Stories of human rights defenders at the border

University of San Diego and Alma Migrante collaborate to create digital narratives 

Dominic Urquidez/Assistant Feature Editor 

The process of immigrating to a new country is filled with difficulty, abnormality, and novelty. In the U.S., immigration has been a controversial topic and has undergone many changes throughout history. Often forgotten are the stories of immigrants — the anecdotes of people who left their home country in pursuit of a better life. Even more overlooked are the accounts of those who helped change the policies of immigration to be more inclusive and welcoming.

Alma Migrante is a nonprofit organization based in Tijuana, Mexico. The group advocates for humane immigration policies. The nonprofit reached out to USD, and the two partnered in 2021 to create 10 to 15 digital narratives that highlight human rights defenders in the border region of Tijuana. Defenders are those who commit their time and energy to protect the rights of immigrants through policy building and reform.

Director of Community Partnerships at the Mulvaney Center for Community Awareness and Social Action, Maria Silva, discussed the impact of Alma Migrante.

“In a nutshell, they have helped make Tijuana a much more welcoming place for immigrants who are residing or transiting through there,” Silva said. “The other area in which they are having a lot of influence is the project that we’re involved in … to support human rights defenders who are working with immigrants on the ground.”

The idea for this plan was crafted by Alma Migrante. In partnership with USD, Alma Migrante will create short videos that will be roughly two to four minutes long. The visuals will include an array of pictures that were presented by the defenders. Photographs of themselves, their environment, and those that helped them in their journey will be included in the narratives.

In the background will be the voices of the defenders. They will detail the accounts of their own lives. In their words, they will recount their experiences that led them to where they are now.

“They are completely authored by the human rights defenders. This is their own words, it’s narrated in the first person,” Silva said. “The human rights defenders themselves are creating the transcript, they’re creating their own narrative and they’re reading it out loud however they want to. We want to make sure that the stories are owned by the human rights defenders and we are just the channel through which these stories get shared.”

The role of USD students is to record, arrange, and translate the information that is given to them. The interaction between the defender and the student is less like an interview and more like a collaborative project. The students will arrange the pictures into a smooth slideshow where the audience can follow along with the audio.

If the stories of the defenders are told in Spanish, the students will translate the audio into English to be read in the subtitles and vice versa.

UC Davis’ Humanizando la Deportación, Cultiva Ya! and Universidad Iberoamericana Tijuana will assist students from two USD Spanish courses in the creation of the digital stories.

Alma Migrante pre-selected the defenders to be included in the project. The organization listened to the stories of the defenders, to their visions, and searched for ways in which to support them.

Judith Galindo Lima (Camino de Salvación Shelter), Julia Gomez (Centro Comunitario CSER y Colectivo LesVoz Creando Comunidad), Linda Hamze (Al Otro Lado), and Lourdes Lizardi Lopez (Angeles sin Fronteras y la Alianza Migrante Tijuana) are some of the defenders who will be interviewed for the collaborative project.

The individual videos are part of a larger plan which will contain a painted mural in Tijuana and a documentary. Together, all three parts will focus on issues varying from the security and advancement of the rights of immigrants to immigration policy building and study.

The project is intended to impact many people’s lives. Not only are the stories of defenders told and shared through art, but the students who participate and those who watch will also be moved by the digital narratives. People who view the stories will be engaged with cultural immersion and exposure.

“I hope it positions the organization as a very unique and important leading organization in Tijuana that is moving the needle in immigration,” Silva said. “They’re unique because their approach isn’t necessarily to provide direct services to immigrants — what they’re doing is they’re kind of taking the back seat and supporting the people who are providing those direct services.”

The narrative, the mural, and the documentary all combine to tell the unique stories of people who have fought and continue to fight for humane immigration policies. Through the united forces of Alma Migrante and the University of San Diego, the narratives will dive deep into the anecdotes of human rights defenders. The videos that detail the accounts will be published in May 2021.