Today, after ten weeks and at least as many trip trips to the local immigration office, I finally received my FM3 student visa today. I am, of course, ridiculously pleased because this allows me to stay in Mexico (if I so chose, which in fact I don't for reasons to be explained in slightly more detail below) until at least December. More importantly, it means that EGADE will release my transcripts to UF and I will, after some no doubt labyrinthine and complicate process, graduate with my Master's. This is especially fortunate because I'm closing in on what may be my last week of classes ever, but in truth that's not the point of this post.
This is: On the very day I received my visa, 21 Central American migrant workers were found by the Mexican equivalent of the INS not five kilometers from my apartment. 21 men who had nothing in their home countries but now have even less. I've been thinking about this unfortunate "coincidence" ever since and I find it almost impossible to describe how this makes me feel. Well, actually, that's not completely true; I know exactly how I feel even if I can't quite explain myself. I feel, of course, incredibly fortunate to have been born in the United States. I feel, too, for Mexico a strange sense of shame - a country whose own people flee north but which persecutes those that do the same - and pride - a country whose hard-won stability and relative prosperity mean that people flee not only from it but to it. Lastly, I feel even more now that this kind of thing should never have to happen.
The salient point is this: I chose to leave my home but no one should have to leave theirs and I want to spend as much of my life working to giving people the kinds of choices, the kinds of options, I have.
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