Congratulations to Oscar Gil for receiving a Humanities Institute Fellowship for his "Legacies of Forced Migration and Photographic Testimonio of Indigenous Maya in the Americas" project.
Legacies of Forced Migration explores the ongoing aftermath of state violence inflicted on Indigenous Akatek Maya who fled the Guatemalan Civil War and traveled to Mexico and the US. Legacies uses both firsthand accounts and photographs created in collaboration with Guatemalan Maya to document the cultural practices that shape community formation and advance social justice claims. The project moves beyond the spectacles of violence and pain often used to portray migrants as either caravan invaders or anonymous victims to instead identify how immigration policies in Mexico and the US increasingly target Central Americans, thereby reproducing forced migration among Akatek Maya, and to highlight their resiliency as they navigate these realities. This study will be the first to explore these broader processes by documenting the circumstances experienced by Akatek Maya families facing multiple forms of marginalization in the US, Mexico, and Guatemala over a two-decade long period.