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Hello everyone,<br>
<br>
I have not had a chance to participate as much as I would have like
this week and I apologize. <br>
<br>
I think some important issues come up here. I think it is important
to get up as close as we can to the human experience of migration
from as many angles as possible in order to understand its
complexities and the ethical issues implied in assuming any
position, whether in our politics, our art or our academic work.<br>
<br>
I think the focus in the line of discussion here (below) on
hospitality is an important one. While we might tend to think about
hospitality in terms of a "nation" and whether or not it "opens its
doors" to refugees or other categories of migrant or not (and I
insist that although war refugees certainly are deserving of
attention, if accepting them means turning away others that for not
being war refugees are automatically categorized as "economic
immigrants", this response is ultimately brutal and indefensible),
this is a gross oversimplification, that only begins to get at the
diversity in human experience of migration. The emigration of
refugees is a form of violent displacement; the deportation of
"economic immigrants" is often a form of displacement that is no
less violent.<br>
<br>
There is a much read book in the US on historical processes of
Mexican migration called <i>Becoming Mexican American</i> (George
Sánchez 1995) that focuses on community building in Los Angeles.
Immigration is often thought in this way: migrants arriving and
gradually becoming comfortable as they are accepted into an ever
growing community of peers. However, many migration stories,
including those that are not merely about so-called circular
migration (in reference to those whose aim is only to earn some
money then return to their hometown), reflect not only rejection by
the mainstream of the host country (whether institutions, vigilante
groups, neighbors, etc.) but perhaps a lack of hospitality among
immigrant communities - stories of often abject alienation that end
in homelessness, incarceration, detention, deportation. These
stories are much less well known.<br>
<br>
The notion of community tends to be used very casually. Many
immigrants, even in the context of long established flows such as
the US-Mexico borderlands, are not unambiguously received by a
welcoming community of peers. Alienation is a more important part of
many individual stories than we tend to think. In many cases, there
is simply no community to receive them, but rather individuals here
and there who may or may not help them find shelter, work, food.<br>
<br>
Ricardo defines unconditional hospitality in a way that would seem
to be untenable perhaps for even the most tolerant individuals
living in immigrant destinations, including those who manage to
settle in stable communities composed of fairly recent immigrants.
What would be a reasonable and viable ethical limit of conditional
hospitality? What variables might be used to define such a limit?
Would they have to do with the motives for their migration? the
potential consequences of their forced return? their state of
alienation? their state of material need?<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Robert<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Hola,<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:56C87E25.20406@ucsd.edu" type="cite">
<blockquote
cite="mid:CANvRK-mJYGJPeb8WesxjhZSU56Zmje5hLmTFggJDEUMGrCD2dA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><span>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue';color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Ricardo, thank you for the link to Alex Rivera’s film</span><span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue';color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">. It is interesting to know this is happening in Newburgh. I’ve been there a few times and as a city it is struggling with cultural and economic development, this raises questions like:</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b
style="font-weight:normal"><br>
</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue';color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">How do migrant communities insert themselves into the communities they move to? </span></p>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
It depends on the double intersection of how the open the
communities are to the immigrants and to what degree a
pre-established<br>
ground has been staged by those immigrants that came before. <br>
<br>
Some individuals may never become a part of that the communities
they end up living for the rest of their lives-another Alex Rivera<br>
film about his own father, who spends all his non-work life
watching Peruvian TV:<br>
<br>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
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An experimental video about immigration. Looking at the potato
(which was first cultivated in Peru) Papapapá paints a picture of
a vegetable that has traveled and been transformed—following the
migrating potato North where it becomes the potato chip, the couch
potato, and the french fry. Papapapá simultaneously follows
another Peruvian in motion, the artist’s father, Augusto Rivera.
The stories of the two immigrants, the potato and Papa Rivera,
converge as Augusto becomes a Peruvian couch potato, sitting on an
American sofa, eating potato chips and watching Spanish language
television.<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.vdb.org/titles/papapapa">http://www.vdb.org/titles/papapapa</a><br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CANvRK-mJYGJPeb8WesxjhZSU56Zmje5hLmTFggJDEUMGrCD2dA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><span>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue';color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue';color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">And in return, how open or inviting is the place?</span></p>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
Yes, the question of "hospitality" is a core issue. This also
echos for me Derrida's 'possible’ conception of hospitality, in
which our most well-intentioned conceptions of hospitality render
the "other others" as strangers and refugees. Whether one invokes
the current international preoccupation with border control, or
simply the ubiquitous suburban fence and alarm system, it seems
that hospitality always posits some kind of limit upon where the
other can trespass, and hence has a tendency to be rather
inhospitable. On the other hand, as well as demanding some kind of
mastery of house, country or nation, there is a sense in which the
notion of hospitality demands a welcoming of whomever, or
whatever, may be in need of that hospitality. It follows from this
that unconditional hospitality, or we might say 'impossible'
hospitality, hence involves a relinquishing of judgement and
control in regard to who will receive that hospitality. In other
words, hospitality also requires non-mastery, and the abandoning
of all claims to property, or ownership. If that is the case,
however, the ongoing possibility of hospitality thereby becomes
circumvented, as there is no longer the possibility of hosting
anyone, as again, there is no ownership or control.
<blockquote
cite="mid:CANvRK-mJYGJPeb8WesxjhZSU56Zmje5hLmTFggJDEUMGrCD2dA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><span>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b
style="font-weight:normal"><br>
</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue';color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">The challenges of working class immigrants integrating into American cities should not be generalized, but the remittance culture does imply a desire to return to one’s country of origin.</span></p>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
Yes, I agree, who is integrated, who is welcomed-as a number of
participants on the list serv has pointed is about class
integration speeds and abilities in the new space.<br>
<br>
And yes, remittance culture is the call of home that one wants to
return to-to be "homeless" to produce or maintain "home" as a
possibility.<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CANvRK-mJYGJPeb8WesxjhZSU56Zmje5hLmTFggJDEUMGrCD2dA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><span>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b
style="font-weight:normal"><br>
</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue';color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Grupo Union’s focussed goals in Boqueron seem key to navigating their many obstacles. The fragmentation of a life connected to disparate places is used as a tool for empowerment by establishing themselves in both cities and circulating the resources they have access to. </span></p>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
By transversing the fantasy, the impossible, the field of dreams
(a baseball field) they do create agency in the fractalilty of
being "homeless."<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CANvRK-mJYGJPeb8WesxjhZSU56Zmje5hLmTFggJDEUMGrCD2dA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><span>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b
style="font-weight:normal"><br>
</b></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue';color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">It becomes problematic however, if the undocumented in Newburgh, as in many other places, are isolated or disconnected from their immediate environment. </span></p>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
This is always/already the state of un-documented existences and
the always/already condition of networked cultures to some degree.<br>
The condition of virtual immigration states of being. <br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CANvRK-mJYGJPeb8WesxjhZSU56Zmje5hLmTFggJDEUMGrCD2dA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><span>
<p dir="ltr"
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</p>
</span><span>
<p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt">Kindest
regards,</p>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
Sorry for the long response, Alva.<br>
<br>
Very best,<br>
Ricardo<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CANvRK-mJYGJPeb8WesxjhZSU56Zmje5hLmTFggJDEUMGrCD2dA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br>
</p>
<p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt">Alva</p>
</span></div>
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