The pages of "The Grapes of Wrath" by American writer John Steinbeck bear witness to the fact that migration is as old as humanity itself. Entire families, dispossessed of their lands by greater forces, seek a new dawn where their hands can forge a future. This reality has shaped entire civilizations throughout history.
The history of man on this earth is a chronicle of movements. The Roman and Ottoman empires were not built on borders, but on the integration of diverse peoples. As Edward Said pointed out in "Orientalism," the division between "us" and "them" is an artificial construct that serves political interests, not human truths.
Can a person be "illegal"? The most fundamental right is "the right to have rights." When we deny this principle, we undermine the foundation of our shared humanity.
Contemporary migration does not emerge in a vacuum. It is the echo of centuries of colonialism and decades of predatory economic policies. The wealth of some regions was built on the poverty of others, with resources extracted from vulnerable nations, leaving devastated lands and fractured economies.
Today, those who cross borders do not seek charity but historical justice. They are the descendants of those whose lands were plundered and whose resources were extracted without just compensation. Decolonization is always a complicated process because it responds to the systematic complication of colonization.
The fields of California, the buildings of New York, and the factories of Chicago throb with the sweat of those they call "illegal." Yet a nation's collective memory must include its sins along with its triumphs.
Recognizing the humanity in every migrant is not an act of charity but of historical truth. The borders that are fervently defended today are recent constructions in the long history of human development. Before they existed, people moved according to the seasons, opportunities, and, above all, hope.
As a society, we must confront this paradox: we celebrate the fruits of migrant labor while criminalizing the hands that produce them. This hypocrisy corrodes the soul of a nation.
Migration will continue as long as global inequality exists. The only question is whether it is responded to with walls or bridges, with detention or dignity, with fear or with the wisdom that recognizes that, in the grand tapestry of human history, everyone is a migrant searching for a place to call home.
Oscar Arenas
Editor
Latinos239
