La Casa De Papel: El Ruido de Tus Voces Creating Emancipatory Spaces and Search for Well-Being in our Borderlands

Abstract

Migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees encounter profound challenges prior to leaving their home country, during their journeys, and wait at the United States-Mexico border. When traveling through these spaces, they experience fear, uncertainty, despair, confusion, and other emotions. What outlets are they afforded to express these emotions throughout their migration trek? Immigration policy has been a controversial topic in recent years, especially in the United States. Although media coverage of the “migrant experience” has been extensive, it has not often included the voices of migrants themselves. Arts activities thus provide an appropriate venue for people to express their own perspectives. Sharing a space for creative expression facilitates verbal and non-verbal expression, problematizes oppression, and provides emotional healing. The purpose of this study was to gain a comprehensive account of how testimonios, (testimonials), pláticas (talks), convivencia (spending time together), and arts-based activities would allow migrants to express and narrate their migration stories. The aim of this study was to explore if creative expression through arts-based experiences (poetry, music, painting, drawing, digital stories) assisted in the emotional and mental well-being of migrants, at least temporarily, while they were in these makerspaces of convivencia. This research was framed as qualitative arts-based research with ethnographic methods. This study centered on exploring the aspects of beauty in participants' experiences before migration, during migration, and while staying at the border. Nevertheless, there were instances where migrants felt compelled to share the challenges and dangers associated with migration. Within these spaces of convivencia, migrants were able to express and navigate their emotions through testimonios, pláticas, and artistic expressions