For The Wild - CAROLINA RUBIO MACWRIGHT on the Intersections of Immigration, Assimilation, and Earth Based Wisdom ⧸226

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00:00:30.000 Hey, for the wild community, it's Ayanna here. We are so grateful to all of the amazing members

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00:01:37.980 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today I'm speaking with Carolina

00:01:45.720 Rubio-McWright. And so I think the playfulness of art and giving ourselves permission to play

00:01:52.420 and imagine a better world is what I love about the art and the policy and the law is just an

00:01:59.420 opportunity to understand that we can rebuild things. We can do it again, just the same way

00:02:04.780 that we do with clay. You know, like things are fragile, they break, but we can build them again.

00:02:10.020 Carolina Rubio-McWright is an artist, immigration lawyer, and activist fighting for immigrant and

00:02:16.800 humanitarian rights. She believes art is the most powerful way of bringing humans together 0.99

00:02:22.460 and dissolving walls and cages that separate us. She has thus mixed her law and art into a 0.87

00:02:29.160 non-profit called Touching Land that uses hands on experiential art to empower, build bridges,

00:02:36.780 and decolonize food.

00:02:38.360 well carolina thank you so much for coming on for the wild today i really respect your work

00:02:49.540 and am so looking forward to this conversation thank you so much anna thank you for having me

00:02:56.320 i'm excited to to talk to you well i'd like to just jump in and start our conversation

00:03:02.560 in recognition of touching land. I've heard you share that this name recognizes the power and

00:03:09.280 memory that physical land holds for many immigrants. And I think about how the United

00:03:17.800 States is responsible for the ongoing displacement of indigenous peoples throughout Central America

00:03:23.160 who are being forced to leave because of environmental degradation, climate change,

00:03:28.140 etc. And then upon their arrival in the United States, so many are forced to relinquish their

00:03:35.280 knowledge and practice of land tending in order to survive. And this unfolding is something that

00:03:41.340 I rarely hear discussed in the media, and just, you know, the intersections of immigration,

00:03:46.500 assimilation, and a loss of earth-based wisdom. So as an introduction to touching land, I wonder

00:03:54.860 if you could speak to this reality a bit and how the act of working with the land in any form can

00:04:02.400 rekindle a sense of empowerment, safety, and pride. Yes, absolutely. So first I want to acknowledge

00:04:09.260 that I'm standing in a Leni Lenape land that was stolen. That is the land that I'm in. I'm in New

00:04:16.900 Jersey, New York. So it is of the Lenape peoples. Yeah. So, I mean, there's so much connectivity and

00:04:24.540 so much meaning behind, you know, just the name of Touching Land and the work that we do in

00:04:31.480 connecting land with people and especially their rights, because so much of who we are is forgotten

00:04:40.300 when we become immigrants. I'm an immigrant myself. And so we are forced to assimilate to

00:04:45.500 cultures and systems that are not part of us. You know, that happens a lot with the Indigenous 0.99

00:04:50.640 women that we work with in touching land. So it's really special to create a space where we

00:04:58.760 honor those traditions, where we honor the knowledge and the incredible wealth of information

00:05:07.140 that these indigenous people have and that immigrants have as a whole, where they can feel

00:05:12.780 seen and they can see, they can feel like it's okay to embrace their uniqueness. It's not easy

00:05:19.620 to navigate systems where you are seen as a, you know, just basically you come in as an immigrant

00:05:25.240 and you're expected to slave yourself without getting even minimum or livable wages, let alone,

00:05:31.680 you know, practice your culture or find your, you know, what the land is supposed to give and what

00:05:37.320 you're supposed to feel as a community culturally. So it's been really a privilege and something

00:05:44.240 beautiful to be able to build Touching Land, this nonprofit where women, immigrants, and also men

00:05:50.320 come to a space where they can touch clay, work with clay, work with food, and use it as a tool

00:05:57.500 to not only empower themselves, but force visibility into spaces of privilege, like

00:06:03.520 the amazing studio that is Brooklyn Clay, where we base most of our classes at, but also just

00:06:08.980 the ability to come together as a community and just be able to feel seen. I think that's one of

00:06:18.120 the biggest things that we do at Touching Land. Thank you for doing that work. And

00:06:25.760 for years, people have pointed out that the notion that immigrants are criminals simply isn't true.

00:06:34.780 And on top of that, undocumented folks are paying taxes like the rest of us, but for as long as the United States has existed, this white supremacist myth of immigrants and migrants as a social drain has really occupied a permanent space in our collective imagination, in part because it conveniently distorts the reality that without the exploitation of immigrants and migrants,

00:07:03.140 The United States could not function. The people who don't want immigrants in this country are also the same people whose lives depend on them for labor and care. So do you think debunking these myths will ever be enough? Or is it time to move into a new narrative of migration altogether? Where do immigrants need to be made visible where they aren't?

00:07:27.120 You know, I think that it's going to take everything. I mean, I like starting from the 0.98

00:07:33.160 beginning where our immigration laws were drafted by a bunch of white guys. There were only 15 women 0.99

00:07:38.360 in Congress at the time. There were no immigrants in that room and they were a bunch of business 1.00

00:07:43.120 owners. And when World War II happened, we needed the help from Central American workers so that we

00:07:49.160 could harvest the land. And so we brought in all those immigrants and we said, yeah, you can stay. 1.00

00:07:54.420 then we continue to just slightly change the law, because as you've learned with Trump in the last

00:08:00.460 four years, you know, that the power of immigration and policy really is held by the president.

00:08:06.520 So we've seen a situation where we've created a system where we depend on immigrants, 0.71

00:08:12.160 but their invisibility and keeping them essentially enslaved is what continues to, 1.00

00:08:18.420 give us very cheap groceries and very cheap produce and labor. So this invisibility,

00:08:26.320 as you're saying, we're all benefiting from migrant workers being mistreated and Tyson

00:08:35.160 Company mistreating workers as well. So it's this idea of this dependency where 11 million

00:08:41.680 undocumented workers really hold our economy. So to me, it's a combination of understanding our

00:08:49.540 history, understanding the whitewashing, like why laws are drafted in a way that corporations are

00:08:55.500 not held accountable, but we punish the people that are doing the work that we don't want to do,

00:09:02.220 right? That the American citizen does not want to be in the field picking up strawberries.

00:09:07.100 And so we have to not only debunk and understand that these workers don't commit crimes, you know, over 30% of Fortune 500 companies are built by immigrants. We are risk takers. 0.95

00:09:21.340 We have to debunk and we also have to come to grips with the fact that, first of all, policies have to change, but also we have to look into our lives and how we're choosing to live and how we're choosing this issue and navigate this issue because it is connected with everything.

00:09:36.540 Like, where are you buying your produce? Where are you? Are you supporting your domestic workers, your nannies? Like, are you paying them fairly? So it's a conversation that we have a lot at Touching Land with some of our workshops where we bring these conversations that we don't necessarily have on the daily, but we bring them to the forefront.

00:09:56.040 And we make sure that those issues are connected where people were outraged by border crisis and detention centers and separation of children, not realizing that separations happen every day in our country when people are deported for committing a tiny misdemeanor or just not having a driver's license.

00:10:17.720 It's our inability to have created these systems effectively in order to navigate this world without being a slave of capitalism.

00:10:27.720 So I think we have to come to terms with the power that we all have as individuals in generating conversations.

00:10:36.420 And I think nations have to come together with the fact that climate migration is a reality that is happening right now that will continue to happen.

00:10:44.760 and how are nations going to come together

00:10:47.460 and create policies that will not be separating children

00:10:50.720 in the future in other countries.

00:10:52.540 I spoke at the UN a few weeks ago

00:10:54.680 and I made sure that this was something

00:10:57.100 that is in the forefront of people's policies

00:11:00.760 where nations have to come together

00:11:02.480 and understand that climate change is happening

00:11:04.940 and we're gonna have more migration

00:11:06.860 and we're gonna have more victims of climate change

00:11:10.020 that are gonna end up moving north.

00:11:12.760 So I think it's a collection of, it's a new way of seeing and an understanding, like an

00:11:17.720 awakening that we all have to have not only as an individual, but also as a collective.

00:11:24.880 Absolutely.

00:11:27.060 Yeah. 1.00

00:11:27.840 And you point out that one of the greatest barriers is that immigrants and migrants in 0.99

00:11:33.880 this country remain separate from citizens for many different reasons.

00:11:38.320 but one of them certainly being that the United States continues to be a deeply segregated country.

00:11:46.260 And when citizens and migrants do interact with each other, it's often in the context of labor.

00:11:52.580 So there are certain power dynamics that color one's perceptions. And this is one area where

00:12:00.040 touching land really seeks to address this discrepancy in a holistic manner. So can you

00:12:06.120 share more about how you see this changing narratives and relationships for immigrants?

00:12:13.240 Absolutely. So, you know, when, when, when I founded Touching Land, we started doing workshops

00:12:18.400 in nonprofits, mostly with domestic violence survivors and, you know, victims of, of just

00:12:25.320 oppression. And, you know, I, I really wanted to push the spaces like very, you know, there are

00:12:32.700 very sterile spaces in our cities and where we live and this idea of segregation, which is pretty

00:12:40.360 much very much alive all over. So I wanted to bring the students into a beautiful space where

00:12:47.760 you would disrupt the space by just having your physical presence in there. And it was Brooklyn

00:12:54.100 Clay. The studio has been an incredible partner of ours where they invited us to come in. And so

00:12:59.540 immigrants would come in and be sort of confused. What am I doing here? Is this really where I

00:13:04.580 should be? And so it's been beautiful to see how immigrants through the four-week or six-week

00:13:09.980 programs, how this idea of, no, you belong here, and how if laws are not going to change, we're

00:13:16.400 going to change just the social dynamics that are happening in communities. And so women would come 1.00

00:13:21.420 in, they would feel a little bit shy, maybe they don't belong in the space, they don't know where 1.00

00:13:25.260 things are. And you could even see the change in their body postures as time progresses and how

00:13:31.340 they felt like they belonged in this community and a culture of ceramics, which was beautiful.

00:13:37.540 So women, you know, immigrant women would leave almost making friendships with the studio owners 0.94

00:13:42.700 and other students that were there. So we started pushing those narratives and then we started

00:13:48.280 creating the Building Bridges program where we bring empowered, already empowered immigrants

00:13:54.560 because there's something really beautiful about giving someone a lump of clay, right? A lump of 1.00

00:14:00.000 land and telling them, you know, give yourself permission to imagine whatever you want and

00:14:06.160 create it for yourself. And so there's that freedom that immigrants don't feel every day.

00:14:12.980 You know, there's a blanket of fear and a blanket of my life could be shattered at any second

00:14:17.260 that immigrants navigate with, that mental health toll that they're able to release and ignore when 0.99

00:14:23.800 they're working with clay and so after they go through the know your rights you know because

00:14:28.980 that's an important part of the curriculum where they understand their rights they understand that

00:14:33.260 they're inalienable human rights that nobody can take away from them once they go through the

00:14:39.140 program they can now join a building bridges program where they're placed in a room with

00:14:44.460 more privileged white people that attend the studio or that live in the neighborhood

00:14:49.300 and they can sit down and create something together

00:14:52.860 where they can have conversation

00:14:54.980 and they can see the commonalities of just being human.

00:14:58.800 You know, they can see their humanity

00:15:00.060 and they can see each other reflected.

00:15:02.320 And so it's a beautiful sort of like semiotic relationship

00:15:05.440 that happens that really, you know,

00:15:07.820 those connections, human connections will survive

00:15:11.920 and will dictate whatever narrative you tell

00:15:14.760 in your mind of the immigrant

00:15:16.920 that you might have heard through the news,

00:15:19.720 now you have somebody to connect it to

00:15:21.960 where it no longer is a myth, but it is a reality.

00:15:25.400 It is, you know, that person drinks Dunkin' Donuts

00:15:27.540 or they, you know, they have the same,

00:15:30.320 they did the same shape as I did.

00:15:32.460 And so these simple commonalities really destroy those walls

00:15:35.580 and those barriers that we have of segregation.

00:15:39.140 So it's been beautiful to see the transformation

00:15:42.180 that has happened through time.

00:15:44.180 Yeah, and I wanted to talk a bit about child separation. And, you know, child separation is something that will forever define the Trump administration. But I don't think it is talked about nearly enough because it's such an abhorrence.

00:16:05.360 And for Americans to speak about this would require us to acknowledge that these tremendous

00:16:11.200 human rights violations took place as we went about our daily lives.

00:16:16.740 But you are adamant that all of us have a role in this story.

00:16:21.200 And at a minimum, it's our responsibility to feel the anger and grief of these stories

00:16:26.400 in order to ensure that history is told correctly.

00:16:30.540 So in recognition of this, I'd like to begin by pointing out for listeners that

00:16:34.460 the Trump administration had always known that they would be unable to reunite children separated

00:16:41.240 at the border. This wasn't just incompetence or poor planning or a mistake. This was premeditated.

00:16:49.380 So I'm wondering if you could speak about the pilot test run that took place in 2017 in El Paso,

00:16:56.520 what the administration learned from that, and what this all means for reunification.

00:17:01.820 What does reunification look like for the 2,000 plus children that were separated?

00:17:07.660 And what's going to happen to the 600 children who are currently without parents?

00:17:12.800 Yeah, I mean, I think just even admitting that that happened feels like such a nightmare.

00:17:19.240 And having children at the time that were very small, you know, I took trips down to

00:17:24.880 detention centers and organized strangers through Instagram and Facebook to come down

00:17:30.840 with me and represent families for seven days at a time at Dilley Detention Center.

00:17:38.680 I think that the pilot program that happened in 2017 is just not talked enough. People don't know

00:17:46.340 that that happened and how CBP essentially ran a zero tolerance program in the summer in El Paso

00:17:54.060 where they started separating families. They started separating kids and parents. And what

00:17:58.740 happened with the pilot program is it was a complete failure. Customs and Border Protection

00:18:03.300 actually had to report what happened during this time of where, you know, they implemented the

00:18:09.480 program and they recommended to the Trump administration, you know, insisted that the

00:18:15.960 program was going to fail because they were unable to track parents and children. They just couldn't

00:18:21.360 and they started deporting people before they could get their information. So essentially with

00:18:25.960 immigration, it's like they didn't even have a program that could connect parents and children.

00:18:31.920 They started putting children in the unaccompanied track, unaccompanied minors track,

00:18:36.600 which does not allow for the other program to make a connection. And you would think that they

00:18:44.220 would at least have bracelets for children and parents in order to track them, but they didn't

00:18:48.720 even do that. So the pilot program is a failure. Customs and Border Protection informed the

00:18:54.880 administration. The program is going to fail. You're going to lose children. You're going to

00:18:58.520 lose parents. You're not going to be able to reunify them. And yet they still went ahead

00:19:03.840 and did it. And I think that that is the part that angers me the most, that they knew they

00:19:10.700 were going to fail and that they would lose this incredible bond that you're never going to be able

00:19:16.040 to repair. And so being in detention centers when reunification was happening in July in 2018,

00:19:26.640 you know, mothers were given pieces of paper with an age and maybe a name of their child,

00:19:32.880 or the child would be given a piece of paper, not even like a form, but like a scratched

00:19:37.260 on piece of paper. This is how absolutely abhorrent and sloppy this execution of the

00:19:46.780 policy was. And so the trauma, the immense fear, the shoving people from detention center to the

00:19:55.220 other detention center is something that I'm personally never going to forget. And then I'm

00:20:00.040 going to continue to talk about it so that people realize the complete negligence, incompetence,

00:20:05.920 And truly, I think that torture was the object. These poor children whose parents were deported

00:20:13.760 in the pilot, because most of the children that were lost that we know of were from the pilot

00:20:20.840 program. Those children are probably not going to be able to be reunified with their parents

00:20:26.100 because some of them are probably dead. They were seeking refuge. They were seeking asylum,

00:20:31.340 which means they were persecuted in their country of origin. How do you describe, how do you ask a

00:20:36.820 five-year-old to describe? It took me four months with three other lawyers to find a little girl

00:20:42.520 that had a pink shirt, brown eyes, and brown hair. A three-year-old won't be able to tell you or

00:20:48.480 describe their parents or know their parents' name necessarily. So this is, you know, this is what

00:20:54.000 we're dealing with. And I think those children are going to end up most likely not being reunified.

00:21:00.400 I mean, we know that the Trump administration was releasing some of the information, which they were keeping from from advocates, which is, you know, unacceptable.

00:21:12.200 But I guarantee you that the information that they have is not going to be very helpful because they just didn't have the they didn't have the system in order to, you know, to execute this properly.

00:21:25.540 So that information is lost because it was never captured.

00:21:28.300 so these children will most likely end up in foster care and maybe up for adoption if that's

00:21:36.080 the track unless there's still some litigation happening but it's it's a it's something that we

00:21:42.280 all is you know people that live in this country and and americans are going to have to deal with

00:21:48.100 and are going to have to confront which i think will be is hard but necessary in order to never

00:21:53.960 Again, separate children from parents.

00:22:23.960 Sanguine as the marrow that flows

00:22:29.700 Through my ancient bones

00:22:33.980 The stones that hold me make me whole

00:22:40.480 Make me a bed to lay this busy head

00:22:46.040 Fallen leaves so comforting

00:22:52.500 Fallen leaves so temporary 0.99

00:22:58.660 Pipsies they while showing me how to grow

00:23:05.260 Roots woven together

00:23:07.920 All the seeds in the...

00:23:10.440 Yes, yes.

00:23:14.440 Yeah, and I'd like to ask about the psychological ramifications

00:23:20.720 of these forced separations. But I also know there is a tremendous amount of trauma that develops

00:23:27.140 just from being inside any one of the detention facilities across the country,

00:23:32.700 regardless of whether or not you have a child or are with your family. So as someone who is

00:23:39.300 advocating on behalf of immigrants, I wonder if you can speak to the truth of what we are

00:23:45.140 subjecting people to in these facilities on a daily basis? I mean, it's, it's really hard because

00:23:52.000 what the public doesn't know is we have no access to the facilities as a whole. So like, I've never

00:23:59.640 seen where they sleep, where they eat, where the children are, if they're, you know, the alleged

00:24:05.580 daycare, like where it is, we have no access to that. We were graced and, and thankful, thankfully

00:24:13.520 The ICE allows us to have a sort of trailer inside detention where immigrants can come 1.00

00:24:19.280 and see us, but we cannot see them. 0.99

00:24:22.800 So they can come and meet us, but we can't go and ask for them.

00:24:27.240 They are prisoners. 1.00

00:24:28.920 You know, they are treated like, you know, you're, first of all, these immigrants are

00:24:33.840 fleeing horrific conditions, whether it's, you know, violence or climate, you know, flooding,

00:24:42.140 whatever it is they're fleeing and that is the only alternative they have like they have to

00:24:46.700 they have to leave because if they stay they will die that's the only reason why you would pack up

00:24:51.900 your family or yourself and leave and they're greeted with uncertainty number one they don't

00:24:59.560 know what's going to happen they're shoved around from CBP they're they're forced into a very very

00:25:05.900 cold Yelera, the icebox at first, and then they're shoved into a detention center and they're treated

00:25:13.240 like animals. The water is contaminated in some areas. When women come and they need mental

00:25:22.720 support, they give them an Advil. I've seen women that have been suicidal and 15 minutes later,

00:25:28.240 they come in with an Advil. They gave them an Advil and that was supposed to solve their mental

00:25:33.000 health issue of being detained for days, which shouldn't be happening. But right now we have

00:25:39.900 people and children that we have women and children that have been detained for over 140 days.

00:25:45.260 There's been children that have been detained for over a year waiting to get their case resolved

00:25:50.420 when there's no reason for that to be happening. There had been a pilot program where it was very

00:25:55.860 successful in the last year of the Obama year when this program allowed for people to be released

00:26:02.440 and then just come and report

00:26:03.800 and not have to be held in a prison setting

00:26:07.640 where you have no freedom.

00:26:09.920 You can't receive anything.

00:26:11.460 I mean, I've smuggled stickers.

00:26:14.120 I can't bring anything in but letters.

00:26:16.600 So I bring letters from children

00:26:18.240 so that they can feel seen because they feel forgotten.

00:26:21.280 And so the mental toll of extra trauma

00:26:24.820 after you've experienced a traumatic episode

00:26:27.140 is really tough because I think one aspect

00:26:30.840 that we don't think about is

00:26:32.060 you're stuck in this detention for a long time where you can't really talk to people. You can't

00:26:37.580 really feel in like you're a part of a community. You don't know what's happening to your case.

00:26:41.900 There's this uncertainty. Then you're released to your sponsor, which hopefully is somebody that

00:26:47.100 you have trust with. And from there, you are forced to be in a community where you have no

00:26:54.160 connections to language, no connection to, to like religious organizations, no connection to

00:26:59.760 anything. And you're expected to navigate in this world with zero tools. So I think it's pretty

00:27:06.600 unbelievable that we have this system where there's no net of protection and support,

00:27:12.700 but that they're expected to, you know, it's a system that's designed for failure.

00:27:17.180 They're designed to give up from being detained that long. And, you know, the brave ones linger,

00:27:24.780 you know, like stay on and fight, which is most of them, but some of them like give up along the

00:27:30.080 way and they end up signing a deport, you know, just a removal order. They just essentially

00:27:36.680 self-deport because they can't with that uncertainty. It's not necessary. It's completely

00:27:42.180 unnecessary, unfair, and a system that I hope the Biden administration destroys and there's no need

00:27:49.360 for it. We need just programs that were established at the end of the Obama administration where

00:27:54.680 people can just come and check in and they can sort of start their life again and not

00:28:00.500 be detained like prisoners. Sorry, that was really winded.

00:28:04.860 No, it's necessary. And I'm wondering what sort of reparations do you think

00:28:10.880 need to be made to the children and families who have been forcibly separated from

00:28:16.640 their parents or their families over the past couple of years?

00:28:20.680 I mean, I think to begin with, if we can reunify those parents with the children, I think that they need to be allowed to be residents immediately and some sort of support the way that refugees come in here where they have a year of support, like financial and so on.

00:28:37.980 I think that as a minimum, they should also get mental health, you know, the trauma being

00:28:42.000 separated from your parents for three months, not knowing what's happening, not to mention

00:28:46.580 the abuse that happened in, in those, um, and those facilities that didn't, you know,

00:28:52.180 they weren't, they weren't built in order to hold people this way.

00:28:56.060 Like there's a reason why we don't have orphanages in this country.

00:28:58.840 And it's because we don't believe in, in the idea of an orphanage.

00:29:03.140 Um, like that's why we don't have them.

00:29:05.220 And so it's unbelievable that during this time we traumatized these families and the trust between child and parent is completely broken because they separated some of these mothers.

00:29:19.460 They would tell them that they would give the child a bath and that's when they separated the child from the mother.

00:29:26.440 So they didn't even get a chance to say goodbye or I will see you or it's going to be okay. 0.67

00:29:31.540 not to mention the touch you know we're not allowed to touch women or children inside

00:29:36.060 detention center and i think that that's one of the most dehumanizing tools in the world i mean

00:29:42.380 we're in a way we're seeing that right now with covid where like human connection and human touch

00:29:47.160 is imperative for human survival and we're not having that and how people in nursing homes are

00:29:53.860 are not able to be touched how you know i wonder children that don't have affection from have

00:30:00.400 affection from teachers and friends are not getting that at home necessarily. And so I think

00:30:07.020 there's so many layers of trauma and so many layers of invisible trauma and invisible torture

00:30:13.100 that happen inside detention centers that how do you repair, like how do you pay for reparations

00:30:20.040 in that way? Like how can we, how do you even do that? I mean, for me, it's like, let's destroy

00:30:26.960 detention centers never have them again because the trauma is immeasurable so like that's the

00:30:33.800 first thing we should do and we should make sure that history is written properly by by the the

00:30:39.980 actors the people that lived through this so that we can have a record of what happened um so i'm

00:30:45.980 hopeful that that you know i'm filled with hope that this administration the next administration

00:30:50.980 Biden-Harris will do the right thing, but also that us as community members take the

00:30:57.460 right steps in order to make this wrong right.

00:31:01.880 Yeah.

00:31:03.340 And for a while, it seemed like the narratives that were being pushed is that it was primarily

00:31:12.180 men who were migrating from Central America to find work in the States and send money

00:31:16.800 back to their families back home.

00:31:18.520 but I'm also aware that the rates of femicide have only continued to increase in Central and

00:31:24.400 South America due to colonialism's festering legacy of patriarchy. So can you speak to the

00:31:30.920 gender dynamic of immigration and what is the makeup in detention facilities and whose release

00:31:39.940 is prioritized? You know, it's interesting because I grew up in Colombia and so I know the

00:31:46.320 patriarchal system very well, which I think has made me, I guess I can read a situation very

00:31:53.020 quickly because I've seen it from a very young age. You know, the makeup and detention centers,

00:31:59.380 their facilities are separated by sex. So women and men are separated. There was a detention 0.71

00:32:07.500 center that addressed trans folks and, you know, there was huge abuse and a lot of resistance from

00:32:16.300 ICE and CBP to acknowledge individuals that wanted to transition or that needed to be in

00:32:25.360 that trans pod. It took a lot of incredible advocates to bring that to fruition, but it's

00:32:32.420 happening. Luckily now there's a lot of advocates that are making sure that it's not just women and 0.74

00:32:38.580 men, but it's also LGBTQ communities. And so the makeup of men during child separation and during

00:32:46.180 the zero tolerance policy, they were actually releasing men much more than women. I think the

00:32:53.580 whole idea of this policy was to punish women that fled that femicide that is horrifically 0.87

00:33:01.800 happening. And it'll continue to engulf our Central and South American communities until 0.99

00:33:07.980 you know until we we start changing those those narratives from the top um but again like

00:33:15.100 colonialism is is tough it's tough to to get over especially um in south and central america where

00:33:20.900 like you know the identity is almost unknown because you know i'll i'll share quickly just

00:33:28.200 from the law perspective like colombian laws were copied from the chileans that copied it from the

00:33:34.540 French. And as a student, I could tell that our laws didn't go with our people. They just did not

00:33:41.160 fit our people. And so I think that there has to be like an awakening and a revamping of values and

00:33:48.920 of laws and systems, which I think we're seeing on a global level, at least recognizing Black

00:33:55.000 Lives Matter and that our policing is wrong. So I think that the makeup of women and of men 0.99

00:34:03.560 is a little bit different. 1.00

00:34:05.840 Women continue to fled. 1.00

00:34:07.900 I don't think there's a space, 1.00

00:34:09.240 you know, asylum doesn't recognize being a woman

00:34:11.180 as a reason to migrate 1.00

00:34:13.920 or like to get an approved asylum,

00:34:16.000 which I really think it should.

00:34:18.260 I think that would change things a lot.

00:34:20.500 I think it's still really difficult

00:34:21.880 to just navigate that 1.00

00:34:25.000 when you're the immigrant

00:34:26.140 and you're entering a society

00:34:27.660 that is still very patriarchal.

00:34:31.380 you know, even this society to me, not as much. So the work that we do at Touching Land with

00:34:36.840 women is very much about, you know, leaving domestic abuse situation when there's oppression

00:34:43.260 on every front. Unfortunately, especially in this country, immigrant men, if they have a partner 0.51

00:34:52.500 that is a woman, the woman most likely will have abuse at some point, will experience abuse at

00:34:57.760 sometime in their lives. And so, uh, part of our program is about empowering and recognizing that

00:35:03.320 there is no space for violence and that you can stand up without fearing for, um, for your life

00:35:10.240 to be ending, right. If, if you stand up for you to end up being murdered. So I think that those

00:35:17.100 are, um, realities in that we come in with that I think still, you know, like the, the patriarchy

00:35:24.240 is still very much alive and that we have to continue to empower women and also tell men that

00:35:32.260 it's okay to feel their feelings, just not in a violent way. I do a lot of workshops with men that

00:35:39.020 have had violence and abusive histories. And it's really interesting that they don't have a space

00:35:47.880 where they can feel their feelings and share their feelings.

00:35:51.120 So 99% of the workshops at the end end up with men crying their feelings

00:35:57.040 and sharing a lot of their frustration.

00:36:00.080 So I think that it's been lovely to see the ability to transfer that anger

00:36:06.540 and frustration into clay and not their spouses or their partners.

00:36:11.380 But I think, again, like you say, it's not talked about a lot,

00:36:15.260 And it's very much connected to this colonialism and this inability to understand your place in the world and in the hierarchy of this society.

00:36:27.960 Yeah. And I'm thinking about with the slowing of the private prison industry, investors and corporations have set their sights on detention centers as a new source of profit.

00:36:37.960 And it's more common for us to read about how major tech companies are working with U.S. federal immigration agencies, but less so do we think about the other sectors of industry that are making money off of exploitation of migrants, both in and out of detention centers.

00:36:55.820 So can you speak to this in terms of our consumerism and how we can reevaluate our buying practices through the lens of migrant justice? And do any specific corporations come to mind in terms of who should be avoided?

00:37:10.920 Absolutely. I mean, I think that as part of a society that, you know, like we we buy so much and seeing it from the lens of of immigration is is important.

00:37:25.360 There's a lot.

00:37:26.700 I mean, tech companies especially, but also just if you look at produce, if you look at

00:37:32.820 Tyson Company, you look at Purdue, a lot of the companies out of Idaho specifically are

00:37:40.440 very abusive towards immigrants.

00:37:42.600 There was also Thai Company. 1.00

00:37:44.100 If you've seen in the airports, the googly eyes, they're everywhere.

00:37:48.580 that company was um was known for abusing immigrants they would get caught with basically

00:37:56.660 enslaving immigrants then they would deport all those immigrants and they would be fined yet again

00:38:03.640 like four months later for hiring you know undocumented immigrants and keeping them in 1.00

00:38:09.100 unhygienic establishments working them to death and they would just get fined I think the fine 1.00

00:38:14.660 was $56,000. That was it. So I think if, if you do again, like my, my rule of thumb is you go

00:38:22.540 local, you make sure that you know where your produce is coming from. If you have a local

00:38:28.740 farmer that you can support, like that's important. I think that also clothing, clothing is also an

00:38:36.160 area where there's a lot of abuse, not only locally, but also internationally. So understanding

00:38:42.860 where where your clothes are coming from is also one one thing that you can you can look into

00:38:49.380 I mean every single sector of of our economy is populating and and using immigrants mostly

00:38:58.820 unfairly because that's what we got used to right like that was the that was like the rule it's kind

00:39:05.320 of like we're used to buying the dollar avocados all of a sudden it's going to be two dollars for

00:39:11.880 us to buy an avocado and everyone's going to be up in arms, but they won't be able to connect it

00:39:16.940 back to the farm worker that's making, you know, 50 cents an hour or, or something obnoxious like

00:39:23.500 that. And they need to be able to, to have a living wage. And so it's better for you to maybe 1.00

00:39:30.640 spend the extra dollar on a, you know, a chain that is clean locally. Again, I think is the best

00:39:38.420 thing and have a greater impact that way. I mean, I'll share quickly that most of the students that

00:39:45.880 I've worked with, the average salary was $8 an hour in New York City. Never got a raise. There

00:39:52.680 was a woman I met that never got a raise. In 10 years, she hadn't gotten a raise and she was 1.00

00:39:56.560 making $8 an hour. And so it's making sure that you as a buyer or as a employer, you're being fair.

00:40:06.460 Even if you're paying under the table, like, are you being fair?

00:40:10.440 So I think it's, you have to look, like you're saying, like the lens of, with a lens of

00:40:17.080 immigration, a lot, I would say, not only is it like your lifestyle and the choices

00:40:22.660 that you're making with where you're buying, but even taking a little bit of time and

00:40:28.100 investigating those companies that you're supporting.

00:40:31.220 I think that that's the first step of really, truly being committed to a cause.

00:41:01.220 My roots grow strong cause I'm making this my own.

00:41:08.980 Light my fire in the earth of happiness.

00:41:16.840 Blossoms of rich and woe will soon come first.

00:41:23.140 Cause I'm living a garden, a garden of dreams.

00:41:31.220 Yeah, and I do think that the Biden presidency is a rebuke of the last or the past four years.

00:41:58.600 and certainly some of Trump's policy as it relates to immigration.

00:42:03.260 But at the same time, the Clinton administration ran on an anti-immigrant platform.

00:42:10.200 The Obama administration deported thousands of Central American children.

00:42:15.080 And Democrats have passed and supported trade deals that have decimated the economies of Central America.

00:42:21.880 So it's clear that neither party has ever been pro-immigrant.

00:42:26.500 And I think Biden is trying to obscure this reality by appointing a diverse group to head

00:42:33.240 various departments, but this doesn't mean that we can stop paying attention to border

00:42:38.000 policy for the next four years.

00:42:39.940 So as an immigration lawyer, what policies do you want to see addressed?

00:42:46.360 Should we be pushing for a moratorium on all deportations, detentions, and raids, legal

00:42:52.480 status for all currently undocumented immigrants, getting rid of exploitative visa programs.

00:42:59.480 You know, what is the most important thing for us to hold Biden to in terms of immigrants?

00:43:05.960 Oh, my gosh, there's so much. I think that the first thing is, you know, DACA. I think that,

00:43:12.920 you know, I feel very deeply and people, the majority of Americans agree that, you know,

00:43:18.660 DACA should live and be here. But most importantly, I think DACA is just a band-aid, right? We have to

00:43:26.420 look at policy as a whole. I mean, I think the 11 million undocumented people that have been

00:43:31.980 living here for 30, 20, 40 years should be allowed to get a part in and just stop living in fear 1.00

00:43:42.220 because that's not good for communities. I talk a lot about Postville, Iowa,

00:43:46.540 and the raid that happened there

00:43:48.640 that was before the last one in Louisiana last year,

00:43:51.940 I believe, it was the biggest raid in the nation. 1.00

00:43:54.080 And you take away a huge group of immigrants 1.00

00:43:57.620 from a community and it decimated the community. 1.00

00:44:00.220 There was a study done over a lapse of 10 years

00:44:02.860 and it proved how imperative

00:44:05.320 and important immigrants are in our communities.

00:44:08.460 Mental health went down, obesity went up.

00:44:11.600 I mean, the economy just went to the ground

00:44:14.320 in this Postville little town in Iowa.

00:44:17.840 So to me, it's, you know,

00:44:19.400 we have to start from the beginning.

00:44:20.900 Like we need to have immigration reform,

00:44:25.040 which hopefully we get the Senate, 0.66

00:44:27.380 you know, go Georgia.

00:44:28.880 But I think we have to start from the beginning

00:44:30.840 and we have to start with policies.

00:44:33.600 You know, we haven't really revamped

00:44:34.900 our policies since the 60s

00:44:36.640 and we need to have immigrants in the room

00:44:38.760 in order to make policies that are going to be,

00:44:41.540 if it's going to affect us,

00:44:42.640 why weren't we part of the making and drafting of these laws? So for me, it's granting permanent

00:44:50.900 residency to the 11 million undocumented, which a lot are married to US citizens, but they fear 0.99

00:44:58.480 going back and depending on a consulate is too risky, so they stay. I think that absolutely 1.00

00:45:05.620 doing away with detention centers is a must. The problem is a lot of economies in little towns

00:45:12.140 depend on these detention centers

00:45:13.840 because they provide competitive salaries.

00:45:17.940 So for me, it's working with these smaller border towns

00:45:21.620 and working and injecting their economy and creating,

00:45:24.780 like for me, it's regenerating the soil.

00:45:26.500 Why don't we start regenerating the soil

00:45:27.920 and try and bring some programming to these towns 0.99

00:45:31.760 so that we can push the economy up? 0.99

00:45:35.120 There's gonna have to be a lot of bridge building

00:45:38.120 in border towns, not only in Mexico,

00:45:41.320 but also in the U.S., where we create some partnerships along the way so that it's no

00:45:49.100 longer this huge separation. I talk a lot with my indigenous community friends where

00:45:54.500 we talk about how natural it was to migrate north and migrate south and how there are these natural

00:46:00.340 roots that came with the land and with time, no different than the way that birds or fish

00:46:08.120 or butterflies migrate and so um this invisible line of separation needs to start becoming a

00:46:15.920 little bit you know less tangible and a little more fluid uh so i think there's there's a lot

00:46:21.580 of areas where policy has to has to change there has to be you know a lot of communities in the

00:46:28.420 border depend on both countries and so what why don't we create a program where there's there's

00:46:33.380 more flexibility where we invite farmers to come in and work. You know, people don't want to come

00:46:38.900 and live here and learn a new language and a culture. They want to stay home, but they want

00:46:42.440 to be able to work the land. In the 80s, we changed that law and we basically told people to choose

00:46:47.660 either the U.S. or their country and Central America. And most people stayed here. And so 1.00

00:46:54.220 opening up the border so that there can be more of that flexibility, especially thinking of the

00:47:01.080 rhythm of, of the land and of seasons and that necessity of, for work. Um, so I think, I think

00:47:08.860 there has to be a lot of, of conversations. And, and to me, it's getting, you know, getting artists,

00:47:16.240 getting, uh, geologists, getting, um, you know, people that understand wildlife involved in those

00:47:23.600 conversations because it's no longer, you know, we can't see things in a want from, from like one

00:47:29.620 view anymore. Everything is interconnected. Like just like climate is going to have an effect on

00:47:34.580 immigration, like what are the policies that we need to be looking forward into in order to be

00:47:38.880 ready for this? So I'm hopeful that they will have at least some diversity that will bring about

00:47:46.040 some light into issues and how important the intersectionality of things is. But I think that

00:47:54.820 there has to be a huge revamp of policies and understanding why migration and how do we

00:48:01.280 support these Central American countries that we have decimated? How do we bring them back to 0.99

00:48:07.580 fruition without intervening, but how do we support them so that they can, you know, they don't no

00:48:13.820 longer have this femicide, they no longer have to flee due to flooding? Like, how can we address

00:48:18.700 all of those things. Yeah. Yeah, I do think staying informed and pushing for policy and

00:48:26.660 call our representatives is absolutely vital. But I'd like to ask you in your opinion,

00:48:32.460 what does allyship truly look like for immigrants and migrants?

00:48:38.840 I mean, allyship has to come, you know, for me, it's in everything that we do. There's a potential

00:48:47.120 And there's a possibility to generate change and to generate conversation around how, you know, like just as you said, like looking at how can we look through the lenses of immigration when we're when we're when we are making justice for immigrants when we're buying things.

00:49:05.140 So for me, it's making sure that you are responsible with your workers, if you're hiring immigrant workers, that you're responsible with your choices of who you are choosing, who you're elector, you know, who are you supporting?

00:49:21.360 You know, it goes on every single level of our humanity.

00:49:27.120 Are you informing yourself about the land that you're standing in?

00:49:31.360 um, you know, a lot of areas in, in Arizona, the border changed them. And, you know, the

00:49:38.480 people were, immigrants were there, they were, they weren't really immigrants. They lived in 0.96

00:49:43.620 that land and the, the line of separation moved on them. So, so to me, it's, it's supporting,

00:49:49.500 you know, writers that are immigrants, supporting, uh, small businesses that are, that are,

00:49:55.480 that are built by by immigrants it's making sure that you are paying a fair salary that you are 0.65

00:50:03.920 standing up if you need to and protest like be uncomfortable for me the great growth really 1.00

00:50:09.720 happens when you become uncomfortable and you are willing to to change your perspective i think

00:50:15.520 the american way is very much i know every answer you never hear somebody say oh i didn't know that

00:50:22.700 or I don't really understand it.

00:50:25.140 Let me think about it.

00:50:26.680 It feels almost like a weakness.

00:50:28.800 And so it's giving yourself enough grace

00:50:30.960 to embrace the fact that you don't know anything

00:50:33.060 and that we're all in process.

00:50:35.280 We're all learning.

00:50:36.760 So reach out, maybe take a class

00:50:40.720 or contact your local nonprofit

00:50:43.960 that deals with immigrants

00:50:45.200 and see if you can maybe mentor a young immigrant

00:50:47.480 or maybe help translate

00:50:49.580 or help a mom that's struggling at home.

00:50:52.700 Um, I think the more connections that we have on a personal level, that's when change happens.

00:50:59.500 You can donate as much money and that can have an impact, but it'll never change you

00:51:03.720 the way that it'll change you.

00:51:05.100 If you have a connection with an immigrant in a moment where you shared something personal 0.85

00:51:10.860 or you built something together, you cooked a meal together.

00:51:14.880 So I think it's, it's, um, reflecting and, and also giving yourself some grace and,

00:51:21.260 in understanding that you have power in changing the narrative, whether at your workspace,

00:51:26.560 if it means to amplify somebody that is of color. So I think we can start immediately

00:51:36.000 just by doing an evaluation of our lives and seeing how we can support and continue to be

00:51:42.400 present and make sure that history is told correctly and that we don't just brush through

00:51:48.040 zero tolerance policy and the horrors that the Trump administration did with the Muslim ban and

00:51:53.860 so on. So I think there's a lot of power that we have and I'm excited to continue to fight forward

00:52:01.300 and yeah. Well, Carolina, as we come to a close, I'd like to go back to where we started this

00:52:12.240 conversation at the intersection of law and art and how you are tending to each of their edges as

00:52:19.200 a way of being in this world and doing this work so can you close on what working at the edges has

00:52:25.520 meant for you and how this space can be a really meaningful one to occupy as we imagine a different

00:52:32.520 future yeah so i always say that i live in the estuary almost um it's the most beautiful fertile

00:52:41.560 space it's not exactly law it's not exactly art it's somewhere in between but you know i i love

00:52:48.560 seeing people grow in the uncomfortable and feeling empowered and feeling seen because

00:52:56.780 there's so much invisibility in uh when you're an other right when you are the other where you

00:53:02.440 are different where you don't fit and so it's for me it's looking at nature and seeing how like

00:53:09.540 they all just seamlessly work in cohesiveness and they work each other or they work with each

00:53:15.120 other and for each other. So for me, touching land is just a manifestation of, of working in

00:53:21.260 this area where beauty comes in building the community and challenging others and challenging

00:53:27.640 spaces and being able to, to bring life and joy because joy is an act of resistance. And I think

00:53:37.160 so much and so much dread and policy and horribleness we forget about the joy and so I

00:53:43.540 think the playfulness of art and giving ourselves permission to play and imagine a better world

00:53:48.460 is what I love about the art and the policy and the law is just an opportunity to understand that

00:53:56.520 we can rebuild things we can do it again just the same way that we do with clay you know like

00:54:01.220 things are fragile they break but we can build them again and so I see that as as a society as

00:54:06.900 our community where we are in constant change you know that's the one constant we have change and

00:54:12.400 so embracing that change and and um feeling empowered I feel so lucky to be able to to live

00:54:18.940 in this in this place where I can see two communities and see them together and see them

00:54:24.700 grow and and um and come up with other iterations of of food and and law and uh clay and law and

00:54:34.320 performance in law so so yeah I'm just um I just feel immense uh luck to be able to to live in this

00:54:43.240 in this estuary beautiful metaphor I love that well oh thank you so much for this conversation

00:54:53.040 we went so many places together and I know it's going to give me and everyone who's tuning in

00:55:01.160 a lot of food for thought and it's just yeah I'm sorry I talk a lot oh gosh it was it's so necessary

00:55:13.200 and you're a great communicator so I was yeah I'm just sitting with it all because so much of this

00:55:21.140 stuff we don't hear and we are not we're we don't even it's not that we don't even hear it which is

00:55:26.400 true but we are not we don't give ourselves the space to just sit in it sit in the complexity

00:55:31.860 sit in the gravity of it so yeah thank you for this time yeah thank you so much for for listening

00:55:40.980 and being open and so eloquently you know your questions were on point and are important and

00:55:47.460 I appreciate you opening up this space to you know to have these uncomfortable conversations and

00:55:54.940 I think it's it's so important and like you say we're not talking about it enough

00:55:59.620 we're moving too fast and sometimes it takes it takes a little bit to digest and it's but it's

00:56:05.940 important thank you for listening to for the wild podcast the music you heard today was by

00:56:20.140 Madeline Alana and Samuela Eckert. For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young,

00:56:25.900 Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Melanie Younger.

00:56:50.140 Thank you.

For The Wild - March 17, 2021

CAROLINA RUBIO MACWRIGHT on the Intersections of Immigration, Assimilation, and Earth Based Wisdom ⧸226

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