Community Co-Creation: Commitments, Complexities and Contextual Considerations

As a fronteriza raised on the United States-Mexico border, I seek to orient my research experiences in service and advocacy of the immigrant and primarily-Latinx communities to which I am accountable. Frequently encountering mainstream representations of immigration at the borderland as a marginal “wound” and distorted conceptualizations of Latines with migrant backgrounds like my own informs my desire and commitment to pursue a greater personal and contextual truth about immigrant communities’ agency and visibility. Grounded in the realities of my community and the phenomenon of migration that cuts across and beyond it, I hope to focus my learning on the largely invisible phenomenon of deportation, which my participatory research aims to expand on in a manner that centers the authenticity of self-defined immigrant organizing work and narratives. As the phenomenon of deportation urgently threatens immigrant communities in the United States, exploring the “how” of work and research with immigrant populations increasingly warrants inquiry into whose agency we center in work towards authentic immigrant narratives and immigration justice.

While existing research on the U.S. immigration system critiques mainstream and political constructions of the immigrant identity, I feel that the research itself often unintentionally reproduces disempowering frames of immigrant victimhood and reifies representative violence against immigrant communities through extractive research methodologies and a humanitarianism lens. I believe that the tension in how researchers may ethically contribute to knowledge production in immigration studies while remaining conscious of researcher-subject power dynamics warrants inquiry into what it looks like to not only ethically, but transformatively work and be with immigrant communities. My research seeks to address the nature of humanizing, community-engaged relationships with immigrant communities within the dehumanizing frameworks of the immigration system, attending to the insight immigrants provide about possibilities for the renegotiation of the immigrant identity and the reworking of humanitarian power imbalances in service of more authentic immigrant narratives.

Conducting participatory research in partnership with Otros Dreams en Acción–nonprofit organization based in Mexico City that is horizontally led by and for previously deported people–I hoped to begin to observe the gaps between research and engagement with immigrant communities. Aware of the limitations my temporary stay in Mexico City would present, I sought to co-create and cultivate a relationship with Otros Dreams en Acción’s staff and vocería (organizational community members) beyond the transactional work of one summer. Initially, my research questions were as follows: How can researchers and practitioners not only ethically, but transformatively, work and be with immigrant communities? What does humanizing, community-rooted research that centers immigrants look like within the field of immigration studies? How, in situations of urgency that seem to necessitate a default to imbalanced power structures, can we begin to deconstruct the disempowering dynamics at the core of the immigration system we criticize?

Throughout my time with Otros Dreams en Acción (ODA), the staff has allowed me to rotate between the organization’s pillars and support the organizational mission in various ways, including assisting with communications platforms, performing administrative tasks, moderating a film conversation event, receiving a training to conduct intakes for the Dignified Return team, and attending staff workshops during the organization’s restructuring process, which deal with themes like ODA’s history, the organization’s politics, psychological first aid, non-violent communication, and the meaning of “community” under ODA.

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Every week, I have the opportunity to visit and accompany the organization’s work at “Pocha House.” Tucked away in Roma Norte--one of the wealthiest and most gentrified neighborhoods in Mexico City--"Pocha House" serves as both an office for the organization's eight formal staff members and a community-building and programming space for the wider vocería. On my first in-person day working with Otros Dreams en Acción, Pocha House welcomed me with its charming disarray, its walls adorned with community murals and tape residue telling stories about a community that had labored, celebrated, grown together, and made its home in that space. The stacks of supplies, however, also signified one of the current challenges facing Otros Dreams en Acción as the organization works on finding and relocating to a new office space. Amidst the rampant gentrification of the surrounding neighborhood due to regulations that favor both American expats and affluent Mexican developers moving into the area, ODA now finds itself physically displaced.

Acquainting myself with the context and community of ODA’s work bolstered my considerations of my positionality within my research and the organization–a community for and by people without my privileges of mobility across and with a fraught relationship to the border. As a fronteriza whose identity grounds itself in the borderland and a Mexican-American experiencing Mexico as both a native and a tourist, I grew hyperconscious of my in-betweenness in the city. Not only did I contend with my position as an outsider, but also worried about the extent to which I inadvertently contributed to or was perceived to contribute to the community’s issue with gentrification. Aside from introducing me to the difficulty I would face “getting to know” such a complex and vast community, my experience in Mexico City has already challenged me to interrogate and reframe foundational assumptions in my research questions–particularly around the meaning of “community.” Additionally, I have developed a greater appreciation for my responsibility in diffusing authentic narratives about my time with ODA–narratives that acknowledge both the systemic displacement and structural violence encountered by the organizational members, as well as amplify the boundless assets and nuances of the community. With a renewed commitment to practice what my research studies, I hope to continue exploring alternative frameworks for partnership in immigration studies, working towards power-sharing structures that truly center immigrant experiences.