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.