Migration is nothing new. It’s a story as old as humanity itself. We’ve all come from somewhere else — or our parents have, or their parents, or our ancestors. In this part of the world, at least, if you go back far enough, we’re all migrants.
This is especially true in Oaxaca. Just about everyone from Oaxaca knows someone who is working in the United States or who has gone to work in the United States.
On today’s Oaxaca Newscast, we go to the Oaxacan suburb of San Sebastián Tutla, where we sit down for a conversation with Sandra, Gilbert, Mary Cruz, and Samantha, as they pass through Oaxaca on their journey north.
First, I sit down on the sidewalk for a conversation with Sandra.
“I’m 29,” she tells me. “My partner is 27. My twin girls are 6, and that’s his 6-year-old daughter, and his cousin who’s 26.”
The adults look dazed, scared, and tired. They left Venezuela a month and a half ago.
“We left Venezuela with what we thought was enough bus fare. But it ended up lasting us only until Honduras. And then in Honduras, we started selling candy at traffic lights to raise money to pay our next bus fare. And that’s what we’ve done from town to town, and here we are — and that’s what we’re doing.”
We don’t have the support of anyone, she tells me. I look around, and I see three adults, three 6-year-old girls, and a one-and-a-half liter bottle of Pepsi that they are sharing.
In every single country they pass through, corrupt officials force them to pay bribes or get off the bus and walk — for hours.
Again and again you hear accusations about corrupt immigration officials in every single country they pass through, shaking these people down in every country they pass through. Forcing people to pay bribes or get off the bus and walk. For hours.
Half a block away, I sit down with another group of people. One man, one woman, a young girl of 7 and two teenage-looking girls. I immediately notice that they’re eating… roast chicken and tortillas. The man motions me to come over. He’s wearing very nice hiking boots. They’re brand new and clean.
Gilbert introduces himself and tells me about himself.
This group is not a family, he tells me. They met along the way.
He and Mary Cruz represent the more fortunate Venezuelans.
“Most of us sold our homes to make this journey,” he tells me.
They had to cross the Darién Gap, the notoriously difficult jungle on the Colombia-Panama border. Then they arrived at a United Nations camp in Panama, and it was like an oasis. They were given food, medical treatment, though he says he accepted only medical care, preferring to leave the other provisions for needier people.
For seven-year-old Samantha, who’s traveling with her mother, Mary Cruz, Panama has been the best part of the journey so far.
Mary Cruz worked at a bakery in Chile, where she was able to save enough money for the trip, which so far has taken them a relatively short 18 days.
This group stays in hotels. And they’re traveling faster because they can afford to pay the bribes that officials all along the way keep demanding.
I’d like to invite you to sit in and join us for our entire chat. Here’s the full conversation in Spanish:
A version dubbed into English will be available tomorrow (Saturday).
So, about what to do this weekend… In keeping with the theme of today’s show, we’d like to encourage you to check out “Migración” — a grand multimedia art event at the Exhacienda San José Cultural Center in Atzompa, tomorrow (Saturday), starting at 8pm. There will be live cumbia with La China Sonidera, ghost stories told in Spanish by El Tío Huesotes, and art by Pedro Mendoza, Brien Coleman, Lucero Valdés and Francisco Merino, Shinzaburo Takeda, Hugo Tovar, and Itzmalli Coca, performance by Melissa Godoy Nieto and Wilber Mendoza, a documentary by Sandra Luz Barroso, and — inserting a shameless bit of self-promotion into today’s podcast, you can also see collection of my photographs. That’s Saturday at 8pm.
Google Maps link to the Exchacienda
If you do decide to come, please look for me and let me know you heard about it on Oaxaca Newscast!
Also, if you have the chance to visit Teotitlán del Valle’s Community Cultural Center at 6pm on Sunday, there will be a screening of videographer Kapra Fleming’s Spanish-language video of people from Teotitlán getting ready for Día de los Muertos in 1994. You won’t believe how much the town has changed!
If you like the idea of having independent local English-language journalism here in Oaxaca and you’d like to see Oaxaca Newscast continue, the thing that would be most helpful right now would be for you to tell at least three friends about this podcast. And if they’re new to podcasts, please explain to them how they can subscribe so they automatically get Oaxaca Newscast on their smartphone.