La Migra

La Migra begins by the choosing of two teams. One team becomes the immigrants and the other team becomes the immigration official (la migra). Two team captains, who are either self assigned or nominated by the other players, pick their team members and which role they will play. Then a barrier is usually chosen, this can be a fence or anything which separates to sides. A jail and a safety point are also chosen. The jail is on the immigrant’s territory and the safety point is on la migra’s territory. Once all of this is decided the officials count to ten giving the immigrants a chance to cross the border which was pre-assigned. The immigrants must run across the border and through la migra, which is allowed to hit the immigrants, without getting caught and sent to jail. In jail the player is out once tagged by another player who has already reached the safety point. These players risk being jailed, since the after all are still immigrants. The way to win the game if you are on la migra’s side is by jailing all the immigrants. The immigrants win by getting all their players to the safety point.

I asked Ricardo why he played the game and he told me that he has heard his parents many times talk about how people have to cross the U.S. border and go through this everyday. He feels it is a way of experiencing that which his parents and others have done. He believes it is a Mexican tradition. He also plays it because he thinks it is funny. I think this has to do with the hitting involved. Kids often find violence funny.

La Migra is a fairly recent game. An exact author is unknown, although a few kids claim that they invented it. This is fascinating because I use to play a game similar to this one except instead of immigrants and the immigration, one team was the cops and the others were robbers. This game seems to be a spin off of the game I use to play as a kid. This is a great example of how much a child is effected by what he hears his parents say.