Ni Allá Ni Acá: A short story about the Venezuelan diaspora

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Garcia Rangel, Sherezade ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0166-690X (2020) Ni Allá Ni Acá: A short story about the Venezuelan diaspora. Gutter Issue 21, NA (21). p. 93. ISSN NA

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Abstract / Summary

In three parts this short story examines the perennial border crossings Venezuelans have to undergo due to the current crisis.This short story stands alone as a symbol of protest for the worldwide negligence of what the UNHCR has determined as the biggest refugee crisis in Latin America. It was presented in the Borders & Crossings 2019 Conference in July in the University of Leicester and it will soon be published in Gutter magazine's Issue 21.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that approximately 4.5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants have crossed borders across the world (2019). Venezuelan asylum-seekers amount to 650,000 worldwide and over 2 million are living under other legal forms in the Americas (2019). The extended humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has mobilised a nation not used to emigrating. As a Venezuelan migrant writer, I explore what it means to constantly cross borders in Ni Allá Ni Acá, a short story and a protest. In this piece, I examine the meaning of borders for Venezuelan migrants and refugees through three voices: a child walking the Andes, a woman in the UK and an ‘orphaned’ mother in Venezuela. This short story attempts to highlight the cultural, familial and emotional erosion of a nation beyond click-bait headlines and soundbites of detached politicians. What is the story behind the fluctuating media interest? What motivates Venezuelans to leave? What happens to those who stay? Who are the people navigating these border crossings? What are those borders and how do they cross them? This story is unique in that it brings together a blend of fiction/nonfiction and personal/impersonal experiences of Venezuelan diaspora. The story aims to understand the relationship between borders and diaspora as an expansion of the physical, reaching out to the ideological, emotional and narrative borders that provoke diaspora and impregnate the Venezuelans’ welcome in host countries. Through the short story I protest a totalitarian government’s value of power over life, being placed as spokesperson for a decades-long conflict and against the constant undermining by those on the hard left. Ni Allá Ni Acá stands alone without further explanation – creative practice: an attempt to hold all. This was read in Borders&Crossings, University of Leicester, July 2019 and has been accepted for publication in Gutter Magazine’s Issue 21.
ISSN:	NA
Subjects:	Research History, Geography & Environment Communication > Creative Writing Literature
Courses by Department:	The School of Communication
Related URLs:	http://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/3603/
Depositing User:	Sherezade Garcia Rangel
Date Deposited:	10 Dec 2019 11:10
Last Modified:	18 Nov 2024 15:01
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/3793

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