Shared Citizenship in the Lacandona: Migration and Activism at Mexico’s Southern Border in the Neoliberal Era

While contemporary migrations at Mexico’s southern border have caught the attention of politicians and policy makers, these migrations are in no way new. The 1980s saw hundreds of thousands of Mexico’s Central American neighbors crossed the border, fleeing social and political conflicts. And by 1990 over two hundred thousand Central Americans were believed to be living in Mexico. While local responses to these heightened migrations of the 1980s varied, a diverse group of Mexicans made up of religious organizers, legal advocates, campesinos and ejidatarios in Chiapas and Mexico City rallied behind Guatemalan migrants, pushing for their recognition as refugees.

This project focuses on these Mexican community members and their unique forms of activism as the neoliberal-order took shape. Not only did the 1980s see an economic collapse as well as a landed crisis across Mexico, but also the transformation of activism into a more globalized form; technological advancements increased communication across borders and neoliberalism pushed social support away from governmental programs and into the hands of international non-profits. Thus, through the use of archival testimony and oral history, this project will not only examine how and why activists defended their Central American neighbor’s presence, but will compare how activists in the city and activists in the borderlands used differing tactics to interact with the state, ultimately creating differing notions of what it meant to be Mexican in comparison to their Guatemalan neighbors.