Decolonizing internal and external borders: Reflections on therapeutic engagements with asylum seekers

Abstract

The cycles of disenfranchisement experienced by asylum seekers ordered by the United States of America to remain in the United Mexican States have been well documented by scholars and activists. Along the US/Mexico border zone, supports for asylum seekers are essentially non-existent, leaving them to seek shelter, sustenance, and safety completely on their own once they are returned to Mexican border cities to wait an indeterminate amount of time for their immigration court hearings. This article explores the reflections of expressive art therapies graduate students enrolled in a course which took place in El Paso, Texas USA, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in partnership with various shelters, community leaders/activists, artists, directors of nonprofits, and government officials. Through experiential engagement, the course, called The In-Between Space, interrogated the dynamics and intersectionality of poverty, race, class, and trauma through a historical lens and dissected the systems of colonialism by analyzing and critiquing oppressive practices within students’ personal spheres, educational context, and therapeutic profession.