Back in Chicago, reflecting on the border.

The tail end of my Border Studies Program experience was exhausting and memorable. It was sad to realize that I would soon be leaving the place I had become so accustomed to and began to fully prepare myself to go back to my life armed with this new knowledge. Completing final work was not nearly as strenuous as past semesters because information on the subject matter just flowed out of me. After being so totally immersed in our work, having something to show for it wasn’t too difficult.

Now that I’m back my border experience continues to be relevant in my everyday interactions. Whether its beginning to distrust NPR because of their funding from Monsanto and quoting of Assistant Secretary of Plan Mexico David T. Johnson as a reliable source about swine flu, or hearing the stories from a former farm worker in California’s Imperial Valley. It was surprising and incredibly interesting this past Mother’s Day to compare my experiences traveling through Yuma and southern California to those of a fellow celebration goer. This person worked the same fields in the early 1970s I had past by just a month ago. Things have changed a lot since his experiences there, when Bonzai runs were the way he got to work daily. The issues that I have studied these past few months continue to surround me here at home in the Southside of Chicago. I am so thankful that I pay so much more attention to these realities now!

Also, I’m cold.

Paz,

Viviana

Wrapping up Spring '09: reflections by Lily

Hi everyone, my name is Lily Huang and I’m the Program Associate for the Border Studies program. This semester I worked with Riley, the Resident Director, Dereka Rushbrook, the professor of the Research Methods class, and Heather Craigie, the professor of the Field Study and the Borderlands: Theory and Practice class. I’m from Boston, MA and while I was studying at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, I did the Border Studies Program in 2006. I lived with a wonderful host family, the Garcias, in Ciudad Juarez, had classes in El Paso and Cd. Juarez and did my internship at Biblioteca Infantil, an afterschool community center, in Colonia Anapra in Cd. Juarez. When I returned to Vassar in the spring, I did a BorderLinks delegation to the Tucson and Nogales border with my class: Nation, God and Human Rights on the US-Mexico Border. Later in the summer, I received a fellowship to return to Juarez and continue teaching and organizing at Biblioteca Infantil.

Now everything has come full circle and I live in Tucson. As Ruben Martinez, the author of Crossing Over, wrote, “The border is all around us.” Like in Juarez and El Paso, here at the Tucson and Nogales border I see these border issues that I have always been interested in: immigration and migration, nationalism/racism/class-ism, and cultural fluidity and change. Studying on and now working here with the Border Studies Program has helped me conceptualize the border and all these issues in Boston, in Poughkeepsie, in Mexico City, in Oaxaca and, of course, in Tucson, especially in South Tucson where the majority of people of color and working class/working poor people live their lives. Because I have had such a history with the Border Studies Program, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions at lily.yimche.huang@gmail.com.

After following all my students and sitting them down to write their blog entries ;) from here to Chiapas, it’s now my turn to write about the retreat! The pilot program of the “Roots and Routes of Migration”spring semester was wonderful. All the seis reinas, Callie, Miriam, Vivian, Alice, Sonia and Jessye, were so funny, smart and ready to go. Before we left to go on the retreat, I attended their final project presentations for Riley’s class. Jessye prepared a touching service called “A Service to Honor Migrants” that included a beautiful sermon and prayer along with hymns. Vivian created a beautiful stencil of a Mexican campesino holding the Virgin of Guadalupe that is/looks like an ear of corn to honor food sovereignty/native seeds/campesinos. Alice wrote thought-provoking letters to President Obama on exploitative employee sanctions, to Secretary Napolitano on the Department of Homeland Security’s ineffective, or perhaps disastrously and fatally effective, philosophy and practice of “prevention through deterrence” and to the House of Representatives on the REAL ID Act and the repeal of it with the Border Security & Responsibility Act. Sonia and Callie created a jam-packed PowerPoint presentation on the myths surrounding immigrants and immigration. And, finally, Miriam was able to put everything together in an amazing Zine. Wow, I was so impressed.

Anyways, the next day, I picked up most of the girls early in the morning and we met up with Riley and Jessye at the Historic Y, where our office is located. We drove southwest towards Puerto Penasco aka Rocky Point to CEDO, the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans (http://www.cedointercultural.org/) located conveniently next to a beach. We arrived in Puerto Penasco, had lunch and went to CEDO. CEDO is a beautiful building that includes a museum, a library, rooms for their interns and other rooms for their visiting groups and other guests. We sat down with Alexis, the Field Education Intern, who gave us a great PowerPoint presentation about Tourism and Development in Rocky Point. She told us that the fishing industry will collapse in 50 years if fishing rates stay the same. Also that an average person spends 13,000 gallons of water per day while one gulf course uses 310,000 gallons per day or in the desert 1 million gallons per day. Afterwards the students spent their first free afternoon in a long time at the beach while Riley and I prepared a Thai-curry feast for all of us. It was a special night, sitting around the kitchen island, reminiscing about Orientation and first impressions, the month-long travel seminar through Chiapas and Oaxaca and everyone getting sick but still pulling through, the last days of finals and everything else.

The next morning and afternoon we were down to business. We met (on the beach) and had a verbal evaluation of the spring program because these students were the first students ever on the first spring program ever. They gave feedback on their field study sites and homestays, the structure of the program and its courses, and the schedules and lives. It was really helpful because it was obvious that they have been thinking about these things since the beginning of the semester and have really thought out their ideas and suggestions for future programs. Then while they filled out evaluations, Riley and I cooked again with the help of some of the students. In the late afternoon, we went on a kayaking tour with Alexis of the estuary and marine life. That was really fun and relaxing! We saw the extreme tide changes (the second biggest tidal difference in the world) and fiddler crabs and we beached many times in the middle of the estuary.

We ate bean burritos and drank Mexican soda on a little island, watched the sun set and then raced back to shore. At night, we had a bonfire and a closing ceremony. We all talked about our memories of people and events from the semester and how we can bring those memories back home with us. It was really nice to have closure or the closest thing that we can all get to closure. The next morning we juggled, played Frisbee, laid on the beach and swam. Alice and Jessye made a delicious veggie Pad Thai with almond sauce. We had a nice meal with a nice Tres Leches cake in honor of Sonia’s graduation from Lewis and Clark. We had our last moments in the beach, were rushed away by the rising tide and packed up to go back to Tucson. And that was the end of the Spring 09 semester.

Comparative trip to Yuma - San Diego by Alice

We were presented with two choices for our "comparative border trip": East or West. It was designed to be a chance to see another part of the border besides Arizona, because, as we've learned, each sector had its own unique geography, political situation and human impact. We chose West, and set off for a weekend in Yuma, Arizona and San Diego, California.

First we stopped in Yuma to talk to an organization called Campesinos sin Fronteras, or Farmworkers without Borders. Two strong, inspiring women talked to us about their group's work organizing amongst migrant field workers, teaching about sexual health and nutrition and helping people find safe housing. They would intercept workers crossing the border at 3 a.m., go out to the fields with them, give talks on the buses, etc. The woman who now runs the organization was a strawberry picker herself for 13 years, and told us about being in the fields while planes flew overhead spraying clouds of pesticides on the plants and the workers. This is the sort of thing she now fights.

After an interesting lunch at a Chinese/Mexican restaurant, we piled back in the van and headed for California. Just over the state line, we visited a cemetery that housed the graves of many unidentified migrants who had died crossing the border. It was such a sad and stark contrast, seeing the grassy, shady patch at the front with well-tended marble graves, then at the back, a barren dirt plot with little bricks with only a number and "John Doe." Someone had left crosses on some of the graves reading "not forgotten" and "I love you."

We got back in the van and resumed our standard van activities—eating Pub Mix, sleeping and listening to music--until we got to our destination, the Quaker house in La Jolla, CA. We got to sleep on the floor of their cozy library, surrounded by books on non-violence. The next day we had a lecture about the California border, about how only the wealthy can get legal visas, about cross-border pollution and about the rampant drug trafficking. We then set off with local activist Dan Wateman to see the border for ourselves. The paranoia, militarization, excess spending and environmental destruction were shocking to see, but the worst by far was the destruction of Friendship Park. Since the early 70s it's been an important cultural meeting spot, a park on both sides of the border where family members could talk and hug through the fence, where people could chat and as the name suggests, make friends, and where groups held binational salsa and yoga classes. It was a place that resisted the doctrine of fear of the other. Now the Border Patrol is building a double wall, destroying Friendship Park. Dan stood in front of the bulldozers and blocked the construction for hours before they hauled him away. Why weren't there hundreds of people with him? Thousands?

We also had the unique experience of walking on the beach right up to where the border wall marches into the Pacific. Through the bars we could see families playing on the beach, buying snacks from a vendor, laughing and splashing. On the U.S. side, it was desolate, empty except for Border Patrol, construction vehicles and us.

That night we went to a community presentation about Friendship Park, and the next morning we climbed into the van at the crack of dawn and headed back to Tucson.

Callie here with an update!

Callie here with an update! Since we returned from our month in Mexico and our week of spring break, we've been working with our various organizations. I'm working at Derechos Humanos (The Coalition for Human Rights) where I help spread the word about upcoming events such as our Citizenship Fair, May Day events, and Know Your Rights presentations. All of these are available to the immigrant population in Tucson to educate and empower. On a day to day basis, I've been answering phones, going to community meetings, and working at the abuse clinic which occurs twice a week. In particular, the abuse clinic has opened my eyes to how real discrimination and wage abuses can be for people working and living in Tucson. I've been able to take on a few cases of my own (mostly working with people who weren't paid for their work) and I'm happy to say that we've been pretty successful. I'm also working to design a bulletin for public distribution about Operation Streamline which Miriam described earlier in this blog.


Needless to say, we've been very busy. Although we did make time to drive to Nogales, Arizona to meet with the Border Patrol. There, we met Danny Rodriguez who has been working for the BP since 2000. He got his start in Yuma and was one of the agents who dealt with the Yuma 14, a border tragedy which we had read about in the book "The Devil's Highway". He showed us a Powerpoint presentation full of information and pictures of the history of BP, the weapons they use, drugs they've found, and latest technology for detecting people. We bombarded him with questions and he kindly answered them all for nearly 2 hours before taking us on a tour of the office. He showed us where agents check out their equipment, the room full of TV monitors broadcasting the various areas of the border, and the detention center where undocumented migrants check in and await their fate. After meeting with so many organizations who are against border militarization, it was important for us to hear from the other side in order to fully understand how border enforcement works.

Sonia wraps up the travel seminar

The last week that we were in Mexico was filled with a variety of short trips. First we went to Nochixlan were we met with Jesus from the organization CEDICAM (Center for the Integral Development of the Mixteca). Jesus just won the Goldman award, which is like the Nobel Prize for environmental work. Jesus was a great speaker and helped us to better understand how NAFTA policies were affecting the Mexican countryside. We learned more about how and when chemical fertilizers were introduced and how that has affected the land. When we arrived, the group was working on building an adobe agricultural museum.

The following day we met with a women’s weaving coop in Teotitlan called Vida Nueva. The group formed as a way for single women to earn an income. The group is made up of primarily single women and has expanded to incorporate community projects focusing on the environment. The weavings they designed and made were beautiful. I was amazed how much detail they could do on those big weaving looms. They also showed us how they dyed the wool with different types of natural dyes. The most fascinating was how they used a ground up beetle to get the color red. If they mixed the beetle dye with lemon, the result was an orange-red color, and if they mixed the beetle dye with ash, it turned purple.

Thursday we visited a coop of thirteen organic coffee growers. We learned about what it means to be a fair-trade grower and why the world market price is actually higher per pound than the fair-trade price. I was surprised to learn that the grower makes up to 2 dollars a pound and the roasters, which are in the U.S., make 13 dollars a pound. This made me more conscious of my own coffee habits and which type of coffee I buy. In fact, this entire experience has made me even more aware of my consuming habits.

We followed the meeting at the coffee cooperative with a picnic by a lake. It was a beautiful spot in the same town where Benito Juarez was born. Benito Juarez was the only president to come from Oaxaca and you can see his bust everywhere. After lunch we went to UNOSJO (Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca), where we learned a lot about the affects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on crops in Mexico. In Oaxaca, there have been several cases of GMO contamination in native crops. Companies, and even the Mexican government, pushed GMOs during the green revolution because they were supposedly more productive. The organization spoke about the role women have in saving seeds and how new generations are not learning how to save seeds.

The travel seminar ended with a full day of processing and discussing actions we as a group can take to share what we have learned. I am excited about going back to Tucson to do hands on work at the Southside Day Laborers Center. After two months of receiving information, it will feel good to do something active. One focus of our processing sessions has been to connect what we have learned so far, so that we share it more articulately. We also focused on exploring, and making arguments for, all positions on migration and neo-liberal economic ideas, which has shown me how much I really have learned in the past month.

Alice's update: the group in San Lorenzo Victoria, Oaxaca

Long drives put me straight to sleep, so mere minutes after leaving Oaxaca City for San Lorenzo Victoria in the Mixteca Baja region, I was snoozing away. When I woke up, I thought we had stumbled upon a vortex and warped back to the Arizona desert, as dusty hills and cacti surrounded us. After seven hours, a good amount of which was on curvy, dirt roads, we pulled into San Lorenzo--a small Mixteca village that had never had a delegation like ours before. Not knowing where our hosts lived, we leaned out the window and asked a random man sitting on the curb where to find Elba Galindo, and he waved us in the right direction. The household we all stayed in consisted of Elba, her son Josue and her granddaughter Quetzalli, which means ¨pretty girl¨ in Nahua. Throughout our stay, Elba taught us so much about the roles of guests and hosts, the effects of migration on families and the culture of a small, indigenous town. She served us a huge meal right when we arrived, and when Lily said “No, gracias” to seconds, Elba chastised, “When I’m at your house, I won’t say no to your food.” We all guiltily stuffed ourselves with amazing food for the rest of the stay.

By some stroke of divine luck, we arrived in San Lorenzo during it’s yearly fiesta for its patron saint. Thus, we were treated to all the festivities, including jaripeo (bull riding), a religious procession and a crazy dance party where men and women danced with pyrotechnic paper mache bulls on top of their heads that showered sparks on the crowd. We were especially captivated by the rodeo, as was the rest of the town. The corral was surrounded by little abuelitas in their traditional rebozos (shawls), young men showing off with giant glistening belt buckles and ten-gallon hats, and babies with ice cream smeared over their faces. Most of the riders were thrown off in a few seconds, but some managed to cling on, and strutted off proudly while everyone cheered.

Apart from the fiesta, we spent a lot of time with the family. Josue drove us in the back of his truck to see the family’s land, where they had corn, cows and chickens. As we walked along the dry river bed, he told us about how he had worked in the U.S. for five years, only to find that his wife had left him and their daughter upon his return. His father had also been working in the U.S., but came back when his finger was severed in a carpentry shop. He had returned to the U.S. not long before our arrival, to try to have surgery on his finger and collect some workman’s comp. As we’ve studied, employers of migrants in the U.S. often put production and speed over the health and safety of their workers, who have few rights or ways to speak out. Elba, though strong, talkative and funny, also clearly showed the pain migration has caused her family. With tears in her eyes, she told us that the American Dream helps families, but it also destroys them. Josue says if he gets the visa he’s applying for, he’ll return to the
U.S. as well.

But the weekend wasn’t about seeing people as victims. We also got to see some amazing forms of resistance. We met with a group called FIOB, that organizes and support indigenous people both in Mexico and the U.S., and got to see some of the projects they’ve started in the local communities. Elba was a member of a chocolate cooperative started by FIOB, and we got to see (and taste!) their labor. It’s great to see such empowering projects, which are possible alternatives to migration, but also hard to hear that although they were producing the chocolate, they had yet to find a market for it. Anyone want to buy delicious, traditional Oaxacan chocolate that supports a good cause? We also saw a project that had just started, growing mushrooms inside people’s houses in plastic garbage bags.

But I think what we all will treasure most about our stay was Quetzalli. Despite losing her mom and possibly her dad in the future, she was the happiest little two-year old we’d ever seen. She played with all of us, especially Riley, who she fell in love with. I guess it’s our responsibility to help make a world for her where families can stay together, everyone has enough to eat and the masses are clamoring for her grandmother’s chocolate.

Vivian's update from Oaxaca

Hello again, it’s Vivian. Following a long bus ride from San Cristobal, we’re now in Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca. Another place, of the few, where I’ve spent a significant amount of time. Once again I find myself reexamining my experience in spaces I’ve been in oh so many times within the past 8 years. My family frequently returns to Oaxaca because of an apartment that we own here. Next to Mexico City, it is the place I visit most. But because my family only owns an apartment here, and we have no family or roots here, my experience has been a very surface one. I’m pretty much a tourist who just happens to know the streets a bit better. For example, in 2006 during the uprising and formation of the Popular Assembly of Oaxacan Pueblos, or APPO, my family decided not to come back for a visit out of fear. Now being back here studying the situation directly,my experiences here make so much more sense, but also make the streets feel alive.

Since we’ve been here, we’ve met with several organizations that have helped me to understand what I saw leading up to the uprising and immediately after it occurred. On Wednesday we met with EDUCA, short for Alternative Education. This organization was formed following the signing and implementation of NAFTA in 1994. Their focuses include civilian participation in politics, know your rights campaigns, promoting community development and alternative economics. Within Oaxaca there are 570 municipios, similar to counties, most of which follow the community politics of Usos y Costumbres. Within each municipio, each pueblo follows four main `rules` in community politics and function, these include cooperative work, local assembly power, a system of cargos, or specific jobs, and fiesta. EDUCA helped to make our group recognize how these traditional political and social structures of pueblos within Mexico have been changed drastically by migration to the US. Miguel Angel Vasquez de la Rosa of EDUCA brought several interesting points to our attention involving migration. He described to us the Vicente Fox plan of La Enchilada Completa for Mexican workers within the US. This included a plan to regularize the status of workers in the US, create more jobs within Mexico, and decriminalize the Mexican presence within the US. Unfortunately this plan was never realized due to the climate of fear that followed 9-11.

Jumping themes completely, Miguel made an interesting point about mental decolonization within Mexico. Mexico continues to be a very racist and classist society long after the reign of New Spain. This was one theme that carried onto our next meeting with Comite 25 de Noviembre. There our speaker spoke about indigenous struggle to be recognized as valid communities functioning much differently within the nation-state of Mexico. I had not realized before how Eurocentric even Mexican politics as often they’ve completely disregarded indigenous ways of life. While it is impossible to generalize this to all situations, it helped me to understand the incongruity of indigenous movements within the preexisting political and economic structures imposed by the Mexican government.

In other news, I’m very excited to go home in a few days. I have been to both Mexico City and Oaxaca twice without going home to Chicago once. I know that going back home to be with my family after being in spaces we normally share will help to further put this whole trip experience into perspective... at least I hope so. ‘Til next time!

Update on the campo by Callie

Welcome back to our blog! I forgot to introduce myself the last time I wrote about our time in Tapachula. I’m Callie Thompson, a Peace and Global Studies major at Earlham College. I’m from Louisville, Kentucky and unlike the rest of the group, this travel seminar marks my first experience in Mexico! Tomorrow we are off to another campo experience, this time to San Lorenzo Victoria, Oaxaca, which we have been told will be very different from our previous campo experience in San Caralampio. Last week, Riley wrote an entry about San Caralampio and the struggles it has faced as a community in light of NAFTA and after years of losing more and more of its sons and daughters to migration. Before we leave for our next campo experience, I’d like to reflect some more on our time in San Caralampio and introduce you to some of the amazing families we met.

When we arrived to San Caralampio, we were greeted by several of our host family members. The houses we stayed in for those two days were made of different materials depending on whether the family had children in the US sending home remittances or not. Don Flavio, for example, receives no remittances. In his home, sheets instead of solid walls section off rooms. Doña Julia and Don Candido, however, have two sons in the states and, therefore, have been able to afford two brick additions to their home among other purchases, such as a tractor.

One afternoon, Don Candido sat with us on the porch and pointed at all of the things that his sons’ remittances bought. Then he described the day his first son left for the States. He said it was too painful to watch him leave so instead, he grabbed his hat and went to his cornfields to escape. He hasn’t seen that son for ten years, his other for seven, and now his youngest is thinking of migrating for the second time. As the border becomes harder to cross, migrants end up staying in the US for good, fearing that leaving to visit home will mean they may never be able to successfully cross again.

Despite the holes left by those who have had to leave to support their aging parents and young children, the community remains strong in its resistance to selling its ejidos (communally owned land). Although the majority of crop profits are swept up by big businesses, the campesinos continue harvesting, though unsure of whether their corn will sell that year or not. They have continued raising cattle and selling even when the market prices are down. They are even trying to create their own organic fertilizer to replace the expensive ones that they were manipulated into using back in the 80s, which made their land chemical-dependent. These forms of resistance were inspiring to us. Overall, we were blown away by the strength and work ethic of the community members.

Miriam's reflections on the group's emotional visit to Acteal

On our second day in San Cristóbal, we visited the massacre site, Acteal. Acteal is a small Tsotsil indigenous village that is a few hours outside of San Cristóbal. On December 22, 1997, 45 indigenous men, women, and children were brutally killed by paramilitary groups in their small village. The massacre became an internationally known tragedy. Acteal is the base for the social movement of the Abejas (The Bees). The Abejas are an indigenous group who lobbies for basic human rights for the indigenous people of Chiapas. Much like the Zapatistas, they believe that the land that they live on belongs to them and not the government or private companies and that healthcare, education, and food are not luxuries but basic human rights of which are not being fulfilled. As a political group, The Abejas are aligned with the causes and the work of The Zapatistas but remain a separate entity because they do not believe in taking up arms. They declare themselves to be a pacifist, peaceful, and faith based organization. Their name itself comes from the idea that bees are animals that organize but still have a queen. They say that their queen is god.

As you drive down the twisty roads through the Chiapas mountains, Acteal is marked by a sculpture named the pillar of shame, which was created by a Danish artist. As a memorial to those killed in the massacre, casts of faces and bodies of different ages tower on top of each other, making a clear mark on the landscape. Next to it, a large banner reads, ¨Montes Azules: No se vende nuestra tierra, agua, biodiversidad, el petroleo, son nuestros! (Don’t sell our land, water, biodiversity, petroleum, they’re ours!). Immediately you feel that you are standing in a place that has been through incredible struggle.

We had the incredible privilege to meet with some of the leaders of the Abejas. We sat in their headquarters, which is a small wooden room that is covered with posters about peace and in memorial of the men and women and children who were brutally killed just twelve years ago. They recounted the story of the massacre for us despite it clearly being a painful experience for them. Paramilitary soldiers attacked the small town of about 200 people one morning in December while many were gathered in the church praying. When the gunshots were heard, many tried to escape into the mountains and hide behind banana trees. Until sunset that evening, soldiers continued the attack with what they described to us as a rainfall of bullets. Because the surrounding area is scattered with Zapatista autonomous villages, there are many Mexican military bases close by. Despite this, no help came to Acteal for hours.

It was very clear that this massacre, this slaughter of 45 men, women, four of whom were pregnant, and children, was not an accident. Most believe that the government targeted Acteal in an effort to crush the Zapatista movement, with the understanding that Acteal was the headquarters of the Abejas movement. This was regardless of the fact that the Abejas has always been, and declared themselves as, a peaceful group. The government has taken no responsibility for the massacre and very few who took part in the planning and execution of the attack have been brought to justice.

It is incredibly important to note the United State’s role in this event. The massacre implemented low intensity warfare tactics learned at the School of the Americas, and in addition, the US has poured countless tax dollars into training and equipping the Mexican military. Some of the Abejas leaders brought us to the old church where their people were praying when the attack begin, the bullet holes in the wooden walls remain there. The community has since built a new, cement church. A large mural of the face of Jesus sits on the facade. The crosses, photographs, and plaques that are placed throughout Acteal and serve as a memorial to the lost loved ones cannot be ignored. Because Acteal is so small and so insular, during our meeting with the Abejas and our walk through Acteal you could feel the scar and pain from the massacre even though it’s been twelve years since the atrocity. In our meeting, The Abejas told us that despite their pain and struggle, they continue to work for peace and the rights of their people. It was incredible to see this sadness and oppression be transformed into such a forceful energy and strength to do good and to continue to work for peace.

The group arrives in San Cristóbal de las Casas

We arrived from the Campo to San Cristóbal this past Tuesday, and since then we have had an exhausting but fascinating week meeting with different organizations, exploring the city, and getting sick. Our first day we got up early to meet with an organization called the Center for Economic and Political Research and Community Action (CIEPAC). We sat spellbound for three hours as Miguel Pickard explained the role of his organization in carrying out research on how economic policies and projects in Chiapas impact local communities. He had an incredible way of tying together much of what we’ve been learning about migration, the drug wars, US economic policy and militarization, and we all left having had numerous ‘light bulb’ moments as pieces fell into place in our minds.
That afternoon, in preparation for the next day’s trip to Acteal, we met with a group (The Human Rights Center Fray Bartolome de las Casas), which carries out research and provides legal support on many human rights abuse cases committed against citizens by the Mexican police, military and paramilitary groups. Through the discussion we learned about the tragedy that occurred in Acteal in 1997 where paramilitaries massacred 45 people (mostly women and children), and, to this day, the community still awaits justice to come to the perpetrators of the massacre. Within the tragedy we must acknowledge the role the United States played, as many of the tactics the paramilitaries were using were acquired at military schools in the US such as School of the Americas. Given the amount of US military aid pouring into Mexico at the time, it would not be surprising if the arms used in the massacre were paid for with US taxpayer money. Military aid is still on its way to Mexico in the Security and Prosperity Plan of North America, proposed by President Bush, allowing for the likelihood of more atrocities, like Acteal, to be carried out in the future.
Although we spent the afternoon learning about Acteal, it did nothing to prepare us for the emotions we would feel upon arriving to the site. The Pillar of Shame, a totem of human misery to commiserate December of 1997, greeted us as we unloaded from the van. Walking through a massacre site that had taken place within our lifetime was so strange and overwhelming. I kept thinking back to this penny activity we’d done on the first day of Heather’s class in which we’d been handed a penny and had to say what had happened to us in the year the penny was made. What had that coppery 1997 meant to me? To the community I was walking through?
It was so empowering to meet with the Abejas to see how, in the face of such a tragedy, the community had fought back (non-violently) and had continued its resistance by declaring itself an autonomous community and by not receiving government aid.