ED 262 KCKCC Sp '24

The steady stream of migrants in past years has turned into a torrent this year. Here's a primer on the main forces at work.

"This program, Boundaries and Borderlands, introduces the case study approach of the course. Here we examine the borderland region between the regions of North America and Latin America. The first case study, Twin Cities, Divided Lives, follows the story of Concha Martinez as she crosses between the U.S. and Mexico in order to make a life for herself and her children.  The second case study, Operation Hold the Line, follows up the question of cross-border migration raised in the first program. It takes a look at how U.S. border policy is shaping the lives of not only the people living in this borderland region, but in more distant U.S. and Mexican locations as well."

Mexico’s cities are ballooning in population while rural and indigenous communities, where there are still over 60 indigenous languages other than Spanish spoken, are disappearing. For many indigenous families, illiteracy and the powerful forces of racism and discrimination can often offset the lures that brought them to migrate to urban centers.

The northern border with the United States is not the only destination for Mexican migrants. For millions, the bustling cities, which offer hopes of better jobs and education lure many from their traditional rural, and often indigenous communities. What they find in the cities is a mix of hope and hardship.

Tags: Mexico, indigenous, economic, development, migration.

Accelerated through the fear from the attacks of 9/11 and all what followed, the so called ‘Western Society’ is constructing the greatest wall ever build on this planet. On different building sites on all five inhabitable continents, walls, fences and high-tech border surveillance are under construction in order to secure the citizens and their high quality of life within this system. The fall of the Berlin Wall was described as the historical moment that marks the demolition of world’s last barrier between nation states. Yet it took the European Union only six years to create with the Schengen Agreement in 1995 a new division only 80km offset to the east of Berlin.