In this week's podcast, Melissa del Bosque and Geographer Dugan Meyer explain how the Border Chronicle's new project, Wall Watch, helps residents document and understand the massive construction project underway at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Countering negative narratives with an event that honors interconnectedness and subverts the border in Agua Prieta/Douglas, and a contested hotel--in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley--that is of great importance for Mexican American civil rights.
There is a reckoning with history happening at an old hotel with a horrific past and the RGV's first and only civil rights museum.
“A lot of therapists don’t have any sort of political analysis, and that hurts people,” Spector says.
Alejandra Spector is a practicing psychotherapist and licensed master social worker, from El Paso, Texas. Spector, who now lives in Austin, grew up in a bilingual family of border activists. Her father, Carlos Spector, is a well-known asylum and human rights lawyer, and her mother, Sandra Spector, is a longtime community organizer who runs the family’s law practice.
Social justice work can be incredibly rewarding. But it can also lead to burn out and take a physical and mental toll. Spector stresses the importance of self-care. “Are you eating enough, drinking enough water, and getting enough sleep? Are you finding things you enjoy outside of social justice work?” she says. “Having people who really know and care about you is important. Who is in your life, and who is helping you?”
Her therapy practice reflects her border upbringing by focusing on the mental health impacts of systemic oppression, racism, and forced displacement, which leads to migration. Most of her clients are people of color, including DACA recipients who are struggling with complicated stressors outside their control. “A lot of therapists don’t have any sort of political analysis, and that hurts people,” Spector says. “I always ask, ‘Are you internalizing and blaming yourself for something that is actually systemic?’ A lot of depression and anxiety we’re seeing is about the world we live in.”
Show notes:
In this week's podcast, Melissa del Bosque and Geographer Dugan Meyer explain how the Border Chronicle's new project, Wall Watch, helps residents document and understand the massive construction project underway at the U.S.-Mexico border.
A vivid depiction of what has been happening during the last eight weeks of resistance against border wall construction in southern Arizona’s San Rafael Valley.
In February, the country broke an ominous record: over 68,000 people were being held in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more than ever before.
As immigrant families face detention, shrinking legal protections and the threat of deportation, Camp Hope offers children a rare chance to play, heal and dream. One former camper is headed to an opera conservatory in Italy.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
