Week 5: Diversity & Inclusion I - Which Way Home & International Migration

Introduction

This week's topic is about diversity and inclusion in which we delved into the hot topic of international migration and watched an eye-opening film: 'Which Way Home'. Some parts of this Blog Post are probably going to be quite morbidly heartbreaking. 

International Migration

Migrant route through Mexico to the U.S. that many Central American immigrants take(1)

When I hear the phrase 'International Migration', I think of a permanent change of residence across international borders. I've been assigned to watch some videos and articles about this issue. International Migration (2) is a well-balanced objective video which shows the advantages (diversity and replacement for workforce of an aging population)  and disadvantages ( some people believe it puts a strain on the economy and the immigrants would destroy the heritage). 
The Price of Immigration (3) is a YouTube video that focuses on the struggle of illegal Hispanic immigrants whose schedule revolved around work and sleep and sending remittances back to their homelands. The majority of those Hispanic Immigrants work "3D jobs" - Dirty , Dangerous and Demeaning - which are the jobs that average U.S. citizen wouldn't want to do. Dr. James Johnson (distinguished professor at Kenan Flagler Business School ) argues that the economic benefits of Hispanic immigrants outweigh the cost of taking care of them in which he quotes "The Arizona economy would shrink by $48.8 billion, or 20 percent, if all undocumented workers left the state" (Immigration Policy Center, March 2011) and "Hispanic immigrants contributed $9.2 billion to the North Carolina economy in 2006 and created 89,000 spinoff jobs" (UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan Flagler Business School, Jan. 2006) . 
Uttarakhand's Migration Woes (4) illustrates the push factors that cause some people of the Uttarakhand internally migrate in India. The video shows that some migrants are well-educated and simply want to have a more qualified job instead of facing under-employment in their hometown. This is also a similar issue in my country of Trinidad and Tobago (except that it takes place over international boundaries) whereby people, usually teenagers and young adults, pursue tertiary education in Canada, U.K. or U.S.A. and intend to live there afterwards. This is because my country's job market is over saturated and results in underemployment (a person with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology is working at an entry-level job in a bank ) and unemployment (engineers and doctors haven't got job in 4 years after graduating from University). The video doesn't focus on the negative affects of migration .In Uttarakhand and my country, the negative effects caused by these highly educated individuals leaving (human capital flight) is called "brain drain" where the country or region's workforce loses its highly skilled and educated individuals.

Venezuelan Activist Yesenia Gonzales to a police officer outside the Parliament Builing of Trinidad and Tobago during a  protest by Venezuelan Asylum seekers(5)

In our first FYE Class for this week, we had to write down anything we've recently read about the controversial topic of immigration and how it affects you. I choose an article by the BBC (6) which is about Venezuelan immigrants who travel to my island called Trinidad. The  article shows that we have a unique immigrant where we have large number of immigrants (40,000) relative to the country's population of around 1.3 million. A large portion of my country's population are very xenophobic to Venezuelans through anti-immigrant protests or verbal abuse. To me, I think it's very hypocritical because many Trinidadians have the desire to migrate to other first world countries to escape poverty and work the same minimum wage jobs as other immigrants. Furthermore, my country is a plural society that consists of  Africans( descendants of central-west African slaves) and East Indians (who migrated to Trinidad as indentured labourers to replace the slaves after slavery was abolished) whose heritage and culture mixed to create a new, rich and unique culture. In addition, Trinidad was a former Spanish Colony until it was overthrown by the British, which means that many cities and towns have Spanish names ( San Fernando, Port of Spain, Rio Seco) as well in our food, music and English Creole Language. The cultural impact of Venezuelans would not be too drastic except that more people world be fluent in Spanish. On the other hand, many people fear that the Venezuelans will take their jobs which isn't the case as the article shows a Venezuelan Judge who now works as a security guard at Gulf City Mall in Trinidad. To be honest , I'm not sure whether my country (which is one of the richest islands in the Caribbean) has the resources to support them. If we do support them, our welfare ( such as free healthcare, free education and textbooks and school-feeding programmes may be gone or reduced). However, some humanitarian groups and charitable organizations have provided food and water to them. Furthermore, land would have to be cleared to accommodate them causing deforestation. I think the problem is how do we integrate them into our system and society. I would use them to diversify the economy through other fields such as agriculture because we don't have that much resources in that area. All in all, I believe if the numbers of immigrants were smaller, we would be able to effectively help the Venezuelans who suffer under an authoritative totalitarian government as well as US trade embargoes which results in basic necessities being scarce- some Venezuelans eat their own pets because of the food shortage and there's black markets for everyday commodities such as toilet paper. Honestly, I feel great sympathy to those who are suffering.

Film - Which Way Home

  Migrants travel on top of a train in Tenosique, Mexico (7)

This is the part of the blog that gets really depressing. Even talking about this film with my classmates was really difficult for me because I was so close to tears when I finish watched it. When I watched the first 15 minutes and 17 seconds of it in class, I was shocked. Also, I initially thought it was a reenactment until Dra. McGrath told us it was a documentary when class had finished. The shock value is present throughout the film ; in the first 15 minutes we saw a dead body being pulled out of a river and one of the featured kids in the documentary picking up a used cigarette to smoke. In essence, the film primarily focuses on Central-American kids and teenagers who illegally migrate to the U.S. on top trains. The film provides the unique perspective of the immigrants which is something the audience is unfamiliar with. Furthermore, I actually used to think that they would simply walk to the U.S. I believe that the purpose of the film was to clear the world's ignorance on the U.S. immigrant issue because there's so much new and horrifying pieces on information that you learn. Firstly, the age alone should be really shocking- I don't think I would have the will power and mental capacity to leave home and climb on top of trains heading North by myself. Furthermore,  the kids face and see horrible things that no one should ever experience. For example, Kevin saw two women(mother and daughter) who were raped by 15 men in another boxcar on the train. He said that it was unpleasant to see women suffering. The group of boys in the documentary were assaulted and robbed by cops then kicked off the train in Mexico. 

The film shows humanitarian groups like Grupo Beta and Santa Faustina House of Migrants that provide food, water , shelter and information to migrants heading to the U.S.

The kids also tell us why they left- mostly to escape poverty , abusive households, money for education and support for their family. It's really heartbreaking to see them talk about why they left. In addition , it's really shocking to see where they grew up and how Kevin's Stepfather calmly expresses his hate for his stepson. Honestly, I wish the film would also focus on what exactly are these kids escaping from, so that I can gain a better understanding of them. 

The film also shows those who don't make it and their parent's reactions. It shows how happy some of  the parent's are to be reunited with their kids after they got deported back to their country. On the other hand, it shows the pain and grief of families who lost their kids such as Eloy and Rosario who were found separately dead in the dessert. To see the families break down and cry when their kid arrives in a wooden casket is really painful to watch. Also, the documentary also focuses on Maria, a double leg amputee who  has three kids, and could possibly work embroider 

The other shocking aspect of the film are the beautiful lies that the kids believe about the U.S. For example, Freddy and Olga think the U.S. is snowy while Kevin thinks it's only big cities filled with skyscrapers.

The film also teaches us that parents spend hundreds or thousands of dollar on a smuggler to get their kid to the U.S. when in reality these smugglers do drugs and abuse, rape and abandon the boys and girls.

Filming of Which Way Home (8)

This is really an eye-opening documentary and I love that the kids recall what happened as opposed to simply filming them throughout their journey. The target audience is aimed to Americans and to a larger extent, the rest of the world in order to see what these kids go through just to have a better life.

The process of filming also intrigues me because the interviewer and people holding the camera and microphone have to keep a plain face and remain objective as possible. I don't think I could film something like this without helping the kids.

Rebecca Cammisa (9)

This film was made by Rebecca Cammisa who is an American Filmmaker. She got a grant from Sundance Documentary Fund in 2003 which was sufficient until she switched to HBO in 2004 in order to get investors and she finally got a Fullbright Fellowship to Mexico for Filming in 2006. It is truly amazing what Cammisa and her team did. Ten Years Later, this film is still relevant now and as it was back then. This documentary should have one the 2010 Academy Award for the Best Feature Documentary instead of a nomination. In essence this a good film to spark a discussion on Immigration and educate the viewers about it.

Final Thoughts

Reading these articles and watching the film made me realize how privileged I am. For instance, I've never had the desire to migrate to the U.S.  yet these kids are so desperate to reach there whilst thinking it's fun, snow and cities. The thoughts of those kids have dwelled on my mind because I worry about their situation in 2009. Out of all the Kids, only Kevin was shown to gain successful entry into the U.S. On the other hand, I was worried about Olga and Freddy who were nine years old and whereabouts have gone missing at the ending of the film while Yurico lives on the street as a drug addict. The only good news is that Olga and Freddy are both alive because I thought they were dead.

In the movie Thor: Ragnarok , Thor says "I choose to run toward my problems and not away from them because that's what heroes do." We have to start tackling the problems of countries which have lots of migrants instead of avoiding them.

 I honestly think we should have a greater focus on the push factors which cause people to migrate out of their countries. In Venezuela and those Central-American countries, these people live in abject poverty because of their corrupt Governments that practise nepotism and cronyism. If it were up to me, these countries all need a constitutional reform in which they are supervised by a body or their former colony in order to maximize transparency and reestablish a democracy. In the era of Globalization, trade embargoes need to be lifted and richer countries need trade more with the poorer ones in order for the poorer country to flourish since they need foreign exchange for development.

All in all, this week's topic made me more aware of the economic and cultural impact of immigration.

Sources

Article Mentioned

6. The Displaced: When 40,000 desperate Venezuelans hit a tiny island - https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-49690353/the-displaced-when-40000-desperate-venezuelans-hit-a-tiny-island

Videos Mentioned

2.International Migration - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOZmqIwqur4

3.The Price of Immigration - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s03JdyD4ds

4. Uttarakhand's Migration Woes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tTYvLNzQc

Photo Credits

1. Troy Oxford-http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/migrantroute/

5. Nicole Drayton - http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/registration-confusion-6.2.824230.986e4a8faf

7. Jaime Avalos/EPA - https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/sep/13/migration-improve-life-people-poor-countries

8. https://whichwayhome.net/the-making-of.html

9. Marc Bryan-Brown Photography - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1095640/mediaviewer/rm592231936