Traveling with SJGELA....

Week 14: And the Countdown Begins....

2008-05-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

By Leanna Millan

With our time in Mexico quickly coming to an end, SJGELA took time this week to start thinking about the bigger picture – what each of us would like to see for the world after everything we have learned and experienced this semester. As you can see in the picture, the exercise was presented as a puzzle with each of our hopes making up one of the pieces. One of us would like to see the reduction of poverty, one of us would like to see water become a basic human right, one of us would like to see the reduction of waste and the list goes on with the end result being this beautiful array of hopes for the world. The puzzle became a beautiful representation of each of us doing our part to better the world, proving that its only in working together, in each of us doing our a little bit, that the world becomes the place that we all hope to see.

But with endings not only must we look to the future, to our actions upon our return to the United States, but we must also, unfortunately, look back. After four weeks of being taken-in, fed, taught, etcetera we had to, at last, say good-bye to our home-stay families. In a three hour ‘despedida’ [a good-bye], each student and family member had the opportunity to express their experience in one of three named groups: Learning, Support, and Joys. The groups could either write a song or make up skits and much to all of our joys, each artistic piece hilariously yet truthfully reflected the experiences of the group as a whole. It was a sad to see such a challenging and wonderful experience come to an end but we were all happy, families included, to have had each other in one another’s lives even if it was for such a short time.

Our time together as SJGELA and Social Work students, as marked by the end of home-stays, is rapidly coming to an end and with that we are doing our best to take every minute in, to make every moment count. Much like we did with each of our families, we have created a family with one another and much like the ‘despidida’ we hate that it is ending but love that we have had each other for this long. But, hey, the end is not here yet….

Week 13: Looking through the Camera

2008-05-05T11:03:00.001-07:00

SJGELA students had the opportunity to visit public television and radio channel, Canal 3, right in our own city of Cuernavaca.

By Leanna Millan

This week SJGELA students had the opportunity to focus more intently on the affects and power of Mexico’s mass media. It has been a topic touched on throughout our semester with several of the groups that we have met commenting on their lack of visibility in government controlled media outlets but it was only this week that we had the opportunity to personally meet with ‘Canal 3’, a non-governmental television and radio station. After hearing all semester about the governments control on published points of view, current events, public opinion, etc. it was refreshing to finally hear from a media source whose end goal was to give space to those voices that have been silenced.

Ivonne Velasco, Assistant Director of ‘Canal 3,’ took time out of her busy schedule to not only provide us with technical explanations of the different studios but more importantly with personal testimony. It was in that, in her personal experiences and the experiences of other journalists that we gained the most – gained useful knowledge of the extent to which the Mexican government has been guilty of censuring its people. An interesting fact: Mexico has recently topped the list of one of the most dangerous countries for journalists to work.

This visit coupled with an analysis of historical Mexican movies in this one week allowed us to fully understand the impact of media on not only public opinion of social movements and communities but also gender roles and relations. Los medios de communincacion [mass media/media sources] so intrinsically continue the cycle of discrimination that it is hard to see or even analyze without the extra push from our professors and visits.

Week 12: Leaders in the Mexican Feminist Movement

2008-04-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

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

Week 6: Películas

2008-03-12T15:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

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

2008-03-03T07:31:00.001-08:00

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.

Our first two weeks....

2008-02-13T09:03:00.000-08:00

By Kelsey Cole

We toured the archeological site of Xochicalco where we saw beautiful hieroglyphs, an observatory, and a temple for the water god, Tlaloc.

Where to begin? The first two weeks of the SJGELA program have been infused with guest speakers, fieldtrips, classes, cultural adjustment, and social interaction.

During our first week, we went to hear the director of Caminamos Juntos (We Walk Together)[1] speak about her organization’s involvement in rural women’s empowerment. Working in a nearby community called Tlamacazapa, this community worker has spent eleven years with the members of the community, particularly the women. Susan was probably one of the most humble, genuine, and passionate people I’ve met. She explained to us the importance of community work but warned us not to assume that we have all the answers for a group of people different from ourselves (in history and culture), especially if we have only been in an area for a few years. For instance, her small group of community workers was able to connect the sickness and the illness of the people to their contaminated water supply. But they couldn’t just evaluate the problem and come to a solution in a U.S. cultural mindset; they couldn’t just tell the women to boil the water every day when that would have required more firewood, more water, and more time. The social workers needed to evaluate all the interconnected problems of the town as a whole: abuse of women, drunkenness, culture of verbal silence, lack of education, history of native persecution, malnutrition, the death of children, etc. When they identified all these problems, they realized that the women needed a sense of self-worth in order to break out of their cycle of silence and reclaim their lives. It’s amazing to realize the empowerment that this group has kindled within these women so that they may have the courage to solve their own problems with minimal help from outside sources. In an article that we read that presents the negative effects of social work, I believe that Caminamos Juntos is representative of the positive effects of social work because of two things: it recognized the need for a long length of stay and had the right goal of uplifting the people so that they may continue to take care of their problems long after the organization leaves.

This weekend, we visited Tlamacazapa where we participated in the daily lives of the women there. Kylie Otte carrying water down from the well situated in the mountains.

On our way to Tlamacazapa in the mountains, we saw this corn being grown amongst the rocks due to lack of fertile soil.

A few days later, we went to a nearby indigenous community and met with a community leader who is also the area’s veterinarian and spiritual leader. He explained to us the history, beliefs and morals of the Nahua tribe with particular emphasis on the themes of duality and balance within the religion of the tribe. He then explained to us the effects of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) upon the indigenous farmers including the recent elimination of inalienable rights over communal lands which have been a source of agriculture and religious importance to the pueblos. We then hiked to a spiritual site located on the foothills of a nearby mountain and participate in a spiritual ceremony.

It was just so amazing to be there, in the open, with cave paintings dating from 2,000-10,000 years old, in an area that has been used by a people for centuries as a religious site.

Afterwards, we asked questions and he talked more about the religion. He explained to us that the land is losing respect from us yet, if it disappears, we have no other home. When asked what we should do to help, he told us take our knowledge and our experiences back to our friends, our family, our fellow students, and everyone we know. Then, we should always be active in our communities and with our social movements.

It’s hard to sum up these two people in words where words fail to encompass the beauty, the passion, the calmness, the sincerity of them. One, coming from another country seeking to help people and then realizing that what the people really need is empowerment and the satisfaction of self-achievement; the other, coming from an ancient past seeking to protect his people from the lies and deception of neo-liberal economics. Both wishing to enrich their own and others lives so that life may be that much more livable for those they encounter.

[1] http://www.caminamosjuntos.org/