may 2016

Borders, Boundaries, and Barriers

common ground2

Beijing, China

Valparaiso, Chile

Prague, Czech Republic

Haifa, Israel

Common Ground provides a space for storytelling from around the world that sheds light on a global issue from local perspectives. By addressing a multiplicity of perspectives, we hope to facilitate a broader understanding of the issues that constitute our world. Each issue of Common Ground examines a specific theme that enables discourse through a deep and critical lens. Our CIEE student contributors investigate, reflect upon, and relay their international experiences through writing, photography, and other artistic endeavors with the hope that together, we can learn and connect on common ground.

Common Ground grew out of CIEE Khon Kaen, a community-based study abroad program in the Northeast region of Thailand. The original student-produced magazine functioned as a forum for the voices of local peoples, with the objective of building solidarity amongst grassroots communities in order to promote a more just and participatory world.

Now, Common Ground magazine is a collaboration between CIEE study abroad program participants across the globe. As a necessary step to increase dialogue across communities, this issue of the magazine has expanded to involve perspectives of students in ten countries.

Seoul, South Korea

Common GroundMission

Dublin, Ireland

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7 - 12

Historical Excerptsthe globe

What is Nationality?Morocco

14 - 1617 - 22

Idle in BerlinGermany

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Contents

33 - 34Fluid MovementKingdom of Thailand

35 - 44People of the BorderlandChile

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25 - 32Build Movements, not WallsUSA

Letter fromthe Editors:

Dear reader,

Last month I walked across the border between southern Laos and Thailand, passport in one hand and duffle in the other. Upon clearing customs and casually walking toward the taxi station, I was struck with how very surreal the situation felt. I walked about four hundred feet, had my photo taken by a man behind a desk, got a stamp in my passport, and suddenly I was in another country. The temperature was the same, many people were speaking the same language I’d heard on the other side, and I could even turn around and see, through the chain-link fence, the separate country from whence I came. In that moment, I was struck by the question, what does it really mean to enter another country?

That line, which appears so official and definitive when drawn on a map, seemed to have little bearing on the reality of the space. The border had felt very arbitrary when I was standing in front of it—and not nearly as austere as it looks in bold black ink on an atlas. The division, I realized, is purely a social construct. Whether it be a fence, or river or road or wall, humans designate barriers to represent an end and a beginning, to keep some in and others out.

The desire to mark and enforce territory is not a new one in human history, but its urgency and fulfillment has developed over time. As humans became increasingly capable of travel, other humans became increasingly concerned with the threat their movement might pose. Lines were drawn, and barriers, such as walls and fences were built. Of course, theses blockades aren’t impervious– humans have been known to climb over them, tunnel under them, and even tear them down. However, borders serve a purpose much deeper than physically obstructing movement: they create psychological barriers as well. The chain-link fence along the southern Thai-Lao border doesn’t prevent my passing or separate two drastically different areas so much as it reminds me that I am entering a space controlled by another.

The psychology of these barriers has the potential to impact people in a variety of ways. Those living near the border might feel a very keen divide, but they may also experience a confused sense of mixed identity. They might find crossing from one side to the other to be relatively easy, or they might face obstacles. I, as an American traveler, am privileged enough to experience ease of travel to and from many countries. Those holding a Mexican passport are not.

We at Common Ground have compiled a sampling of perspectives– spanning from a young Syrian rebuilding his life in Germany to a Mapuche activist and poet in Chile – all documented by study abroad students around the world. This issue of Common Ground explores some of the impacts and implications of the borders we draw and the barriers we build on them. While we do not seek to provide set fast answers – the constructs of borders can be as wavering as their makers – we hope the intellectual musings stir your curiosity as much as they did ours.

~ The Editors

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MISCELLANYon Borders, Boundaries, and Barriers

Number of countries containing a piece of the Berlin Wall : 36Approximate number of synonyms for “boundary” in the English language : 46

Number of countries touching the border of China : 14Number of known ongoing international border disputes in Africa : 46

In Asia and the Pacific : 54In Europe : 22

Number of individual conflicts Jerusalem has seen in the last 4,000 years : 118Number of times Jerusalem has changed hands without conflict in that time : 2Number of Great Walls of China it would take to wrap around the earth : 1.89

Number of people killed for being near (not attempting to cross) the Berlin Wall: 30Number of permanent US border traffic checkpoints along the US-Mexico border : 33

Number of viruses that can cross country borders via mosquito : 13Approximate number of viruses that can cross country borders via bat : 60Number of countries to which Ebola spread since the outbreak in 2014 : 15

Estimated number of gangs vying for territory in NYC last year : 375Approximate percentage of NYC deaths caused by gang violence in 2015 : 40%

Approximate length in miles of shared US-Mexico border : 2,000 Length in miles of that border which has been fenced in some form : 651

Approximate number of Syrian refugees now living in other countries : 4.6 millionRefugees assorted nations have promised to take in as of February : 160, 628

Number the United States has pledged to resettle : 38,843Percentage of Americans living with a learning disorder (LD) : 15%

Number of students with LD who have been held back a grade at least once : 1/3Percentage of Americans who didn’t own a passport in 2013 : 64%

Length in miles of the longest continuous international border (US and Canada) : 5,525Length in miles of the demilitarized area between North and South Korea : 160

Length in miles of the shortest international land border (Botswana and Zambia) : 0.09Number of rivers worldwide that serve as international borders : 135

In Europe : 53In Africa : 22

Number of countries through which the Nile River flows : 11Number of countries whose land was once part of the Roman Empire : 40

Estimated increase in visitors to the Western Wall between 2003 and 2010 : 8,000

By Costica Bradatan, from the “New York Times” in 2011. Bradatan examines walls through a more conceptual lens, using several contemporary and historical examples to illustrate both their physical and psychological significance.

While walls and fences are certainly physical things — imposing ones at that — a good deal of their power comes from elsewhere. As their role in political discourse makes clear, they are also things of the mind. And it is not a concept confined by American borders. The Germans, who seem to have a name for everything, use the phrase Mauer im Kopf (“wall in the head”) to refer to the phenomenon. The Berlin Wall may have been torn down long ago, but many people in Germany still feel divided; the wall is intact in their minds…. Walls can be spectacular as architectural structures but they can be even more fascinating as entities that inhabit our thinking and shape cultures.Walls, then, are built not for security, but for a sense of security. The distinction is important, as those who commission them know very well. What a wall satisfies is not so much a material need as a mental one. Walls protect people not from barbarians, but from anxieties and fears, which can often be more terrible than the worst vandals. In this way, they are built not for those who live outside them, threatening as they may be, but for those who dwell within. In a certain sense, then, what is built is not a wall, but a state of mind.

HISTORICAL EXCERPTSBorders, Boundaries, & Barriers[Editorial]“SCALING THE ‘WALL IN THE HEAD’”

In a world of uncertainty and confusion, a wall is something to rely on; something standing right there, in front of you — massive, firm, reassuring…. Their sheer presence is a guarantee that, after all, there is order and discipline in the world. A wall signifies the victory of geometrical reason over anarchic impulses.

Granted, walls can also block one’s view, but that should not be such big problem, especially when one wants to hide. At closer inspection, a wall occasions a dual process. On one hand, by building a wall I try to hide myself, to live in its shadow and, at the limit, make myself invisible. On the other, however, it is precisely by building it that I come to disclose myself in a decisive manner. Through the erection of the wall I expose myself totally; my secret fears and anxieties can now be contemplated in all their nakedness. A wall is above all the admission of a fundamental vulnerability.Now, if we shift perspective and look at things from the point of view of those who are “left out” (walled off), a wall is always perceived as an invitation. It is a way of putting things in a more tempting light, of making them desirable. This is all a game of teasing and seduction. There used to be nothing here, and then, one day, suddenly a wall emerges. How can you not pay attention?

Walls are built for various reasons and they serve different purposes, but their function is always fundamentally the same: to create divisions, to prevent people and ideas from moving freely, and to legitimize differences.

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Above all, walls help keep the world alive and history in motion. A wall is always a provocation, and life is possible only as a response to provocations; a world without walls would soon become stale and dry. After all, history itself may be nothing more than an endless grand-scale game where some built walls only for others to tear them down; the better the former become at wall-building the braver the latter get at wall-tearing. The sharpening of these skills must be what we call progress

homogeneous areas might try to acquire sovereignty – courses of action that might provoke violent responses from defenders of the status quo.

In the developing world, accordingly, where states are more recent creations and where the borders often cut across ethnic boundaries, there is likely to be further ethnic disaggregation and communal conflict. And as scholars such as Chaim Kaufmann have noted, once ethnic antagonism has crossed a certain threshold of violence, maintaining the rival groups within a single polity becomes far more difficult.

This unfortunate reality creates dilemmas for advocates of humanitarian intervention in such conflicts, because making and keeping peace between groups that have come to hate and fear one another is likely to require costly ongoing military missions rather than relatively cheap temporary ones. When communal violence escalates to ethnic cleansing, moreover, the return of large numbers of refugees to their place of origin after a cease-fire has been reached is often impractical and even undesirable, for it merely sets the stage for a further round of conflict down the road.

Partition may thus be the most humane lasting solution to such intense communal conflicts. It inevitably creates new flows of refugees, but at least it deals with the problem at issue. The challenge for the international community in such cases is to separate communities in the most humane manner possible: by aiding in transport, assuring citizenship rights in the new homeland, and providing financial aid for resettlement and economic absorption. The bill for all of this will be huge, but it will rarely be greater

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[Academic Article]US AND THEM, THE ENDURING POWER OF ETHNIC NATIONALISMBy Jerry Z. Muller, from “Foreign Affairs” in 2008. He approaches the topic of ethnic nationalism with consideration for how and where people groups choose to draw boundaries relating to identity and how the occurrence of country borders can create complications and dissent. Muller argues that partitioning communities often serves a greater humanitarian goal than unifying national narratives.

Increasing communal consciousness and shifting ethnic balances are bound to have a variety of consequences, both within and between states, in the years to come. As economic globalization brings more states into the global economy, for example, the first fruits of that process will often fall to those ethnic groups best positioned by history or culture to take advantage of the new opportunities for enrichment, deepening social cleavages rather than filling them in. Wealthier and higher-achieving regions might try to separate themselves from poorer and lower-achieving ones, and distinctive

than the material costs of interjecting and maintaining a foreign military presence large enough to pacify the rival ethnic combatants or the moral cost of doing nothing. Contemporary social scientists who write about nationalism tend to stress the contingent elements of group identity-the extent to which national consciousness is culturally and politically manufactured by ideologists and politicians. They regularly invoke Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities,” as if demonstrating that nationalism is constructed will rob the concept of its power. It is true, of course, that ethnonational identity is never as natural or ineluctable as nationalists claim. Yet it would be a mistake to think that because nationalism is partly constructed it is therefore fragile or infinitely malleable. Ethnonationalism was not a chance detour in European history: it corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit that are heightened by the process of modern state creation, it is a crucial source of both solidarity and enmity, and in one form or another, it will remain for many generations to come. One can only profit from facing it directly.

In a recent, brilliant thesis the Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul has traced the complex processes by which a bordered “Siam” came into being between 1850 and 1910.(11) His account is instructive precisely because Siam was not colonized, though what in the end, came to be its borders were colonially determined. In the Thai case, therefore, one can see unusually clearly the emergence of a new state-mind within a “traditional” structure of political power.

Up until the accession, in 1851, of the intelligent Rama IV (the Mongkut of The King and I), only two types of map existed in Siam, and both were hand-made: the age of mechanical reproduction had not yet there dawned. One was what could be called a “cosmograph,” a formal, symbolic representation of the Three Worlds of traditional Buddhist cosmology.

The second type, wholly profane, consisted of diagrammatic guides for military campaigns and coastal shipping. Organized roughly by the quadrant, their main features were written-in notes on marching and sailing times, required because the mapmakers had no technical conception of scale.

Thongchai points out that these guide-maps, always local, were never situated in a larger, stable geographic context, and that the birds-eye view convention of modern maps was wholly foreign to them.

In the apt words of Thongchai: “In terms of most communication theories and common sense, a map is a scientific abstraction of reality. A map merely represents something which already exists objectively ‘there.’ in the history I have described, this relationship

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[Book]CENSUS, MAP, MUSEUM

By Benedict Anderson, from his seminal book on nationalism Imagined Communities published by “Verso” in 1991. He analyzes how the three institutions- census, map, and museum-- reflect the notion of borders held by colonial states, which continues to influence the way country borders are regarded today. Anderson argues that the “nation” is a set of relationships made possible through citizens’ imagination, rather than face-to-face interaction, and that nationalism is a social construct.

was reversed. A map anticipated spatial reality, not vice versa. in other words, a map was a model for, rather than a model of, what it purported to represent.... It had become a real instrument to concretize projections on the earth’s surface. A map was now necessary for the new administrative mechanisms and for the troops to back up their claims.... The discourse of mapping was the paradigm which both administrative and military operations worked within and served.”

[The] origins [of map-as-logo] were reasonably innocent – the practice of the imperial states of coloring their colonies on maps with an imperial dye. In London’s imperial maps, British colonies were usually pink-red, French purple-blue, Dutch yellow-brown, and so on. Dyed this way, each colony appeared like a detachable piece of a jigsaw puzzle. As this “jigsaw” effect became normal, each “piece” could be wholly detached from its geographic context. In its final form all explanatory glosses could be summarily removed: lines of longitude and latitude, place names, signs for rivers, seas, and mountains, neighbours. Pure sign, no longer compass to the world. In this shape, the map entered an infinitely reproducible series, available for transfer to posters, official seals, letterheads, magazine and textbook covers, tablecloths, and hotel walls. Instantly recognizable, everywhere visible, the logo-map penetrated deep into the popular imagination, forming a powerful emblem for the anticolonial nationalisms being born.

[Essay]OUR WALL

By Charles Bowden, from “National Geographic.” The article, written in 2007, addresses the topic of the wall on the US-Mexico border. While the previous excerpts dealt with more conceptual ideas, this article looks at how physical walls affect the people who live near them, and the ways they continues to breed opposition years after construction.

Borders everywhere attract violence, violence prompts fences, and eventually fences can mutate into walls. Then everyone pays attention because a wall turns a legal distinction into a visual slap in the face. We seem to love walls, but are embarrassed by them because they say something unpleasant about the neighbors—and us. They flow from two sources: fear and the desire for control. Just as our houses have doors and locks, so do borders call forth garrisons, customs officials, and, now and then, big walls. They give us divided feelings because we do not like to admit we need them.

The 800 or so residents of Naco, Arizona, where Patrick Murphy is part of the local lore, have been living in the shadow of a 14-foot-high (four meters) steel wall for the past decade. National Guard units are helping to extend the 4.6-mile (7.4 kilometers) barrier 25 miles (40 kilometers) deeper into the desert. The Border Patrol station is the biggest building in the tiny town; the copper roof glistens under the blistering sun…. Today about 8,000 people live in Naco, Sonora, on the Mexican side of the metal wall that slashes the two communities.

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Perhaps the closest thing to the wall going up on the U.S.-Mexico border is the separation wall being built by Israel in the West Bank. Like the new American wall, it is designed to control the movement of people, but it faces the problem of all walls—rockets can go over it, tunnels can go under it. It offends people, it comforts people, it fails to deliver security. And it keeps expanding.

Rodolfo Santos Esquer puts out EL MIRADOR, a weekly newspaper in Naco, Sonora, and he finds the wall hateful. He stands in his cramped office—a space he shares with a small shop peddling underwear—and says, “It looks like the Berlin Wall. It is horrible. It is ugly. You feel more racism now. It is a racist wall. If people get close to the wall, the Border Patrol calls the Mexican police, and they go and question people.”

Santos fires up his computer and shows an image he snapped in the cemetery of a nearby town. There, there, he points as he enlarges a section of the photo. Slowly a skull-shaped blur floats into view against the black of the night—a ghost, he believes. The border is haunted by ghosts—the hundreds who die each year from heat and cold, the ones killed in car wrecks as the packed vans of migrants flee the Border Patrol, and the increasing violence erupting between smugglers and the agents of Homeland Security. Whenever heat is applied to one part of the border, the migration simply moves to another part. The walls in southern California drove immigrants into the Arizona desert and, in some cases, to their deaths. We think of walls as statements of foreign policy, and we forget the intricate lives of the people we wall in and out.

[Academic Article]STYLES, STEREOTYPES, AND THE SOUTH: CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES AT THE LINGUISTIC BORDERBy Jennifer Cramer, from the journal, “Ameri-can Speech” in 2013. She reports on the findings of a linguistic study conducted at a border, where she feels dialect and identity can both influence and be influenced by the experience of existing in a borderland.

The main assumption in the study of identity, particularly in linguistic anthropology, is that it is ultimately socially constructed (Bucholtz and Hall 2004). Bucholtz and Hall (2005, 586) explain that “[i]dentity is the social positioning of the self and other.” Thus, identity is not only about an individual and how he or she is similar to some group; it also includes the ways in which a speaker describes others, which can often say more about the individual speaking than it does about the one being described (e.g., Galasiñski and Meinhof 2002), and the ways in which people differentiate themselves from others.

Many linguistic studies have dealt with different types of identities…. Anthropologists, however, have led the way in researching identities near borders, where the fluidity of such identities is much more apparent.

In order to understand the significance of borders, it is important to first examine how terms like BORDER and BORDERLANDS have been theorized. While a border may

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simply be conceived of as a line (often a political or geographic boundary), borderlands are considered to be strips of land on either side of the border (Bejarano 2005), or “a region and set of practices defined and determined by this border that are characterized by conflict and contradiction, material and ideational” (Alvarez 1995, 448). In border regions, identities are constantly challenged and transformed; political, social, and other identities converge there (Flynn 1997). Alvarez (1995) claims that borders and borderlands represent graphically the conflicts associated with the current organization of the world. Alvarez adds, “For it is here that cultures, ideologies, and individuals clash and challenge our disciplinary perspectives on social harmony and equilibrium.”

Many border studies emphasize the hybridity of identities at the border. As Rosaldo (1993, 209) suggests, border identities are often considered to be “a little of this and a little of that, and not quite one or the other.” One such study at the U.S.-Mexico border examines the youth identities of Latino students in a border town high school: Bejarano (2005) examined the many distinctions in identity made by people at the border (Latino, Chicano, Mexican, Mexican-American, etc.) that the majority of U.S. society ignores. Bejarano focuses on how youth identities are created and influenced by geopolitics and sociocultural implications of the border. Like the definition of borderlands above, Bejarano emphasizes the contestation of identities that occurs in border communities: “The borderlands thus is a place where people face simultaneous affirmations and contradictions about their identities.”

Bejarano’s informants were both American-

born and Mexican-born youths, who, in their identity creations, contested the relative Mexicanness or Americanness of their counterparts. Bejarano found that their identity positionings were tied up with their understanding of citizenship and the salience of linguistic choices. Students were able to present their level of Mexicanness or Americanness based on both their birthright, so to speak, and their choice of English, Spanish, Spanglish, or code-switching between languages. Ultimately, Bejarano discovered tHat the borderlands held varying meanings for its residents, who constructed their identities on strong ethnographic knowledge and an understanding of the historical situation that created the borderlands.

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A History of Walls

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When my dear friend – with her dark olive skin, accent a mix of French and Arabic in her hijab tells me she can’t get a visa to visit the U.S, the question becomes more poignant. This word and this idea has created borders and started wars in the last century and long before. This piece is about being the object of curiosity; living with and among a culture that was not my own; and finding the similarities and the differences; and reflecting on how those differences, sometimes so very subtle ones, can do everything from move mountains on the geopolitical stage to turn heads down the street as I walk to the store.

As an American in Morocco, and briefly, an American in Spain, I could not escape the magnetic pull of the question: what makes a race, a nationality? When a Moroccan with

pale skin can look at my pale skin and know I am not like her, when I can spot an American from across the medina, I had to ask myself how? They could be wearing a jeleba, and I would have known. Why? What makes up a culture, a difference in the

thing we’ve come to call nationality?

what is NationalityMorgan Taylor Greer // Morocco

A History of Walls

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But language and appearance are not enough. They are only the start of the thing that flows deeper than the skin of a people the outward, tangible things. Nationality is culture. It is the

expectations of your mother, school teacher. It’s the food that you eat. You have your Labne and

dates, and I my yogurt and raisins. What the man who passes you on the street expects you to look like, to wear. It’s the way that you say the words

that aren’t mine that makes me different from you.

It is why you stare when I walk by, and before I have spoken a word you know I am not of your

kind. It is not only because my hair is uncovered, it is not only that my eyes are blue and yours are

brown. It is more than sights and sounds.

A burning question the world over, what makes me different from you? Why should I live here and you there? Walls are built and torn down, wars are waged and people starve in the face of this question. What is nationality?

What is race? What makes us different, what mat-ters in the question of shared space?

We have seen it in a nose. In the eyes,

the way yours hangs that’s different from mine.

The sounds that come from your mouth that are different from mine.

These things that make me different from you. Are they worth building walls over?

Are they worth the wars and the heartache that they cause?

But still,yogurtraisins

storeblue.

labne anddates and hanut and brown and

Graffiti outside a wall in the small Spanish town of Azira.

The dove nailed to the peace sign is from the same wall. The dove, symbolic of peace, is nailed in a position of crucifixion, insinuating that we have sacrificed peace for what it is unclear. Perhaps globalization is the cause of these ills, as the artist has suggested,placing a group of people under an ‘antiglobalization’ banner behind the crucified visage of peace.

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Turn on the news. You’ll see on the T.V. women and children drowning in the Med-iterranean Sea. You’ll see Mexicans arrested

in California, Trump railing about the construction of the wall.

Open a history book. You’ll watch Germans leaping from the 6th story to go from east to west. You’ll see the crusaders marching into Palestine to claim the piece of the desert that we each have called holy but cannot share.

Because my eyes are blue, and yours are brown. I have yogurt, and you have labne.

I say God, and you say Allah. We are different.

These things impart race and nationality on us all, that he may say with pride, or with

insecurity, I am Moroccan. I am American.

My ancestors come from Ireland, they came from Spain, my father was Greek, my mother Russian.

I have her nose, I drink like they do. I talk like they do. I think, I look, like they

are, I am one of them, and you are different. This is the look that is given as I walk past

the café. Your chairs are outside, and you sit and drink your mint tea and watch me pass

by, with a look of scrutiny that says different. It is enough for you, to look at me,

these traits and ideas that draw lines. It is enough for you.

And for the powers that be for centuries that has been reason enough, for the things done in the name of borders and boundaries and

countries.

Symbolic of the many refugees attempting to

get across the Mediterranean. The boy speaking Arabic in the

raft is saying “no war,”

Idle in Berlin A Refugee’s story of

the Barriers to Integration

all over the Middle East stood in conversation with many Berlin locals. In a small corner illuminated by a single hanging lamp, Mohammad Saad, a 25 year-old accounting student from Aleppo, Syria, hunched over a glass chessboard placed on a wooden crate in a contemplative duel with his opponent.

Mohammad, originally from Palestine, leaned up against a pillar in the wall, his short, jet-black hair slicked back. He slowly reached into the pocket of his black pants and removed a pouch of tobacco. As he began to roll a cigarette, he scanned the room before eventually settling his eyes on his first row of pawns on the board. Much like a game of chess, Mohammed’s first six months in Berlin have been a battle that requires great diligence and determination to navigate.

Uncertain Futures His future, much like that of the almost one million refugees in Germany, remains uncertain. Millions of refugees have been displaced by Syria’s ongoing civil war and the regional instability caused by the militant group ISIS over the past several years. Many have sought political asylum in Berlin in order to escape the violence, start a new life, and continue their education if possible. Germany received the highest number of new asylum applications in 2015, more than 476,000, and has granted 140,910 of the claims.

Refugees like Mohammad find themselves in an

identity stalemate. They seek to find a balance between their projected futures as students and potentially skilled academics and their present reality as low-level members of the German workforce. Instead of studying in university, Mohammad now faces the daily challenge of restarting his life and trying to establish a career in Berlin.

Mohammed began studying finance at the Accounting and Management Projects University in Aleppo several years ago, but had to flee before he was able to complete his studies. In Syria, he was certain that his accounting education would lead him to professional success. “This branch [of accounting] was good for employment in Syria and the Arabian Gulf,” Mohammad said as he toyed with a captured pawn in his hand, eyes locked on the chessboard.

“I need to work more,” he explained, “but I also want to go back to school. It is very hard to choose. I cannot have both.”

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IDLE IN BERLINA REFUGEE’S STORY

Calvin Cutler // Germany

Adimly lit basement flat in Berlin’s Kreuzberg borough was converted into a café for the event that night. The savory aroma of traditional Syrian food, hearty German beer, and fresh baked desserts mingled in the room. Refugees from

Scenes of Berlin’s East Side Gallery which once divided the East and West

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The Predicament of Integration

Once they arrive in Europe, half of the battle for refugees is adjusting to everyday life. Even securing a home with running water and heat can be a gambit. “I am living at Hotel 103 [a local budget hotel],” said Mohammad. “I’m looking for a home, but it seems that is not easy to be found in Berlin.”

He spends most nights sleeping in a modest room on a small cot or in a sleeping bag. He shares the room with eight other refugees, some of whom he knew from his home city of Hama. Mohammad attributes his limited exposure to his new city to his living situation; he rarely has the time or opportunity to interact with German citizens.

“I saw [friends] here in Berlin ten years ago,” he said as he looked up from the board and lit his cigarette, its end glowing a deep orange in the darkness.

“They did not speak German because they lived and worked with the Arabs only.” Now no longer a tourist, Mohammad experiences the disconnect first hand. This isolation makes it extremely difficult for refugees to learn German and become integrated into society.

Language barriers significantly impede refugees from adopting a “German” identity. In December, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that multiculturalism in Germany was a “sham,” a failed aspiration, and that refugees would have to adhere to German culture if they want to stay. She then went on to say that “Multikulti” as it has so far been undertaken in Germany leads to parallel societies and undermines a sense of national identity. “Those who found refuge and protection with us must obey our laws, values, and traditions,” stated Merkel, “and in order to understand us, they must obey the German language.” In Berlin, free English

was “the best [thing] that could happen to Germany.”

The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees states that Germany’s population is one of the fastest declining in the world, alongside Japan and Italy. Hopeful immigrants like Mohammad, however, offer a possible solution to the aging German population. With current projected German birthrates, the German Federal Statistical Office said that by the year 2060, roughly thirty percent of Germany’s population will be over the age of 65. Meanwhile, last year, over half of the

and German language programs exist for refugees through institutions such as Freie Universität and Humboldt University. The major issue, however, is that the waiting list can last months, a familiar burden for the almost 100,000 refugees in Berlin.

A Changing Germany

According to Barbara John, a European ethnography specialist at Humboldt University, German identity as a whole has always been defined by ethnicity, a feature not found in many European nations. She says Germans are an archetypal people, and that it leads to a “tribal”

sense of identity. The association of “German” with stereotypical features such as blonde hair and blue eyes is reinforced through advertisements, television, and other forms of media. The influx of refugees is already disturbing the national identity of Germany’s 80 million people, with extreme right-wing anti-immigration groups gaining popularity and violent confrontations on the rise. The new population of refugees challenges the notion of a traditionally ethic Germany, especially in large, increasingly diverse cities such as Berlin and Hamburg. In several decades’ time, one can expect to see changes in the statistics of traditionally ethnic Germans, an ongoing source of anxiety for politicians making immigration policy and general citizens alike.

Despite such nationalistic responses to the refugee crisis, Deutsche Bank said the influx of refugees

estimated 800,000 refugees in Germany were men under the age of 25.

“Most of the refugees are young, well-trained, and highly motivated,” said automobile manufacturer Daimler AG’s CEO Dieter Zetsche. “That’s exactly the sort of person we’re looking for.”

Daimler and some other German companies are making progressive moves to hire and train skilled refugees. “We want to increase our commitment and make a long term contribution toward integrating the people [refugees] coming to us,” said Joe Kaeser, President and CEO of Siemens AG in a recent press release. Recognizing that the migrant population can be an asset rather than a burden, these companies are among those spearheading refugee integration in Germany.

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hundreds of refugees who struggle to access clean drinking water, food, and heat. These refugees live day to day, sometimes not knowing where their or their children’s next meals will come from.

Refugees like Mohammad are forced to live off of their savings or depend on their family for funds. These refugees are unable to work and unable to learn. They watch their lives pass before them as they contemplate their next move. “This month has been difficult for me and my friends due to the lack of an appropriate place to live or sleep,” said Mohammad. He looked across the chessboard and realized that he was in check. While taking a slow, deep drag from his carefully rolled cigarette, he moved his king back a space, out of his opponent’s fatal trajectory.

Much like his game of chess, Mohammad spends every day in an internal battle, strategizing his next move, uncertain of the future that lies ahead of him.//

Barriers to Assimilation

Though some refugees are being offered opportunities in the German workforce, thebattle for legal status still remains a challenge. Mohammad is currently in the process of getting a residence card, as well as a work permit.

According to the German Visa Bureau, immigrants from nations in the Schengen area that have abolished border control and passport checks, the United States, Canada, and others are not required to apply for visas before entering the country. Individuals from countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria endure a much more convoluted process, which can take months or even years.

Because of this, countless refugees have become trapped in limbo between borders, living in inhumane conditions. Makeshift refugee campsites such as “The Jungle” in Calais, France, host

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BUILD MOVEMENTS,

NOT WALLS

BUILD MOVEMENTS,

NOT WALLSIn the United States, the debate about immigration is at the forefront of the increasingly polarized 2016 presidential election. The issue is far from new. Traffic across the U.S.- Mexico border began steadily increasing in the 1990s, and it continues to fall under the glare of today’s political spotlight. Last year saw a new record of 42.1 million immigrants living in the United States. There might have been even more, if not for several government actions that have thrown various obstacles and barriers into the daily lives of those immigrants.

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police and other law enforcement officials to crack down on illegal immigration by checking the papers of anyone who seemed “reasonably suspicious” of being in the country without proper documentation or registration. This led to wide-spread racial profiling and general fear among the population. Anyone who provided transportation, employment, or shelter to an illegal immigrant was also subject to penalty. This law inspired many states to create similar laws in the year or so following, including Alabama. On the whole, the anti-immigration sentiment across the nation gained momentum from the wave of proposed bills and frenzied media attention; however, the surge of opposition was just as strong.

Individuals and organizations across the country rallied and stood against the Alaba56ma HB , refusing to see families ripped apart. The Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ACIJ) was formed in response to the crisis and remains in the center of the conflict. Among its ranks is a community organizer named Frank Barragan, who’s been involved since the nightmare began. When asked if he’d be open to an interview, he was thrilled at the opportunity to shed some light on what happened. “It’s a matter of facts and myths,” he said, “and making sure that people know what is really happening is extremely important. The extremists are out there feeding everyone the information they want them to hear, but we’re out trying to establish the facts.” In the following Q&A, Frank gives insight into the facts surrounding the history and current events relating to the situation and the involvement of the ACIJ.

BUILD MOVEMENTS, NOT WALLSImmigration and the United States

Lesley Haberman

In 2011, the most stringent anti-immigration law ever passed in the U.S to date was passed, known as Alabama HB 56. The HB 56 followed in the footsteps of the Arizona SB 1070, which was the strictest anti-immigration law of its time when it passed in April of 2010. The SB 1070 prompted

Laws that copycat Arizona’s SB 1070

Anti-Immigration Laws Passed 2010-2011

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Can you give us the quick rundown of what happened in Alabama with the HB 56? What was the legislation?

Well, in 2011 the Alabama legislators felt that it was important to pass what they claimed to be the harshest immigration law in the nation, and it was. It was really ridiculous to me that the governor, Robert Bentley, would stand up in front of the press and claim it, proud that his legislators had passed this incredible law. There were several amendments in that law that really brought the people together. The first was that if an immigrant was going to the doctor or to church and were pulled over for whatever reason, an undocumented immigrant would be arrested on the spot. Not only that, but if someone was giving them a ride, they would be arrested on the grounds of harboring. This law was so sickening that not only the undocumented but some documented Hispanics left the State. They were concerned that they’d be profiled, especially in the northern part of the State where it’s pretty obvious that the community lives together in trailer parks and apartment buildings. Police departments in various cities up north would have roadblocks right there in front of their communities.

There was another thing that really stood out to me, in particular. Our children are grown now, but when it was time to register for school my wife would take them. She’s Caucasian-- and my kids have the Caucasian look to them-- so there wouldn’t be any questions asked. However, I’m a descendent of Mexican parents. I’m dark. If I were to take them, my appearance would prompt them to ask for proof of citizenship, from myself and my wife. And if we couldn’t prove we were citizens, then our children would not be able to go to school.

Community OrganizerFRANK BARRAGAN

Q&A

Laws that copycat Arizona’s SB 1070

Anti-Immigration Laws Passed 2010-2011

SourceMother Jones

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After the initial upset, what was the reaction from the communities? What was your reaction?

I say this proudly – what really happened in our communities was the people who were not going to be moved – those who felt that this was unacceptable – they stood. With the help of different organizations throughout the United States and the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus, we rallied. It was so impressive to see the type of support we had! It really organized the community. State-wide, organizers went into different communities and ended up with fourteen groups who were committed to do whatever it took to spread the word about how unacceptable this law was. We had rallies and sessions in Birmingham at the 16th Street Baptist Church, which is a historic church for the Civil Rights Movement. I myself was so upset with what had happened that I started organizing my own group. I’m very involved in the Hispanic community and that of Mobile as a whole; people were asking me about my opinion before the vote, and I would say, “How could this law possibly pass? I just can’t see it happening; there’s no way that even in the state of Alabama would they feel the need to pass such a law.” Then when they passed it I was sick – physically sick to my stomach – because I felt like I had let the people down. It didn’t take long before I said, “I’m going to organize. I’m going to get people together, because this is not okay.” At that point I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do, but I knew I was going to get the people together first to talk about it.

In the end (not really the end, of course) what happened was a coalition of different organizations, along with the ACIJ, sued to repeal the law or at least take out some of the worst amendments. We were successful in getting rid of a few (two of which were the ones I mentioned to you), but the law was never repealed. So now we’re okay, but we’re not satisfied. We want the HB 56 taken off the books. I asked the governor face-to-face to do so, and he assured me that he didn’t need to do that. He claimed any changes or chance of repeal would never come up again. We’re very concerned about that, and we will always be.

You mentioned that your parents are Mexican. How long has your family been in the United States?

I was born in the United States, as was my mother. My father was undocumented for twenty years. Now, I don’t have a habit of doing this, but I’ve

thought about this before. There were eight of us in my family, and my mother worked in the home. I’ve wondered, what if my father was deported? Where would we be today? Would I be doing what I do today, involved in the community? Would my brother be an intake psychologist in the county jail in Lake County? Would my sister be a business-owner and an entrepreneur? It goes on and on and…. I can’t even imagine that happening, so I’m going to do what I can to make sure it doesn’t happen to other people. The separation of a family is just not acceptable, not at all.

How and when did you get involved with the ACIJ? When HB 56 came in and I started my own group, there was a community organizer from Brooklyn who came to Mobile, AL, where I live. We talked, and oh, it was funny! And it was incredible, because we talked about the same mission. After almost

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two hours of conversation he said, “Frank, we’re working on the same things. Do you agree?” And I responded, “absolutely.” Then he said, “Well let me ask you this, would you be willing to join the ACIJ and its movement?” I looked at him and said, “no.” And he said, “What?” I explained, “No, sir. The question is, are you willing to join me?” Because, you know, I didn’t know him! But it turned out to be a huge and incredible collaboration. We got very active here in Mobile. With the help of local restaurants and various committed leaders, we hosted a breakfast and invited the mayor, the representatives, business leaders, faith leaders, the president of our Chamber of Commerce. I called him and asked him if he would attend, and he said, “I would attend, but I don’t want to speak.” I told him, “Sir, if you walk into that restaurant, you don’t have to speak because your presence will say it all.” And so he came! The sheriff of Mobile County was there, too. There were almost eighty people at that breakfast. That’s when we knew it was the beginning of our movement.

How does latest wave of anti-immigration rhetoric from politicians affects immigrants on a grassroots-level? Are there concrete implications for Donald Trump’s political platform, for example?

Yeah, there can be; and I hesitate to say that, because it’s what they want to hear. We know who we are, and we know that there are people who don’t believe we belong here. Up until now it’s been pretty quiet, but the recent rhetoric from a number of politicians is stirring the United States. The extremists are giving out the facts that they think will motivate people, but they’re not facts. For example, the idea of illegal immigrants being eligible for federal benefits – I don’t understand where that comes from, because the truth is that it’s nearly impossible to be able to collect food assistance without proper documents! Regardless, it’s not going to have an effect on us unless we let it. We’re going to be out there protesting for the dignity and respect of all immigrants. We protested for administrative relief at every candidate rally in Alabama. Some people can and will be influenced by the rhetoric (only because they don’t know any better), but we as leaders have to make sure we stand strong. The extremists want to push our buttons, but we’re not going to let it get to us.

What needs to happen in, say, the next 5 years for life to improve for immigrants in the U.S.?

A pathway to citizenship has to happen. Of course you’re going to hear people say that it’s happening, that it’s out there. Well, we have a leader involved in our movement who is a professor at Samford University here in Birmingham. Two years ago he told us he was celebrating that he’d received his citizenship, and man, we were so proud! Here’s this guy – he’s out there fighting, being supportive, getting his students involved in the movement. I asked him how long it took, and he said, “fifteen years.” Fifteen years! I can remember when my dad [in the late 70s] got his documentation in less than 2 years.

We were proud of the Senate bill 744, it was acceptable. It was something along the lines of “submit an application, wait six years, reapply, wait another six years, and then wait one more year after that.” It would take twelve to fourteen years to go through the system, but it would’ve made a huge impact. I hesitate to say this, but we’d be willing to take that. It’d be an opportunity. And it wouldn’t be an amnesty, because that bill stipulated a fine – anywhere from $500 to $1000. We were out working with groups when that bill passed, and we told people it could cost them $1000 because they broke the law. They didn’t care; they were more than willing to save that money and pay that fine just to have an opportunity. And in terms of an economic impact, if we receive $1000 from six million people ... do the math, the impact is huge. But comprehensive immigration reform really needs to happen.

SENATE BILL: S. 744 The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act – was passed by the Senate in June of 2013. The bill provided a difficult but real opportunity for citizenship and permanent legal status for thousands of immigrants. The process would take multiple steps, various fines and fees, and a waiting period of 13 years, but it was a chance to lower deportation rates and keep families together. However, the bill saw its demise during the 113th Congress after the House of Representatives rejected any kind of immigration reform.

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What are the societal and economic implications of improving the lives of immigrants in America?

Through his administrative relief order, the President is giving five million people – 25,000 in the state of Alabama – access to Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), which is for undocumented immigrants who have children who were born here in the U.S. He wants to do four things: first, he wants to give them an opportunity to get a Social Security Number, so they’ll be able to work and support their families. Second, those parents will be able to apply for a driver’s license, so they can come and go from work. Third, (and honestly, this is the one baffles me), they’ll have to pay taxes. Well, they’re already paying taxes – we all pay taxes! The fourth thing – and the most important thing – is that those five million people will stop living in fear.

We need a comprehensive immigration reform, of course, but we really need that administrative relief. That’ll allow us to be productive. I talked about the trailer parks and apartment buildings. People don’t want to commit to a long-term living facility because of the possibility of being deported. With DAPA, they’ll be able to re-apply every three years. Given that, why wouldn’t they go buy a house or rent a nice home? Why wouldn’t they go buy a brand new car and make the guy on the corner rich from the high interest? The economic impact could be great. However, what’s really important for our movement is that they’re going to stop living in fear, because it’s going to halt the separation of families. Let me tell you – we’re going to continue to fight, and they’re going to continue to work, and they’re going to continue to pay taxes. We’re going to keep looking for opportunities to move forward.

Do you see yourself working with ACIJ until you see the changes you think need to happen, or even indefinitely?

I’m here. I just turned sixty-one. I’ve always said it, and my wife agrees: I’m going to be working as long as I can. Even once we get the comprehensive immigration reform – and it’ll take years to get it established – you have to help get everyone through the process. After that we’ll need to start working on different things. We’ve never had a Hispanic leader elected to anything [in Alabama], and that’s the sort of thing we need to start looking at. With the connections between the ACIJ and the different

coalitions, we’re going to make that difference. There’s always going to be something on the table. I’m proud to be part of the ACIJ because we’re always going to be looking at the horizon. We never stop; our leaders and staff are really committed. And we don’t want to react to anything: we want to be proactive. We’re starting to work on civic engagement, and we have a timeline. We’re going to have to go through the process when the Supreme Court decides that the administrative relief is going to continue. I’ve been in a lot of organizations for most of my life, but I’ve never seen the commitment that I’ve seen with the leaders of the ACIJ. But this is one of my biggest problems – it’s hard for me to not think. Even on my days off, my wife gets upset with me because my mind is always thinking of how I can make someone’s life even better. And I believe that my colleagues are doing the same thing; it’s a lifestyle. So to answer your question, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

DEFERRED ACTION FOR PARENTS OF AMERICANS AND LAWFUL PERMANENT RESIDENTS (DAPA) is a US government immigration policy targeted toward parents of children born in the United States, who have also lived in the country for more than 10 years. The policy doesn’t grant full legal status, but it gives the opportunity to defer deportation and obtain a work permit that can be renewed every three years. When the Obama administration introduced the program in November of 2014, it faced dissent from several states. Various court cases over the course of 2015 saw blocked implementation in those states, and eventually the Supreme Court agreed to address the subject. An official decision is anticipated for June of this year.

Tell us about younger generation. Is there a lot of interest to step up and take over when you and your colleagues are no longer there?

That’s a great question! The younger generation is very impressive. There was one boy who the youngest ever to commit civil disobedience in D.C.. He’s twelve, and he was arrested in April 2016. His parents are undocumented. There was another who was sixteen and arrested. We have a number of budding leaders; one (the daughter of a leader in Birmingham) attended the Youth Summit

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in Washington and was invited back to the White House.

So that’s the great thing, and here’s the good thing that will become great: throughout the state we’re reaching out to the colleges. We’re also planning to go into the high schools; we haven’t yet, but we know it’s necessary. Here in Mobile at the University of South Alabama, there’s an organization called the Latin American Student Association. It’s so diverse – not only are there Latinos, but there are African-Americans, South Asians, Caucasians. They took it upon themselves to put immigration on their platform, and they’re part of the ACIJ movement. When we held the first demonstration against the candidates (the first was Donald Trump), that student group was there. They go to the monthly meetings. They helped organize a meeting, and it was huge. They are strong. We’ve also gone to Springhill College, and we’re getting involved with the different student organizations there. We feel that it’s really important that we do that, because more than anything else they’re our future.

What is the most touching family story or experience you’ve encountered in your work with the ACIJ?

Wow, there are really so many! Recently there was a young lady in Dothan, AL, whose undocumented mother was arrested a week before her high school graduation. She was being held in the city jail. The daughter decided she wasn’t going to go through with it, not without her mother. But that mother looked her in the eye and said, “Yes, you will. You worked too hard for this. I will be with you in spirit, but you have to go.” So she went and graduated in tears. These stories are happening throughout the state, throughout the south, throughout the U.S. And it’s heartbreaking! So we’ll keep fighting. Everybody has rights, and whether or not you agree with them it’s time for you to start accepting them. Because we’re not going anywhere. We’re going to continue to fight – that’s in our nature, we’re human beings.

For more information about the work of the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, visit their website at acij.net.

Estimated Percentage of the Population That Is Undocumented, 2010

SourceMother Jones

While many arriving at customs depart from hired vehicles and continue on foot to hire new ones on the other side of the river, some obtain “car passports” and drive their own. There is usually a small fee for crossing the bridge.

Lesley Haberman // ThailandPhoto Essay

A Fluid Crossing

Often the thought of a country border inspires an idea of separation-- a divide between people and prop-erty and economies. However, where the Mekong River marks the border between Thailand and Laos, it seems to form a connection. The river is a shared resource between the Thai and Lao people, who fish, swim, and draw hydropower from its waters. The peaceful management of the stretch of the river running between the two is a feat, but one the two countries continue to tackle. While the 1980s saw a

border war based on an old French map drawn while Laos was still colonized, the dispute has since been resolved. Moving from one country to the other has become even more efficient with the increasingly positive international relations. In the past, travelers seeking to cross the Mekong lugged their belongings into a longboat and glided across to the other side. Now seven “Friendship Bridges” – the last having been completed in 2014 – span the river and serve as border crossing checkpoints.

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A Fluid CrossingThe Thai/Lao immigration and border custom processes reflect the cooperation and casualness that characterizes the Mekong as a border. There is an air of informality about the businessmen and families waiting to get their passports stamped so they can hop into a taxi and cross the bridge. Many women tote hefty plastic bags full of fruit and scarves and other wares. Children wander off toward the restroom on their own, having seemingly been there often enough to know the way themselves. Officials check photos and stamp documents with an air of ennui.

The entire experience speaks to the frequent movement across the Mekong and the commonplace interaction between Thai and Lao citizens. One might wonder whether those businessmen and women standing in line find the protocol and the paperwork to be rather arbi-trary. Indeed, Thai nationals themselves don’t even need a passport for shorter trips: they can obtain a temporary border pass that allows them to stay for up to three days in the Lao province they enter upon crossing. And if they don’t have time to exchange currency, the customs officials on the Lao side will accept baht.

In the south where the Mekong peels away from the border, Thailand and Laos are separated by fencing. The security stand at the entrance to the walkway between Lao and Thai customs is insignificant compared to the large building complex housing the offices and duty-free shop; travelers might even miss it if weren’t for the bright sign reading “GO TO THAILAND.”

The Nongkhai/Vientiane crossing-- the site of the first Friendship Bridge-- is one of the most widely-used. A broad variety of travelers can be seen queuing at immigration counters, from businessmen to families to groups of gig-gling young women en route to a brief weekend away.

While tourists fumble through their documents, one can easily identify the frequent border-crossers as they breeze briskly through boundary that is a part of their daily routine.

At the Chong Mek/ Vangtao crossing in the south-- where the Mekong has moved away from the border-- an under-ground tunnel leads between the countries’ respective customs offices. The space seems as common as a subway station, and not an official international border crossing.

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People of the Border Land

Territorial Borders, Cultural Boundaries, and Legal Barriers on Mapuche Individuals that Leave the Chilean Borderland

Librería 33, a bookstore the size of a large closet with avant-garde photographs collaged on the walls not occupied by bookshelves, is eerily silent when Alejandro Banda finishes reciting his poem. A short, skinny man in his 40s, he sits next to Silvia Murua and Rosa Alcayaga, two poets who live and work in Valparaíso, Chile. He has a deep, power-ful voice that he uses to introduce me, his student, to the other poets in the room. Everyone knows Alejandro well, and they smile when he walks up to them and kisses each one on the cheek.

On the surface, Alejandro looks like anyone else on the streets of Valparaíso. Everyone that passes him in his loosely fitted grey suit is unaware that he belongs to an indigenous group, a culture that is invaluable to Chile’s roots. He is the son of a Mapuche woman whose maiden name is Nahuel-co, which translates to “puma water.” Both of his parents are professors, and they taught him to value the Mapuche culture and to love the earth.

The poem he recited is one of his own, titled “Au-sencia,” or “Absence.” It describes a man who is disappearing like a beautiful poem burning or someone losing hope. The two of us exit Librería 33 and head for the winding streets of Cerro Alegre. As we ascend a hill, we pass by elaborate murals painted on the sides of buildings, street vendors selling handmade jewelry, and a view of the full moon over the bay.

“There is no real destination for the Mapuche in

PEOPLE OF THE BORDER LANDMapuche .....

Codi Coghlan // Chile

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Chile now,” says Alejandro. “‘Civilized men’ forced the Mapuche off of their land and later resold it to them in a manner that they saw fit.”

Many Mapuche removed from their lands were relegated to poblaciones and comunidades (res-ervations) in the Aruacanía region. The cities of Temuco and Padre las Casas, the most populated, mixed-ethnic poblaciones in Mapuche territory, clutter a hilly landscape and end at rural Mapuche comunidades and industrial forestales (forestry plantations). In these poor, rainy poblaciones, col-orful graffiti covers concrete walls alongside make-shift horse pastures shoved between buildings. Discrimination against Mapuche peoples and their despondent living conditions in these areas has pro-voked intense rural-urban migration and a robust critique of Chilean development policies among Mapuche writers, activists, and artists.

Sitting on a bench overlooking mismatched roof-tops and ominous cargo ships crossing the bay, Alejandro explains that he is one of those activists. Residing in Valparaíso, a thriving port city with a vibrant civil society that is far removed from im-poverished Mapuche territory, he works as a poet and professor to preserve a vanishing Mapuche culture.

The Mapuche peoples of South America trace their roots back to pre-colonial times, when they were free to roam the southern tip of the American con-tinent to the Inca Empire in the North. In the Ma-puche language, “mapu” means “land” and “che” signifies people, which speaks to the group’s strong ties to the natural environment. In Alejandro’s view, the Mapuche strongly feel that “the land does not belong to us. We belong to the land.”

Today, “Mapuche land” is restricted to the Arau-canía and Bio Bio regions in central-southern Chile. Araucanía, an area called the “Bronx of the Mapu-che,” bears the reputation of a frontera, or cultural borderland, and claims the highest proportion of residents living below the poverty line. The term “Bronx of the Mapuche” alludes to the intense poverty and police repression in different areas of rural Araucanía. The region offers abundant raw materials for weavers, potters, and woodworkers practicing traditions that earn meager wages. Daily life in the borderlands relentlessly underscores the dominant presumption of the Mapuche as racial and cultural inferiors.

“I know someone who thinks the Mapuche are lazy, poorly raised, aggressive, alcoholics, and cheap,” mutters Alejandro. “He says they leave lands uncul-tivated—they waste the land they are given.”

These stereotypes are popular among Chilean elites. Although it is sometimes the case that Ma-puche leave land uncultivated, elites rarely delve into why. Mapuche often lack the capital needed to invest in seeds and equipment necessary to plant crops, including Mapuche that receive land through the Corporación Nacional de Desarrollo Indígena (CONADI), the national development agency with a mandate to protect indigenous lands. Many are obliged to seek out day labor or other sources of income while attempting to cultivate the land they are given. In addition, Alejandro says that Mapuche are intentional about not overexploiting the land. “We prefer to let it recuperate before we cultivate it again,” he says.

“When I was a kid in school, the first thing we were taught about the Mapuche is that they are an aggressive people,” he continues. “But Mapuche do not participate in the conflict because they are aggressive. They do it because they are strongly attached to the land.”

Alejandro believes elites’ view of the Mapuche people as lazy, aggressive, and cheap is a way for them to shirk responsibility for the Mapuches’ socioeconomic position and to encourage their as-similation into “Chilean” society. He also calls it “a form of domination in which ‘civilized men’ teach the Mapuche rules of behavior.” In response to such persecution, Mapuche organizations have protested territorial borders that do not honor Mapuche an-cestral lands, as well as legal limitations and cultur-al boundaries imposed by the Chilean state.

“The state doesn’t understand nor recognize Ma-puche existence before the arrival of the Spanish and before the dispute with the Chilean State,” he says. “There is no memory of the Mapuche civiliza-tion that brought about and existed before Chile’s origin.”

In the pre-colonial era, the Mapuche peoples lived and worked in land that the Spanish were deter-mined to colonize. They lived in small societies based mainly on hunting and gathering. Initially, the Spanish conquistadors failed to conquer them and the crown recognized territorial autonomy for the Mapuche peoples near the Bio Bio region. But

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after several hundred years of conflict, the colonial powers dominated and Mapuche peoples were driven out of approximately two thirds of their ancestral lands and forced into subsistence farming lifestyles.

At the start of the twentieth century, Mapuche cit-izens began demanding that the Chilean state rec-ognize their rights to their former homeland. After the Mapuche were relocated to reservations, neigh-boring landowners took reservation lands through violence and fraud while the state excluded ances-tral land from the Mapuche reservations. Mapuche mobilization was able to recover some of this land during the agrarian reform from 1960 to 1973, but the oppressive Pinochet dictatorship returned those lands to their former Chilean owners and in 1978 subdivided Mapuche communities into individual plots. Mapuche organizations protested this change in the form of marches, hunger strikes, occupations of public buildings and disputed lands, roadblocks, arson, and sabotage of machinery and equipment, but they could not prevent the subdivision of their communities.

“Today, the conflict has two important themes,” says Alejandro. “One is to defend Mapuche land, and the other is to reclaim Mapuche land that was taken, because to defend land is to defend culture, and to reclaim land is to reclaim a culture that was usurped.” I ask him about the state’s role in the conflict, and he responds by suggesting that we change locations first. I follow him further up the hill, passing street art and graffiti along the way. One does not have to visit a museum to find beauti-ful paintings in Valparaíso.

At the top of the hill, he points out a large white building with barred windows and an arc of blue bricks marking the entrance. He explains that the building is Valparaíso’s oldest former prison, where political prisoners during the Pinochet dictatorship were held, many of whom were Mapuche. He sighs, “In Chile, human rights for indigenous peoples are not respected, and neither are rights for pueblos originarios (towns that existed at Chile’s origin). The government organizations that were created to protect these towns are ineffective.”

Mapuche peoples continue to actively seek the rec-ognition of their rights, including the rights to lands and resources, particularly water, to which they are spiritually, culturally, and materially connected. This is difficult, however, because the state actively

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leaves Mapuche individuals out of decisions about their rights. “The problem is that Mapuche peoples don’t know their rights because the government doesn’t include them in the conversation,” Alejan-dro says.

The Concertación, Chile’s current ruling political party, created a set of legal channels for citizen input in the 1990s but still reserves decision-making for the top level of the executive branch. The term “legal reform” became a state-led “authorization” of law and policy making within a faux democratic framework. Within this framework, Concertación party elites considered all indigenous peoples as a marginal sector of the Chilean nation with dis-tinctive cultural traditions, not as separate, distinct peoples with collective rights. The Concertación then consistently supported major industrial and infrastructure projects over the objections of local communities and indigenous peoples.

A prime and tragic example is the construction of the Ralco Hydroelectric Power Plant. The Bio Bio region of Chile contains the Tolten River, a spar-kling body of water bordered by luscious green trees. In 1997, President Frei approved the con-struction of the Ralco Hydroelectric Power Plant in Alto Bio Bio, right in the middle of Mapuche land. The power plant, which provides 10 percent of the electricity consumed in Chile, has been a subject of protest because the land was the ancestral property of the Pehuenche Indians, a subgroup of the larg-er Mapuche indigenous community. The Chilean government favored business interests and a 570 million dollar energy investment at the expense of the rights of indigenous families, as well as endan-gered species and a unique ecosystem.

Concerned members of the affected Mapuche com-munities held meetings regarding the project’s om-inous imposition, but without proper information detailing the project or sufficient knowledge of their rights under Chilean law, some families renounced their land rights to Endesa, the corporation respon-sible for building the dam.

The construction of the Ralco Hydroelectric Pow-er Plant displaced many Mapuche families whose lands were subsequently flooded. This colossal grievance led the Mapuche to launch the first guer-rilla-like attacks against police and private property in the area, and it continues to be a conflict region to this today. Chilean media tends to focus on the criminal acts of a few individuals rather than the

Alejandro Banda frequents Librería 33 often, a meeting place for poets, artists,and writers.

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“Mapuche and the Chilean ethnicities are

different, and the state does not support this

difference.”

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an Intendant of Araucanía, has observed that the conflict will persist if the state continues to manage the situation as it does now. “The first thing that the government must do to solve this problem is to di-agnose it correctly,” he says. “They have to believe it’s a political conflict, not a criminal one. Police repression has been used since the 1990s and it has yielded no results.”

Outside these heated conflict zones, Mapuche peo-ple like Alejandro suffer from a more insidious form of oppression. He plays the Trompe, a Mapuche wind instrument, writes poetry, and educates youth to preserve the indigenous culture. But despite his efforts, he is only able to do so much as an individ-ual in a society that wants to forget the Mapuche and their customs. The name Mapuche, and the general discourse about them, has come to revolve entirely around the contemporary conflict, ignoring the Mapuches’ connection to Chile’s roots. Even the most commonly used title for the conflict, the “Mapuche Conflict,” leaves out the Chilean state, making “conflict” a defining aspect of how Mapu-che are perceived.

The transformation of the Mapuche image began in the 1850s, when economic and geopolitical interests led the Mapuche to be portrayed by politicians and newspapers as barbarous, uncivilized beings whose “conquest could no longer be delayed.” This devel-oped into today’s assimilationist discourse, which places value on individuals who conform to Chil-ean society.

“The majority of Mapuche peoples who live away from the conflict have begun becoming more ‘Chilean,’” Alejandro says in a calm, resigned tone. “However, the Mapuche and the Chilean ethnicities are different, and the state does not support this dif-ference.” Chilean society encourages individuals to leave behind their Mapuche roots and become “like everyone else,” he says.

To combat these forces, Alejandro works constantly to preserve a culture that is slowly being forgotten. He lives in Bio Bio for weeks at a time, educating and working with Mapuche individuals. He has advocated for the Mapuche cause, visited the borderlands, questioned the Chilean state, and educated students for years. He and other Mapuche individuals who live and work in places far away from Mapuche territory carry the burden of keeping their culture visible in a society that would rather see it disappear.

oppression that drove some individuals to resort to this violence.

Al Jazeera has reported on the “eye for an eye” nature of the conflict in the area: Sonia Navarrete, the owner of a small forestry business in Chile, was returning home one day in June 2015 when she and her husband were ambushed by a group of five hooded Mapuche men. The attackers burned the couple’s house to the ground while they were tied up and held captive for an hour. Five months later Belarmino Curipán, an indigenous Mapuche farmer, was plowing a plot of land he had illegally taken over when he saw a drone and a group of 150 policemen approaching. Curipán fled to the forest, and when he returned, his house had been demol-ished with chainsaws. These events are among more than 20 filed complaints of violence in the region since just the first months of 2016, according to Al Jazeera.

Alejandro defends the few extremist Mapuche groups that have used violence to demonstrate an-cestral land claims. “These groups live in the con-flict area and have been oppressed by the Chilean state for years. They live in places where companies are destroying forests,” he says. “We need Chilean society to understand us. The Mapuche culture, language, and identity are intimately attached to the land. If we lose land, we lose our language and slowly disappear.”

Individuals who burn plantations, occupy land, or block trucks belonging to large corporations oc-cupying ancient Mapuche territory do so because their daily lives are directly impacted by the activi-ties of corporations and government facilities in the area. News stories frequently discuss these acts as “terrorism.” Recently, a Chilean governor in south-ern Araucanía invoked a Pinochet-era anti-terror-ism law after a failed bomb attack targeting regional capital Temuco’s prison on January 15, 2016. Securi-ty officials believe it was planted to organize the es-cape of numerous imprisoned indigenous Mapuche leaders, but Mapuche resistance groups have yet to claim responsibility. The anti-terrorism law allows for higher penalties for crimes, arrests without bail before trial, and, most controversially, anonymous witness testimony as primary evidence. Mapuche groups claim the law will be used to stigmatize protesters as terrorists.

Francisco Huenchumilla, who in 2014 became the first man of Mapuche ancestry to be appointed as

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It is almost midnight, but the streets of Valparaíso are lively—the people here are accustomed to long nights. As we descend the hill, we pass a house with a red door. “Siliva Murua lives there,” Alejan-dro informs me. Next to the poet’s house is a stone wall covered in street art. One of the paintings is of a woman whose mouth is covered by cloth and whose hair is blowing in the wind. The hand that grips the cloth transforms into green leaves as

the wind blows. To me, the painting is of a silent, disappearing Mapuche person whose only solace is the promise that they would soon exist as a part of nature. Alejandro and I gaze at the painting for some time. Nearby, a live Chilean folk band plays slow, sweet songs. //

Alejandro presents about his poetry at a reading in January 2016.

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WRITERS

What is Nationality?Morgan Taylor GreerPortland State UniversityLanguage and CultureRabat, Morocco

Idle in BerlinCalvin CutlerNew England School of Communications at Husson UniversityCommunications and New MediaBerlin, Germany

Build Movements, Not WallsLesley HabermanSt. Catherines University Development and GlobalizationKhon Kaen, Thailand

A Fluid CrossingLesley HabermanSt. Catherines University Development and GlobalizationKhon Kaen, Thailand

People of the Border LandCodi CoghlanLewis and Clark CollegeLiberal ArtsValparaiso, Chile

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PHOTO RESEARCHERS

Sierra PonthierDavidson CollegeTaipei, Taiwan

Lesley HabermanSt. Catherines University Khon Kaen, Thailand

PHOTO CREDIT

Front Cover: CIEE Global Media Centerp 1 CIEE Global Media Centerp 2 CIEE Global Media Centerp 3 Sierra Ponthierp 5 Abby Brownp 7 CIEE Global Media Centerp 9 CIEE Global Media Centerp 11 CIEE Global Media Centerp 15 Morgan Taylor Greerp 17 Calvin Cutlerp 25 ACIJp 29 ACIJp 33 Lesley Habermanp 35 Codi Coghlanp 39 Codi Coghlan p 45 CIEE Global Media Centerp 46 CIEE Global Media Centerp 47 CIEE Global Media Centerp 48 CIEE Global Media Center

EDITORS

Executive Student EditorManaging Editorial Board MemberText ConsultantPhoto EditorLesley Haberman St. Catherine UniversityKhon Kaen, Thailand

Assistant Editor Laurel KlafehnUniversity of the Pacific

COPY EDITORS

Lesley Haberman

Special thanks to all of the people who helped make this international magazine possible. Shout-out to all those CIEE students around the world who contributed to this effort—for all the meetings, Skype calls at strange hours, posting of google docs, and endless emails. We did it! We would also like to thank CIEE Khon Kaen staff and interns for their unwavering support for our project. Shout-out, too, to the CIEE Khon Kaen students in our programs for taking the time out of their massive workloads to be last minute copy editors—you are incredible. And thank you to the security guard, Paiboon, at CIEE Khon Kaen for unlocking the door with a smile on those long nights.

David Streckfuss, Common Ground Acting Editor-in-ChiefEmail: ciee.common.ground@gmail.com

CIEE Common Ground Magazine is produced under CIEE’s Global Media Center (GMC) (http://globalmediacenter.ciee.org)

Kathleen Goodwin, Executive Director of Communications & MarketingLaura Cannon, Global Media Center PublisherMark Nestor, Creative DirectorErin GosselinCorrespondence to CIEE Common Ground Magazine can be sent to:

CIEE: Council on International Educational Exchange, 300 Fore St., Portland, ME 04101 U.S.A.

© Copyright Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), 2016. All rights reserved.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

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EDITORIAL SUPPORT

Rebecca GoncharoffIntern CoordinatorKhon Kaen, Thailand

Katie MathiesonProgram InternKhon Kaen, Thailand

Mariko PowersProgram InternKhon Kaen, Thailand

Zoe SwartzProgram InternKhon Kaen, Thailand

Dublin, Ireland Haifa , Israel

Bejiing, China Ferrara, Italy