Making the connections for migrant justice, women's rights

Kathy Bougher is an educator, writer and volunteer with Coloradoans For Immigrant Rights (CFIR), a project of AFSC Colorado. She shares below about her work in El Salvador and at home in Denver.

Please talk about connecting with the AFSC office in El Salvador.

I got in touch with the AFSC office in El Salvador for a number of reasons. I feel a connection with AFSC in El Salvador because of my connection with AFSC in Denver over many years. Berta Guevara, Migration Consultant with the AFSC office in El Salvador, was so incredibly helpful with providing critical information for the El Salvador section of  the Crossing South resource AFSC Colorado developed for folks deported or returning. I was minimally involved in this project that was the brain child of Christina Zaldivar in the Not1More table and fellow CIFR member, Harriet Mullaney, who worked tirelessly on it.

I’ve been coming to El Salvador for 29 years now, mostly working with feminist groups, which are also starting to work on the issue of migration, which is of course my connection with AFSC in Denver.

I had an amazing conversation with Berta the other day; she has an incredible amount of information and perspectives. She really enriched my understandings and gave me many ideas of other things I want to find out about.

What I’ve worked on here in El Salvador with feminist groups, starting a couple years ago…. We’ve talked in general about the issue of migration. One of the groups I’m involved with works with women on a territorial basis in different communities in different parts of the country. We’ve done some conversations, focus groups, and interviews to figure out what women would like to know and work on because immigration is such a huge issue in El Salvador.

At the same time, migration is not talked about all that much – recently it has been much more. It’s kind of like the air you breathe. Everyone has relatives who’ve migrated at some point under some circumstances, either during the armed conflict in the ‘70s and ‘80s or much more recently. Other reasons it’s not talked about are because it’s painful for people, and there aren’t any easy solutions.

But people are talking about it a lot more now. Starting two years ago, I worked with two  other women on a research project on the impacts of migration on women in El Salvador, especially women who are part of this particular organization that I work with called The Feminist Collective for Local Development. (I work with other groups, too, but that’s the one that works on immigration issues.)

Of course, it all connects with the work in Denver in the sense that this is the other side of it. In Denver, we’re connected with people who are there, fighting immigration cases or in Sanctuary or all kinds of different things.

The research project we did was called “Women Who Left, Women Who Stayed, and Women Who Returned.” It’s a different perspective from the other side of it, looking at what the impacts have been for individual women in El Salvador as well as for organizations of women as their membership and leadership have changed because of migration. On an individual basis, women shared the impacts of migration on their mental and physical health, their family and community relationships, their struggles to keep their families going. On the organizational level, women depend on their local organizations as a place to discuss and analyze what is going on with concerns such as migration. Yet, just when they need the organizations the most, the organizations themselves are impacted by violence and by migration.   

All those things are connected to the decisions made by the US government, which is a lot of what we’re working on in Colorado and throughout the US – and how those decisions impact people in El Salvador.

(An article based on part of the research project, titled Women and Migration:  Women Who Left, Women Who Stayed, and Women Who Returned was published by the Ministry of Culture of El Salvador in Identidades, their monthly research  publication. in December 2019.) 

Is there a feminist component to the immigrant rights movement?

There are definitely many women involved, and feminists take a lot of leadership. In some part because traditionally it’s fallen upon women to be responsible for their families. In some cases, it’s women who are fighting to keep their husband or children or other family members with them or to help them if they’ve been detained or  deported. Although there are certainly men involved in the movement, too.

There is a growing feminist sense, and I think some of that comes from the leadership of AFSC, which has a very feminist orientation. That has a certain amount of influence.

There have also been times of challenging the perspectives of white people and men, which is very necessary and healthy. Those things have come through in the work of AFSC in Denver, too.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention about AFSC’s work in El Salvador?

They do a lot of work with youth and peace – a “culture of peace” is how they refer to it. That has to do with the prevention of migration and violence. Because so much of the migration in El Salvador more recently has been  as a result of violence, where traditionally it was for economic reasons. Although back during the time of the war, it was also to flee violence. AFSC in El Salvador is involved in the issue of forced internal displacement due to violence, which is just starting to be “officially” recognized, although it has been a fact of life here for years.

The other thing I’ve talked about with people here in El Salvador and in Denver is about the situation at the US/Mexico border. I’ve spent a lot of time in Matamoros, Mexico and other places over the past couple years, with what’s going on with people requesting asylum there and how they’re being treated.

We’ve talked about whether or not the growing challenges at the border are convincing people not to go to the US or to reconsider leaving, knowing how bad it’s getting. I think there was a time when people said, in essence, “I don’t care what’s going on the border. I don’t know what they’re doing. I’m going to get across. I’m confident I’m going to make it. They can do whatever they want on the US side, but I’m going to go. Partly because the situation is so desperate here, that I’ve got to leave. I’ve got to take my kids and get out of here. I’ll just have to deal with whatever’s going on there when I get there.”

I think that more and more the word is getting back to El Salvador about how difficult it’s getting at the border, to get across or to be considered for asylum. The sense in El Salvador is that maybe that’s having some influence on people’s decisions. However, there are still many people who see no other options for themselves in the country. The only option they see to save their lives is to flee, sometimes overnight.

Which is obviously the intent of US policies, isn’t it?

Absolutely. I’ve been keeping up with things, and they’re changing on a daily basis, the various court decisions. On February 28, for example, MPP (Migration Protection Protocol, also known as Remain in Mexico) was ruled invalid, and a few hours later it was back on the books again. They’ve been hearing testimony today (i.e. March 2).

What brought you to El Salvador in the first place? Why do you keep going back? What motivates you?

The very first time I came was in 1990 with a delegation of teachers, and I was wanting to learn more about what was going on in Central America. I was a public school teacher for many years and I teach part-time at a university now. I really should be retired, but I don’t do retirement very well.

At that time I had a sabbatical from Denver Public Schools, and I spent a year in Central America learning more about Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and the human rights and popular education work in those places.

In 1992, I came back with a delegation of women and met some of the organizations from the feminist community here, which was just beginning to emerge at that point, just as the war was ending. I’ve come back every year since then to work with feminist groups.

At this point, the majority of the work I do is with the Agrupacion Ciudadana, an organization that is working to decriminalize abortion, which is 100% illegal under all circumstances. In some cases, the law is used to convict women who’ve had obstetric emergencies of aggravated homicide, and they get 30-year prison terms. That’s much of what I’ve worked on.

But all the issues around immigration come into that. One woman who was freed from prison eventually managed to go to Sweden and request asylum there based on the fact that the Salvadoran government wanted  to appeal her acquittal, re-try her and put her back in prison again. She said, “No way” and was able to get asylum.

We also look at the fact that sometimes sexual violence and lack of access to sexual and reproductive rights play a role in women’s decisions to leave the country and take their children, especially their daughters.

Isn’t that an unfortunate echo of the struggle in the US for reproductive rights?

Absolutely. There are some very unfortunate parallels. I’ve written quite a bit about this. There’s an online publication called Rewire news, and I’ve written for them over the years about the work in El Salvador. One of the articles I wrote last year was about what feminists in the United States can learn from what’s going on in El Salvador.

In a nutshell, what can we learn?

That things can get really bad really fast. The most vulnerable women will be most affected by restrictive legislation. The Right can do things we never thought could happen, in terms of criminalizing women and their experiences, and imprisoning women, which is starting to happen in the US – those are some of the proposals in some states at this point.

Those things are already going on here in El Salvador. It’s the same right-wing, the same “right to life” people, working together across lines, just as hopefully feminists work together internationally. People in El Salvador get some of their financial support and such from groups in the US and other places around the world, and they have the same arguments.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

AFSC’s work here in El Salvador is so important. They are very well versed on immigration issues and a lot of the violence prevention work with youth, which is so key in this country. They work very much in conjunction with other organizations. Everyone else I’ve talked with knows AFSC and knows their work here. It’s very important work.

I started getting pretty consistently involved with AFSC around 2008. Colorado AFSC has an amazing trio of staff. It’s groundbreaking work which has had and will continue to have huge impacts in Denver and all over the US and internationally. I’m very proud to be connected to AFSC in Denver.