HOMING INTERVIEW #34: CECILIA MENJIVAR
HOMInG interview with Cecilia Menjivar (Sociology, UCLA)
Conducted by Milena Belloni and Ilka Vari-Lavoisier
Trento, September 2019
“In cases of Central American women seeking asylum with which I work, the main objective of their asylum petition is precisely not to be sent home. These women are fighting the U.S. government’s decision to send them home, as that is the furthest place from security and comfort. They may be familiar with their home, but in their cases, familiarity does not invoke comfort. This could be true for anyone who has experienced any form of violence at home—the domestic space and their homeland. So for people seeking asylum, they have more complex relationships with home, and experience a dissociation of familiarity and security which are conventionally associated with home”.
HOMInG: THE HOME-MIGRATION NEXUS 