Migration: Nature’s Way of Being

By: Erandi Flores-Bucio

Note: Migration: Nature’s Way of Being is a title and theme co-developed with Chiọma Uruakpa. 

During the first half of October I had the immense joy of traveling back home. Experiencing my first autumn in P’urhépecha territory brought a stir of emotions like the seasons changing around me. Seeing the heavy rain fall makes its transition to warm sunny days and chilly nights, with the purple, yellow, and white wildflowers starting to blossom. Witnessing the first small wave of butterflies making their return. While surrounded by so much love and beauty, I was repeatedly met with the heavy question of when would my parents be back. 

Last summer I got to accompany my parents in return to Michoacan, Mexico and reunite with our family after 25 years. It was a return filled with tears and gratitude to the highest power. A memory that I will carry with me for a lifetime. This trip taught me the way love can transcend time and borders. Falling into their mothers arms I saw my parents become 21 and 22 years old again. 

Since then they have been advised by their lawyers to not travel outside the United States,  noting the increased risk of detainment at immigration check points. With that information I passed the news, they would not be able to travel for the next three years. While difficult to navigate, this grief of separation is an all too familiar emotion my entire family carries.

Having been raised in a mixed status family has taught me many important virtues. It has greatly impacted the way I viewed the false world. My family belongs to the first people of the Americas, whose ancestral trading routes extended far up north and way down south. Growing up it never made sense to me why I had more rights over the people I love so deeply. Why was I allowed to move freely between the two territories that connected us to a place on this earth? The Coast Salish territory we became caretakers to for more than 20 years and one we’ve had a connection to for hundreds, if not thousands of years. 

The anti-immigrant rhetoric thrown our way was a narrative that used to hurt me as a child. While as an adult I have learned to not internalize that racist messaging, my role as an outdoor educator challenges me to not disconnect from my fears as a young person. It is only in examining those emotions deeper that I will become a better educator. This came to the forefront in preparation of a two-day class facilitation at Chavitos Nature School. (more descriptive) Having the opportunity to share more intimately my family's migration story to their middle schoolers and creating parallels in what we see in the natural world. 

I find hope in being able to remind the youth in which we serve, that when the false world tells you that you don’t belong, the earth will always remind you who you are and what you are made out of. To look at the butterflies arriving and salmon swimming upstream. We are a reflection of nature.