The appropriation of the public space of Central American immigrants in Mexico City: Visibility or imposed invisibility? The case of The Historic Center

Abstract

The public space is where the diversity of cultural groups converges and interacts with host societies. Migrations give rise to plural, multicultural, and complex social spaces in which immigrants could be subject to exclusion. The article approaches the experience of Central American immigrants in the public space of one of the most multicultural cities in the world: Mexico City. Its main objective is to expose the visibility-invisibility of Central American immigrants in the Historic Center of Mexico City by analyzing their social representations and conceptions of its public space and how they use and appropriate it. The investigation has been approached through a qualitative, empirical, phenomenological, and interdisciplinary methodology in which urbanism and social psychology converge. Among the main results, it was found that the public space in Mexico City is represented as a place of insecurity, deportation, conflict, and begging; it is not considered freely accessible for Central American immigrants. The invisibility of immigrants is signified as something “imposed” due to the non-existence of a public space open to everyone’s alterity, equity, and equality and respectful towards their identities, desires, aspirations, and daily collective lives.