Encountering Migration is Beautiful. Communications & Media Essay

Encountering Migration is Beautiful
This week's texts offer us perspectives on contemporary debates over migration and belonging that center cultural/artistic work as essential tools in real struggles. As you watch the short film, Migration is Beautiful, consider and then respond to the following questions.
A) Favianna Rodriguez, in the article we read for our second class meeting, writes the following:
“Art is where we can change the narrative, because it’s where people can imagine what change looks and feels like.”
“Artists are central, not peripheral, to social change. To have the movements that make the wave, you need cultural workers.”
“Art is uniquely positioned to move people—inspiring them, inciting new questions and provoking curiosity or outrage. [. . .] We think about how artists can strengthen the will and push people to act. But we should also ask ourselves, “What are the valuable contributions artists can make in the idea space?” Artists don’t think like policy folks. They don’t think like organizers. And this is a good thing. They think big, visionary ideas. We can’t necessarily claim that reading a novel or watching a sci-fi movie—say, Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer(2008), a dystopian film about migrant labor—will move people to action, but the experience expands our imaginations and creates a climate where we can be visionary.”
How do you see these perspectives at work in Migration is Beautiful? Choose at least one of the above quotations to connect directly to the film. What connections do you see? What new insights or questions emerge for you as you view the film in light of these quotations?

B) What do you find most compelling, interesting, or surprising about each part of the film? Be specific and use examples.
Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:

C) How would you put the film in dialogue with the two articles I asked you to read ("Public Art in Philadelphia Tells the Stories of the Undocumented” and "A Virtual Border Wall Displays Art by Immigrants”)? Does reading them in relation to the film offer you new insights or arguments related to migration and cultural work?