Rubén Hernández-León
I'm sure many of the things that our presenters will talk about will very much resonate with some of the issues raised in the morning panel as well as with what President Boric talked about in his presentation. So, it this is a panel full of continental expertise on the part of UCLA. We have scholars from, you know, various schools and departments. And basically, what we're going to do is we are going to bring many of the themes and discussions and initiatives that were raised throughout the day to earth very much to the ground and see how things are seen and experienced by different populations, in different domains, in different spheres of life and in across many different countries, from North America, all the way to the Southern Cone. So the dynamics of the panel, the structure of the panel is basically the following. I'm going to do very quick introductions of my colleagues here and I will ask them to please give very short presentations, because you know, as you can see, we have multiple presenters here of, you know, five minutes, five minutes each. Those presentations, needless to say, reflect or will be based on the expertise of a particular scholar, and based on that we'll have a round of discussion. The idea is to have this as much as a conversation as possible and avoid, very sort of lengthy speeches, I guess. So we should start with we'll start with the with the other of the program if I have it correctly here to my left. Susanna Hecht who's Director of the UCLA Center for Brazilian Studies, which is part of the UCLA Latin American Institute. She's also a Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School. Dr. Hecht's research focuses on political ecology, about her results have major implications for climate climate change, adaptation - huge issue, of course, nowadays - mitigation in long term rethinking of the longer term resilience in strategies for societies. So, Susanna, you have your five minutes,
Susanna Hecht
Okay, yes, like five minutes of fame. Here, I have my watch so I can just watch it. So I'm actually a specialist on Amazonia, which often makes it sound like I'm sort of like a niche scholar or something that this involves nine Latin and South American states. And because of the importance of Amazonia, in global hydrology, but also very specifically, in Latin American South American hydrology, the water from the Amazon is breathed up into the atmosphere. It goes to the Andes, and so it affects the watersheds there. It affects the water supplies on the Andean countries. And because of the atmospheric rivers, it also has a huge effect on the Southern Cone, so Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay. So the point is that all of South America is Amazonian in my opinion. And so I know that this might not be a view widely shared. But in any case, on the basis of hydrology and atmospheric flows, that is the case. Amazonia is of US size. It's important right now, because it's sitting on a climate tipping point. It's gonna have a lot of ramifications. So rather than go into a long dispersive thing on Amazonia, which I could certainly do for many hours, what I'd like to do particularly in light of Mr. Boric's discussion, is to talk a little bit about a moment in which there was a rethinking of a constitution from the authoritarian regime. Into the democratic regime, and then sort of coming full circle back to authoritarianism and militarism, and what this means and what this means environmentally. I'm surprised we didn't have more environmental discussion, but that's perhaps because I spend all my time in environmental meetings. But I would make one point by the work of James Boyce, and I'm always tempted to say James Joyce, who basically is an economic ecologist and who always makes the argument that democracies have better environmental outcomes because of the nature of participation than authoritarian regimes because of the nature of their, in many ways corruption. So let me just take you back to 1988 just really quickly. We had the end of the authoritarian period, in part triggered by a lot of social movements, environmental movements around Amazonia and around labor movements in the south of Brazil in the industrial south, that acted kind of like Chernobyl for the Brazilian authoritarian state. It really highlighted its problems. In the subsequent period, what happened in the Constitution building was widespread participation by social movements, indigenous groups, Afro descendant groups, women. A whole reconstruction of a constitution with a very strong environmental as well as social dimensions and not just thinking that people had rights to democracy, but also had rights to a decent environment. So it's important to keep that in mind that it is a key element in this story. Well, it included diversity, as I mentioned, strong environmental language. And it really in resulted in a lot of consolidation of new kinds of environmental and social institutions, a wide ranging set and dynamic set of legislation, and many things associated with what we might call the three greens - green markets, green environmentalism and green governance. And this became very important. What is important to realize is while you see those graphs, and I was not permitted to show slides, that has been said.
But I have great slides that show this very specifically. But you could really see between the different more authoritarian regimes and more democratic regimes, changes in deforestation, which I'm sort of using as a proxy for democracy and social participation. And I can prove this to you, but not in the time I have. But the real big point here is that between 2004 and 2014, a period of great democratization, more participation, a lot of environmental institutions were elaborated legislation so on, you had a drop in deforestation in that decade, 2004 to 2014, of 80%. So the point here really speaks to voice this idea that democracies have really much better outcomes. And this also was associated with better incomes and other kinds of things. However, as I was thinking about this vis-à-vis and like, I hear, vis-à-vis the Mr. Boric's talk because - I have one minute - because, in essence, the coterie that was expanding at this time, the agroindustrial and extractive coterie found itself also organizing at the same time. By 2016, they do have an institutional takeover. And then what you have is the election of Jair Bolsonaro. And the return to both militarization of the regime and also a complete undermining of environmental institutions. The militarization of the cabinet, Amazonia and management is placed under military question, and essentially you get amnesty for basically environmental crimes. Also because the economy starts to fail, you can get an explosion and clandestine economies of gold, timber, land grabbing and other and cocoa. So what you have also at this time is a great deal of destabilization under this, more militaristic situation, and increasing threats of not recognizing the new, the soon to be election in the fall and threats of a coup. So what does this get us to? And I said, of course, I could go on for hours on this in much more detail, but I'm afraid that I can't do that. First of all, there has been a response to this, particularly in the part of indigenous populations, Afrodescendant populations, defending their rights and demanding their citizenship, which has been sort of overlooked under the regime. The other thing is that these defenders are sort of the frontlines that we see, and we heard mentioned that indigenous groups and human rights defenders, mostly environmentalists, is about the most dangerous job you can have. So finally, the question I have right now is that first of all, just because not everything is irreversible. So even these damages may not be able to be fully recuperated, particularly the ecological ones. The political schisms make it very difficult to redo the institutional and legislative things. And macro politics and macro economics such as Ukraine, basically are going to be reinforcing deforestation economies and that particular coterie as well as what I like to call Saudi Amazonia, which is there's much more oil produced in Amazonia than perhaps you realize. So the question is really, to put it in the words of my favorite author, a Brazilian author of Euclides da Cunha, he argued that Amazonia was the last unfinished page of Genesis. And so the big question, I think that remains and still is to be written, is what's going to be on that page. So thank you very much for your time.
Rubén Hernández-León
Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Professor Veronica Herrera to my right. She is Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School. Veronica studies the politics of development in global South cities with a focus on Latin America. Welcome, Veronica.
Veronica Herrera
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I also wanted to say a few words today about the role of environmental movements in Latin America, particularly as a space for the exercise of democracy and the development of political institutions. And that's where my research has been, and also been focusing more on these topics in my teaching. So, as we know, as you've been hearing, environmental degradation is an expensive problem. Everywhere in Latin America, you have a dramatic rise in the number of socio-environmental conflicts. For example, the ombudsman's office in Peru notes that 80% of their social conflicts are socio-environmental conflicts, right. And that's just one example. So you've got conflict surrounding mining, hydroelectric dam developments, mega development projects, and also different problems that we see in cities with respect to maybe not the same level of socio-environmental conflict, but water, air degradation. So in my research on environmental advocacy movements surrounding river pollution, I have a project on the mobilization of communities surrounding river pollution in Buenos Aires all the way down to Lima, because I'm not sure if you're aware, but about 85% of the global wastewater is untreated. So we only have about 15% of treatment of wastewater, globally. So this is a big problem. And most of our rivers in Latin America are biologically dead. And so this is a big problem. And what I've been seeing is how citizen participation has been critical to creating environmental regulations, and in some cases, more capacity for more enforcement. And without the mobilization of communities there would really be no regulations and no environmental protections that are being enforced. So it's kind of it's really an interesting space for thinking about what does democracy look like and how is it making strides in areas that maybe are under studied or under appreciated when we think about democratic institutions. So what's going on? Grassroots movements are using familiar tools of protests, of course, such as street politics, marches, roadblocks, rallies, but also interestingly, new forms of working within institutions within government, such as the judiciary, the ombudsman's office, the comptroller's office to align with changemakers within government. So there's been some really interesting things going on. Community activists are engaging in a wide range of participatory mechanisms, for example, litigation strategies, actio popularis, which are claims regarding violation of collective rights, battles, constitutional protection lawsuits, constitutional injunctions. In both Colombia and Argentina, Supreme Courts have ruled in favor of claimants bringing cases against the right to clean environment and to clean up these rivers that of course, are in the capital cities of these two countries. And they created judicial advisory committees to oversee the carrying out of these rulings. And the key people on these judicial advisory committees are the grassroots movements, are the local NGOs, and activists who have expertise and experience working on these issues. In Colombia, the comptroller's office has helped create citizen watchdog groups. They're called a bit they'd notice that helped document the misuse of public infrastructure funds in local communities. And they document on their own. And they work with environmental prosecutors to help boost cases of environmental regulatory infractions. So, you know, spaces for institutionalized participation are hard fought, they're not a panacea. And they have to be supported with political will and material resources. Oftentimes, political will falls short or public officials, support activists in one forum, and then block them in another right. So those are some of the challenges. But I just want to stress that without pushes from organized civil society, very little environmental regulations really are occurring. And this is across a wide range of sectors. This is not just in river pollution. So I want to just kind of put out there that many social movements we're seeing today in Latin America are actually regulatory movements, where they're not the ideological movements that we saw before to the same extent in that they're really pushing the state for more accountability and compliance with our mandated responsibilities to provide environmental protections, but also public services and increase social welfare. So to this point that was brought up in the beginning, the first talk about, you know, are we talking about democratic institutions? Or are we talking about, you know, governance and the ability to deliver on public services? Well look at the people and what are they saying, you know. So many of the movements that we see are about accountability movement for the state to do its job and function. And people are taking it to the streets, but they're also taking it to the courts. And they're taking it to lots of different forums to demand that the state comply with their obligations. Let me just say a couple more things, I know we're going to run out of time. And it's interesting also to think about the connection with human rights. So for example, in Buenos Aires, the Matanza-Riachuelo River pollution case, environmentalists have teamed up a human rights activists. And this is really a big thing that's happened in many spaces, where environmental activists are reframing the problem of environmental injustice as a human rights injustice. And that's where they've been able to get more traction and more eyes on the problem and connect to a very strong, vibrant human rights movement in Argentina, that has created institutions such as the ombudsman's office and many other institutions for the last 20 or so years. So I just want to end by saying, as Dr. Hecht was saying that, as you know, being an environmentalist is very dangerous in Latin America. Colombia was the deadliest country for environmental activism in 2020. Mexico was right behind. And really, you know, this is massive, and this is something I think was not talked about today. And I feel like I need to just emphasize it. The level of violence surrounding environmentalism reflects a broader corruption in society and in our politics, between the collusion between mega development projects, or real estate development and the construction companies and local political officials. If you look at the mining companies, it's a revolving door between the local elected officials that serve for a few years as a local official, and then go and serve as the president of that branch of the mining company. It's really something that is what these environmental activists are up against. And so it would be important to remember that the challenges is phenomenal. But basically, I just want to end by saying that when the environmental movements are, you know, on the frontlines to defend the environment, they're not just doing so to help protect the environment, but also and their right to access a clean environment and their livelihoods, but also really, as Dr. Hecht was suggesting their right to participate in the democratic process and craft an environmental justice movement that privileges, inclusion, participation and citizen power. And I think that if we are going to see any regulations around these important issues, it is really only through people power, and that's what I'm finding in my research. So thank you so much for listening.
Rubén Hernández-León
Thank you. We have next Professor Paavo Monkkonen. He's Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School. He's also the Director of the Latin American Cities Initiative, in fact, the Cluster Leader for the Global Public Affairs Initiative. He researches and writes on the ways policies and markets shape urbanization and social segregation in cities around the world. Take it away.
Paavo Monkkonen
Thank you. Yes, that's what I'm researching right. Thanks for being here. Still Good to see you all. So fun to be on this panel, my colleagues, really nice. And I do think actually, my comments are going to segue nicely from Veronica's and then also President Boric from Chile , who mentioned nimbyism. I spend a lot of time hitting nimbyism. So I've studied housing principally and housing markets and the way they affect where people live in cities and access to opportunities for a while. And I didn't start out and only recently have I started worrying about local democracy. And so and that's because I live in California. And that's nothing to do with Latin America. But I think that in the same way that the morning panel was lamenting the adoption of the presidential system in Latin America, I'm worried a little bit, it's not a concern yet. But if cities in Latin America adopt our system of local democracy, visa vie urban planning, it could be bad, because our system of local democracy visa vie urban planning is terrible. So I guess the way I would tell you, what I'm thinking about is how do different institutional structures of local democracy channel people's preferences towards urban development in more or less equal ways, right? And how does that affect people's lives? It's something that's very challenging. The field of urban planning doesn't have a good answer for that question. And the history of the US in that regard is instructive I think for Latin America, where I think there's a bit of a Goldilocks. Like we have way too much local democracy. And there is way too little in most cities in Latin America. The history of the US, right, once upon a time, we were doing terrible things in American cities from a top down manner, but renewal, freeways, destroying neighborhoods, and so there was this movement towards community empowerment and community control that was justified at that moment. But it's been taken too far, I think at this point, and we have this system of homeowner cartels, preventing housing from being built anywhere that was destroying the future for for young people. So I think one of the challenges, you know, if you think about the three functions of local government with respect to urban planning, you can think about the kind of preventing things from happening, kind of regulating urban, the production of urban space, coordinating investments, and then investing in building things, right. And the problem is that there are a lot of incentives among local communities to say no to things. And that's kind of the way we channel their frustrations is saying no to things, right. And we don't have a structure for communities to spend tons of money investing in train systems or the things that cities need to grow. Also, the complexity of urban planning processes favors the affluent, because they can understand it, or they can hire people to understand it to get what they want. And also, we tend to structure participatory efforts in a way that favors the affluent. So like I said, we didn't know how to do it well. And I'll just take two examples. Like all of us, like, I could just keep on going,
Rubén Hernández-León
You have three minutes.
Paavo Monkkonen
Okay, great. So I'll just give two examples from Latin America that I think are interesting, in kind of the rise of community involvement in planning. So one is from Colombia, Bogota, for example, right? In Colombia, the Constitution of the 90s created all these mechanisms through which people can be more active. And you see the great benefits of this in terms of environmental, you know, preventing environmental destructions. But also you can start to see things like recognizable things for US planners, right. So blocking the, Peñalosa came back to office, he wanted to build up more BRT systems and affluent community groups blocked its efforts, right. So there's these blocking of planning interventions that may or may not be good. And maybe in this case, it's still like there was a worthwhile move to block that. But then once you get to this point where you empower the vetoes, you empower the voice of everybody that wants to say no to things, you can create a situation. I'm not saying that it's there yet, but you can create a situation like we have in the US, which is definitely bad for inequality. In Mexico City, there's similar examples of partial plans being this kind of neighborhood planning instrument. This is very exciting for planners. It's like a detailed regulatory framework that applies to one neighborhood. There's a great paper by Sergio Montero on the Colombian case of the rise of judicialism and planning, and there's a great book chapter if you want, you can email me. I'll send it to you. There's a great book chapter by Lidia González Malagón about the Mexico City planning history and the partial plans. So there's 26 partial plans in Mexico City. I think 24 of them are in the 24 most affluent neighborhoods, and what they do is they prevent anything from being built in quick time. Right. So like they have a rise of these tools for participation tends to be not surprisingly taken over by affluent communities to preserve their status in society. So yeah, that's what I thought I'd talk about here. What I mean, I'm not saying like don't do democracy. There is a world where there's too much.
Veronica Herrera
Yeah, democracy is messy.
Rubén Hernández-León
Thank you, thank you, Paavo. Thank you for for sticking to the time limit. So now we go from the environment, to urban planning and urban planning participation, to migration and the participation, the potential democratic participation of people who find themselves citizens who find themselves out of their national territories. And for that, we have Dr. Gaspar Rivera Salgado, who's a Project Director at the UCLA Labor Center. The center has a longer name, which you know, we we rarely use, but he is also the Director of the Center for Mexican Studies, which is part of the the UCLA Latin American Institute. Dr. Rivera Salgado teaches classes on work, labor and social justice in the US and immigration issues. He also directs the Cross Border Labor Solidarity Initiative.
Gaspar Rivera Salgado
Thank you, Ruben. And it's so hard to do this after President Boric, right. I mean, he saw charismatic and that was so refreshing too. To know that he's delivering his talk as a member of the Communist Party of Chile. It is in 1968 another communist delivered a lecture here, Angela Davis. Only one lecture and she was fired after as well. Welcome back to the dissident voices to Royce Hall. And I was very, you know, thank you for the conversation about the environment. I'm just thinking this morning about the paradox. While the Summit of the Americas is taking place in Los Angeles, there's one of the largest caravans being organized by Central American immigrants that are already walking from the Southern border of Mexico towards the North. And the early estimates are there are 5000 people, and it is projected to grow up to 10,000 people walking across. So this is interesting, and it's paradoxical, because the discussion about immigration in this summit has been relegated to the last day to the last minute, and who knows if we're going to have the promise of the immigration declaration. That's still up in the work because Central American governments and the Mexican governments are not. So to me, that is very telling about the limits of multilateralism, right. I think in my mind, I think about multiple multilateralism has good intentions. But the limits are set by nationalistic sentiments. And we know that very well for the debate about immigration hindering states. How we think about it is paradoxical because we have in Los Angeles, the largest diasporic population from Latin America, the largest Mexican population abroad, the largest, why don't you name it Vietnamese, Korean, we're connected to the world. And I think, on the other hand, we have the reality that we tend to look at immigration from one lens, which is national security, right. And this really simplifies a very complicated issue. Not all immigrants and not all immigration flows are the same. That's one thing. For example, when we talk about the current flow of immigration appearances, we tend to use homogenise different flows of migrants with different characteristics and different impacts. And I think what I've learned by working with immigrant organizations, and immigrants as a political activist is that they can help us redefine some of these intractable issues. So one of the things that I do - two things so I'll talk about, the basic redefinition about citizenship, but we talk about democracy. One of the core concept is who's a citizen? What are the boundaries of the political community? All the members and what kind of rights they're going to have in democracy as a political process to allocate The power of resources, right, so who participates? So that's one. And the other one, I think is how we think about the process of movement. Then how we can start redefining that, especially from the point of view of actors that have multiple loyalties. So if you're a Mexican migrant, who has been here since before 1986, chances are is that you can legalize with your card in 1986, that you are a citizen, that you travel back and forth. And you have contributed to send in more than $50 billion of remittances in Mexico. But this is a thing. How do these immigrants view the process of immigration? Do they have anything to teach us by having multiple loyalties moving beyond the nationalistic point of view, and I think the emergence of cosmopolitanism is a very useful concept. So on the one hand, there are countries in Latin America like Mexico, like Guatemala, like Salvador, they have huge percentages of the population abroad. In the case of Mexico, a country of 120 million people, 13 million of their citizens are here living in the United States. You think about that. So when you become the President of Mexico, you know, 10%, of your citizenship, lives abroad, especially in the United States? Well, you know, if you want to develop a strong democratic process in Mexico, strong democratic institutions, you have to include everybody. That's the definition of citizens, you're right, that everybody should participate in the political process, to have a voice and to have as a representation to have a seat at the table. So that is interesting, because some countries have moved in that direction, recognizing dual citizenship, which, by the way, in the United States is kind of a debate, right? How are we going to have the citizens with multiple loyalties. You can become a US citizen. And that was a deliberate effort on the part of the Mexican government to allow their citizens to say become US citizen, and you can retain maintain your Mexican citizenship. I step farther was the engagement of Mexican immigrants very well, yes, thank you for that symbolic gesture, but we want full political rights. That means that we want to participate in the political process, not only by voting, but also having representation. And that opens up a can of worms for everybody, because we tend to view political participation as a zero sum game, right? You either are loyal here or loyal there. And I think this political participation has opened up the possibility that if you have a stake, or multiple bases, you know, that can lessen conflict. And the second thing is, in the last minute, I want to talk about how to define issues of migration. We tend to think of migration as a one way process, and to define it as a problem. So the next question is a problem. And it's interesting that, in this process, immigrants have built coalitions, advocates have been coalitions that transcend national borders. And now the debate is not only protecting the rights of immigrants, to really push for a declaration that this massive mobilization of people that have been forced out of the homeland is a humanitarian crisis. Of course, that is difficult for nation states, because as soon as you recognize that it's a very dark crisis, you have the moral and legal obligation to respond to it. But I think the other very interesting concept is the concept to the right to stay home, and the right to realize your dreams, to have economic opportunities to have safety and to have a future in your home. And I think that that means that we need an entire transformation of the countries of origin. So this means our recognition on the sending countries that some things are not working, but also recognition of the countries that are receiving these immigrants like the United States like Mexico to respond in different ways. So maybe we can discuss some of these during our follow up discussion. Thankyou.
Rubén Hernández-León
Thank you, Gaspar. The last presenter on on this panel is Professor Gary Segura. He's the Dean and Professor at the UCLA Luskin School for Public Affairs. Professors Segura's work focuses on issues of political representation and social cleavages. The domestic politics of wartime public opinion and the politics of America's growing Latino minority. Gary.
Gary Segura
First, thank you for inviting us. Second, thank you for the patience to stay here til the bitter end. And third, I'm grateful for the opportunity to remind myself that, that I was a professor and am a professor, and used to write and think about these things. Now I still right and think about these things just very, very differently. I want to focus in many ways on the same questions that Gaspar was asking and answering. I probably come to somewhat different conclusions. But in many ways, the things I want to say flowed directly from both what he had to say and actually, what the previous speakers Paavo and Veronica and Susanna had to say. International migration is a permanent facet of the Western Hemisphere and indeed the entire globe. It has created large, enduring communities of national expatriates and even sub national and local geography concentrations in the United States. The colocation of large national origin communities like Cubans and Venezuelans, and Dominicans to say nothing of the Mexican population in the United States means that there are really interesting political and political theoretical questions about what constitutes a polity, and what the boundaries are of a political community, which would exercise sovereignty over itself and its future. So thinking about these large external communities, we have to understand that migrants in the United States not only reshape the destiny of American society and politics, but they also reshape this destiny and the society and politics of their home countries from which they came, sometimes to their detriment, sometimes, in a positive way. I think they want to think about that, in a very sober and honest way. Let's talk about different aspects of that. The first I want to talk about is citizens abroad voting in national elections, which Gaspard just mentioned, principally Mexico, but this is actually a picture of a number of Latin American societies. The Dominican Republic, for example, has had external voting for quite some time. (French Guiana). Fench Guiana, I didn't know how many French Guianese there are living in the United States. But it is not unreasonable to ask whether leaving the country forfeits your right to influence over events and institutions by which the voter, whether he or she is living in South Gate, or South Chicago or Philadelphia, are not really affected by those outcomes. So we think about the place of the table. But why should you have a place at the table to determine the provision of goods and services to communities that you do not live in? It's a really interesting question about whether or not that's democratic, small d. As the numbers get larger, the influence of these communities possibly to the point of being determinative of outcomes will grow. There's the other question which I guess what I made reference to which is this, does transnational political participation invigorate or eviscerate participation in US politics. Clearly, we would all believe that Latinos in the United States are better served, if they participate in American elections, and try to exercise some influence over the destiny and over the provision of goods and services and schooling and whatnot that affect the communities in which they live. It turns out that at least in the data analysis that I've done on a number of articles that I've published, that they're positively correlated, which is certainly good news. So the more you're involved in home country politics, the more you tend to be involved in US politics. That relationship is almost certainly not causal. There are basically just two kinds of people in the world. There are political people, and there are not political people and political people are involved in politics everywhere. And most of them teach at UCLA. It raises another set of questions in this. What constitutes a polity? Are nations organic, or are they defined by their physical boundaries? This is true when we think about the nation when we think about what the electorate would be and be careful how you answer. Because if we believe that nationhood and membership and a polity extends two points after migration out then at least in the minds of some thinkers, not necessarily people I would agree with, but some thinkers, your status as an alien, as a non-member of society extends after migration ends. So I don't think we want to, I don't think we want to get in the business of creating permanent outs and permanent ends that are divorced from the physical location in which you are receiving your schooling on which your tax dollars are paving roads and so forth. The second thing I want to talk about is remittances. Now remittances are hugely important and the numbers are extraordinary to the material well being of many individual individuals and families in Latin America at the familia level. But structural remittance policies which will reward communities with matching funds, where local and regional governments incentivize the receipt of remittances from abroad by matching those with the expenditure of state dollars are profoundly perverse. This is the state exporting its sovereign responsibility to people who live outside of its borders. Communities are actually rewarded for exporting their labor. I don't think we want to be in that business. And government becomes less accountable for local outcomes. Let me give you an example. In the literature on hometown associations, there's a hometown association, which is resonant of all places in New York City. They built a municipal water supply. And if you build a new house in this community, and you would like to be connected to the municipal water supply, you have to write away to New York City for permission to do that. That is not democracy by any definition with which I am familiar that the provision of the key resource that's provided by government in any society in this small town is governed in New York City. These economic relationships have upsides there's no question. The upside for US Latinos could be agency at home, and the ability to reshape and reform and improve communities of origin for many family members who are still there. And so it's clearly important. The downside is the extraordinary forfeiture of capital. By those Latinos, you know, migrants living in the United States, building a house in your hometown in Mexico, to which you aspire to return, although they mostly never do, might be a dream to fly. But having a house where you actually live might be more valuable in the long run to the security of your children and your family. Also, investment in building new community resources in these communities and donor communities means disinvestment and disinterest in security in the same resources in the communities in which your you and your children actually live and go to school and recreate. That's bad. The last thing I want to talk about is the international migration of trauma. It is very clear to say that the experience in home country, the political experience in the home country clearly affects how those immigrants to the United States from those countries behave once they become incorporated to our political system. And you need to look no further than the Venezuelan population in South Florida. South Florida was a competitive state through the Gore-Bush, a number of many of you are too young for that, but the Gore-Bush recount went on in 2000. It's trending increasingly conservatively. And one of the reasons for that is a Venezuelan community that has largely been ignored by the Republican Party and its leadership are overwhelmingly Republican because of the trauma that they carry from their aversion to the Chavez and Maduro regimes which are shaping the lens through which they view US politics. Bernie Sanders is an iconoclast, but he is not Hugo Chavez. But then to the Venezuelans on Spanish talk radio in South Florida, he was portrayed as exactly that. I'll stop there.
Rubén Hernández-León
Thank you, Gary. Thank you very much. Well, I think that it's a good moment to turn it to the audience with questions for our presenters. And yes,
Paavo Monkkonen
Can I ask a quick question? I want to ask Gary a quick question. I thought that was fascinating. Can you be a member of multiple policies? At the same time, I mean, I myself, my wife's from Tijuana, we go to quite a lot. We're like a transporter family. Some moments I feel like you can have two. You can be committed to two places. Maybe three is too many. Three or four may be too many. How do you feel about multiple policy membership?
Gary Segura
So the leftist in me, and that sort of transnational person in me, for sure. I feel an investment in more than one place. There's a difference from being a member of a community and a member of an electoral polity that determines policy. I believe you and your wife live in Culver City. Should you determine municipal outcomes in Tijuana? I don't think so. I do believe you should have a vote in Culver City. But having a vote in both places - there are people who live in Tijuana. I think their voices should be larger than yours there. Then people want to say, well wait, what if I own property in my hometown or whatever. We don't want political rights to follow the ownership of property. We did that once upon a time. That is not good. So what constitutes full membership becomes a really fuzzy topic. So nothing against you.
Rubén Hernández-León
Excellent, thank you. Thank you very for our colleague here. Professor Rice.
Audience Question 1
Really great presentations and one comment on environmental issues. And one question. Common environmental is, I do a lot of work on water, international water law. And one of the trends I'm sure you people have seen is this giving legal personality to natural bodies. So in the Bolivian constitution, Ecuadorian constitution, I've just been reading some cases of Columbia, but they're really talking about the right to sue on forests or river. And this was something that's been projected by the United States. Justice Douglas has a dissent in Sierra Club vs. Morton case where he said, well, legal rights for the natural audience but the majority rejected that. But that seems to be a trend in a number of places, which I think is a way of giving personality to objectsut also , bto people who think about natural objects in that sort of way. My question on migration is, in a way, a lot of migrants are from doubly deprived in this in their state of exception, because of your, let's say, your income comes from a Latin American country. You have the United States. You are often depending on your status, not getting any benefits in the United States, but you are paying taxes in the United States, which are becoming a huge windfall to the US government. Because you don't have social security numbers, you can't get them back. The taxes you paid in your country origins don't get anything for you. So you're really a citizen of nowhere in a financial sense. So I'm wondering if there's a lot of migration issues throughout Latin America, emphasis is certainly the case if you go from Venezuela, to Colombia, or you know, when you pay taxes in Venezuela, you're not getting anything from Venezuela, you often don't have any rights of Colombia. This is a kind of multilateral problem for which there doesn't seem to be a solution right now, based on political will. It's not that there aren't legal doctrines, which would apply this. Right, legal doctrine says this is, you know, the benefit conferred. I confer a benefit, I'd like to prove it. That's classic common law, civil law. But politically, this doesn't seem to be very popular, because this is a group of people that have really no political representation. And so I was involved in a project a number of years ago with, with volatile civil rights organization to try to recoup some of this money for undocumented workers in the United States, but it essentially went nowhere. Because although it can be documented, there was no nobody other than the people themselves, in recipients, had an interest in pursuing. So I just started wondering, what people thought of the possibilities of that?
Rubén Hernández-León
Should we get a reaction from the environmental presenters?
Susanna Hecht
So there's a couple of things. Do trees have standing? Of course, it's the famous articulation of this. And also there's the Princeton philosopher Fischer. I believe is his name. Yes. Singer, Peter. Similar, similar letter. In any case, he made the argument about animal liberation many times, many years ago, and it's just taken a long time. It's still extremely incomplete. But the question about animal rights and animal welfare, which was not even considered has evolved over time. So in a certain sense, one can I think one can look at these as sort of moral statements, rhetorical statements, and epistemic statements about how to interact with these. The other thing is in these constitutional things, another element of that is the end review. You know, living well. So there's the Pachamama, which is the that she has rights of nature, and that there has to be another way of living that doesn't necessarily destroy this. So I think we can look at these as articulations of values, and that they are invoked in political cases, time after time. And I think you'll see, you'll see that too. There's also a rites of river somewhere in Texas and so on. And increasingly, this is starting to sort of integrate in and I think the reason that it is is one, the problems of environmental issues can't just be seen as anthropocentric, so that this is expanded. It's an expansion, you know, kind of legalistic and moral framework about where things. But I think that they become increasingly important, particularly as, as Veronica mentioned, as the role of judicial politics moves more firmly into the social politics. And so that then these start to become more important. And I will point out that Pablo Escobar's hippos have rights in the United States. Migrants, maybe not. But Escobar's hippos are seen as people, right?
Veronica Herrera
So is it correct to say that Ecuador has some of the strongest right to nature in the Constitution? Um, so I mean, I agree with what Susanne was saying. It's really a normative framework and an epistemic framework. But you take the Ecuadorian case, which I believe - it's not totally my area - but it has one of the strongest and like the strongest in Latin America legally and also, you know, some of the most extreme cases of extractive mining conflicts over displacement of indigenous communities and massive amounts of environmental degradation through all this. So that case alone, because I remember, I recently was reading a book about this, and it's sort of like, oh, this is really a juxtaposition that to me just reinforced the fact that you know, nonliving things can have legal rights, but the living things, particularly the people believe that living people things are the ones that do that, right that matter, right? Like it matters, like politics matters. And I think that it's alarming when you have nationalist governments or other types of populist governments that come in and use the right to nature as a way to, you know, achieve a political legitimacy with certain communities and indigenous communities, while on the one hand, and on the other hand, completely enact policies that are counter to the interests of that community. So I don't yet know of a case where the right to nature alone, without the other factors that are important in our political and social institutions, makes a difference.
Audience Question 1
There's a similar case in the Philippines, where it's a successful. A forest was saved in the Philippines, but a similar provision. But no, you're right. I mean, this is a it's a conflict.
Veronica Herrera
And at the end of the day, I mean, Latin America and many global South countries, that's you know Latina America. The problem isn't for the most part - the Chilean constitution was that the Pinochet Constitution before it was formed, that's an extreme example - but for the most part, the Constitution looks great. The problem is not the constitutions, the problems aren't the laws. The problems are always about implementation, and on the ground capacity to to make politically challenging decisions about a whole range of welfare reform. So I don't I think that the fact that as you're saying is always admitted a day, you know, what can you accomplish on the ground, as opposed to the fact that a legal change and a legal standard or regulatory standard alone, that's just the beginning, you know, that's not the end. And for the most part, it's easy, you know, polluters, love the environmental laws and standards that they can influence because they just are planning to ignore them anyway, or just pay a fine and ignore it, no big deal. So that's, the status quo.
Susanna Hecht
Or you can put in charitable scenario. I just want to make one more point. Just a quick point, and then we turn it over to the migration question. I guess I want to refer to Bruno Latour's idea of actants, which is that our world is shaped not just by humans, but by non human actors as we all know. Those of us who have survived COVID and are sitting in this room, and that in general, and, you know, we're now getting climate change, which is driven by non human actors, but it's complicated. And so in a certain sense, I think some of these rights to nature, things represent a kind of, you know, it's like an evolution in, let's say, that history of thought. And in some sense, that argument goes back to earlier forms, in which the world was, you know, the world of Bruno Latour, where the world is animated, and made sacred in a bunch of ways that we don't do anymore and do not do to our own costs. So I think that it's, I think we need to sort of see it not as like the rights of nature and that somehow a bunch of trees are gonna like, you know, in Macbeth, Macbeth, you're going to come marching into the courtroom, but rather that it starts to change the frame of reference
Audience Question 1
As the poem, I'm sitting underneath the street and certainly assumingly.
Rubén Hernández-León
Let's turn to the question about the dual or even more than multiple exclusions of migrants. You want to take that first.
Gaspar Rivera Salgado
Yes, but I know we're short on time. So I think, how do we think about citizenship? Is it as caregiver source and need to be curtail and regulated or is it expansive and changing? And let's try to think about that. I mean, we know the debate in the United States, when local school district attempt to expand participation by undocumented workers some people agree some people don't agree. And the idea there is that, hey, you, you don't have documents. Your kids come here, you have to have a say when some of the Southeast cities here also allow for city council members to not have papers. That created a big, so it's like the debate is recognizable. And that's exactly the same debate that we're having at the local level in Mexico. Last month, I was at a confederation house in here in city of Paris. It's a federation of 62 associations. They're organizing right now, tonight, actually, they're organizing reception for the Presidente del Tribunal Federal de Justicia Electoral and they're gonna talk about the law reform in Mexico, about voting abroad. I mean, they're hosting that. And it's interesting to be in that case. I mean, it is full of people who are very much following politics on both sides of the border. They feel passionate about local issues. And we use Zacatecas in how the 3 x 1 program is run there. And actually, the setup is very interesting because immigrants push for representation, not only the federal government, the state government, the municipal government, but also a local community and participation on these things are Democrats and the demand was transparency and accountability for local government. So that's interesting that in this, the design and implementation of that policy, they wanted to push for more participation, they actually wanted to say, the people who are gonna receive these, they have to drive the issue. I mean, this is transnational planning, how do we incorporate the different voices. In there is not perfect, of course, is in the context of a lot ofcorruptions in the context that political parties control, representation and control a lot of access to the democratic process. So I think it and and the other example is how. So I'm fascinated with what immigrants do on the ground. So the other fascinating debate is in indigenous communities. There's hundreds of sample techniques like communities, migrants here. And it's interesting to be in the field in the highlands of Oaxaca, the supporting immigrant communities where the community assembly assembles, and they don't run their community through political piles, which is different from Zacateca. And they're voting for municipal presidents, and they're voting for a guy who has been in Los Angeles for 20 years. And these meetings happen in November, and on the first of January, this guy gets the letter in the mail. Congratulations, Mr. Garcia, you've been elected. So the democratic process comes not only with bribes, but with obligation. So it's a process that is fluid. And this is a very local level. They're not saying just because you want went away you forfeit every deal. Of course, he comes with obligations here. And there's a debate and some people support it. Some people don't like it. But I think at the very end is a very interesting redefinition of the boundaries of that political community. And my sense is that it changes. My sense is that it is not wicked. And at the end is about political power, a department organize to redefine that.
Gary Segura
With respect to the reference to the numbers of dollars that the undocumented immigrants pay into the US tax system. It's shocking. And I've devoted most of the last 20 years of my life to the cause of immigration reform, if for no other reason than the raw deal, that immigrants give in every way. And there's no question that the free flow of goods and services and dollars without the free flow of labor creates these, which is all by design, creates these completely disempowered communities. And the idea that the sweat and the labor of undocumented persons can keep the social security trust fund solvent, it's just offensive in the extreme. So I think we agree on it entirely with respect to the degree to which they exercise this influence abroad. I mean, I there's a question about what's good for the migrants in the United States, and certainly remaining connected to their communities of origin, has all sorts of emotional and familial payoffs, which are positive. I think it's different than saying that we're going to elect someone who lives in Los Angeles, and he gets a letter saying, congratulations, you're elected. And if you're the hometown association in New York, who's signing up or not signing up people for the water service, commits an act of corruption? How can he be held accountable? It's not in the country, he's in a different country. It's not like the authorities could come take and arrest him. Or that they would in Southgate or wherever he happens to live. And for those hometown associations, his work is fantastic. What about where all their members actually live? What about the quality of the parks in Southgate. The quality of the schools and having to park or the quality of the services or the level of corruption in that or whatever like? There is, there you are, where you are. And where you are, is where you're getting roads, local taxes, zoning, schooling for your kids. That's where you are, to the extent that this is distracting. And again, the evidence suggests it's positively correlated, but certainly financially not positively correlated, because dollars are finite, what's not spent here is going somewhere else, and vice versa. I still think it's very, very potentially damaging for those migrants here in the United States who are bleeding capital, into communities where they no longer receive services. On the opposite side, I think it's very, very bad for Mexican states to be incentivizing with these match programs, because essentially, it's saying, we're not going to pay our bills, we're not going to pay our bills, we want you to get your husbands and sons to send the dollars and then we'll match it. That's not a way to run a country. United States is certainly not any better on a lot of dimensions, but in that particular instance, it is just exorbitant. The other thing to think about, by the way, is we think of undocumented immigrants in the United States as being poor, on the low end of the income gap. But many of those individuals have incomes that dwarf the incomes of most of the people in the towns from which they come. So they can exercise a fair amount of economic authority and influence in the towns that they come from. Because even though we think they are modest means in the context of the United States, and the context of the community from which they emerge, they actually have more money than all of their siblings, most of their neighbors and so forth.
Rubén Hernández-León
Thank you. Thank you, Gary. And, you know, what it's not damaging is actually the fact that we've been able to complete our schedule, more or less on time, despite all the ups and downs, you know, and the amazing things of course, that happened today, the amazing discussion in the morning, these amazing panel with great questions from from everybody here. And so I'm going to thank again, the organizers. I want to thank especially Alexandra leaving over here. So much work, you know, through, you know, some health issues as well in the last few days. And she's here. But truly, Alexandra, you know, you did put a lot of effort, also the staff of the Latin American Institute over here, Aria and Veronica. They have as always, provided super help and assistance. And in general, you know, the Burkle Center who took the lead organizing today's events. Kal over here, the Director of the Burkle Center and other partnering institutions, the Luskin School of Public Affairs, of course, and our partners in DC and in Atlanta, I believe. So this was actually a great event. And it's a side event of many of the things that are happening in Los Angeles this week. So I'm sure we all are paying attention to developments on that front.
Alexandra Lieben
I also wanted to add. I wanted to thank the Burkle Center interns. Thank you, everybody.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai