The Normalization of Forced Migration: Guatemala, Race, and Labor Under Global Capitalism

Julio Orellana will examine the political-economic forces that shape forced international migration among multiple racial, ethnic, and linguistic groups from Guatemala to the U.S. The talk will draw on global political economy and critical race studies to examine migration through the prism of uneven capitalist development. The presentation will focus on a section of Orellana’s book-in-progress, which argues that the changes associated with contemporary capitalism continue to characterize forced Guatemalan migration, exploitation, and state abandonment in both the origin and destination countries. The manuscript is based on approximately 200 face-to-face surveys and 30 qualitative interviews over four years of community-based ethnography in the Greater Los Angeles region, as well as international advocacy work in Guatemala.