Migration and Networking
In the analysis of cases of migrant women from Latin America, the main causes are grouped by: family reunification, by economy, by study.
14% of immigrants to the European Union (Eurostat2014) come from North and South America, making us a smaller population compared to Africa and Euroasia..
This “invisible minority” is underrepresented, the invisibility of its problems initially affect not only the interior of the diasporas impacting society without containing them. Women with children are increasingly vulnerable because they add other elements to the absence of social, legal and economic solutions. This absence of representativeness is not being considered in decision-making for migrants.
The lack of resources and proposals to access studies, services and legal supports are the issues that are lived in family reunification: the right to guard and cover,access to work and trafficking in persons andgirls.
When we migrate there is a moment of crisis and in the urgency to solve them we look for solutions and ask those we know how it did to it,
But if when you arrive you don’t know anyone, don’t you speak any of the languages you ask? Where do you investigate…? If you’re isolated then how to solve it and do it?
You are only connected by social networks, the main means to answer doubts ranging from prescriptions, those of regularizing a residence, such as domicializing,use of transport, where tofind legal support, medical service, how complaints are made about problems of violence, and thus fill the social networks of groups with frequently asked questions. Belgium and its three regions, three languages, with three different procedures for resolving administrative and legal matters, is not easy even for the Belgian inhabitants themselves. Belgas.
Latinity
It turns out that here we all come from South America it doesn’t matter if Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Salvadorans, Mexicans all without exception, we are all Latinas! and we learn to live together from our Latinity..
According to the region you start with the integration course that lasts 1-3 months, then we believe that we will be able to adapt after following the integration courses, following a training, following another course of one language and then another language to find work. This is the beginning of the maze of different alternatives to solve the reality that accompanies us since we traveled.
Migrating comes at a cost, and the benefit is not clear, nor is it immediately, at least not for the entire minority who spend the first three to 4 years on housewife and family care activities that is an unpaid work, in addition to being isolated, in a hurry to integrate, without independence: linguistic, economic, professional and ensuring “the legal legal figure” of guarding and guarding our children that we raise and if they are minors.
It is not enough, diplomas, studies, preparation, or experience. The situation of conflict between the person you thought you were when you arrived with which you need to be in a society in conflict of languages and sociocultural barriers, huge gaps in the face of: deskilling,the revalidation of studies that will remainat the limit against social support, along with the different processes between each region and with its different costs.
One of the first social reflections that we find among women in the face of competition for integration is to stop speaking the mother tongue at home and just have friends of the place or not have them to assimilate.
Despite the time, we will always be Latinas and the cost of rebuilding identity, complexes to our children can be inherited in the constant pretending to belong, does not generate value or recognition and there is no commitment or social cohesion here or where we come from.
You’re succeeding!
We have come up with the belief that individually we have a project and we will have the ability to carry it out, but if you are alone and without your network of familiar, acquaintances, getting ahead is not only an individual task besides that migrating involves resilience, effort and goodwill. Your biography isn’t written and you need credibility and a support network.
You need allies, allies to help you and accompany not only to go for a walk or to listen but to tell you what to do and how to react to avoid moments of crisis and learning.
Agree among many to build, do so in collectivity and co-responsibility from our own experiences-experiences- and have governance in our representation and decision-making.
Do we come with a knowledge and if not develop it or then implement how we will achieve social participation and contribute with our personal project?
The construction of collective gives the opportunity to generate social capital and invite others to be part of it. To improve the traces that have already been made.
If every day is a process of constant learning that gives us keys and if we want to stay and be autonomous, we accept that it is a continuous discovery as it was for others and that they still went through this, we also did the same searches and also discovered them.
In the history of Latina women, collectivity and reconstruction is a constant to approach and learn from collectivity, sorority, traditions, oral transmission and come to have peace agreements, productive fields, weave fabrics with only sticks and a thread, coordinate lives, manage laboratories, aircraft and properly run one country each from their knowledge has found its keys , contributes and serves others to solve problems, and propose alternatives: in education, in science, in concepts and in interlocution.
Who does not build for generations that come, therefore, does not build in their own destiny.
In Always create and believe in projects such as participation in duo: peer to peer of transmission of experiences in the face of situations that lead us to generate support, collectivity and learning. Prevention in health, education, welbeing and job search. Integration into family aggregation, education and accompaniment. They have led us to develop this manifesto that we present today.