Week 6: Películas

By Ruth Schultz

A partially-destroyed mural in the Casino de la Selva

This past week I watched two inspiring films about struggles for economic and social justice. The first film, “El casino de la selva: La defensa del patrimonio,” was actually shown in our Spanish class. The Casino de la Selva was an old casino in the 1920’s, turned into a hotel in the 50’s, and was a symbol of Cuernavaca. The hotel’s walls were covered in murals by some of the most famous Mexican muralists, including David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Reyes Meza. Unfortunately, the Casino went bankrupt and the government ended up buying the property for $63 million. In 2001, municipal president Sergio Estrada Cajigal sold the land to Costco for $10 million, a give-away considering its original price. With no care for the murals inside or the old trees outside, Costco began to clear the land.

A group of citizens under the name of Frente Civco Pro Defensa del Casino de la Selva began to organize to ask the government and Costco to stop building over an important Mexican historical site. In fact, an activist in the movie powerfully proclaimed, “They are slowly building over all of our cultural symbols and cutting down all our trees, so eventually there will be nothing to fight for anymore.”[1] While bulldozers destroyed the building, ancient Olmec pottery was also found at the site, but the government official stated that the artifacts were not of enough value, and the building process should continue. The Frente Civco kept protesting, and during a camp-out near the building site on August 21st, 2002, police came and pushed them all out, beating people and arresting 33 activists in the process. This struggle garnered a lot of attention, but in the end the Costco was built on the site. Now, there is a museum in the Costco with a few pieces of the old murals, which would have surely been destroyed if citizens did nothing.

This example of neo-liberal growth was both a blow to Mexican cultural roots and to the small store owners around the area. Sadly, this same kind of disregard of the local community and culture still goes on. As one of the activists said, “We welcome progress, but not at the cost of our culture, history, or environment.”

Saturday was International Women’s Day and I went to the movie “La Sal de la Tierra”[2] and a talk afterwards to commemorate the day. The movie was about a miner’s union strike in New Mexico, in which many of the workers were Mexican-Americans and they demanded equal conditions and pay with their US counterparts. The labor movement and economic justice was a big part of the movie, but so were gender roles. The wives of the miners wanted to help with the strike, but many miners didn’t think it was a woman’s place to be on the picket line or pushing scabs back where they came from. Once the company put out an order that it was illegal for the miners to be in the picket line the women voted to take up the signs. The men had to take care of the kids, do the laundry, and make food, and they were not very happy. The women’s actions were pivotal in winning the strike, but as the main character said at the end of the movie: they won more than just the strike, but through the process they won a new sense of gender equality.

Women's picket line on the big screen

[1] Gleason, Pablo, dir. (2002). El casino de la selva: La defensa del patrimonio.
[2] Biberman, Herbert J, dir. (1954). “La Sal de la Tierra.”

Week 5: A Little Taste of Country

The entire SJGELA group and Social Work group after a reforestation talk

By Cassie Frantz

Have you ever wanted to escape the world of cell phones, internet, television, traffic, fast food, and your usual responsibilities? Maybe you could just retreat to some remote village up in the mountains of México. A small, rural town located in the northern part of the state of Morelos offers more personality and hospitality than a big city or a tourist town. Even though it lacks what we call “comforts,” it offers a different form of comfort discovered through our week-long home stay. As we were paired off in groups of two, we went to our assigned houses and embarked on a week-long mission to learn about different aspects of rural life and embrace everything that this town in Morelos has to offer.

We traveled as a group to many different places in and around the town to learn such things as how to run a greenhouse, the positive and negative aspects of satellite-television middle school, the process of garbage collection, how government funded programs impact the poor and elderly, the effect of immigration on the families left behind in Mexico, developmental programs to help young people, the impact of a group of politically active women, and so much more.

One of the most interesting trips of the week included a visit to the local Telesecundaria, a middle school that uses educational television programs to educate the 28 students in attendance. One of the three teachers, Lic. Carlos Ramon Rigueroa Carbajal, serves as both the 9th grade teacher and principal of the school. Along with being both the secretary and the principal of the school, he frequently attends meetings for the school, so often that, “For the six months I’ve been here, it feels like I’ve only been here a month.(1)" With only two other teachers to help him manage the school, he said he feels like he’s “been dropped here with no help (2).” He even mentioned to us that he plans on leaving very shortly in search of a private school. According to his informative lecture, children perform better at private schools and have a better chance of continuing school and maybe even attending college. At these small, public telesecundaria schools that span across the Mexican countryside, many students graduate without being able to read well and no desire to further their education. The grim reality of these “educational” schools made an impression on all of us as we toured the school.

Our instructor, Lisanne, both a resident of the town and program staff member, debriefs with students after a tour of the Telesecundaria.

Even though we had educational trips during the day, mornings and nights left ample time to discuss issues with our host family over freshly-squeezed orange juice, homemade tortillas, and atole (warm milk, cinnamon, sugar, and tortilla dough). The physical and mental strength of these hard-working families made an impact on all of us and taught us to appreciate what we have been given, especially our families. Hopefully we can take this experience and practice the same manner of genuine care and hospitality in both our time here in México and in the United States.

The view from the roof of a host family’s house displaying the magnificent mountains that encompass the small town where we spent our week.

1, 2 Ramon Figueroa, Lic Carlos. Lecture. Lecture on the Telesecundaria. Morelos, Mexico. 26 Feb. 2008.

Weeks 3 and 4: Learning about maquiladoras and a visitor from Guerrero

By Matt Kraft

A visit at a maquiladora outside our city of Cuernavaca

These last two weeks have definitely been a learning experience. One of the first things that we did was go to a maquiladora, which is basically a factory where they mass produce products as quickly and efficiently as possible. We were lucky enough to see the inner working of this maquiladora thanks to a community organizer, Juana de los Angeles Garcia Marenco. She had been helping the workers with such things as nutrition. We learned a lot about the daily life of a maquiladora worker as well. This maquiladora specifically made swimsuits that would be sent of to the US for the 2009 swimsuit season. The pay was competitive for the maquiladora business. The human resource manager told us that the workers get about 820 pesos per week. 420 pesos is the base and all the rest is made on the efficiency and quality of the swimsuits made that week. The workers also get benefits like daycare and social security. Nevertheless, they are only making about $80 dollars a week. The crazy thing about that is the workers could never fathom buying one of the swimsuits that they spend all day making. First off, none of the products they make can stay in Mexico, not even the extra fabric stays. It is all sent back to the States. Secondly, it would take a week’s wages or more to buy the swimsuit. We, in the US, are the ones that reap the benefits of their low labor wages. These are the same swimsuits we see in Walmart, Sears, and JC Penny for those great prices we all love. In the end, the whole maquiladora experience was very enlightening.

Just a couple of days ago, we heard from a woman, Nadia Alvarado, who works on anthropological studies of African influence in the state of Guerrero. She herself has African blood and it was very interesting to hear about how that has affected her and others. The presence of African slaves is somewhat of a taboo subject. Many believe that they just blended into the rest of the population, but in fact there are places like la Costa Chica where the African blood and culture is still very prevalent. The tough thing for Nadia is that there is not much in the way of African Studies for this region.

I found it incredibly interesting that racism there in Guerrero is very similar to what’s in the United States. These black features can be the source of ridicule from others or even from your own family. The racism has been internalized to the point where families are critical of its own members. Nadia, being the lighter of her siblings, said that people would make hurtful comments and also treat her in a better manner than her sister. You can see how this would tear at a family’s fabric. I am already very excited to head there and learn more about the subject after our spring break.