{"id":2372,"date":"2017-12-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armando.info\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2017-12-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T00:00:00","slug":"the-californian-dream-is-like-a-concrete-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/the-californian-dream-is-like-a-concrete-nightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"The californian dream is like a concrete nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"When \r\nillegal migrants from Yucat\u00e1n die, they die of fear,\" says Sara Mijares, an \r\nactivist and promoter of migrant rights, based in Los Angeles, California. She \r\nis from Yucat\u00e1n and refers to her countrymen, 180,000 Yucat\u00e1n migrants living in \r\nthe United States of America, according to estimates from the Institute for the \r\nDevelopment of the Mayan Culture (Indemaya), an entity attached to the state \r\ngovernment of Yucat\u00e1n. It is about thousands of people who left their places of \r\norigin in the homonymous peninsula, in the southeast of Mexico, heart of the \r\nMayan culture, and traveled almost 5,000 kilometers in search of better living \r\nconditions for them and their families. About 90% of them crossed the US border \r\nas illegal.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

According \r\nto Indemaya, migrants from Yucat\u00e1n are spread across 43 cities in the USA, like \r\nPortland-Oregon, Denver-Colorado, Seattle-Washington, Las Vegas-Nevada, and \r\nDallas-Texas. But without a doubt, the state of California is their preferred \r\ndestination, particularly in the San Francisco Bay: 68% of Yucatecans is the \r\nreported figure from the Migration and Remittances Yearbook 2017 of the National \r\nPopulation Council (CONAPO) of Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n

The \r\nonly authority that can carry out deportations from the United States is ICE \r\n(Immigration and Customs Enforcement), but with the arrival of Donald Trump to \r\nthe presidency, the pressure among Yucat\u00e1n migrants for not attracting the \r\nattention of law enforcement authorities has been \r\nincreasing.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

Hence, \r\nthey die of fear, insists Sara Mijares, as many do not even go to the hospital \r\nfor fear of losing what little or much they have achieved in the USA; otherwise, \r\nthey could obtain a ticket back to poverty in Yucat\u00e1n, where 41.9% of the \r\npopulation cannot meet basic needs like food, a concrete house, and access to \r\nhealth, as indicated in the 2010 report of the National Council for the \r\nEvaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval) of \r\nMexico.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

Mijares \r\nwas born in Muna, a municipality in the south of Yucat\u00e1n very close to the \r\narchaeological area of Chich\u00e9n Itz\u00e1, and came legally to the USA in 1968, when \r\nshe was 15 years old, to live with his father, a farmer who participated in the \r\nBracero program, a cooperation plan with Mexico that allowed the first Yucat\u00e1n \r\nmigrants to travel to Texas and California to work in the fields. The program \r\nwas in force from 1942 to 1964. Historically, the areas with the most immigrants \r\nfrom the state have been the southern and central regions, where the Mayan \r\npopulation that still works in agriculture, especially the cultivation of corn \r\nand citrus fruits like lemon and orange, is concentrated. According to Indemaya, \r\nthe exodus intensified in the 70's and 80's of the last century. And it was \r\ntriggered by the Mexican economic crisis in late 1994, adds Pedro Lewin Fischer, \r\na researcher and anthropologist specialized in migratory movements in \r\nYucat\u00e1n.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"We were always afraid to go out, but now I am terrified. When the bell rings, I do not know if it will be the Migra (immigration agents) or the police that will take us and will keep my children,\"<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n

On \r\nJanuary 20, 2017, when Donald Trump assumed the presidency of the United States \r\nof America, the lives of many Yucat\u00e1n migrants changed as well. They are very \r\nuninformed and fearful of potential deportation, says Sara \r\nMijares.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

Eyder \r\n\u00c1vila, 31, and Carmita Hern\u00e1ndez, 32, born in Peto, southern Yucat\u00e1n, and based \r\nin San Rafael, a city 30 kilometers (18.64 mi) north of San Francisco, \u2014home of \r\napproximately 15,000 to 20,000 Yucatecans\u2014 live with the fear that their worst \r\nnightmare will come true, that because they are illegal, the government will \r\nsnatch their two children born in the USA, Eyder and Daphne, aged 11 and 7, \r\nrespectively, and never see them again.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

\"We \r\nwere always afraid to go out, but now I am terrified. When the bell rings, I do \r\nnot know if it will be the Migra<\/I> (immigration agents) or the police that \r\nwill take us and will keep my children,\" says \u00c1vila, who came to California 13 \r\nyears ago fleeing poverty in his hometown, the Yucat\u00e1n municipality with the \r\nlargest number of Mayan migrants, 5,000 kilometers away. There he walked free \r\nbut without money or hope for a better life. Nowadays, he fears that at any \r\nmoment the police will stop him and point a gun at him only for not having \r\nidentity papers.<\/p>\n\n