MIGRATION
By Maru San Martín
I want to imagine that the migration of my southern brothers and sisters is similar to the one done by some bird species: periodical and not as a measure of massive invasion; a migration with no return to their homeland.
All migrations imply a monumental sacrifice from those migrants that will continue for days, weeks, months and even years to come. Some can’t make it to their destination and stay behind, many times suffering in places similar to what they’ve abandoned. Mexico exports poverty, it has done it for many years and one of the main places that does it is the State of Puebla; this fact is not accidental, we are rated the third poorest state in the country (CONEVAL, 2018).
Small animals such as amphibians and locust take advantage of air and water currents to move the same way that birds take advantage of ascendant wind currents. What is it then that humans can benefit from? Perhaps from an iron beast that leaves on its wake amputated limbs and that allows thieves and drug traffickers to ride her as well? Or maybe they’re benefiting from human traffickers or “coyotes” that exploit them and charge them over $2,500 dollars apiece, only to let them die in the middle of the desert crammed in trucks with no ventilation, or to be used as “mules” to cross drugs through the border?
Migration has many objectives. There are species running from extreme temperatures, others are looking for the right place to reproduce and raise their young, some others are trying to escape predatory species or are looking for more optimal feeding grounds. Humans migrate for all of those reasons and we have always done it. We are running from the coldness of fear or from the heat of the bullets, we search for safety and protection for our children, we’re escaping a war on drug traffickers and the insecurity derived from the absence of the rule of law.
What forces an exodus? How does a community organize itself to leave their country en masse? Do they need a leader? Isn’t true that in the case of birds there’s always one of them ahead to show the way to the others? Even if these leaders take turns on leading the flock, there’s always one that initiates the flight.
There are over 7,000 people in this migrant caravan heading north towards the United States through Mexico. It is true there are very few employment opportunities, but Honduras is also one of the countries with the highest index of murders in the world. “It is not a caravan, it’s an exodus created by hunger and death” https://www.bbc.com/mundo/amp/noticias-america-latina- 45984242
Who’s promoting this exodus? Was there anyone initially leading the flock? Many point to Bartolo Fuentes but he continues to deny it. What is true though, is that back on October 12 in San Pedro Sula (one of the most violent cities in the world), 160 people gathered in the bus station to start heading north and it wasn’t spontaneous; for months they had planned to escape violence and unemployment. What started it all was a publication on Facebook by a journalist and an activist named Bartolo Fuentes.
Bartolo, as any smart leader would, is denying his participation as the captain of the community to avoid being incriminated, but he readily admits telling people that: “when you leave in small groups you are more likely to be robbed, raped, extorted and murdered” https://www.bbc.com/mundo/amp/noticias-america-latina-45984242

Another theory on the origin of this massive exodus is the participation of the Venezuelan government, but Fuentes rejects this premise and asserts, just like many other political analysts, that the Trump administration is the one who benefits from the current Honduran migration and even more so by blaming the democrats of financing it.
The fact is that it is possible to blame everyone in general and no one in particular. We are all contributing to the inequality, poverty, lack of opportunities, corruption, violence, hunger and desperation for these people and the one million Mexicans that attempt to migrate to the United States each year (CNDH).
The solution is not in the North because there will be a point where the attractiveness of the American Dream will end. Borders do exist and our culture and our homeland will reclaim us. People feel foreign even within their own country when they must live on a different state or region. We are creatures with ingrained traditions that despise leaving behind our extended families and hate it even more if it’s our nuclear family; and we certainly don’t want to stop eating “tortillas”, or “arepas” or “baleadas” or “capirotadas”. Nothing and no one should be able to rip us off from our home, our neighborhood, our smiling friends or from the creeks we bathed in and the pets we raised.
The world should provide us certainty that we will be able to eat daily, that we will get an education and that we won’t be massacred at our doorsteps, but none of that happens because we’re a species that kills each other, we’re struggling creatures that are also competitive, ambitious, indolent, apathetic, insensitive and blind.
We can’t see it: we’re producing the same chaos we’re submerged in, we revolve around the trash we are piling ourselves! we create monsters trapped in corruption and violence labyrinths trying to walk through impossible paths that will always lead us back home. We built the walls and we’re all responsible: poor countries, wealthy people, the educated men and women as well as the illiterate but worse than all are the indifferent and apathetic, those that see the flocks coming and purposely choose not to see. Those, the ones that turn a blind eye are the ones destined to be splattered with shit.