The Perception of Violence in Narratives of Central American Migrants at the Border between Mexico and the United States

Abstract

Migration from Central America through Mexico to reach the United States has acquired increasing visibility. When migrants arrive at the border, they hit a wall that requires them to choose among waiting indefinitely in Mexico, crossing the border clandestinely, or redefining their project of migration. Thus they find themselves trapped within their own mobility. This imposed interruption, however, provides an opportunity for them to reflect on the causes of emigration, the lived experience of the journey, and possible futures that are opened up or shut down. The shelters created by civil society constitute spaces of waiting in which the work of reflection unfolds. Approaching our analysis from the perspective of narrative identities, we can see how these migrants, through their stories, resignify violence — whether as a cause of their emigration, or an imprint left by the trip, or in relation to processes of seeking asylum. Whether they naturalize the violence (accepting as the “price to pay”) or question it, the violence shapes their reinterpretation of the past and their projection into the future.