This afternoon, join us in the @UMBCLibrary for our first Humanities Forum lecture of the semester: Thinking Like a Caravan: The Current Migration Crisis with Rachel Ida Buff from @UWM 
This talk is mostly based on her new book, A IS FOR ASYLUM SEEKER: WORDS FOR PEOPLE ON THE MOVE. The book is being published simultaneously in English and in Spanish.
In addition to being an immigration historian, Buff has been working as an immigration activist for over 20 years. She noticed that in the past few years, there has been confusion in the discussions towards the migrant crisis.
What is an refugee? What is an Asylum Seeker? This book seeks to explain these words and others to the general population.
An asylum seeker is a person who flees their home country, enters another country and applies for asylum, i.e. the right to international protection, in this other country. An asylum seeker is a type of migrant and may be a refugee, a displaced person, but not an economic migrant
Asylum seeker is a temporary identification as they seek refugee status. The 1951 Geneva Convention makes clear the rights afforded to refugees and asylum seekers. However, individual countries are not compelled to recognize them. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventio…
When a person arrives in a country and requests asylum, they are afforded the right to a trial to decide their status. But they can also be detained indefinitely while they await trial.
Buff worked for a period of time at the border to provide assistance to recently arrived refugees. This includes food, clothing, medical care (physical and mental).
Imagine the trauma that one can endure traveling by foot/boar, etc. with all your worldly positions on your back. It is important to study caravans because at any point in time, we all can become refugees.
Why do people move? Buff recalls the words of Somali-British poet Warsan Shire, “No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land"
Ongoing Indigenous Displacement goes back to 17th century with the displacement of the Pequot tribe in Massachusetts by English colonizers.
In contemprary times, the Lenca in Honduras also face significant displacement.
Even fugitive slaves after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1854
We can’t look at current events without looking back at historic displacements.
The Holocaust and the Dirty Wars of the 1970s and 1980s
The sanctuary movement in the US really got its start in response to the Dirty Wars. Despite US-involvement in the destabilization of Central American governments, they were only considered migrants and not refugees.
The Haitian Refugee Crisis leads to the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, which was one of the last acts of the Carter Administration. Under the Regan Administration, however, indefinite detention of asylum seekers became common.
“The grand exodus is the new revolution, a radically different path against capitalism and the intervention of the United States in Honduras and Latin America, a revolution emanating from the people, against the oppression, exploitation and marginalization….” - Irma Garrdio
Caravans are strategies for collective survival. They create solidarity and safety in numbers. People on the move protect themselves and assert their right ro survive and thrive.
Buff ends her talk with part of a poem from Aurora Levins-Morales, “Red Sea” auroralevinsmorales.com/red-sea.html
Thanks for joining us! A recording of the talk will be available on our Youtube channel youtube.com/channel/UC8i-o…
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