Why Caravan?
The caravan has turned a collective protection strategy into a political crisis. This show of immigrant power is incredibly important. * Published on Conversation X: http://www.conversationx.com/2018/11/28/why-caravan/ Nearly 5000 humans — children, parents, young and old, and mostly people from Central America — are currently stuck in limbo in a hastily built refugee camp on the United States’ southern border in Tijuana, Mexico. They have “chosen” to journey to the U.S. and to do so through a collective caravan for a combination of personal and political reasons that can only be understood through the context of the U.S. immigration and economic systems. They are largely people escaping violence or poverty back home. Some are coming to rejoin families already established in the United States, and some are coming for better opportunities — a choice many more privileged immigrants like myself are welcomed to make every year. This idea of “choice” (be it about the choice to c...