How much of the history that we have learned is based on a place? Well, pretty much all of it, isn’t it?
I mean, just remember history as you learned it. School? University? Any book you read before or after? All about a place, right? In my high school I had history lessons four of the five whole years. Three were national history and one was universal history. And it was about places, of course. It was about what happened in Venezuela. And then, it was what about what happened in Europe. A place was discovered, a war happened, our country was freed. And then somewhere else, some other wars hapened, and some countries were, also, freed. War. Freedom. In one place, or another.
Many years ago, talking with Ch., she told me why she didn’t care about history. It is never about the persons, she said. It is about one war or another, she said. Of course, I disagreed. It is about processes, no? The wars, or the peace agreements or the discoveries or whatever you want to focus on, is about processes. And that is interesting, isn’t it? I actually didn’t want to talk or learn about Lenin or Bolivar or De Gaulle. Nor about Russia, or Venezuela or France. I wanted to know how these people came to power. That’s interesting, isn’t it?
Well, it is.
But what if the processes are people moving? But what if history never was about places, nor individuals. What if it’s about people on the move? Funny thing, we have heard it before. A while ago. I grew hearing those words, those beautiful words “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. I grew up believing that the USA welcomed migrants. And I also heard, one and million times, that migrants were what made Argentina. The Italians, the Irish, the Russians, the Basques, the many more. I heard that. I believed that.
And then I became a migrant. And I learned different. I learned that we are different, and that we are not always welcome. And that we are feared. And distrusted.
Don’t we wonder why?
Isn’t the story of humans their long road from Africa to the rest of the world? or isn’t Europe the crossroads of the many? Or wasn’t that long wall build to prevent migrants coming through? Weren’t the Americas discovered, and invaded, and visited and re-visited and build again and again by the people that came and went?
Isn’t it?