UCLA

In this thesis, I focus on one of the hidden, understudied, yet widely experience form of legal violence that some undocumented Mexican immigrants face: family separation. I define family separation as the separation that results from the inability of Mexican transnational families to reunite because of a migrant's lack of legal status to return or visit their home country and because of their families’ inability to travel to the US (often due to the difficulties of obtaining visas). I argue that despite migrants’ inability to return or visit their home country, they find ways to remain connected to their home country and family through paqueterias. Paqueterias are small-scale courier services that transport care packages and other items like documents, medicines, and foods between Mexico and the U.S. These objects are bound up and imbued with memory and nostalgia for the migrants who receive them. As such, unlike remittances and telecommunication which are common but remote forms of immigrant exchanges, paqueterias enable a more material and sensorial connection to home.