VivirLatino

What is it like to be young and in school while trying to negotiate violence at home and border crossings? This article posted by CNN gives really good insight:

When she gets to the school each morning, Diaz changes out of her jogging pants and into her uniform skirt.

“Because of the people over there, I don’t feel comfortable with the men and stuff, so I wear pants,” she explains. “You definitely see a difference here. The streets, they are more clean here than they are in Juarez, and I think the people respect you a little more. You don’t have to worry about people giving you trouble.”

El Paso, population 734,000, has long enjoyed the benefits of strong community ties with its industrial sister city of approximately 1.5 million. But the violence and insecurity created by the war between the Mexican government and the drug cartels has strained that relationship.

For students at Lydia Patterson, who live in Juarez and cross the bridge each weekday, the small, United Methodist preparatory school has become a safe haven in the months since drug-related violence in Juarez has intensified.

“My school is a home for me because I have teachers and they treat me like parents,” says Hazel Barrera, 18. “Here, they take care of us and they make us feel comfortable and safe.”

For Hazel Barrera at least, the violence of her homeland means sexualized violence–sexualized violence that she can name and has active strategies in preventing. But what effect could a single kid possibly have on militarized state endorsed violence–violence that is being committed in the name of protecting its citizens from violence? Violence that the U.S. has a hand in creating but refuses to have a hand in ending?

It makes me think of the following response by a New American Media representative to a post Mamita did about how immigrant women are represented.

In addition, I hope you didn’t miss the 73% of women polled who responded saying they had become more assertive since entering the United States, or the 33% of women who reported themselves as heads of household (up from 18% in their home countries). Or the 71% of women who report that they share financial decisions with their husbands, or the 78% who report that they participate actively in family planning decisions. Finally, I was struck by the 43% of women who agreed with the statement “Many of my responsibilities in the U.S. are handled by men in my home country.” All of these facts serve to complicate the idealized, stereotyped mother-martyr you seek to destabilize–a goal we share with you.

I was uncomfortable reading this section of Ms. Goode’s response to Mamita because while it may really serve to nuance how immigrant women are understood in the U.S. (they are NOT submissive docile creatures waiting to be beat up by their man), it recreates harmful stereotypes about the U.S. being the ultimate liberator to non-U.S. women. A discourse that has been used to justify violence against the homelands of other women of color throughout the world (think: hyper violent Arab man and how his relationship to the submissive Arab woman was used to help justify the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan).

The horrific violence and sexism in non-U.S. countries most certainly does exist. The experience of Hazel Barrera proves that. I am not denying that Mexico (or any other country) is more violent, more sexist, more whatever than the U.S. What I am questioning is how the hell could they *not* be when those countries exist as chronically unstable due to economic wars (and actual physical wars) being waged against them by the U.S. and other first world nations?

Maybe it’s not that the U.S. is less sexist or gives women more freedoms, but that the U.S. is more stable, and thus has more resources for women to fight sexism and violence within their communities?

And if this is true, what is the proper response to “immigration and women” by those of us in the U.S.? What would be most helpful to young women like Hazel Berrera?