Journalism to stop migrants from being perceived as “Martians from another world”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Thousands of Latin, African and Asian people have been clandestinely crossing Latin America from north to south for years in search of a better life, in an exodus of “Martians” that a group of journalists has documented in the project “Migrantes de otro mundo” (Migrants from another world).

“There is a trend to look at migrants as if they were Martians, as if they were from another world,” says Colombian journalist María Teresa Ronderos, who coordinated the project that has become a book with the same name, a collection of 20 chronicles written by 21 journalists from 14 countries.

It tells the story of Angelina, for instance, a Congolese woman who narrates her experience from Montreal (Canada), where she applied for asylum after escaping death in her native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and in other countries during her journey.

She saw her husband and one of her daughters killed in the DRC and that prompted her to leave with 3 children. Angola, Ecuador, Colombia… and the Darién peninsula, the jungle that separates Colombia and Panama, which she entered with 3 children and left with 2.

“The damned Darién. The jungle that swallows human beings,” writes Spanish journalist Alberto Pradilla, who recounts Angelica’s journey.

THE COMPLETE STORY

It began as an audiovisual project of the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), which has been published in media outlets around the world such as Semana (Colombia), Animal Político (Mexico), Efecto Cocuyo (Venezuela) or Bellingcat (UK), but which has now become a book, “Migrantes de otro mundo” (Aguilar), which “improves the story in many ways.”

The story of migration in Latin America is neither new nor unknown. “It has been told,” Ronderos acknowledges, but from a catastrophic perspective, whenever there is an accident, a shipwreck or a tragedy.

Either that or “Indiana Jones-type bold passages where the difficulty, the risk and the adrenaline are almost more important, but not the real human beings and real lives.”

“When we put all the pieces together, all the stories from each country, the full picture emerges,” the journalist explains: “It’s as if you had seen pieces of the puzzle, but no one had ever put it together for you before.”

They recount stories ranging from the boats reaching São Paulo from Cape Verde and the criminal networks that spread from there to the United States, to describing the Senegalese community in Argentina. They explain how the change of migration policies in Ecuador or the pressure imposed by ex-president Donald Trump on Mexico has affected tens of thousands of migrants who find themselves with no future in shelters.

They also travel to countries of origin such as India or Cameroon to report what happens to those who are deported or die, and to destination countries such as Canada and the United States, because the migration path never ends there. There are still high debts to pay and souls to heal.

“DE-STEREOTYPING” MIGRANTS

The book describes “a suffering humanity that seeks to live with dignity” and which is treated with contempt, xenophobia, exploitation and extortion because they are in hiding and “always subject to migratory pressures.”

However, the stories show another face of migration: young activists persecuted in their countries, Cameroonian teachers who had to flee, Indian engineers who will try again although they were deported… paying up to US$44,000 to travel from Asia or US$4,000 to cross Mexico.

“The people we interviewed owned small farms or stores, they were professionals or technicians with degrees, or journalists or social activists who had been expelled from their country,” Ronderos explains.

“They are not very poor families as one might expect,” she continues, “they are middle class families, who were caught up in the war.”

And along the way, many people discriminate against them because “they see them as poor, outcasts.” “Political leaders are the first to discriminate against them, they treat them only as victims, not as active individuals capable of contributing to society,” the Colombian journalist says.

This macro-puzzle of migration in Latin America has won the Festisov prize in the “Civil Rights” category, which has brought them 130,000 Swiss francs (over US$140,000); part of it has already been donated to organizations that assist migrants, and another part will be used “to do much more journalism.”