Why do you trust him? The construction of the good migrant in the Mexican migrant route

Abstract

How do Central American migrants in transit decide which other migrants they can trust when they are crossing Mexico? In this article, based on extensive multi-situated ethnography in Mexico, I suggest that migrants look for the same signs and signals when deciding whom to trust, thus creating a single, ideal "good migrant". This stereotype is fed to them by the migrant shelters and advocacy institutions which, in an effort to protect the migrants and to humanise them, create a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate migrants. The construction of the "good migrant" ideal forces migrants to change the way they behave and affects those migrants who are unable to conform to the stereotype as they are likely to get less solidarity and help.

Trajectories of Forced Migration: Central American Migrants on Their Way Toward the USA

“…The violent trafficking of migrant bodies across borders has also received some scholarly attention, particularly in relation the US-Mexican border (García et al 2007), where a media driven “culture of fear” has provoked violent politics (Correa-Cabrera 2013). Recent ethnographic studies of transit migration in Mexico have also explored gendered violence (Mancillas López 2015), and distrust, violence, and insecurity on the migrant trail (Díaz de León 2021, 2023). Escamilla García (2021) visited 21 migrant shelters and interviewed 86 young Central Americans (between 11 and 21 years).…”