Seeking our shared humanity on a trip from Chicago to Colombia

When I arrived in Colombia this past spring for two weeks of reporting, my to-do list was long.

The mission was to find out what Chicago could learn from that South American country about handling a Venezuelan migrant influx. Despite meager resources, Colombia somehow had provided paths for nearly 1.9 million Venezuelans into formal employment, education and health care. The effort, according to experts, had potential to strengthen Colombia’s economy and democracy.

My tasks included interviewing migration scholars, officials carrying out the integration, humanitarian groups and regular Colombians about the Venezuelan influx and the welcoming policy.

I also wanted to hear from Venezuelans who had left their country’s ruined economy to try to build a better life in Colombia. On a practical level, I wanted to hear about their barriers. And I wanted to identify similarities and differences between Colombia’s and Chicago’s experiences receiving Venezuelans.

But the to-do list had one task above all: I wanted to make the most of this opportunity to portray Venezuelans as human beings. Their humanity seemed to have escaped some Chicagoans, who cavalierly dismissed the migrants as freeloaders.

Merely attesting to their humanity would not do. I wanted listeners and readers to feel it. I wanted them to see themselves in the Venezuelans.

I had to draw from what I had learned during my 18 years at WBEZ — a shop that nurtured "This American Life" and remains influenced by that storytelling approach.

I also had in mind the late Sun-Times movie reviewer Roger Ebert’s principle for judging a film’s merit: “Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions never lie to you.”

I worked through local journalists and humanitarian aid groups to reach migrants in low-income parts of Bogotá and Cúcuta, a Colombian city along the Venezuelan border. I was able to schedule most of those interviews for the trip’s second week, when I was joined by Sun-Times photographer Anthony Vazquez. We met most of these migrants in their homes, all humble.

The job was to zero in on moments of their journeys that evoked meaning and emotion, such as:

• A mother’s wrenching decision to uproot her family from its once-comfortable home as hyperinflation wiped out her ability to feed and clothe them
• Another mother’s crisis when she lost grip of her baby on a rocky path across the Colombia-Venezuela border; he seemed to be dying until a stranger appeared and provided lifesaving care
• A 17-year-old’s escape from her Colombian high school, where she faced searing anti-Venezuelan comments from classmates and even teachers
• A family’s successful steps to rebuild the middle-class life they had to leave behind
  

We anchored our digital, newspaper and audio stories in those moments. We documented what drove migrants from Venezuela, how they crossed into Colombia, the xenophobia they have faced and their integration into Colombia, which has turned out to be a tenuous muddle.

We compared Colombia to Chicago and looked at U.S. policy toward Venezuelan migrants. And we tried to add nuance. We took apart, for example, a left-wing talking point that Venezuela’s economic meltdown resulted from a U.S. economic blockade.

Another tricky subject was Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s failure to embrace migrant integration, a policy the left-wing leader had inherited from right-wing predecessors. Petro’s priority was building relations with Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian president, who was embarrassed by the exodus from his country.

It took several weeks of coaxing to get an interview with anyone from Petro’s administration about his migration approach. We finally sat down with an official just a few hours before boarding our plane back to the United States.

It was an achievement. But the bigger win would be back in Chicago — if our reporting touched any hearts.

Chip Mitchell reports for WBEZ Chicago on policing, public safety and public health. Follow him at Bluesky or X. Contact him at cmitchell@wbez.org.