Violencia sin tregua. Hondureños en la región del Golfo de México

Abstract

The Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco have been linked for decades to Central American migrations, largely due to cross-border labor mobility. Nevertheless, today the diversification of receiving areas in Mexico requires attention to how such dynamics of mobility, settlement or transit affect these new contexts. Such is the case of the state of Veracruz, which is part of the corridor of the Gulf of Mexico which connects the southern Mexican border with the northern border on its eastern slope. Veracruz, like other states in the country, has emerged as an unplanned destination state – both as a temporary or permanent place of residence - for Central American migrants, especially Hondurans. This article consists of reflections generated from observations and interviews carried out in localities of the center of Veracruz. The typology of violence proposed by Burgois (2005) is employed to contextualize the different forms and expressions of violence experienced by undocumented migrants in transit, and temporary or permanent residents in the studied locales. These forms of violence partially constitute the structural conditions of discrimination and stigmatization linked to the migrants’ condition of “illegality”.