking, what’s been on your mind this week, Jason?  

Jason De León:
This week is kind of a busy week for me because we are launching our global exhibition Hostile Terrain 94. We have our virtual launch on Friday in Santa Fe and actually that exhibition is physically up as well. I believe that people can go see it. They are working on social distancing protocols that allow people to visit the gallery space one at a time. So we’ve got a whole bunch of events developed around that, that are happening this week. So that’s sort of been on my mind, but then also, I’ve just driven from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh. So I’m here in Pittsburgh now in my in-laws house. And I was telling Ricky before we started that we camped the entire way. We did basically primitive camping so we could avoid all people as much as possible to get here.  

And it was just very interesting and I knew this was going to happen. It was just to see the differences in people’s responses to COVID by state. I went to Arizona and getting gas in Arizona, for me, a typical Arizona occurrence where the gas station clerk is not wearing a mask, but is wearing a gun. So pretty kind of indicative of how Arizona has approached COVID-19, New Mexico was a complete opposite, every single person I ran into had a mask on and they were very conscious about that. Every time I went into a gas station about whether or not people had masks on and if they didn’t, they weren’t allowed to come into the store and then getting into Missouri, which looked a lot like Arizona people just being very, very nonchalant about this whole thing.  

And so I’ve just been thinking about, coming out of California and coming out of Los Angeles where I feel like despite some people not taking it seriously, for the most part, my neighbors and people I would run into at the store and stuff seemed to be really serious about the spread of coronavirus. And that’s, I think very much a bubble. I think there’s other parts of this country that like many issues, whether it’s immigration, police brutality, healthcare, this variation in how people are responding to this stuff. So for me, it was a little sad to see that, it doesn’t really matter what California does right now, or Los Angeles, because there are huge parts of this country that aren’t taking things seriously. And I think you could say the same thing about immigration, about politics, voter fraud. I mean, whatever kind of political or social issue that’s kind of on our minds right now, there is a huge variation across this country, which says a lot about, I think our future.  

Paige:
Yeah. I think that’s an interesting choice that you made to drive out to Pittsburgh and then primitive camping. My friend actually recently drove also from Los Angeles, I think, to Boston, but he chose to stay in hotels. What was going through your mind? I know you had talked a little bit about wanting to have as least contact as possible. What else also going into that decision making process for you?  

Jason De León:
Yeah. I mean, I have no desire to be around strangers right now, especially considering that most, I think that I just assume that everybody has COVID-19 and that they’re all acting irresponsibly. And I also don’t know if I have it and so I really want to be cautious and I want this pandemic to end as soon as possible. And I think the only way that that’s going to happen is for people to take that kind of responsibility and not be this, so selfish about, I want to go to the bar, I want to go out and do stuff. I’m like, you know what? No shit, I want to do all those things too. But the more you keep doing it now, the longer it’s going to be before we get to do those things again.  

And so for me, it’s trying to be a good citizen, but also trying to set a good example for my kids, who are with me and teaching them about social responsibility and trying to instill those kinds of values. But even just like, bars and restaurants had been open at for a little bit in L.A. and I just remember, driving by people are sitting outside eating, and if your waiter is wearing a hazmat suit, why would you want to be in that place? I really, I just, I don’t understand it. And I get the being stir crazy thing, but it’s this idea that it’s just going to go away if we ignore it, I think is a very much an American. Americans, we’re irresponsible about so many things or either irresponsible or negligent or ignorant of many major social issues. And so we just choose to ignore things and hope that they’ll go away.

So we can ignore COVID-19 and hope it’s going to go away. We can ignore Black lives matter and hope it’s going to go away. And so even when I’m seeing now, I think it’s representative of where we are in this country at this moment. But for me, the decision to avoid people. I mean, we’re here in Pittsburgh, we’re going to sit in the house. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to come here and, I can see my in-laws, but I have no desire to go out and do anything, especially now in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh had been doing very well and is now surging.  

Paige:
I’m glad that you and your family were able to make it to Pittsburgh safely. And I think, I’m also in Los Angeles right now with my family and yeah, going to restaurants and seeing someone with a hazmat suit is like, why would you? Yeah, I totally agree with what you were saying for sure.  

Jason De León:
I mean, It’s really disheartening when I go out and people are not following social distancing rules right. They’re not keeping six feet apart or they could walk into a grocery store and everyone’s wearing a mask except for them. And they can just think that that’s totally okay. It’s very, this thing is very, I’m trying not to get angry about it, but it’s kind of mixed reaction to this whole thing is very infuriating. But yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I just think that people are going to learn the hard way, unfortunately,  

Rhiki Swinton:
I liked what you said earlier about how our mixed reactions across various states and across the nation is also somewhat symbolic of our mixed reaction when it comes to immigration specifically. And I remember reading in your book this point where you talk about how you think people have this kind of historical amnesia, basically around the way they view early European immigration compared to the way we view immigration now. So can you tell me a little bit more on basically what you think, can you talk to me a little bit more on this idea of historical amnesia and kind of point out the parallels between early European immigration and immigration that we see today?  

Jason De León:
Sure. I think that we, as a country are very selective about what we remember. We live in a White patriarchal, heterosexual society that privileges those particular narratives, overall others. And I think that that viewpoint dominates what we talk about in the current moment. And it sure as hell dominates how we remember the past. And anyone that has a romance about the past, I am skeptical of because we know that our history is so incredibly complicated. And so to think that it was better then than it is now, let’s make America great again, the new… now it’s keep America great. But when we reflect, if someone reflects back and goes, yeah, the 1960s were great or the 1860s were great, that was when America really was America, those aren’t people of color saying those sorts of things. 

But unfortunately, the people who have that viewpoint are the ones who control the narrative and who find themselves in positions of power. But we do, I mean, Americans oftentimes too, we really Whitewash how we think about the past. And one of my kind of favorite examples of how waves of immigration or generations of the more you are removed from that kind of first generation of landing in the U.S. the more kind of twisted, I think your viewpoint is of those times. And there was a sociologist named Herbert Gans who had written quite extensively about different generations of immigrants. And he would say, generation number one is, they come to this country, they’re demonized, they’re given shit jobs. They don’t speak English very well, they’re ghettoized. 

And then he says, then they have kids. Those kids grow up in the U.S. they grew up speaking English as the primary language. They try to distance themselves from the generation of their parents, because they know that they were experiencing so much discrimination. And so they’re kind of more American than Americans. And then you get this third generation after them that then now hasn’t really experienced any kind of discrimination because of their background. And I’m talking mostly about European Americans. And so a third generation Irish person can be Irish and proud and not have to worry about being excluded from a restaurant or being beaten up by the police or this kind of stuff. They can romanticize the kind of Irish past, and they can embrace that identity because it doesn’t negatively impact them on a daily basis.  

And so Gans talks about this idea of symbolic ethnicity, where this third generation is able to wear the ethnicity of the home country as window dressing. So you can be a proud Irish American, or a proud Italian-American, and you don’t have to worry about discrimination. I mean, we aren’t demonizing Italian-Americans like we are demonizing African-Americans or Latinx folks or Asian Americans. But so the people who, and you never hear, well, occasionally you do, but you most, when someone says, why don’t these filthy immigrants come here and be like my grandparents who worked really hard, who learned English, who pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and lived the American dream, the people who were saying those things are White. These other people of color, they recognize that it doesn’t matter what generation you are of you’re still facing this discrimination.  

And so I think that the historical amnesia we have is very much a White American historical amnesia, because I think people of color recognize that 1860, 1960 and 2020, you can see parallels in the things that are happening, the lynching of Black people has continued up until present day. It doesn’t matter what decade or century we’re in the violence that has been perpetuated against African-Americans by people like the police has continued to exist forever. And so there is no historical amnesia for those groups, but I do think that’s White America loves to forget about those things. And whether it’s the treatment of African-Americans, the treatment of native Americans, Asian Americans, the people who tend to control the narrative are the ones that want to paint themselves in this kind of, in a better light.  

And that’s when I was just listening to an interview the other day with the native American author, Tommy Orange, he’s talking about his book, There There, and I forgot the woman’s name who was interviewing him, but it was very interesting because they were talking about Thanksgiving and about Native American history. And one of the things that this interviewer had said to him was, I’m increasingly thinking that it’s not so much that me as a White person needs to learn more about Native American history. I need to learn more about what my White ancestors did to Native Americans, how they created these structures. And like, what was my part in this whole thing, which I think is a radically different kind of perspective for a lot of White people who think that just because they can learn a little bit about history that then suddenly that makes everything okay. Just because you’re educated about this thing, then everything is much better now, or educated in a way that makes you feel okay about being educated, as opposed to kind of owning up to the legacy of things like White privilege.  

Rhiki Swinton:
I agree with what you said about the whole education thing. I think, honestly, in my opinion, people educate themselves enough to be able to define and use, those sorts of buzz words and conversations that allow people to know that they have done some research that they have educated themselves a little bit, but I don’t think they really educate to understand the gravity of the issue or educate themselves to really learn how they could become an organizer or become an ally and actually do the work to move the issue forward and to move the ball a little bit further along. I really think it is just a kind of, I don’t want to say performance, but being the good White person, if that makes sense. Just know enough where you’re conscious that these things are happening and you know the language and you’re able to engage in conversation but not educating yourself past that point, I think I see a lot.  

Jason De León:
Yeah. I mean, especially in the universities, I mean, as a faculty member, there is a lot of performance of diversity or people say that, Oh, I’m all for diversity. I’m all for embracing people who are not like me, being more inclusive. And I think so much of that is very empty. And as a person of color who gets asked to be on these diversity committees, I mean, that’s not my job to make this thing diverse. It’s other people’s jobs, as far as I’m concerned the people who are in power and who benefit from the structure, it’s up to them to dismantle this thing or to make it more inclusive. And I think there is a lot of lip service but I am also hopeful. I do feel like in this current political moment, people are fed up. 

I mean, I love seeing all the stuff on Black Twitter where it’s things like it doesn’t matter if you can stop calling the bedroom in the house, the master bedroom that doesn’t, I don’t care about historical language of slavery being changed. I care about major, defunding the police, major structural changes, none of this, the lip service that we give, oftentimes, because it’s so much more work to actually to make real changes. And I do feel like people are really pushing back on that now. And really it’s uncomfortable. And I think it’s uncomfortable in a really good way. I love this whole thing where people say, I don’t care if you’re not racist, I want to know that you are anti-racist, which is a very different kind of thing. 

And also a very different kind of language that we’re using now than we have in my lifetime. I mean, I think at this point we are talking about race and inequality in ways that we haven’t seen in over a generation. And that does give me hope because it’s making a lot of White people take stock of who they are and their privilege and making a lot of people really uncomfortable. And I do think that it’s going to have to be uncomfortable before we make any change. And I remember to myself in 2016, after Trump was elected thinking, okay, things are going to get bad. How bad will they get? And will they get bad enough that things will have to start to change? And I’m optimistic that we’re starting to see the beginnings of that. It’s of course not pleasant and it’s really difficult, but I think no good change is easy. If it was easy, we would’ve done it a long time ago.  

Paige:
I was thinking about what you were saying earlier about the difference in generations. I think something that I’ve been listening a lot about for the upcoming election too, is that people should focus more on the Asian American vote. And one thing that is heavily looked over with the Asian-American people in the U.S. when it comes to elections, is that a lot of people aren’t talking, politicians aren’t talking enough about immigration. And I think that’s one thing that a lot of Asian-Americans can unite behind. I’m just thinking about your commentary about difference in immigration generationally. I think there’s definitely a process of assimilation that I think is discussed in the Asian-American community. And I don’t really know what I want to say about it, but you’re definitely bringing up a lot of interesting thought provoking things.  

Jason De León:
Well, I would even go further and say this idea that people are finally recognizing that the Asian vote is important. I think one of the problems with that is that a lot of people don’t understand the diversity of who Asians are. And I think that growing up in Los Angeles, I grew up in Long Beach with huge Vietnamese and Cambodian population who those are people who have fundamentally different kinds of immigration experiences than say people from China or Japan. And I think there’s a lot of work that can be done. I mean, there’s so much coalition building potential, I think between the Vietnamese and Latinx folks, Cambodians that share very similar experiences that might be more aligned with Latinx folks, with Filipinos than perhaps with the people from China.  

And politicians of course, I think are not very, they also think that all Latinos are from Mexico. And so not recognizing that diversity either. But I do think, I hope that if people are smarter this election year and into the future it’s recognizing that diversity is really important and those individual identities are oftentimes radically different and we can build different kinds of coalitions by thinking beyond, maybe it’s not Asian-ness that unites people, but maybe it’s immigration issues that the parallels are incredibly striking. And unfortunately, you can know that growing up in California because you see it so much, but people in the Midwest perhaps don’t necessarily have that kind of understanding about, what’s the difference between a Mexican and a Guatemalan or a Honduran or Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese. That nuance oftentimes is completely lost on the general public. And I think also lost on politicians.  

Paige:
Yeah, definitely. I’ve been thinking about that as well, the possibility space of solidarity amongst Asian and Lanitx racial groups in the U.S. and the upcoming election. And that actually brings me to this quote that we prepared for today. And something that I’ve been thinking about too, Angela Davis actually talks about how we can’t create radical consciousness by focusing on a single issue. And she goes on to talk about intersectionality. But instead of talking about the intersections of identity, talking about the importance of recognizing the intersections between our struggles and if our struggles can intertwine, then we’d be more likely to do cross movement building.

And something that also I’ve been thinking about. I just re-read this recently, yesterday. I was rereading he Combahee River Collective statement, which was written in 1977, which was the founding document of contemporary Black feminism and expresses, not only that political stakes and urgency of a movement that seeks to intervene in all systems of oppression, but also the analytical insight that systems of oppression are interlocking and must be addressed at the site of their multiplicity and not one at a time. And I was just wondering, how you see, cross movement building within your work, Jason, with immigration and with hostile terrain and your book. So I was just wondering how you’ve been thinking about cross movement building, especially in this moment.  

Jason De León:
Well, I think you can’t do any of this work in a bubble or a vacuum. And I think people in general have to understand that the Black lives matter movement is not just for Black people. I think, it’s a global issue and it’s one that affects all of us. And I think people have to understand that these movements, we are a part of them, we’re either contributing to the trauma that they create or we’re actively fighting against them. And sometimes it’s really hard to get people to recognize that their voice is important in these things, how to be an ally, how to be part of a movement without being the straight White male in the room who then suddenly talks, aloud us and takes over this whole thing. It’s how can people from different backgrounds be a part of these movements in a kind of healthy way, but then also explaining to people that they need to be a part of this.  

If we’re going to push for equality and positive social change, it can’t just be of color doing this. And I think with my own work, like with Hostile Terrain 94, this is this global exhibition that’s going to happen eventually 130 plus locations around the world on six continents. And the fact that this exhibition, which is about migrant death in Arizona, which is largely Mexican and Central American deaths, we’re putting this exhibition into places that are not in Latin America, or aren’t on the U.S. Mexico border. So Europe, Australia, Asia, places where people are dealing with their own immigration issues. And we see this exhibition as a way to kind of stand in solidarity, globally with migrants and refugees from around the world. And so we actively partner with nonprofits and NGOs that work on these issues.  

Our first European show is slated to happen in Lampedusa, Italy. And we are anticipating working with largely refugees from Africa, whether it’s West Africa or North Africa who land in Lampedusa and are detained there before being sent elsewhere in the EU. We will be working with those refugees to build that exhibition there. And for us, that’s an important moment of solidarity with these other folks who are going through the same issues, but just happens to be in the Mediterranean and not the Arizona desert. And so part of this project really is about connecting with migrants and refugees globally.

But then also trying to find other ways to show parallels with the issues of things like structural violence that people experience in the desert and how they experience it in other places. One of the first shows that signed on was Flint, Michigan, and very early in our conversations with Flint, Michigan, we wanted, and they wanted to find ways to think about how this structural violence that affects Brown bodies in the Arizona desert is similar to the structural violence that affects Black bodies and Brown bodies because of the water crisis in Flint. And so we have been letting all of our exhibition hosts determine what type of programming we’re going to add to this exhibition, who they’re going to invite to talk and how they’re going to best connect this issue of immigration to the things that are most important in their community. 

And it might be that the most important thing in the community is immigration, or it could be something else that’s related. And that impacts people in different kinds of ways, but is running in parallel, or we can see a kind of a helpful comparison of these different kinds of experiences. So, with the current exhibition, I mean, that’s one of our big goals is to have it be inclusive and completely collaborative so that our hosts can tell us, this is what’s important for us, and this is how we think we can connect the immigration issue to other things that are impacting our communities directly.  

Paige:
So I know you have a background in anthropology and archeology, reading about your work with Hostile Terrain and the artwork. I was wondering a lot about what was the intention and the thought and the choices that you were making when you made to center the violence in the death of those who crossed the Sonoran Desert. I think to me, it’s very obvious that that experience of migration of the journey through that terrain is hostile. I think that’s obvious. And I’m wondering what choices you were making when you chose to center that and the art pieces.  

Jason De León:
You mean why migrant death? 

Paige:
Yeah.

Jason De León:
It’s an issue that I’ve been working on for about over 10 years now, and whether it’s, the forensic work that I’ve done on migrant death in Arizona, working with the families of the missing and of the dead. So it’s something that I’ve written about extensively. It’s something that I’ve researched extensively, but with the exhibition, I really wanted to draw attention to the fact that 1,000s of people have died migrating, people continue to die every single day, and we oftentimes forget or ignore that this is actually happening. And so my initial thing was, coming up on this election, I want it to recenter. I know immigration is going to be a big issue in the fall, but I want people to also be thinking about the historical depth of the migration crisis in places like Arizona that have claimed the lives of 1,000s of people. And so I really wanted to find an exhibition that would directly engage with different publics in hopes that people would have a more nuanced understanding about what it is that happens along the U.S. Mexico border. 

And when we talk about border security and we talk about undocumented migration, that it’s not just as nameless, faceless statistics that we might see on the news, but people with names and lives that have been cut short by border policies. And so I wanted to find a way to directly connect with people on this issue and in hopes that they would walk away from it with more knowledge and perhaps with a better understanding about this issue, but then also about what they can do next, who to vote for, how to discuss these issues, how to perhaps have a counter narrative when someone talks about invading immigrants or building a wall, and someone can come back and talk about, well, what about the 1,000s of people who have already died because of other policies. So that really has been the goal is to kind of change some of the conversation away from the things that Donald Trump wants us to focus on in regards to immigration, and think about more of the realities that migrants actually experienced on a day to day basis.  

Paige:
Yeah, I think hearing about your goal and talking to you right now is really insightful. I think to me, I came up in ethnic studies and read Gloria Anzaldua’s, Borderlands and read Leslie Marmon Silko, Almanac of the Dead. And so to me, I’ve mostly heard about these things through stories and storytelling and language, and I hadn’t seen it in this form of art before. So I think it was really thought provoking when I had encountered your work and talking to you today.  

Jason De León:
Yeah. I mean, I’ve just been experimenting over the years with different formats, whether it’s writing articles or books or making documentary films. I’ve been working on exhibition work since about 2013. And I find that it’s a good, it’s a different kind of project that I think reaches different kinds of audiences, as opposed to the people who will read my next book or watch a documentary film that I make. I think the exhibition, especially the exhibition that we’re doing now, which is really about collaboration with communities. I mean, for us to realize these 130 plus shows around the globe, it’s going to require 1,000s of volunteers to help us build these exhibitions. And for me, that seemed like a new and exciting audience that I could engage with who maybe would never read a book about migration, or would never watch a documentary film, but perhaps I can get them to engage with this issue through the construction of an exhibition. And so we’ll see. I mean, I’m hopeful that we will connect with different audiences, but this is a complete experiment that we’ve been running for now going on 16 months.  

Paige:
It sounds like to me, when you say you’re hoping different audience will engage with it, that wouldn’t maybe pick up your book and read about it on their own. Are you hoping that people… I’m guessing, I’m wondering who you imagine your audience to be when they see these exhibits? Are you hoping, say a Trump supporter would come in and have different thoughts about immigration after seeing the art piece?  

Jason De León:
I’m not so concerned about Trump supporters anymore. I mean, there was a time where I felt like we needed to extend a hand across the aisle, but I think if you’re still supporting Donald Trump in 2020, there’s nothing that I can say to you that’s going to change your mind. And I don’t even want to change your mind. There’s nothing I can say to you that would allow us to have a rational conversation. I think for me, I’m more interested in people who have never really thought one way or another about immigration. It’s easy to get to pro immigration people, people who are very sympathetic to migrants, that’s easy to get them into the door to have to work on this exhibition. I think what’s harder is to get people who have never tried, who have never thought about engaging with this issue.  

And that for me, is a much more important audience. This audience that is only now starting to really think about these things. And I think Trump in a lot of ways has forced our hand, or at least forced the hand of a lot of Americans to now kind of pick a side. And things like his indifference or his hatred of immigrants is seeming hatred of people of color, of Black people, his indifference to the murder of African Americans. I think in a lot of ways that has been good for a certain segment of the population who is now kind of standing around going, Oh my God, am I going to be that person? Is that who I am? This person who doesn’t care about the lives of others, who’s indifferent to these things, or am I seeing so much hatred and violence in the world now that I no longer have a choice to kind of stay quiet? 

And that’s really the audience that I’m most interested in connecting with, because I feel like they’re open to learning new things. And that’s all I can hope to do is to try to teach people something new about the world in hopes that they can take that information and go out and do something good with it.  

Rhiki Swinton:
So I want to backtrack just a little bit to what you were talking about as far as parallels. And I think you mentioned some great parallels between Latinx folks and migrants with other communities, but I think some other parallels that we can draw from immigration and the uprising that’s happening today in the Black community is the criminalizing of Black and Brown folks. I think police brutality is a result of social profiling and the way in which Black bodies are viewed, but also think ICE and the policing of the border is a direct result of the way in which we view migrants. So can you talk a little bit more about policing Brown bodies, specifically migrants across the borders and how that impacts the way in which the world views them?  

Jason De León:
Yeah, I mean, I think for good reason, we’ve been so focused on police brutality in the U.S. but a lot of people don’t know that the border patrol ICE, we’ve been brutalizing people of color for decades, and there’s way less oversight with that organization than there are even with the police. And this is largely because the folks that they’re brutalizing are undocumented and they don’t have a lot of rights, they don’t have access to, oftentimes to legal representation. And they’re in these incredibly vulnerable positions where they can be taken advantage of more so than a lot of other folks. And people are already starting to talk about the defunding and the abolishing of ICE and of the border patrol, because we know that the assaults, the murder, those things have been happening for a long time.  

There’s lots of footage of migrants being killed by the border patrol and nothing has come of it. And that system is structured in such a way that it’s kind of a perfect storm to allow the police to continue to do these things that go unchecked. So as we’re thinking about police reform or defunding or whatever, this new moment’s going to look like the next turn, then we’ll be also to think about what’s happening with ICE and with the border patrol. But it’s definitely an important issue to think about. And also the fact that we incarcerate so many migrants and they are put into detention centers that are typically privately run, poorly managed, no oversight. And so the abuses that happen in detention centers too are mortifying. 

And yet there’s very little that has been done because this stuff happens behind closed doors. And it happens to people who are so disenfranchised that they just have no voice oftentimes, to raise awareness about these things, which means that other people have to step in. And we’ve got so many different fights that have to happen, but I definitely see the Black lives matter and this movement to do abolish ICE as being very much interconnected and very much part of the same struggle.  

Rhiki Swinton:
Yeah. So I’m really curious to get your thoughts on this next question. It’s a little bit off the topic of what we’ve been talking about, but I just think it’s crazy. So I don’t know if you heard Jason, but the Trump administration announced his intent to pull out a rule blocking international students from coming to, or remaining in the United States if their courses are taught entirely online. So I’m just curious, have you heard about this new thing that’s been happening and how do you think it’s going to affect immigration or just, yeah. How do you think it’s going to affect immigration in the United States and what will it mean for us moving forward if we’re not allowing this open education to happen as well?  

Jason De León:
Well, I think that universities are going to fight this tooth and nail and find all kinds of work arounds. And I say that not because I think universities really care a lot about international students. I think universities care about the tuition that international students are paying, and that’s why they will pick up this fight. And that’s why I think Trump is picking on international students because he knows that it’s a way to try and force these universities to hold classes. I mean, that’s really what they want. They want to open up the economy at the risk of the American public, especially at the risk of poor people, people of color, these populations that are more directly impacted by COVID-19. This is a way for Trump to really push the hand of these universities.  

And you’re going to see the universities do everything they can to keep the students in the U.S. and paying tuition. I wish it was for more, I wish they had better intentions, I do want to believe that there are some people who care about international students, and I have many colleagues who do, but I do think at the level of like these large corporations, these universities, they care much more about the money because you’re not seeing them stick up for undocumented students who are enrolled in college. They’re sticking up for these international students. And that’s because the undocumented students, they don’t contribute as much money to these systems. And yet they’re even more vulnerable and have been ignored by many places or marginalized on campus.  

But I do think that you’re going to see a lot of this getting tied up in the courts. And I don’t think they’re going to be able to keep out these international students. I think the universities are going to find work arounds to do it. But it’s just going to get very ugly and just be so time-consuming. I mean, it just, we’re wasting our time fighting with the administration that should be working to make everything better. I mean to be taken care of us as a people, as opposed to pushing their own political and economic agendas. I mean, this is just one more kick in the ass by the Trump administration to get what they want at the cost of everybody else.  

Rhiki Swinton:
So Jason, you’re a professor. So how do you think with what we know about the pandemic and the fact that it’s not going away as quickly as we might’ve hoped, how do you think institutions should have moved forward with the whole going back to school thing in the middle of a pandemic?  

Jason De León:
I think they should have just been cautious. I mean, people are foolish to think that we’re going to reopen in the fall and anyone, I’m not going back, I’m on leave, so I don’t have to go to campus, but if I wasn’t on leave, I sure as hell wouldn’t be teaching any courses on campus. I don’t think students should go back. My kids aren’t going to school in the fall. So why would I, I can probably, no offense to college-aged students, but having been a college-aged student, I wasn’t the most responsible person. And I don’t think that I would be someone who necessarily would be as diligent on campus with all these regulations that people think are going to work. I think we are foolish to think that any kind of reopening in the fall is going to be good for us.  

I think we should have, in the beginning, just called it all and said, everything’s going to go online and virtual until this thing is solved because we’re going to keep trying to open up, it’s going to crash again. We’re going to keep doing it again, as opposed to just saying, let’s just do the hard work once, as opposed to doing it three different times and just admit that we need to get tougher on ourselves until this thing has passed, and then we can do it because we’re just… look at Texas, Arizona, Florida, that’s what you’re going to get with places that want to reopen in the fall is, Oh, everything’s fine and then crash, here it is again. I’m lucky my institution, UCLA, everything’s online for the fall.  

And they’ve been very cautious about when staff can go back, when faculty can go back, when students can go back and just basically saying, look, we need to play it by ear. And the best we can do right now is to be overly cautious. I wish everybody else was doing that because when I see people say stuff like, Oh, we’re going to open, or we’re going to open with some hybrid model. If I was a parent, I wouldn’t send my kids to those schools. And if I was a student, I wouldn’t go to those schools. I would just try to find some other place that seemed like it had my best interest in mind, more than the bottom line in terms of, how do we make money off of this thing? I mean, and that’s really what it is. It’s all about money. It’s not about people’s safety, because if it was about people’s safety, we would have shut down everything a long time ago.  

Rhiki Swinton:
Yeah. Paige, I have a question. So as a student or as a recent graduate, let’s say you didn’t graduate and you did have to go back to school in the fall. What will your thoughts be if that was the case?  

Paige:
So I relate to Jason. I would not go back to school. As a public health stance, it just doesn’t make sense at all. I wouldn’t go. Yeah. I just wouldn’t go. I would definitely go to school online. Yeah. I think college students, especially, even before Corona virus became what it is, as we know it now in the U.S. when things started to really become more apparent to us in March. I remember it was the last week of winter quarter and all of my friends and I were like, Oh, we need to stop seeing each other. And it was very difficult because up until that point, that’s a very difficult concept to grasp quickly to stop seeing everyone that you know on campus when you’re so used to seeing everyone and especially on college campus, a lot of your family and your community that you depend on are your friends.

And so I think it will be very difficult for students if they have to go back in person in the fall, because the community between students is so tight, everyone wants to see each other all the time. I think that’ll be very difficult. And that’s not even to talk about parties or any of the social gatherings that’s just on a community basis.   

Rhiki Swinton:
Yeah, that’s true. Now that I think about it, especially being a person of color on college campuses, your community are your fellow people of color, and it’s already hard enough being at an institution where you don’t really see yourself represented in the staff and the faculty, but to go through that and be in a pandemic and you can’t really gather a community of support because it’s kind of dangerous to do so, it’s really hard to kind of fathom what that will be like.  

Paige:
Yeah. You’re already in isolation in the sense that you’re at a PWI as a person of color. So our last question for you Jason today is because of the pandemic and everything that we’ve talked about so far people who can socially distance, places like prisons and detention centers are at very high risk. And I’m wondering, what are ways people can learn more about the organizing that’s happening at the border and how can we support the children at the detention centers?  

Jason De León:
That’s a good question. I don’t really know because it’s notoriously hard to get access to the [inaudible 00:44:46] anyway, and now that things are shutting down and they’re decreasing visiting hours and that kind of stuff, we don’t really know what’s happening behind those closed doors, which is very, very scary. I’m worried that we’re going to hear these horror stories long after they’ve happened. And we’re already hearing them in terms of people being deported back to Central America with COVID-19 showing symptoms, spreading those diseases now back into these little communities that have very little health infrastructure. I think there’s a lot of stuff that’s happening right now in prisons and in immigration detention centers that we just don’t hear about. And it may be a while before we do hear about, so I don’t really have a good sense of how.

And people are talking about it. I mean, there are organizations I think that are trying to at least raise awareness about these issues. But I couldn’t name one right now that I could point people to that said, here’s a place that’s doing really good work to help folks because I feel like everyone’s struggling just number one, to wrap their head around what is actually happening. And then number two, how does one get access to these things that are notoriously difficult to get access too? What I would say is at least to be thinking about those folks and to just, this is a moment where the news cycle doesn’t always pick up on these issues, but you can find some stories. So just trying to be aware of these things and keep an eye out for moments where people can actually be helpful.  

I think there’s so much chaos happening right now that it’s like a million fires, and we don’t know where to put our energy which is making it difficult, I think, to get anything done. And we’re even seeing now, as things are crashing in different parts of this country, because of COVID-19, that’s slowing down some of the Black lives matter movements. I mean, things are kind of hibernating. They’re going to come back again. I think at this point, the best thing people can do is to just be aware of what’s going on in their community. And then also to just be thinking about the election. How do we vote out politicians who are creating this chaos and who are not having our best interests at heart? 

And so it’s getting out to vote. It’s helping people to register to vote, just being aware of the issues that are going to impact the election in the fall. Because I don’t think until we get an adult, a high functioning, just even a semi functioning adults in the White House, we’re going to be dealing with this chaos for a while.  

Rhiki Swinton:
Well, Jason, thank you so much for talking to us again. We really appreciate you taking even more time out of your schedule to be a part of this podcast.

Jason De León:
My pleasure.

Rhiki Swinton:
And Paige, thank you too, for the people who don’t know, like we said before, Paige recently graduated. So this is just more work that Paige is doing to help out the Arcus Center and we really appreciate it. So if you really enjoyed this conversation, please let us know. And by commenting on our social media, and remember that the conversation is not over, we will continue to talk about different issues like migration, police brutality, racial reconciliation in the episodes to come. So please be on the lookout for those and join us next time on The Radical Zone. 

Outro:
Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast and follow us on social media. You can find us on Facebook at ACSJLKzoo, Twitter @ACSJL and Instagram @ArcusCenter. For questions, comments, and ideas for future topics. Please leave responses on our social media platforms. 

Migration & the US/Mexico Border

In this Episode, Radical Futures Now is so excited to tap into the great wisdom of Jason De Leon on issues Immigration and Migration. Jason De León is Professor of Anthropology and Chicana, Chicano, and Central American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is Executive Director of the Undocumented Migration Project, an organization committed to documenting and raising awareness about the violent social process of clandestine migration through a combination of anthropological research, education, arts initiatives, and public outreach. De León is Head Curator of Hostile Terrain 94, a global participatory exhibition focused on memorializing those who have lost their lives while migrating to the United States through the Sonoran Desert of Arizona that will take place in 130 locations on six continents through the fall of 2021.

Resources

Undocumented Migration Project webpage

Hostile Terrain 94 webpage

Land of Open Graves book


Transcript:

Intro:
Welcome to the Radical Zone Podcast, where we get updates on the current state of the world and how various communities are impacted from activists and organizers who are out there doing the work. The Radical Zone Podcast is housed under the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. I know you’re probably wondering what the Arcus Center is. The Arcus Center for Social Justice leadership, also known as ACSJL is an initiative of Kalamazoo college whose mission is to develop and sustain leaders and human rights and social justice through education and capacity building. We envision a world where every person’s life is equally valued. The inherent dignity of all people is recognized. The opportunity to develop one’s full potential is available to every person and systematic discrimination and structural inequities have been eradicated. Listen to and engage in conversation with organizers and activists across the globe about social inequities that impact us all.

Rhiki:
Hey you all, it’s Rhiki here. Thank you for tuning in to the radical zone. Joining me today is my co-host who was actually one of our students who works in the Arcus Center Jesse Herrera. 

Jesse Herrera:
Hey all.

Rhiki:
So we have the pleasure of bringing a very special guest Jason De Leon, to discuss the current issues around migration and immigration happening in our country today.

Jesse Herrera:
We’re so excited to welcome Jason De León. He is a professor of anthropology and Chicana, Chicano and Central American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is executive director of the Undocumented Migration Project, an organization committed to documenting and raising awareness about the violence, social processes of migration. Through a combination of research, education, art and public outreach. De León is a head creative of Hostile Terrain 94. A global participatory exhibition focused on those who have lost their lives while migrating to the United States through Sonoran desert of Arizona. Welcome, Jason.

Jason De León:
Thank you both for having me.

Rhiki:
So Jason, I want to ask you, when did you become a radical? Or how did when you crossed that threshold of being a radical?

Jason De León:
It’s funny, I feel like for much of my academic career, I did not consider myself a radical, or someone who was thinking outside the box or expressing my opinion about certain political things or my rage. I think that I was definitely doing those things in other aspects of my life from a very early time. So I grew up all over the place I was a military brat. But I ended up going to a little bit of elementary school, junior high school and high school in Long Beach, California. I think it was growing up in Long Beach, when I really discovered my love for punk rock. And all of the things that punk rock represented. Especially the anti authority, anti racism, being a vocal opponent of injustices. And I gravitated towards music that was really doing those sorts of things, or saying those kinds of things. 

And then I started playing that kind of music and expressing those same sentiments. I did that from a very early age. But I think when I began my career as an anthropologist, I wasn’t that interested in politics. And partly because I think I was taught that anthropology or archeology was supposed to be this apolitical endeavor. So I would say that for much of my college career, and through almost my more than half of my graduate career, I wasn’t really thinking about pressing social issues. And it wasn’t until I decided to make a shift from doing archeology of the distant past to thinking about contemporary migration issues, that I think I started to fuse my passion for social justice with research. But it’s funny when people ask me now, “Who are some of your biggest influences?” 

And I think oftentimes, they expect me to rattle off a bunch of anthropologists. But I would say that probably my biggest influences are musicians and writers. And probably one of my earliest influences is the LA punk rock funk ska band called Fishbone. Who early I picked up on them when they were coming out in the late 80s, early 90s with basically t-shirts that just said fuck racism. And I am Immediately gravitated towards that. 

And it’s only later on, two decades later that I think I really see how much a band like Fishbone has influenced all of the work that I do both in terms of its political tone, as well as eclecticism I think. My desire to blend different genres, put things into a melting pot, and then see what comes out on the other side. And so now I don’t know, I guess you could call me a full fledged radical now. But there were probably definitely moments in my career where I wasn’t thinking about myself in that, in that sense at all.

Rhiki:
Yeah. So you touched on it a little bit. But I just want you to expand a little more on how you went from being a professor of anthropology and looking into archeology and research how that drew you into the work that you’re doing now?

Jason De León:
Sure. Well early on in my career as an undergraduate, I really wanted to be an archeologist. I was fascinated with the past. I was fascinated with ruins and with the whole process of archeology. And so I started doing it as an undergrad, and then went to graduate school started working in Mexico, on excavations. And it was during the course of many years of fieldwork in Mexico, where I ended up in these little tiny communities, these rural villages. Where oftentimes, I was working alongside working class women and men who were getting paid to dig ditches with archeologists. And who had these desires to migrate to the United States, or some of them had already tried and come back. 

I ended up meeting a guy, probably my end of college for second year of graduate school. A guy named Victor Baldio in central Mexico in the state of Tlaxcala. He and I were about the same age, but had these radically different life experiences. And it was through his stories about trying to migrate to the US, almost dying in the Arizona desert, getting kidnapped by smugglers. It was through hearing all those kinds of stories, I really started to get inspired to think about a different research trajectory. It was people like Victor and others who started me thinking, do I really want to commit my life to an archeology of the distant past, or is there something that’s happening right now that I can be involved with? That would allow me to blend my interest in anthropology as well as my interest in raising awareness about global inequality.

Rhiki:
Jesse, you also have done some work at the border. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Jesse Herrera:
Yeah, definitely. It was a world that I didn’t think I would love so much. I started off doing a lot of work with the border studies program. Specifically, it was a study away program that was available to me. It was really hard to go to, just because of all the technical stuff that my school has, but I was able to meet really great people around there. I was able to do the border watches that people do sometimes. I forgot where but it’s just an accountability process. The CBP officers, I was able to be a part of this report by this journalist, Todd Miller. He’s really famous in Tucson specifically. And he was tracking the line between how specific political officials get money from big corporations that profit off the border. 

So he was just unveiling that I’m producing a lot more work on that. But that’s the report I was able to do. And then the border studies kicked off my work in this past summer. Which I work with Mariposas Sin Fronteras they are really great organization. I love them so much. They help queer and trans migrants specifically in detention centers. I was able to do detention center visits, and I was able to just help out with anything I could. They have a house that they built recently. Which is really great, and really awesome, because you just [inaudible 00:09:02] to come out of detention that’s usually a sponsor and housing. 

So I was able to help out a little bit with that planning process. And it was heavy, I think most of the time, I’m pretty sure Jason knows that. Like all of the [inaudible 00:09:15] border isn’t really easy. And it’s really easy to slip in this hole, especially in the work you do. And trying to I give you not doing enough. You start to blame yourself instead. And it’s a good segue for you, Jason. I don’t know if… I know you wrote a book, really famous book, Land of Open Graves. It was really hard book to read. I read it while I was doing the work on the border and had to take a lot of breaks. And we want to know a little bit more about your book and how explores issues in immigration policy. 

Jason De León:
Sure. Well thank you for reading the book. And I think it’s really amazing that you’ve been able to have these opportunities to go down and get involved in these issues. I know that for me, it was life changing. I think for a lot of people to go down and see these things up close. I don’t know how it wouldn’t be life changing unless you’re completely callous. So I think it is really important, especially for students. I wish that I had had more opportunities to get involved in that kind of stuff. I came to it fairly late in my career. I was already a professor when I started studying really migration. But I’ve tried very, very hard for the last 10 years to facilitate student engagement with these issues as much as possible. Because I know it can be so transformative and inspiring just to go down and be able to sit with people. 

Hear their stories, witness what they are going through, and then take stock of yourself. Like what is it that I’m going to do now? Now that I’ve seen this stuff, can I ignore it? Or am I now committed to working towards these issues in some way, shape, or form. So I think it’s really amazing that you’ve had that opportunity. And I hope that more people can have that, especially as we’re moving forward now. And things have only gotten worse in the last five to four years. But in terms of the book, Land of Open Graves, it was a book that I had never intended to write. I had never intended to write a book in general. I was trained as an archeologist and really my thinking about… So for people who don’t know, when you become a professor, you move through three stages of promotion. 

A junior person, you’re an assistant professor. You get tenure when you become an associate, and then you get promoted to full professor. And typically, each of those promotions, you put together your tenure file for the jump from assistant to associate. And for many archeologists, that file really just involves writing a lot of articles and then some grants. But for some anthropologists and especially socio cultural anthropologists, you typically are required to write a book. And I was not intending to write a book. Or hadn’t really been thinking about a book until University of Michigan said, “If you want to keep your job, you’re going to have to write a book.” 

And up until that point, I was not very enthusiastic about academic writing. I’d actually hated writing for a long time, because I just felt it was a writing devoid of any feeling emotion or even just craft. I was never trained to write well, I was trained to write academically. Which I think is not the same as writing well, and I’m sure that students can agree that you’re oftentimes forced to read really painful academic writing. I mean, things that are not well written, that are not exciting. That really can take an interesting topic like anthropology or immigration and then suck the life out of it. Because it’s been translated for an audience that, I think, doesn’t always appreciate the craft of writing. So when I was forced to write a book, I was like man do I want to write a 100,000 word book that’s going to brutalize the reader?

Nobody wants to read 10 journal articles in a row? Are they going to want to read 10,000 words? And so I got to a point where I had to take stock and go, what kind of book do I want to write? Do I want to write a book that is just repeating the academic writing that I’ve been trying to do? Or is there something else that I can put out there that feels better, both to me and to the people that I’m writing about. And so Land of Open Graves, really it’s a book about immigration and about borders, and about anthropology. But I think at the end of the day, I’m most comfortable saying that it’s a book about people. It’s about these two guys that I met that I call Memo and Lucho who are trying to get across the US-Mexico border. 

It’s about the life of a 31 year old mother of three from Ecuador, named Maricellas [Aguipuyas 00:13:47]. And it’s about a 15 year old kid from Ecuador named Jose Maria Tacuri. For me I wanted to write a book that was really about those people. So that someone reads the book and then the next time they hear a statistic about a deceased migrant or disappeared migrant or an undocumented person, they can maybe have a name and a face to attach to some of those stories. And so for me, that book was an attempt to be true to those stories. And to try to get people to feel for these folks whose stories fundamentally changed my life. And it affected me on such a deep level. 

And I just wanted the reader to try to at least experience some of those things. Which includes tragedy, sorrow, but also these moments of joy that people can experience during extreme forms of trauma. So yeah, that book was my attempt to translate the anthropology into a way that would get people thinking about migration perhaps in a different way. Or at least make it more accessible to a wider audience.

Jesse Herrera:
Yeah, definitely. You said something just there that really resonated. When I was in the border cities program, the very first thing that we did is an orientation week. And we went to an [albergat 00:15:05] which is a migrant shelter for people who just couldn’t cross that day. And it was really intense. And my facilitator, the person I was with, he said that his name is Jeff is amazing person. He said that you get a gift from people while you’re in there. And you have to redeem that gift or make it up for your entire life after you experience it. It’s really hard I think. I don’t know if you know that, Jason. I’m pretty sure you know that just experiencing or just knowing these things and trying to do justice as much as you can. Because once you see it, you just can’t ignore it. It’s really hard. 

Jason De Leon:
Yeah, I completely agree. I think when people share their story with you open up their lives to you, even if it’s just for a little bit. I think that there comes a lot of responsibility with that. And what is it that you’re going to do with it? And I think sometimes people will take those things, and they can be really exploitative about it and hey, I’m going to write a story about it. And that’s the end of it. And I think there’s other people who maybe they’re going write a story about it, but also it becomes this thing that you try to take in yourself as well. You never forget, and it always changes your outlook on all kinds of things. 

And I think for all the years that I’ve worked with people who are in the process of migrating, I’ve always been very, very grateful for the openness that people have been willing to share. But also just the inspiration that I think that people can give one. You come in from the outside, and it’s so just oftentimes really difficult to see these things that are so emotionally challenging. And I just think you go and have those experiences, and then you… For me, I don’t ever want to lose the importance of those things. 

And so I always want to find ways to, I don’t know if I want to say internalize. But at least carry it with me. And I hope that those experiences make me a better person in whatever situations I find myself in after that. But truly, I think that I’ve long been inspired by people who were migrating because I know how much they struggle. I know oftentimes that they are working to improve their life, the lives of the ones that they love. And the fact that they’re able to do it with so much optimism sometimes for me is really an amazing thing to see. 

Jesse Herrera:
Definitely, I was once really caught off guard, one time I was in an Operation Streamline court. They had just reinstated the chains that they use for migrants to get processed. And I saw someone laugh. Multiple people laugh during… And I got caught off guard, and thankfully had some great people around me and saying yeah,  people can have joy during… It’s their way of processing. And then they should be able to do what they want. And it’s amazing how much people are [inaudible 00:18:05]. I think so I really think people are [inaudible 00:18:07] When they get to these things.

Jason De León:
Yeah, I’m always skeptical of any book about migration, that doesn’t have humor in it. Because I’ve laughed my ass off in some of the darkest times. Because you know people… And I’ll tell you, you cannot do this without humor. And the guy that I call Memo, he would always give me so much shit when I would get down and out about some of the stuff. And he would say you’re never going make it across this desert, with an attitude like that. You got to find ways to maintain that joy. And life is good, even when it’s beating you down. You still have to be able to find ways to survive it. And that’s why I say that migrants can be so inspiring, because I don’t know if I will be able to do that in that same situation. And so I’m in awe oftentimes of people’s outlook.

Rhiki:
So in your book, you talked about the prevention through deterrence policy. Can you speak a little bit about that and how people were actually using the desert as a scapegoat to justify this policy and the funneling of migrants through the desert.

Jason De León:
Sure. So prevention through deterrence is a border policy that was officially put into place in 1994. And it’s a pretty simple idea. It’s basically the recognition that the US Mexico border, is a landscape that much of it is really rugged, depopulated, sparse and it can be used as a natural barrier to movement. And it really came out of… It’s a little bit of a complicated story, but I think an interesting one. There had been some high school students at a place called Bowie High School in El Paso, Texas that’s right on the US Mexico border in the 90s. And most of those students are Latino, Latinx students. And Border Patrol was coming onto campus during school hours, because they were chasing migrants who were hopping the fence and running into the US. 

And you had all of these students on campus who were getting harassed by the Border Patrol. Because they couldn’t tell the difference between who was documented and who was undocumented. So all of these brown students started to mobilize and tried to sue the federal government for harassment. And there’s a really good book called blockading the border. That’s all about the Bowie High School issue. But long story short, Bowie High School sues the federal government. And the response from the federal government, form the Border Patrol is they said, “Okay, we’re going to try to make it impossible for migrants to cross the border, in downtown El Paso. And near places Bowie High School. We’re going put all these agents on the ground. We’ll put new motion sensors, helicopters, all that kind of stuff. And instead of hopping the fence in downtown El Paso, someone would have to walk five or six miles east or west to the outskirts of town. And then they can hop the fence and then and then double back over.” 

So it doesn’t actually, this heightened enforcement, doesn’t stop migration. It just redirects it to other places. Pete Wilson in California in the 90s is governor. And he’s getting a lot of pushback from his constituents in places like San Diego. Who were saying look how visible these border crossers are. If you go down to downtown San Ysidro, the San Ysidro port of entry at dusk, you would see hundreds of people amassing at the fence, waiting for the sun to go down. And they would hop the fence and then run into town and try to hide amongst the local population. 

So Border Patrol there starts doing the same thing they did in El Paso, they put all these agents on the ground, and it becomes impossible to hop the fence in downtown San Diego. So now suddenly, these people are going to the outskirts of town and then hopping the fence and doubling back in. They realize if they do this, they can push people out into the middle of nowhere. Where they have no place to hide. And also, if they are going to get through, they’re going to have to walk dozens of miles through mountains across desert cross these really difficult landscapes. So they start to implement this officially in 1994. And the idea was that if they do this, along these urban zones along the US Mexico border, people can be forced out into these rugged zones, especially places like Sonora desert of Arizona. 

Which at the time the Border Patrol refers to as quote “hostile terrain”. And so the idea was if you have to walk across a desert, where there’s no water, there’s just mountains and venomous animals. And you have to walk for three or four days and it’s 110 degrees outside. And you can die of dehydration or break your ankle in the middle of nowhere, that all of those things will be a deterrent to the movement of people. Of course it doesn’t, people just start doing it. And you go from having, 10,000, 15,000 apprehensions in southern Arizona in any one given year. To suddenly you’ve got hundreds of thousands of apprehensions through the desert because people are being funneled out there. 

And the border Patrol’s logic is, it’s much easier to catch a migrant if they’re exhausted and dehydrated, or if they’re dead. And that has been the dominant paradigm for border security for decades. We still do it today. We’ve been funneling people now away from Arizona into New Mexico and parts of South Texas thousands of people have died because of this policy. And everybody knew in the beginning that this was going to lead to a lot of injury and death. You can look at the federal documents that they clearly laid out. They say if we put this policy in place, one expected outcome will be a rise in migrant death. And of course we went from averaging 25 to 50 deaths across the entire US Mexico border annually. To suddenly two or 300 deaths in Arizona alone. 

And so this policy, prevention through deterrence has killed thousands of people. And unfortunately, it’s also led to the disappearance of a lot of folks out in these really remote locations where their bodies will never be recovered. Because they’re out there for so long they get destroyed by animals in the natural environment. And there’s nobody actively looking for all of the missing. And so this policy is probably… If we were to talk about a border wall, and the brutality caused by border infrastructure. Prevention through deterrence in places like the Sonoran desert are the number one victimizers of migrants.

But it’s also done in a very savvy way because the Border Patrol can say, “Well, if you die of dehydration in the desert, it’s not the border Patrol’s fault. It’s your own fault for being out there.” Even though they’ve actively created a scenario where they know that people are going to try to cross with these places and so they’re they’re encouraging that. And then they’re able to say at the end of the day well it’s not our fault. These people did it to themselves, or people are disappearing, and then there’s no evidence. The desert is destroying these bodies and then the Border Patrol can have complete deniability about this whole thing.

Rhiki:
Yeah. So you’re curating right now and art piece based on this very policy called hostile terrain 94. Can you tell us a little bit more about that project and why you chose to do it in art form?

Jason De León:
Yeah. So hostile terrain 94 is a global participatory installation that was supposed to open three weeks ago. But clearly, that’s not happening. And then we’re supposed to then launch in 130 plus locations on six continents, through the end of the year. The idea behind hostile terrain 94, is trying to raise awareness about the number of people who have died and disappeared in the Sonoran Desert. And it came out of an art exhibition that we had done in the fall of 2018. It’s called Mecca, the main… Institute for contemporary art in Portland, Maine, had a big show that we were in. We had a full room of different elements, photography, video artifacts, various things that were art pieces that were translating anthropological data for a public audience. 

And one of the things that we did with that particular show is we created a wall graphic that plotted out 3200 migrant deaths in on a map of Arizona. And that had been printed out in vinyl. So it was 3200 red vinyl dots on a wall, representing each of the deceased. And I thought that that was going to be a really impactful way to represent these deaths. And it ended up, once we did it and put it up on a wall, it kind of felt flat. And I felt it wasn’t really conveying the gravity of the situation. And so we had a follow up show that happened at the Phillips Art Gallery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania at Franklin and Marshall College that was coming up six months later. 

And so we decided, okay, let’s replace this wall graphic with a map of Arizona. And we’ll make custom toe tags. And we will hand write out the names and all the information for the dead. And we’ll color code the tags will do Manila for people who were named and orange for the unidentified. And we’ll mount those tags in the exact location of where those bodies were found. So we started doing that. And I had students writing tags when I was teaching at the University of Michigan. And in the middle of all that, the students started coming to me and saying, hey, this is really difficult to do emotionally, it’s hard to sit down for an hour and write out the names of the dead. And the condition their bodies were found in the students were we’re really having a hard time with it. 

And I got to thinking, what if we came up with an exhibition where, instead of us installing a map with these handwritten toe tags, we asked people to collaborate with us and build these maps themselves. So that they could directly engage with these people on a real level. Because I think there’s something important that happens when you sit down, and you write out the names of the dead, I truly do. I think it connects you to that issue in a different way than just reading about it or seeing it on a wall. I think when you commit your time and energy to writing up those names, you connect to it in a different way. 

And so it happened in the middle of planning for this show at Franklin and Marshall. I had this dream about what if we were to do an exhibition around migrant death, but we made it really collaborative. So we would organize people into different places, we would send them a kit, and they would build it themselves. We would make it really cheap to do. So like 1500 bucks for supplies and logistical support. Anybody can host it. You don’t have to be a gallery, you can be just a student group or a church or just an average person who wants to put up this show. We’re happy to support you will subsidize it if we can. And what are we tried to do that in 94 locations around the globe. 

And at that point, 94 was a reference to the year that the policy prevention through deterrence it started. I built a little website in January of 2019. I put out some calls for collaborators on Twitter and Facebook. And immediately we had 50 or 60 people who were signed up. And so we got to the 94 mark pretty quickly. We pushed it to 150. And realized that we logistically we couldn’t do more than that our team is too small. And so now we’re hovering around 130. We’ll probably get back up to 150 into next year because of delays from COVID and people not to wanting to sign on. But the idea is that these shows will pop up all over the place in all these different locations. 

And we really want It to be collaborative. So people come to us and say, we want to build this wall. We want to memorialize the dead and build this exhibition. But we also want to connect it to our own communities. And so we’ve given our partners, carte blanche to say, look, you tell us what you think would be the best things to add to this to compliment it? Is it other art pieces? Is it workshops? Is it musical performances? Is it lectures about how immigration is impacting your own local community? And it’s been really great. I mean for me, the fact that this is a really accessible exhibition and collaborative is really amazing. 

Because it can be hard sometimes to be in an art space where it can feel very elitist. Even if it’s in a small gallery on campus, that’s not always necessarily a safe space for a lot of people. And so we really worked hard with our partners to try to be as inclusive as possible. We have a show launching virtually July 17th in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And they’re going to open up the first gallery, July 10th in Santa Fe, but people will not be filling out toe tags, it’ll already be built. But they will be using social distancing measures for people to go and visit the gallery. But we anticipate public… In the late fall, early 2021, these shows will start popping up all across the US, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa. 

And yeah, we’re just really, really excited to see what people come up with and including the folks at Arcus. It’s been a real pleasure just brainstorming with so many different student groups and faculty. And artists who are trying to find ways to both amplify the message of the exhibition, while at the same time empowering local communities to get involved and feel like they’ve taken some ownership of this exhibition.

Jesse Herrera:
Yeah, there’s a component of the specific collaborative component of the hostile terrain project. That when specifically when you write the names, for me was a very intense process. And just seeing them in your mind it was… Especially for me I have friends who have last names. Who have those specific names. And it really did make me connect to it. And really put a name to the violence that is happening at the border. And I know you’ve done a lot of work down there. And I just want to ask this question of specifically who is making the journey across the border? And what are the reasons for?

Jason De León:
Well it’s evolved over time. 10 years ago, the bulk of people who were crossing were people coming from Mexico. It was primarily men, young men, people coming for the first time or people who are getting deported by Obama who deported a lot of people. In probably the last five or six years, there’s been a major shift now to, you still have folks coming from Mexico, but now different parts of Mexico. Indigenous communities in Mexico that are struggling with cartel violence and poverty. But also a high number of people coming from Central America. Particularly the Golden Triangle so Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. You got a lot of young people now, both male and female, fleeing those places, because they’re just unsafe. 

You’ve got lots of unaccompanied minors coming now as well. But then now, you’ve also got people coming from other places. Haiti, the Dominican Republic, India, Africa, you’ve got all these migrants who are coming up from South America, crossing all of Mexico, and then trying to get across, either through Arizona, through Texas, through California. But many of them are coming because of poverty. But they’re also coming because of political instability. Because of violence, because of the impacts of climate change. So droughts, flooding, increased intensity of hurricanes. You’ve got people who are migrating now, for reasons that we weren’t thinking about it all 10, 20 years ago. 

And it’s a much more diverse pool now. And it’s not uncommon to see entire family groups to see women traveling with children, to see children traveling alone. And I think that’s for me one of the reasons why this issue is so crucial right now. Because it’s not going away anytime soon, and it only appears to just be getting worse and worse.

Rhiki:
Yeah, like Jesse, I filled out a couple of the toe tags for the hostile terrain project. And it was a lot and especially because even if they didn’t have names, so some of them say unidentified. They were these bodies and it shows a description of their bodies. And I think the first two that I filled out one was an older woman. And I don’t know why I paid attention to the latitude. But the very next one was this very young child. And it was the latitude and longitude was the exact same. And it clicked for me this was a mother and her child. And I don’t know, that moment just solidify how real this issue is. I think that there’s a certain narrative that’s being passed around in America that is so lacking the human element. And this project really kind of brung that human element back into this issue. 

I feel like when we talk about it, we talk about it as this big conceptual idea. That’s just like, it only exists within inside the realm of politics. And it’s like no these are actual people. And these things are happening to them. So to do the toe tags, and then to also read your book and the story about how Javier in the book. That illuminated what that experience across the desert is like. Just really opened my eyes to how real this issue really is.

Jason De León:
I think there’s something really powerful that can happen when we think about one of these global issues. These huge structural issues, but then we can break it down, right? And then if we just have one name. I think that one name can be so powerful. I mean George Floyd right now. I mean just one name, one person. If we can understand the tragedy and the sorrow of one person’s loss of life? For me, I think that that’s more powerful than statistics, than these numbers. That if I can’t connect to an individual I think it can be really hard then to understand, okay well, this happens to thousands of people. I think that’s why these movements say their names. 

I mean, I think that’s all of these movements now to get people to understand that these structural issues. The violence created by these different systems, impacts millions of people. But we need to start on the ground level, and just connect with one life. And understand that, that one life and that loss of life impacts entire communities. And if you can connect with that one person, and then start to slowly take a step back and go my god all of these names now. How many people have been devastated by these different forms of violence? 

For me that’s what sticks with me. And so this project it started out going in the opposite direction. I wanted to show the graph that the scale of this whole thing, but then realizing that didn’t work. And it really only worked when you started small. With one person which is not a small thing. One every life is important. And if we can focus in on these lives that are disproportionately impacted by violence and show you that one person, then maybe you can start to understand the real gravity of this whole situation.

Rhiki:
Yeah, I feel like we’ve been so desensitized by all the things that happen in our society. That we forget… I don’t know, I feel like we’re so used to it that we forget that these are actual people. And the emotion just isn’t there. But when you sit down and you’re forced to, not forced, but you’re paying attention to these toll tags, and you’re actually writing information about somebody and their body and their life. It just re-sensitize you to… I don’t know how to explain it, but yeah, it just makes it real.

Jason De León:
Yeah, I completely agree. I think that we live in this era where… I remember after Rodney King, I was in LA at the time. And everybody thought finally this… Finally, you’ll believe us that people of color are brutalized by the police. And it’s on video, and everyone thought that that was going to be a game changer. And of course, it didn’t. And I never thought that I would live in an era where you could just turn on the television and see a black person killed by the police that someone had filmed, on a weekly if not daily basis, and nothing would come from that. That we got to a point fairly recently, where I just felt like people were becoming desensitized to these police killings. 

And I don’t know if you guys have seen the recent Dave Chappelle show. I don’t even know what to call it. But basically it’s a 20, 27, 28 minute long discussion about police brutality. And he really, I think he talks about George Floyd in this very personal way that reminds you that you cannot be desensitized to these things. And that and this one person’s life is so important, and has been cut short in this brutal way. And we need to start with that person’s humanity first and not these other scales that were at some times I think, really don’t allow us to connect. And I think we’re desensitized to immigration issues. We’re desensitized to police brutality. 

And we think about all the things that the Trump administration has done to immigrants. Putting babies in cages, tear gassing moms with their kids at the US Mexico border. Separating kids from their families. I mean, we’re just flooded with all these different horror shows. But they’re happening at such a grand scale, sometimes that it’s really hard to get a sense of It’s worse than you actually think it is. Because it’s terrible to look at it when you see it at a higher level of like it’s happening to thousands of people. 

But I think for me, it’s even more devastating when I start with that one person. Try to understand their position, and their experiences, and then slowly move out and then go oh my god I can’t believe that we’re now orders of magnitude. We’re multiplying this is trauma. But we’re living in such a fast paced world right now. With these media cycles where I think, it oftentimes can be hard to stay connected to these individual lives which is really unfortunate. But that’s partly because there are so many lives being affected by this right now. And we don’t really know how to talk about these things.

Jesse Herrera:
One thing that comes up specifically a name when you said that just one life would be… In Tucson, this boy got killed. His name is Jose Antonio, by CBP officer. And his name is always everywhere, just trying to get justice for it. And I was there during the court decision for whether or not the CBP officer was going to be guilty or not. And I saw the boy’s mother’s reaction after they found out. And she’s like I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to give up getting justice for my son. 

And you really try to find this idea… Like you see this idea that the government, not the government. But just people in political positions don’t really care. And there’s no oversight. I think we’ve been seeing that a lot now for COVID. And just like the entire… There’s just no oversight, no accountability, on the specific ways that the government implement certain measures. And I’m wondering, how the government has ignored the issues of COVID in relation to migration. How is it impacting people in general?

Jason De León:
Well, I think the federal government is making COVID much worse in a lot of places. I mean, we know that migrants are in detention right now, in unsafe conditions. I’m not expecting these private prisons, with very little oversight. That are known for all kinds of human rights abuses, sexual assault, violence, extortion. We know that’s been happening for a long time. And so in those places, I don’t imagine that they’re following safety protocols to keep people protected from COVID-19. And so we’re exposing migrants to other to this medical issue. And then we’re deporting them in the middle of the night, back to these home communities. Where they are bringing that these diseases now back to these places that where transmission rates, which I’m sure will be high. 

And where there’s little to no medical care. I think that we are doing all kinds of… Our actions here in the United States, they’ve always been devastating to places like Central America. And COVID-19 I think it’s just one more example of governmental indifference or even maliciousness towards these communities. Because we’re sending people back full well, knowing that they have been exposed to COVID-19 taking no precautions to protect anybody. So I think we’re only starting now to see the ramifications of things like deportation, as has been happening under COVID.

Jesse Herrera:
I’ll never forget this one experience where we were able to go through a detention center. And we were obviously being guarded by two high officials. And I forgot which one it was, I think it was Florence I was able to tour. And what got me afterwards was, they were gaslighting me the whole time during the tour. They were convincing me of how good the conditions were. It was almost at the point where I was trying to convince me. And afterwards I thought to myself is like why are they so good at this? Why are they so good at convincing people and justifying. Like the accountability and not even thinking about these people? It was wild, the kind of logic that happened there. And I can only imagine it’s worse now during COVID.

Jason De León:
Well, they’re invested in keeping the system rolling. And I think people who are part of it have to justify to themselves as well. They believe oftentimes their own nonsense.

Jesse Herrera:
So we talked about the detention centers, and how the US is affecting Mexico and Central America as far as COVID. Are there any other US policies you want to bring awareness to that are affecting Mexico and Central America? And specifically, I want to talk about deportation flights?

Jason De León:
Sure. Well probably one of the biggest things that’s been a game changer for Mexico. Is that starting in 2014, under Obama we started putting all this political pressure on Mexico to stop Central Americans from crossing their country. And this had been in response to all the kids who were showing up at the US Mexico border in the summer of 2014. So Mexico launched a program called [Foreign language 00:46:26]. 

Which was an attempt to slow down, to arrest and deport Central American migrants back to their home countries. And that was being supported by the United States government, was being partially funded. We were training agents on the ground in Mexico and in Central America to do this kind of stuff. And Trump has only made this worse. But we’ve been basically putting pressure on Mexico to act like a second border. To deal with our immigration issue. And it’s just made things so much more horrific for migrants who are attempting to get across Mexico. 

Jesse Herrera:
In terms of the continuing policies, how do you think the upcoming elections will affect the immigration and migration right now? And specifically policies too.

Jason De León:
That’s a good question. I don’t know. I mean, are people angry enough to come out in the fall and vote? Are they going to be angry enough to take politicians to task about these things? It’s unclear. I think four years ago, my thinking was it’s going to get really bad under Trump, and how bad will it have to get before people actually want to make real structural change? I don’t want to see it get any worse than it already is. But I don’t know if we’re at a point now, where more people are going to be committed to voting politicians out. And then committed to holding the ones that we vote in accountable to these issues. 

I have to be optimistic. I think that your generation, this is your moment. And I’ve been really inspired by the way people have been mobilizing to deal with these issues. I just hope that it carries over into the fall. But also of course, the big worry is about the undermining of democracy by this current administration. And so will there be oversight? And will we be able to vote in fair elections?

Rhiki:
So what should people know or be aware of right now? Moving forward, at least with the upcoming election, what things do you want to lift up?

Jason De León:
I think right now just getting educated. And getting educated beyond the current news cycle. I think you can only learn so much from reading the newspaper about immigration. I think if you want to understand these issues, you’re going to have to dig deeper. And of course, you can support organizations that are working on these issues. But just because you give 50 bucks to an organization, I don’t think that that should clear your conscience. And it’s kind of like what the Black Lives Matter stuff. You went to one protest, okay, I’m real proud of you. Now, what are you actually going to do? Are you going to be committed to anti racism? Not committed to like diversity training, or whatever nonsense that we throw around these days to make ourselves feel better? But I don’t want to hear like I’m not racist. I want to hear you say I am anti racist, and I’m actively working to deal with these issues. 

And it’s the same thing with immigration, get involved in your community support. You don’t have to go to the US Mexico border to work on these issues. Immigrants are in your backyard and you can support them in all kinds of ways. But I think a crucial part of that is to take a deeper dive into the educational stuff so that you can understand the long history of this and it doesn’t start under Trump. It goes so much farther back. And having that knowledge, I think can be really empowering. And can shape your life in all kinds of ways. Not just who you vote for, but where you buy your food from, how you have conversations with your family members about these issues. All of those things I think, can spark real change. But you have to  educate yourself first in order to do that.

Rhiki:
And it really never stops. Especially now when people go to protests. People have been saying solidarity isn’t a trend. Isn’t something that you stop after big events happen? It’s not something that… It’s a continuing process. And I like it when you say educating yourself. Because educating yourself never stops either. I think even with the work I’ve done, it’s just you learn so much more every single day, if you’re invested into it. And we wanted to know Jason, now that you have all these projects. What are you working on right now? Is there anything else that other than hostile terrain that you’ve been working on?

Jason De León:
Yeah, I’ve just started writing a new book on human smuggling. And so it’s a book called Soldiers and Kings. And it is about Honduran smugglers. Largely young men from Honduras who are transporting migrants across the length of Mexico. And so the book focuses on the daily lives of those men and a few women. How does someone become a smuggler? What is your daily life like? And how is smuggling connected up to things global political economy, US border enforcement practices. But it’s really this in depth look at the lives of these folks that are very difficult, oftentimes end very violently. Sort of my attempt to shine a light on this aspect of migration that I think we oftentimes don’t hear much about. 

Or we hear very one sided sorts of stories about who smugglers are and what and what they do. So I’ve just started writing basically. And I will probably spend the next… Sorry, if you hear my cat meowing. He’s got an opinion about the book. So I’ve just started writing and probably hostile terrain is ongoing. We’ve got another project on detention centers that we’re just getting started with now. But I’ll be mostly working on this book for the next year and a half to two years.

Rhiki:
Cool. Well, that’s all we have for today. So thank you so much, Jason for joining us.

Jason De León:
My pleasure. Thank you all so much. This is great. And I hope that everyone is staying healthy and happy and relatively sane during these difficult times. But for me, it’s really helpful just to be able to talk to somebody about something.

Rhiki:
And also thank you Jesse, for joining us. Jesse recently graduated, so they’re technically not a student anymore. Doing this out of the kindness of their heart.

Jason De León:
Congratulations.

Jesse Herrera:
Yeah, thankfully, I made it somehow.

Rhiki:
So remember everyone to continue to always educate yourself. This is not a trend. This is a lifelong journey. If you want to learn more about Jason’s work, please visit the Undocumented Migration Project. And also be on the lookout for our Hostile Terrain 94 project coming in 2021. And join us next time on the Radical Zone. Thank you all for tuning in to the Radical Zone podcast where we center radical thinkers and their ideas. See you next time.

outro:
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