Proceedings of the International Academic Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Racism against migrants and refugees in Latin America
Cristina Gomes
ABSTRACT:
Europe and Asia are the main pulling regions for migrants in the world, and Latin America and the Caribbean are not numerically relevant regions in the international migration framework, although its number of immigrants has doubled from 7 to 15 million in fifteen years. Latin American migration to the USA and Canada’ labour markets have been historically determined by economic factors. Salaries in the USA are from 8 to 14 times higher in the USA in average, compared to Mexico (Mexicans from a bachelor to a high school education degree, respectively) (CONAPO, 2023), and the USA is the most important destination country for migrants in the world. The countries that most push labour migrants are India, Mexico, Russia, and China. Mexico is the second country in number of emigrants in the world and the main country of transit for youth and adult male migrants from Central and South America to the North — workers looking for better jobs and higher salaries than those available in their countries of origin, followed by their relatives looking for family reunification. However, since 2007, increases in violence, organized crime, insecurity, political intolerance and environmental disasters in Latin America, Africa and Asia has incremented the number of forced displacements of large population groups. Instead of unemployed young men, now family groups, children and women represent more than a half of the total number of immigrants from Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras and Africa in transit through and living in Mexico. These groups first migrated to Chile or Brazil, from where they should scape a second time due xenophobia and racism historically reproduced in these societies. This apparent contradiction, particularly in Brazil, a country where more than a half of the population is afro descendant, is the reason why this article analyses the relationship between migration and the eugenics legitimation in Latin American societies. This article is presented in three sections, the first analyses the trends in migration in the world and in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and Mexico, and the main changes in legislation in Brazil and Mexico facing the numerous flows of migrants and displaced people in these countries, in a moment of strengthening of the controls in borders through the region. The second session presents the development and main features of eugenics in Brazil and Mexico, and the reproduction and updating of eugenics on perceptions, behaviours and regulations observed in Brazil and Mexico against migrants, particularly against Africans and Afro-descendants.
keywords: racism, Latin America, migration, eugenics, discrimination