ABSTRACT
Verónica’s words touch me deeply. I met Verónica, a 25-year-old economist in Hamburg, Germany, in 2005, four years after she arrived from Ecuador to continue with postgraduate study. Her family and friends, while sad to see her leave and uncertain about what she might encounter in Germany, fully supported her decision to emigrate. For Verónica, arriving in Hamburg “was the most beautiful thing.” Though, “it was a gray day,” she was overwhelmed by the images she saw, “the snow, the trees without leaves,” an unfamiliar image for her, used to Ecuador where “the leaves are always on the trees.” Germany “looked exactly like the photographs” she had seen, she told me. Verónica’s memories about her fi rst months in Germany resonate with other visitors’ stories. Like them she came with her suitcases full of images and fantasies about Germany. After unfruitful negotiations regarding the recognition of her Ecuadorian degree with the University in Hamburg her three-month tourist visa expired. Suddenly, she found herself among the approximately 1.5 million “undocumented migrants” living in Germany, a status that forced her to look at her desires, dreams and projects within the crude effects of abjection and exclusion caused by migration policies.1 Still determined to be accepted as a student by the university, she remained in Hamburg. Back in Ecuador, Verónica used to employ a domestic worker, now in Hamburg she is cleaning, washing, ironing and sweeping for others.
