Preamble: setting the stage.
Day 1/8. Tuesday, 2 august 2022
I attended my first American Sociological Association conference this past august, in Los Angeles. This was my first time back to the United States since 2005, year in which my work visa expired as a recent graduate in sociology in San Francisco. My world-vision of the United States, then, was conditioned to a framework almost 20 years old, one where cellphones and wireless internet were still novel elements of the social milieux. How times have changed. Even though my doctoral fieldwork with deported Mexican men has led me to border regions between Tijuana and San Diego, I had yet to cross into the United States. Arriving in Los Angeles, then, was not only a reminder of my former years, but also a juxtaposing of new ways framed through an antiquated lens that framed my experiences past. Los Angeles appeared bright, sunny under a hot swirl of controlled chaos. Scooters were flying past me on the streets among the high rises and the ever-so-expansive blue sky that would follow me through my brief 8 days in Los Angeles. I arrived on a Tuesday afternoon from Mexico City, two days prior to my first engagement with the American Sociological Association (ASA) -the mini conference organized by the International Migration section of the ASA- and began the journey toward my accommodation, a hostel bed in a 8-bed room in a hostel in Koreatown. But first, my status and reason for entering the United States needs to assessed, confirmed and validated.
LAX seemed a little confusing. There was no clear indication of where tourist visa holders should line up and I chose based on eliminating the only other option which was the citizen line. Maybe 10 rows deep, the line would move at a snail’s pace, in a dead silence that added to the atmosphere of scrutiny, of test. Being tested is a good way of describing the sensation of being in the line. While we shuffled forward, I reviewed all my documentation, periodically checking to make sure I had my passport and my visa. I would rummage through my documents to assert my legitimacy, to lay validity to my claims: “Here’s my letter from my university, here’s my acceptance to the conference, here’s the conference paper!”. I would imagine the exchange between the migration officer and myself, reaching the point where I would be explaining my paper as a way of validating my position -my Being and my raison d’etre, as a researcher, as a migration scholar, as someone who “merits” being allowed in.
I can’t help but think back to the last scene of Naked Lunch, where William S. Burroughs is crossing into “somewhere”, and is stopped and question by a military style border inspection. When asked about his profession, Burroughs answers he is a writer. The guard then asks him to prove it, so Burroughs takes out a pen and shows it to him. He is allowed to pass.
I pass through the checkpoint without any complications, and leave with the unresolved conversations in mind lingering. 15 minutes more and I exit the airport to catch the LAX Fly Away service, toward Koreatown. I remind myself to adjust to the costs and prices here and forget the 20:1 difference from my pesos to dollar. The bus finally pulls up and I enter happily falling into a comfortable slouch in a seat near the window. I’m exhausted and excited at the same time. Los Angeles has figured prominently in my imagination, mostly fueled by it being the space where Hollywood -the “world’s entertainment”- is. “Here I am”, I think to myself. It’s a one hour ride toward Union Station, where I will take the metro’s purple D-line toward Wilshire/Western, getting off at Wilshire/Normandie.
Figure 1. Los Angeles Metro rail map and LAX-Hostel public transportation path as suggested by Google Maps, 2 August, 2022
While waiting for the train to arrive, I am thankful that I packed light (a choice spurred by the price of documenting luggage versus carry-on policies), and am able to move easily carrying a larger backpack on my back and dangling a smaller one from my shoulder faced frontwards. I would not, on this occasion, be met with the underbelly of mental health expressions of LA’s transient population. This would happen daily and almost on every occasion of riding the metro starting tomorrow, Wednesday. For now, I sit in an empty train cart, a distant reality from the jam-packed metros of Mexico City. I get off at Wilshire/Normandie, in Koreatown, and walk toward my hostel. I pass a Mexican food truck, “Tacos Toluca”, and chuckle at how close our cultural realities are, despite the physical and political distance. Throughout this whole process, I’ve spoken more Spanish than English, and wonder if and when I will re-engage, fully, with English.
"Somewhere" in Los Angeles, 4 August, 2022
I arrive at my hostel, and find my space – a bunk bed – in a room shared with 8 other individuals. We share a bathroom and shower. The air conditioning is on and the shade and coolness of the artificial breeze is a welcomed feeling. I lay my things in my “space” and draw a plan to scout the area, identify public transportation points, possible food options and grocery stores. I have planned on taking tomorrow and Thursday to see some sights prior to the first event of ASA’s conference, Friday’s International Migration Section conference, “Emerging Voices in Migration Scholarship”. Having been accepted to participate in Friday’s section is a particularly proud moment in my PhD path, as I believe I was the only member of a Mexican university attending, and part of a very small group of researchers from Mexico and Latin America present at the ASA this year. I wonder if “our” presence -the global south scholars- are always this small.
I think to Cindi Katz analysis of “minor theory” here and wonder how to squeeze its potential and intertwine it in these epistemic considerations, especially linked to migration analysis and research.
"Tacos Toluca", Ardmore & 8th S. Avenue, Los Angeles
After a walk about through some of the surrounding streets, finding some locations and, more importantly, identifying social markers to allow me to navigate the surroundings, I return with a burrito in hand -thanks, Tacos Toluca-, and set to eating my first and last full meal of the day. One shower later and I’m in bed, ready for tomorrow.
Day 2/8. Wednesday, 3 august 2022
I wake up a little before 7. Not only is it the 2 hour time difference that wakes me up, but even through my deep-seeded cansancio yesterday, I was woken up multiple times by the shuffling of people entering and leaving the hostel room throughout the night. Altogether, I can say I had a pretty decent sleep. I quickly realize I must preplan my outfits each night as I now find myself searching for clothes in a darkened room with the help of my cellphone. I attempt to move slowly but efficiently so as to not wake any of my fellow bunkmates here. I have an underlying feeling I am the only one here doing something “serious”, but I will later find out that many of those I share this hostel room are, in fact, searching for more permanent housing options. Los Angeles is expensive. The reality of hostels as semi-permanent spaces for people to work and have shelter reminds me, sharply, of the “temporary” (better described as semi-permanent) migrant shelters in Tijuana. Most of the Mexican deportees I interviewed in temporary migrant shelters in Tijuana were seasoned lodgers, many having spent significant time in numerous shelters with little -if any- real possibility to “move out”, despite expressing the yearning desire to “have a place to call one’s own”. Housing, home-ness and a sense of place find ample company in these transient spaces such as hostels. “How close, yet so far, we are from these realities”, I think.
A view of the shared room at the hostal
After a quick shower and comfortable clothing to walk, I decide to explore some landmarks in the Los Angeles scenescape, deciding for a trip to Long Beach before heading up to the Hollywood hub. Leaving the hostel, I quickly enter the metro station and buy a 7 day metro pass which should suffice for the duration of my trip to LA. All the while in Los Angeles, I moved exclusively either by foot or metro and found it to be feasible, easy and convenient to do so. I’m still unsure if I could use my metro pass on buses. Given that I had never heard of LA’s metro system and had routinely heard that moving in and through Los Angeles requires a car of sorts, I decided to document the trip as evidence of the subaltern railways:
Video: A hyperspeed of taking the Metro from Wilshire/Normandie to Long Beach (approx. 1 hour journey condensed to less than 10 minutes) set to the tune of “Remember” by Faithless Feat. LSK & Suli Breaks.
The metro journey to Long Beach was uneventful but also telling to the state of wellbeing of many individuals who entered the train in a state wanting, some engaging in drug use while others in a state of dire straits. It would be on the way back that the intersection of this underbelly know as Los Angeles would make itself felt and present.
A day was spent walking Long Beach marina, the beach itself and finding my way to the skinniest house in America. While taking a few snapshots of the “skinniest house in America”, a woman across the street shouts at me, seeking my attention. Focusing on my cellphone and checking the pictures I had taken, I hear the woman shout, behind me, “I’m going to come and talk to you”, in a jovial manner. She crosses the street and engages with me. She’s wearing sweatpants, a small top, and holding a drink in her hand. She is very agitated, but in a friendly way. She asks me what I’m doing here and how she always sees people taking pictures of the house. I am polite, calm, and kind in how I respond to her. I answer her questions and she quickly shifts into telling me her troubles, her difficulties and her hardships. She says its hard “out here” and there are a “lot of crazies everywhere”. She tells me how she works with mentally ill patients and the difficulties in dealing with that. She tears up while speaking.
"Lost family photos", Long Beach, 3 August 2022
I listen, attentively, and share some words of comfort, encouraging her work, acknowledging her role in doing positive work and how important that is. She asks about me, about Mexico, and after a few short minutes, while wiping tears from her cheeks, thanks me for listening. She goes on to say “sometimes we just want to talk to someone, you know?”, and yes, I know. I wish her well and all the best. She thanks me and walks away. I wonder if some -if not most- of the people I have seen on the streets -talking to themselves, some screaming, some agitated, others lost in themselves- just need acknowledgement; need a human social touch that registers their presence.
I recall my time in Tijuana, and how some Mexican deportees shared their frustration and anger on being shunned from attention and help; on their difficulty in seeking aid; in expressing their malaise, their out-of-place-ness in Tijuana. I recall, clearly, how one Mexican deportee complained to me: “Who cares about us? Who cares about Mexicans?”.
I recently wrote a short piece for the feminist-led Spanish magazine “Con La A” about this, which you can read here: https://conlaa.com/la-masculinidad-en-las-entranas-de-tijuana-las-vidas-desoladas-de-los-deportados/
The "skinniest house in America", Long Beach, 3 August 2022
After a few hours of walking the pleasant streets of Long Beach, a stop at a great Mexican eatery for a fantastic burrito al pastor, I decide to return to downtown Los Angeles, pass through my hostel and take a shower, change and gather my thoughts and energy for the next steps. I didn’t expect to be faced with the such expressive performed statements of mental health and drug addiction and quickly jotted down a few key moments of the events as they developed and the characters that appeared.
I realize how important and necessary it is to bring, and have, a small notebook with me.
There is an older man clipping his beard with scissors, guiding his word through a broken piece of mirror. Enters a shirtless young man who begins telling everyone and anyone that he is selling chocolates and potatoes chips as a way to avoid stealing. He makes a striking point of “if you were to invest in anything, please invest in me”. I recall reaching into my pocket for some change and while I fumble with my wallet, his discourse becomes angrier and more erratic. He quickly goes on to yell how he is a product of violence, how violence pervades his entire life; he says his name is Joseph Campbell, and he is from Compton, Egypt. He talks about the souls of others, about having to save the souls of other, about being good for goodness’s sake, about how he has no soul so he has to save your soul. He never met his dad, and if he did, he would try to sit there with him, in silence. He is angry, and for next 40 minutes, yells and shouts and cries out his world-vision distorted and articulated through the struggles of his life. It is a heartbreaking and erratic scene. You can feel the potential for violence in the air. I attempt to read but find I return to the same sentence in the book, over and over again. I listen.
Somewhere further back, someone has turned on a boom box and a sexy -almost silky- R&B song plays. It is a strange contrast to the scene, and would pass for a provocative critique if performed consciously and in concert with each other. In other words, it would be interesting and entertaining if it weren’t for the sheer despair and sadness that reads the subtext of this whole situation. I am surprised by such expressions of anomie, of alienation and of social decomposition and neglect. I had little expectations of Los Angeles as I had little frameworks of reference to work with but was not expectating such large, evident, and rampant expressions of mental distress to be so readily and constantly available. I think back to Mexico City, Brazil, and other places I have lived in “the Global South” and don’t recall seeing such pervasive cries for help.
I wonder if it isn’t the social ties forged in need and maintained in Latin communities as modes of survival and solidarity that keep these expressions at bay.
The shirtless man talks about his relationships, about domestic violence, about killing -killing the world. This is an odd moment of poetic performance; a performance called life.
Two young men enter the train selling headphones, chargers, but also pepper spray and tasers. Another man walks up and down the train offering to sell marijuana. The shirtless man stops yelling and recognizes the hustle of the young men selling the electronics and personal protection gadgets and negotiates the sale of a power bank. Another man walks to the young man selling marijuana and buys a small quantity. We are close to arriving at my final stop.
Leaving the metro, I find myself in a daze from the observations, from these broken realities, that take me back to Tijuana, to the streets and its struggles. I find that I have little energy left for another round of observation and decide to have an early night, and take advantage of the relatively empty hostel to get a few solid hours of sleep. Around 1 in the morning I would be woken up by people walking into the room. This time, though, I laid out my outfit so as to facilitate the morning up and go.
Early morning shot of Wilshire/Normandie metro statio, Los Angeles, 4 August 2022
Day 3/8. Thursday, 4 august 2022
Having showered and dressed, I leave the hostel to get some coffee finding it a few blocks up toward the metro station. I decide to head out toward the Hollywood hub with the walk of fame, to “see what all the fuss is about”. Entering the metro station, I find my way to the corresponding red line towards North Hollywood. As I sit and wait for the next train, a woman walks the platform yelling, angrily, at the “world”. She walks to the end of the platform, and lights a cigarette. A metro police agent yells at her “What the fuck?! Hey, you can’t smoke here!”. She yells back in defiance, puffing on her cigarette (or maybe joint?). On the opposite side of the platform, two police officers casually make their way toward the woman. Reaching a half way point in their casual stroll toward the woman, the women puts out her cigarette and walk the other direction toward the stairs leading to the outside. Besides the woman yelling and her agitated manner, the metro station is eerily quiet; almost too quiet. There seems to be a general strategy to devoid yourself from being “present” here; to place yourself as far away from any visible interaction as possible. With their heads bowed down toward their cellphones, everyone -including me- wait for the next train. Waiting -here- feels like a sort of penance. The train comes and we enter. The ride is peopled with characters that express a wanting of sorts. A man in a wheelchair packs what looks like crack into a pipe and smokes it. Another sits sipping on beer. Few, including myself, are wearing masks. We ride the train in silence.
I get off a little before what google suggests is the Hollywood walk of fame and the epicenter of this tourist -dare I say it? – trap. I am curious to see the surrounding sights leading toward the Hollywood neighbor. The streets are all very similar to each other. Large and wide streets circumvented by sidewalks occasionally peopled by tents, and other home-less individuals; listening to music, smoking, waiting… The sun is strong and I realize I’m already getting a tan. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and keep straight. It’s a straight line, crossing several blocks, until I reach the Hollywood area. I see Americana in all its splendor here. The wide avenues, and imposing buildings with a people in dire straits sitting at the mouth of these avenues. Being here, in Los Angeles, puts Tijuana in perspective; explains much of Tijuana’s constitution as a vehicle driven city; as a city framed through the culture of capital, of free and wild economics.
"Jazz is dead", Hollywood, 4 August 2022
Needless to say, when I reach the Hollywood walk of fame, I am completely and utterly unimpressed. I find myself almost angry at the scene, at its emptiness and its absolute edification on the fetishism of personality. I walk in search of some meaning, something interesting and find nothing of interest. I decide to return to downtown LA and find the Convention Center, so as to know where I would need to go to get my badge for the ASA. I can retrieve my badge from 4 p.m. onwards, so I decide to get some lunch in the vicinity and take a break from the sun and the walking.
Hollywood Walk of Fame, 4 August 2022
See more (?) here Walk Of Fame - Hollywood Walk of Fame
It takes me an hour to arrive in downtown Los Angeles. I get off at the 7th and Metro Center Station and fiddle with Google Maps until I can see the direction I need to head towards to, to arrive at the Convention Center. I arrive 15 minutes later and, having arrived early for the badge registration and retrieval, I decide to see food options in the vicinity. I remind myself of the exchange rate (20:1) and set a maximum of 15 dollars total for anything I would consume in the entire day. I find a fast food establishment close by and order a burger with french fries and a soda as beverage. I remind myself, again, to avoid playing the exchange rate with the purchase and to enjoy the meal. It’s good, but too greasy, but I’m hungry so I eat it with gusto. After my meal, I walk the surrounding neighborhoods to “kill time” and finally approach the Convention Center for my ASA badge. I’m excite to attend;
[The following is part of my official statement of accomplishments as a first-time attendee of an American Sociological Association Conference and part of my agreement for being the recipient of a Student Travel Award]
I am the only student from Universidad Iberoamericana to attend this year’s American Sociological Association, and part of a very small group of scholars from Mexican and Latin American universities in attendance. Somehow I feel a sort of responsibility toward my geographical (dis)location. I feel the mild responsibility of voicing the perspectives from “the other side”, from the South. The feeling is exciting but also overwhelming. I make sure to document the moment to share with my mother who is, “very proud of you”. Well, mom, here I am. I am also “very proud” of myself and all the hard work I’ve invested in finding ways to engage in and with the discussions that “matter” on a global platform.
With badge in hand, I set off to locate the public transportation route to the University of Southern California, the setting for the Mini Conference on “Emerging Voices in Migration Scholarship”, organized by the International Migration section American Sociological Association. I am eager, excited, apprehensive, and nervous for tomorrow.
Badge in hand and ready for the Conference, August 4 2022
(more to come...)
I return to my hostel to measure how much time it would take from “my point of departure” to the University Club at the University of Southern California. It is only a few metro stations away, although I do need to switch lines at one point, so I don’t expect it to take me more than 40 minutes.
I find the University of Southern California with ease but am slightly distraught that the journey took over an hour. Considering the Mini-Conference’s program begins with registration between 730 and 815, I calculate that I should leave no later than 630 tomorrow, which means I should set my alarm for 545 or a little earlier so I can grab some coffee on the way. This will have to be an early night for me, and despite the comfortable bed and relative quiet, the hostel environment instills a sense of instability and my sleep is often interrupted by a general sense of awareness of being “somewhere else” with “other people”. It’s an interesting intersection between private and public, but it is the best I could find with the budget I had (arrived at through saving for several months prior to traveling to LA).
With no financial avenues from my university for academic mobility, it is no wonder I am the only individual from my university here, let alone my department. We, from the “Global South”, are constantly needing to do double the work to get maybe half-way there.
(Next: The Mini Conferece on Emerging Voices in Migration Scholarship and my experience at the American Sociological Association conference)