Migration and History Matter
When I heard Vice President Kamal Harris, the daughter of immigrants, the first woman Vice President of the United States was going to Guatemala on her first official trip, I was hopeful for a shift in US policy towards refugees and immigrants from the region. But quickly my hopes were dashed when she said, “Do not come. Do not come.” You see, I have spent a significant amount of time studying the history between our two countries, and make no mistake it is a long and sad one.
During my time at the University of Colorado Denver, I traveled to Guatemala as part of a study abroad program. We had the pleasure of studying with and meeting author, peace activist, presidential candidate, and Noble Peace Prize Laurette, Rigobeta Menchu Tum. Rigoberta Menchu Tum is an indigenous Mayan woman who lived through the genocide of indigenous people that took place in Guatemala during the 1980’s. She is the founder of the Rigoberta Menchu Tum Foundation and the Centro Educativo Pavoratti in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala, a school in the rural mountains where young Mayan children have very little access to education.
Genocide in Guatemala? Who knew? Right? in 2011, we visited sites where archeologists were still uncovering mass graves and trying to determine who the bones belong to. Men, women and children massacred. How did that happen you might ask? We have to go back to the coup d’tat that took place in 1954 that was carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. In short, the United States government wasn’t fond of the democratically elected president and decided they would rather destabilize the country than lose control of their economic interests and ownership of land used to farm bananas. They installed a military dictatorship and the rest is history, 250,000+/- killed. Guatemala has never recovered, they have never been allowed to recover. Those who fought back or spoke up were killed, towns burned, bodies disappeared, no justice, no peace.
I returned in 2013 and again in 2015, working with the University of Colorado and the Centro Educativo Pavarotti. Today, the country remains one of the poorest in the region and one of the most malnourished populations only after Haiti. People are desperate and willing to sacrifice anything to survive. The government is still controlled by oligarchs and generals connected to the genocide. Rios Mont was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2013 only to see that conviction overturned by the Constitutional Court during the Presidency of Otto Perez Molina, who was a military officer during the genocide.
I have seen first hand the devastation, the pain and the trauma caused by years of injustice, war, and neglect. The United States is directly responsible for the chaos not only in Guatemala but also Honduras where as recent as 2018 there was a similar coup d’tat under the Obama administration. These people are fleeing a disastrous reality that we, the United States played a strong hand in creating. Therefore, we cannot simply wipe our hands and point our nose in the air and say, “do not come. do not come.” Seeking asylum is a legal form of migration and we should open our arms to the men, women, and innocent children who are making this dangerous and desperate trip.
