Fighting for the Right to Come and Go
In Mexico, return-migrant activists are asserting their ‘pocha’ heritage and working to end legal and cultural exclusion
The New Yorker, April 8, 2023
“In high school, Flores was ‘the typical overachieving Dreamer,’ she told me. Flores, who later went to law school, speaks in an artful and often wry mixture of Mexico City Spanish, Southern American English, and legalese. In her town, she said, ‘Everyone knew who I was, because I was both valedictorian and Mexican! It’s a little racist that they thought it was strange you could be both,’ she added. ‘But, also, by then all the cool kids on the soccer team were Mexican, which added to my coolness.’ During her senior year, Flores was offered a full scholarship to college. Then the school called her with bad news: they couldn’t give her the scholarship because she was undocumented. There was, however, a fix: she just had to go to Mexico and apply for a student visa. She got on a plane, taking with her a month’s worth of clothes. Before she left, she consulted with a lawyer, who told her that she needed a sponsor who would act as a guarantor for her living expenses while she was a student. She found one. But once she was back in Mexico, the sponsor fell through. ‘Suddenly I was in exile,’ she told me.“
In Mexico, return-migrant activists are asserting their ‘pocha’ heritage and working to end legal and cultural exclusion
The New Yorker, April 8, 2023
“In high school, Flores was ‘the typical overachieving Dreamer,’ she told me. Flores, who later went to law school, speaks in an artful and often wry mixture of Mexico City Spanish, Southern American English, and legalese. In her town, she said, ‘Everyone knew who I was, because I was both valedictorian and Mexican! It’s a little racist that they thought it was strange you could be both,’ she added. ‘But, also, by then all the cool kids on the soccer team were Mexican, which added to my coolness.’ During her senior year, Flores was offered a full scholarship to college. Then the school called her with bad news: they couldn’t give her the scholarship because she was undocumented. There was, however, a fix: she just had to go to Mexico and apply for a student visa. She got on a plane, taking with her a month’s worth of clothes. Before she left, she consulted with a lawyer, who told her that she needed a sponsor who would act as a guarantor for her living expenses while she was a student. She found one. But once she was back in Mexico, the sponsor fell through. ‘Suddenly I was in exile,’ she told me.“
Photos by Ana Hop for the New Yorker
Caroline Eaton Tracey writes about the environment, migration, and the arts in the US Southwest, Mexico, and their borderlands. She speaks and works in English, Spanish, and Russian. Her first book, SALT LAKES, will be published by W.W. Norton.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos.
In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights and a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant. In 2024, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is represented by Bridget Matzie of Aevitas Creative Management.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos.
In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights and a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant. In 2024, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is represented by Bridget Matzie of Aevitas Creative Management.
Caroline Eaton Tracey escribe sobre el medioambiente, la migración, el arte y la literatura en México, el Suroeste de Estados Unidos y su frontera. Habla ingles, español y ruso. Su primer libro, SALT LAKES, será publicado bajo el sello de la editorial W.W. Norton.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books y High Country News entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos.
En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University y una beca de la Fundación Silvers. En 2024, recibió una beca para escritura sobre el arte de la fundación Andy Warhol.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
La representa Bridget Matzie de la agencia literaria Aevitas Creative Management.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books y High Country News entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos.
En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University y una beca de la Fundación Silvers. En 2024, recibió una beca para escritura sobre el arte de la fundación Andy Warhol.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
La representa Bridget Matzie de la agencia literaria Aevitas Creative Management.