In the Mexican countryside, we saw towns decimated by migration, where farmers whose families had raised corn for generations watched as their livelihoods vanished, undermined by cheaper US imports.
At the border near Arizona, we learned about the human rights crisis that has forced migrants into the desert, leading to 6,000 confirmed deaths, and many more unconfirmed.
This past Saturday in Centereach, I joined a cross-section of Long Islanders gathered for a common purpose: to study the roots of migration and work for change.
The meeting was a follow-up for dozens of Long Islanders who have traveled to Mexico with the grassroots educational organization Witness for Peace. Since January 2010, the organization has run two trips to Oaxaca, Mexico, to examine the roots of migration, and a trip to the US-Mexico border near Arizona to study the border crisis (see the video below). I was lucky enough to be able to join the first delegation to Oaxaca as well as the delegation to the border.
