Week 12: Leaders in the Mexican Feminist Movement

By Shannyn Piper

Students listening intently to speakers-- this week and throughout our semester

This past week, CGE Mexico, Spring 2008 spoke with leaders in the Mexico feminist movement. We began the week by speaking with anthropologist Dr. R. Aida Hernandez Castillo about social movements, religion and women. In addition, we made a visit to the organization Communication and Exchange for Human Development in Latin America, CIDHAL, a women’s center dedicated to gender equity and human rights. To give a little slice of what happened during this week, I’d like to provide the reader with a special comment from each:

Dr. R. Aida Hernandez Castillo’s talk really touched me in that she explained her academic and her organizational work as a personal and academic transformation. She explained that she used to reject the traditional form of feminism, thinking it a privileged, American ideal that should not be imported to Mexico. She explained that she disliked how much of the feminist theory at that time was from the US, and she considered it irrelevant for not accounting for power structures in anthropologic works. Earlier in her career, Hernandez Castillo studied mostly class and poverty structures in Latin America. However, through various personal and professional experiences, this perception changed. She realized one cannot accurately grasp the full picture of class and poverty without considering the intersectionality of class, economics, religion, gender, race, etc. (Dr. R. Aida Hernandez Castillo, Center for Global Education Presentation, March 15, 2008). It struck me beautiful the way she has evaluated how her personal and professional experiences are intertwined. I feel that often times in the US we falsely compartmentalize the different sectors of our lives, when really everything we do at any moment in time profoundly affects us and consequentially everything else that we do. I think it is excellent that the group had the opportunity to see such a whole person in her “public” and “private” lives.

At CIDHAL, Flor Dessire Leon Hernandez spoke with us about the basic history, definition, and theories of feminism in Latin America. She gave us CIDHAL’s definitions of feminism, patriarchy, and equality and also provided us with CIDHAL’s operating philosophies. I greatly appreciated this information, as it provides me with a great basis to understand not just what the group does, but why they do what they do. For example, CIDHAL provides basic health services to women and men at free or reduced costs at their facilities. Many organizations provide such a service, but CIDHAL does it because, as Leon Hernandez explained, CIDHAL sees the body as the instrument for change. If one does not respect the body and keep it healthy, then the ability to end oppressive power structures is inherently week. As a side note, I found it impressive that CIDHAL boasts one of the largest libraries on female health, feminism, and gender issues in Latin America. She commented that scholars from the UNAM even come to their facilities to study. They put a high priority on available information for the education and personal improvement of individuals so that he or she may also go out and work on gender equality and human rights in home communities. (Flor Dessire Leon Hernandez, public presentation, April 18, 2008)

I am thoroughly excited that I had the opportunity to experience these amazing speakers this week. We are only improved by the knowledge that they bring.

Week 11: Home Sweet Home

By Cassie Frantz

Along with the Social Work Program, the SJGELA program has been in constant transition for the last month. This week, we continued the pattern of transition by embarking on our first week of homestays in Cuernavaca. Every student in the program was assigned a “home,” with each home being vastly different from the others. This new placement is accompanied by a schedule that includes two full days of classes, and three other days of internships or independent studies. Even though our schedules changed focus, we had the opportunity to hear two presentations that related to our Mexican History class, as well as issues we have been discussing in our program.

Our first presentation was from Lucía Rayas, a specialist in gender analysis of the women who fought in the Guerrilla Movement in El Salvador. In the early 1990’s, revolutions broke out across Latin America against governmental oppression. The FMLN was one of these Guerrilla groups fighting for equality. Throughout the presentation, we learned of the role of women in this movement, both as collaborates and as combatants. As women joined the Guerrilla Movement, their roles as women in society changed, implying the “breaking away from the gendered social order. 1” It was fascinating learning about the implications and effects of women serving in this revolutionary social movement.

The logo of the FMLN party (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front).

The second presentation took place in Xoxocotla, a small town just south of Cuernavaca. On a cool Friday morning while sitting in the living room in the house of Armando Soriano, we learned about the ongoing battle between the government and the indigenous people over water rights.
Similar to the surrounding towns, the government plans on building residential housing and condominiums in this small community. As a result, the water supply in Xoxocotla would be re-routed to aid these new developing projects. The majority of the people in the community will be unjustly robbed of their water—a.k.a., their life source, and left with nothing. Wait, that is incorrect. They will be left with something; Sr. Soriano said they would be left with sewage from the condominiums. That´s something, right?
This injustice is one of the causes Sr. Soriano and many other supporters are fighting for to save their community. Sr. Soriano uses the argument that, “the water belongs to the indigenous people because we were the first ones here. 2” The government fights back saying, “the water belongs to the nation, and the government is part of that nation. 3” This power struggle between indigenous people and the Mexican government is an unfortunate conflict, yet so prevalent here in Mexico.

Ruth and Matt diligently taking notes as Armando Soriano explained the water problems in the town of Xoxocotla.

Week 10: Learning about Gender and Sexuality with students from the UNAM

CEMAL students and staff with the guests from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City

By Kelsey Cole

This week we had a wonderful visit from several social work students from UNAM, Latin America’s most prestigious school which is located in Mexico City. Throughout the week, we shared many insightful conversations surrounding the interconnectedness of social and political issues but the theme of the week was gender and sexuality—a topic not often covered by their school and not often discussed in Mexico.

For me, the most striking presentation of the week was the Gender and Sexuality panel on Tuesday. This diverse group was composed of two homosexuals and two people who defied the confines of typical gender roles and they each shared their life experiences and the difficulties they faced within their culture. The first speaker expressed his difficult childhood having been abandoned by his biological father and having grown up with an alcoholic step-father who beat his mother. When his mother died at the age of nine, he found work in household care. Later on, he married and has since been very happy and wishes to raise his children in a family filled with love and acceptance of difference.

The other speakers were absolutely phenomenal as well. When asked how they would react to a child’s sexual preference that was different than heterosexual, one responded that he believes that children need to have the love of their parents “because they will be encouraged to progress in society” with it. Another question asked where the LGBT movement should progress or change from this point and another speaker responded that LGBT people should search for respect and acceptance. In addition, families need to orient themselves to accept all differences and have them channel their curiosities to questions. But, in the end, she stated, we should be more worried about the negatives of neoliberalism than oppressing a group of people. My other favorite part was when she ended her viewpoint by commenting that “our mission in life is to love” and to “hook-up” essentially—that life is about interacting and why can’t we make that a healthy interaction amongst all people?

Week 9: Resistance and Identity in the Costa Chica

A mural of resistance in the village of Agua Calientes against the building of a dam (La Parota) that would destroy local communities

By Shannyn Piper

This past week, SJGELA went on its week long travel seminar to the Costa Chica region in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. During this week we stayed in Acapulco and the pueblo of Cuajinicuilapa. The theme of the trip, as I saw it, was resistance and identity. To explore these topics we looked at the cultural experiences and struggles of Afro-Mexican and Indigenous populations in the area through dialogue, exhibits, and even dance. We also explored the issue of the environment in connection to local culture by speaking with biologists working to preserve sea turtles that nest on the shores of Guerrero. Even though I had the opportunity to participate in these amazing experiences, I think the experience that will forever stay with me because of its strong impact is when we visited a bilingual school in Acapulco.

On our first night, we visited the bilingual school called Emperador Cuauhtemoc in the neighborhood called La Chinameca in Acapulco. The school teaches primary level education (kindergarten through sixth grade) in both Spanish and Mixteco, the native language of many people in that neighborhood. 99% of the students that attend the school speak Mixteco as their primary language. The mere existence of the school greatly encompassed the two themes of the trip. According to the school instructor who spoke with us, the school began not out of government mandate, but out of necessity. Many people began migrating from the countryside years ago from Mixteco speaking villages. It became a problem when children who spoke Mixteco entered schools where only Spanish was spoken and those often discouraged and shamed children into not speaking Mixteco.

One may not at first think that this is such a horrible thing, being that Spanish is the official language of discourse in Mexico. They can just speak their own language at home, right? This could not be farther from the truth. What I’ve learned in the past couple of months being in Mexico is the role that language has in preserving one’s culture and through that, one’s group identity. The instructor explained that before the existence of the school, youth often chose not to speak the language out of embarrassment and fear of ridicule, and so the language was in danger of being lost. With the loss of language comes the loss of part of worldview and a loss in the ability to truly express oneself. Some expressions and concepts simply cannot be translated. As the instructor said, “Just because children are not in purely indigenous community, in the city, does not mean that they have to lose their culture.


The individuals of this community had to fight to preserve their community. It took five to six years to find teachers for the schools, which finally had 2 teachers by 1998. After constant fighting with the municipal government, the school was able to get Mixteco books and one year ago, gained an inhabitable school building. This community resisted the cultural assimilation encouraged by the wider culture and got their deserved resources from the government. I cannot say how it filled me with happiness when the instructor said that the children, for the most part, will speak with someone in whatever language they are approached, without shame or consequence. CEMAL definitely did its job in providing an experiential learning experience that I could not have gotten in a classroom or through readings. This seminar was invaluable.

SJGELA students released baby Leatherback Sea turtles after an initial talk with biologists

An exhibit at the Museo de Cultura Afromestiza de Vicente Guerrero