The New Yorker:

In Mexico, return-migrant activists are asserting their “pocha” heritage and working to end legal and cultural exclusion.

By Caroline Tracey 

Pocha House is an unlikely name for a cultural center. The word pocha is a slur levelled at Mexicans whose speech and bearing show the traces of a childhood spent in the United States. Perhaps they don’t speak fluent Spanish; they may be accused of “acting white” by family members or suspected of gang affiliation by prospective employers. The word refers to a plant that has been ripped from its roots; it is a borrowing from northern Mexico’s Indigenous Opata language.

Lately, the term has been reclaimed. Pocha House, a cultural center for deportees and return migrants, was created in January, 2018, by the members of a nonprofit called Otros Dreams en Acción, or oda, whose advocacy team works on two key fights: lobbying the Mexican government to provide support for newly returned migrants and pressuring U.S. authorities to make tourist visas more accessible to them. Immigrant activism in the U.S. has generally focussed on the right of immigrants to remain in the country, but pocha activism is different: it is about the right to come and go. The point of the dream Act was to create a pathway to American citizenship for undocumented individuals who arrived in the country as minors. oda’s argument is that, if these same people instead return to Mexico, they shouldn’t then be shut out of a country they previously called home.

Go to link