U.S. Policy and the Vulnerability of Migrants in Mexico

Similar version cross-posted to the Casa Colectivo blog: http://www.casacollective.org/story/issue-66-december-2008/the-impact-united-states-actions-and-policy-vulnerability-migrants-sout

During my time living on the southern border of Mexico, I have met many conscientious local people who harbor a deep concern for the situation of Central American and other migrants who travel across the length of Mexico, headed towards the United States. These individuals talk about the extortion and abuse of migrants that are common practice among gangs, immigration officials, and local police. They are pointedly critical of the corruption among Mexican officials that deal with migrants as well as the actions (and inaction, in many cases) of the Mexican government with regards to the situation of migrants. They point out that, although it’s difficult to cross the northern border with the United States, with gangs running rampant, intimidation and abuse by the Border Patrol, and the high environmental risks of the desert, at least when you get past the border you are relatively free to live your life without fear of being pursued by immigration officials or local police (however, I do think it’s necessary to note that this situation has been changing in the U.S. with increased raids and local-level immigration enforcement efforts). The largest dangers, these Mexican friends say, lie in Mexico –where immigration agents pursue migrants throughout the entire territory of the country, forcing them to hide during the entire trip, thereby increasing their vulnerability to the slew of dangers they face along the way.

While it is important to challenge the Mexican government and authorities in these aspects of their actions (and inactions) towards migrants in the country’s territory, it is also important that the U.S. not be “let off the hook.” A closer look at the roots of Mexican immigration policies and diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Mexico reveals that the U.S. has actually played a notable role in contributing to the severity of the situation for undocumented migrants that we see in Mexico today. As a U.S. citizen with a potential voice in changing the actions of my country, I have been particularly interested in researching and understanding this role. In general, I’ve found that the manifestations of the influence fall into four main categories. These are: (1) pressure by the United States on the Mexican government to increase enforcement, (2) direct funding and support of immigration enforcement programs, (3) funding from the United States for Mexican law enforcement, military, and intelligence and (4) the ripple effect of restrictive U.S. national immigration policy. After providing a brief introduction to the recent history of immigration enforcement in Mexico, I take up each of these four categories in turn. I then provide recommendations of demands that can be made of the U.S. government in order to decrease the vulnerability of migrants who transit across Mexico.

In recent years, Mexico has experienced a significant build-up in its immigration enforcement, particularly along its southern border. Up until the 1990s, control in the southern border region of Mexico was lax. In fact, in the 1980s, the Mexican government purposely chose not to strongly enforce the southern border in order to facilitate the continuance of the long history of cross-border economy and family ties (Castillo 2006, 4). Nevertheless, in the 1990s, additional control operations and mechanisms, such as highway checkpoints, were implemented (Castillo 2006, 5). Then, in July 2001, came the major ramping up of southern border enforcement – Vicente Fox’s Plan Sur. Hundreds of new agents were deployed, additional road blocks and control stations were created, strategic “belts” of enforcement were established, and an increased involvement of the military in interdiction efforts was laid out (Flynn, 4). Along with increased enforcement, a steady increase in the number of deportations performed by the Mexican immigration authorities can be seen from 2002 through 2005. (Martínez, 11). In 2004, Mexican immigration authorities deported 204,113 people from Central America, approximately 50% of the estimated number of people who attempted to cross undocumented that same year (Martínez, 5). This increased enforcement has important implications for the well-being of migrants. As was mentioned above and can be seen in other historical examples such as Operation Gatekeeper in the U.S., increased immigration and border enforcement has been linked with increased human rights abuses and risks for migrants.

Although Mexican authorities generally claim that their border enforcement changes have been implemented for the country’s own interests (Revelli, 3), there are a number of factors that signal a strong influence of the United States government in the policies (and on the resulting conditions faced by migrants in Mexican territory). One way this influence has been exerted is through diplomatic pressure on the part of United States. Before the implementation of Plan Sur, the U.S. and Mexican governments had been in talks about the migration situation. During these talks, the U.S. consistently showed its interest in enforcing its border and decreasing the number of undocumented immigrants entering the country. Many experts see Fox’s Plan Sur as a diplomatic effort to sway the United States government into regularizing the status of undocumented Mexican workers in the country (Revelli, 2).

Another example of the U.S. government’s exertion of diplomatic pressure for increased migration control is the Puebla Process. This term refers to the actions initiated by the annual Regional Conference on Migration (RCM) begun in 1996. This conference of Central and North American countries began meeting to provide a forum for discussing coordinated responses to migration in the regions. While initially convened with the primary aim of developing programs to protect the human rights of migrants, a marked change in the goals of the conference can be seen in their meeting in March 2002. This was the first meeting of the conference after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in the United States, an event that is often cited as a “turning point” in U.S. immigration policy. After September 11th, the U.S. government took a much more aggressive stance against undocumented immigration, with the justification that combating this type of immigration was important for protecting the country from future acts of terrorism. In the 2002 meeting of the conference, the United States made this new priority clear, and used its diplomatic power to steer the agenda of the conference towards new priorities: national security and the fight against terrorism (Castillo 2003, 5). It is hard to know exactly how this shifting of priorities has influenced specific actions of the participating countries, because most of the meetings of the RCM occur behind closed doors. However, it can be assumed that, through the imposition of its own redefined priorities on the conference, the United States has pressured Mexican and Central American countries into shifting towards these new priorities as well, and away from the focus on human rights protections.

In addition to diplomatic pressure, the United States has also influenced migration enforcement in Mexico through direct interventions. Most of these interventions have come in the form of funding for Mexican immigration efforts. For example, with the surge in Central American migration towards the U.S. after Hurricane Mitch, the U.S. government provided direct funding to pay for buses that were used to transport migrants who were captured and detained in Mexico back to their home countries (Flynn, 3).

In recent years, U.S. funding has also been channeled into Mexican law enforcement, military, and intelligence. Although the connection with migration may not seem obvious at first, this intervention most likely has and will continue to have important effects on the experience of migrants crossing Mexico. As mentioned above, Mexican police and military officials are often guilty of committing abuses against migrants. Overstepping authority to detain migrants, physical abuses, and extortion all appear in local reports of human rights abuses in Mexico. This is not incredibly surprising when one considers that corruption is a major issue in the police and military systems of Mexico. Although the United States is certainly aware of this notorious corruption, they are currently providing aid to these agencies.

This type of U.S. intervention in Mexico is clearly seen in the recently approved Plan Mérida. This bill, approved by the U.S. Congress at the end of 2007, provides 1.4 billion dollars of security to Mexico and Central America. This funding is directed towards goals such as police training, the purchase of surveillance and inspection equipment, improved technology, counterterrorism work, and the creation of a database on immigrants (Carlsen, 3). There is a notable absence of any funding earmarked for specific programs that work to combat corruption or towards the diminishment of human rights abuses within the agencies. In providing increased aid to military and police institutions without making any clear effort to combat corruption and abuse of authority, this aid will only serve to exacerbate the problems of abuse and extortion that migrants already face from corrupt officials in Mexico.

A fourth manner through which the United States is influencing the treatment and experience of migrants in Mexico is through its own restrictive national immigration policies. It is currently very difficult for a person from a developing country to obtain legal permission to enter the United States. Some people interested in immigrating to the U.S. are able to obtain tourist or student visas that allow them to be in the country legally for a short period of time, and then simply overstay their visa (at which point they become an “undocumented” immigrant). Others are able to obtain H-2 temporary worker visas, and skilled, educated workers can obtain visas to work in their area of expertise. Still others are able to obtain visas through the family reunification program. However, all of these visas, particularly for temporary workers and family reunification, are very limited. Due to a large backlog in processing requests, even individuals who clearly qualify for the programs generally have to wait a minimum of five years to have their request considered.

Many others, who don’t fit into any of the above categories, don’t have any feasible pathway to enter the country legally. Nevertheless, many people still feel forced to migrate due to harsh conditions of poverty in home communities, and the possibility of comparatively well-remunerated work in the U.S. Due to this necessity, combined with the lack of legal alternatives, many individuals feel that they have no other choice than to migrate in an undocumented fashion towards the U.S. Without papers to enter the U.S. legally, they cannot fly there directly or obtain a Mexican transmigrant visa to cross Mexico legally. Instead, most of these migrants cross Mexico undocumented as well. The restrictiveness of U.S. immigration policy and the backlogs in their legal methods of entry can therefore be seen as a major factor in the fact that undocumented migrants end up in Mexico and suffer the vulnerability that goes along with their undocumented condition.

After reviewing these aspects of the effects of United States policies and actions on the experience for undocumented migrants crossing Mexico, it is clear that the conditions of vulnerability and the threats that migrants suffer in the country are not wholly “Mexico’s problem.” These problems have clear roots in United States policy and the U.S. should be held accountable for this influence. While agencies of Mexico should certainly take measures to reduce abuses and violations against migrants, there is a clear role that the U.S. could play in combating these problems as well. Comprehensive immigration reform that provides feasible pathways of legal entry for workers, elimination of the backlog in the current visa programs, and a shift towards migration enforcement policies that prioritize the human rights protections of migrants could all lead to significant improvements in the situation of migrants and their families. The assumption of a stance of collaboration within the Puebla Process that honors the national sovereignty of participating nations and avoids unilateral diplomatic pressure also could lead to significant advances. Lastly, the reduction of U.S. security aid to Mexico, or the redirection of that aid to programs that focus on corruption-reduction and human rights preservation could significantly reduce the incidence (or at least avoid an increase) of abuses carried out by members of the Mexican police and military. There are many points of entry that can be taken in order to begin fighting against the harsh conditions that undocumented migrants experience while crossing Mexican territory. For U.S. citizens, advocating for changes within their own government’s policies is an important option within the fight.

References:

Carlsen, Laura. A Primer on Plan Mexico, The Narco News Bulletin, May 26, 2008.

Castillo, Manuel Angel (2006). “Mexico: Caught Between the United States and Central
America.” April 2006. Migration Information Source


Castillo, M.A. & R. Corona Vásquez (2003), Los centroamericanos en los Estados
Unidos: tendencias y patrones recientes, Estudios Centroamericanos, no. 669
670: 685-694.

Flynn, Michael. “U.S. Anti-Migration Efforts Move South.” July 8, 2002. Americas
Program: A New World of Analysis, Ideas and Policy Options
, 4.

Martínez, G. (2008), “Inmigración en la Frontera Sur de México”, presentación para el
diplomado en Estudios Migratorios en la Frontera Sur de México, sesión 12, El
Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Tapachula.
Revelli, Philippe. “Mexico, devourer of migrants.” July 2003. Le Monde Diplomatique

Jesús el Buen Pastor Shelter

At the beginning of October, I started volunteering time in the Jesus el Buen Pastor (Jesus the Good Shepherd) Shelter here in Tapachula, Mexico. The shelter provides lodging, food, medical care, productive activities, and educational opportunities migrants, migrants surviving assault, and local people in need. I was particularly drawn to the shelter because of my interest in the situation for migrants in the southwest border region of Mexico, where the shelter is located. The region has become a traditional route northwards for many Central Americans and South Americans headed to the United States. These migrants enter Mexico from Guatemala in an “unauthorized” fashion, travel up the Pacific coast, then hop onto the cars of the cargo train line that carries them further northward. The route has become very frequently common because “the train” is the cheapest and relatively quickest option for traveling through Mexico undocumented.

Utilizing this method of travel presents migrants with many obstacles and threats to their well-being. Gangs and thieves prowl the region, looking to rob or assault migrants. Corrupt police and immigration officials take advantage of their power to abuse or extort money or sexual favors from migrants. Threats of abuse and robbery can also come from other migrants making the journey. The migrants who travel through the Tapachula region are particularly vulnerable to all of these threats. The migrants to utilize this method of travel generally have very few resources and support in their journey. Their “unauthorized” condition within Mexico increases their vulnerability, making them easy targets for robberies and assaults. The situation is particularly harsh for women, who suffer high rates of rape and sexual abuse. Another major threat to migrants in the southwest region of Mexico is the train itself. Migrants travel on the train by grabbing on and riding on the sides or tops of the cars. It is a very risky endeavor. Falls and accidents are common, often resulting in death or loss of limbs for the migrants. All in all, the climate in the southwest border region of Mexico exposes migrants to wide range of dangers and represents a significant threat to the preservation of the human rights of these human beings.

The Jesus el Buen Pastor Shelter has responded to the harsh situation for migrants in this region by offering multi-level support for those who have suffered mutilations by the train or severe abuses that have left them physically injured. Previously, many of the mutilated or abused migrants who ended up in the hospital of Tapachula didn’t receive sufficient medical care because they lacked financial resources and their undocumented status excluded them from national health programs. The shelter’s founder, Olga Sánchez Martínez, noticed this problem and felt compelled to do something about it. In her opinion, denying the medical, emotional, and physical needs of an individual, just because of their undocumented or migrant status, was an affront to human rights. With the motivation of that conviction, she started the Jesus el Buen Pastor Shelter and began tending to the needs of the migrants in Tapachula. Since then, the shelter has also opened its arms to other people in need, such as local elderly people who have been abandoned by their families and women fleeing situations of domestic violence.

In spite of the severity of the situations that have given rise to the shelter, the shelter itself is a place of hope and renewal. The people who live there receive the medical care they need, they develop skills such as carpentry and handicrafts, and they help out with their fellow residents in whatever way they can. From cleaning and maintenance to construction work to selling the handicrafts that they create – the input of the residents helps keep the shelter running. During my time giving English classes at the shelter, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know many of the residents. I have been thoroughly impressed by the interest they have shown in the class, their desire to learn, and the respect and kindness they have shown me. We are a varied group – ranging from people in their early 20s to late 80s, from people who already have lived in the United States or Canada and have learned some English to people who grew up in indigenous villages and learned to speak Spanish just a few short years ago. Despite our differences, all the participants make the effort to work together and to help one another learn.

For me, giving the classes has been a very valuable experience. In addition to enjoying the time I spend with the participants, I have also learned a lot from them about the realities of life in Mexico and Central America and about the migration situation. Santos (names have been changed), for example, has taught me about the pain of leaving behind a young son in order to seek out a better life. He lost a leg to the train, but he is determined to obtain a prosthetic limb and continue the journey northward. Meanwhile Pedro explained to me the desperation of the living situation in his home country of Honduras, and how the people who come north from his country do so because they have no other choice. And Wilma taught me about the dangers of the migratory experience for women, as she pointed to her scars and explained how gang members brutally beat her during her journey. While I was familiar with many of the causes and realities of the migratory situation and had even heard similar stories from migrants along their journey beforehand, hearing these stories from the residents of the shelter has been particularly eye opening because I have really gotten to know the people telling the stories on a much deeper level. This has made me even more passionate about the importance of creating immigration and migration policies that allow people to exercise their human rights to work and improve their own lives and the lives of their families, policies that do not lead to situations that directly threaten the well-being and safety of human beings. It has also helped me better understand the philosophy of Doña Olga and the philosophy of the shelter: that every person deserves a chance to survive, to be healthy, and to work towards their personal fulfillment.

I wanted to share all this information with you all because I hope you accompany me on my journey. The Obama presidency presents us with a critical opportunity to change the face of immigration policy in the United States. The restrictive policy the U.S. employs is a root cause of many of the difficulties migrants experience in their journey northward (in other words, if people could arrive legally, they wouldn’t feel forced to suffer the risks of an undocumented journey). The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee recently launched a campaign to encourage people throughout the country to write Obama with their personal views on immigration, advocating for just, humane comprehensive immigration reform that offers a path legalization and honors family unity. Contributions can be made at: http://change.gov/page/s/immigration.

In addition, I would like to let you know that the shelter can always use donations. Recent funding problems have forced the shelter to discontinue having a regular doctor on staff. Additional private donations could help bring the doctor back, or would be used for other pending projects such as the construction of a micro-enterprise bakery in the shelter. To learn more about the shelter and/or to find out how to donate please visit http://www.alberguebuenpastor.org.mx.

Oventic

I think the thing that stood out to me most about my visit to Oventic was the feeling I had when I was there of unimportance, of being somehow discredited as a person, of being unsure that I should even be there in the first place. To tell the truth, I’m incredibly glad I had the experience.

Oventic is the seat of government of a Zapatista caracol, which is a community of indigenous people committed to creating and living their own self-determined and autonomous model of governing, justice, education, and administration of public services, that falls in line with their indigenous values and beliefs. Internationals and Mexican tourists in solidarity with the ideals of the caracol are permitted to visit to learn about the Zapatista movement and the structure and functioning of the caracol. Nevertheless, making the visit isn’t as easy as strutting into your average tourist attraction in Latin America.

When I first arrived at Oventic, I was confronted by a big iron gate. There was a woman behind the gate with a bandana covering the lower part of her face in the signature Zapatista style. I explained to her why I had come (to respectfully learn about the place and to visit a friend of mine who was studying at the Spanish language school). She asked for my passport, which she took with her as she went to check in with a Security office a few meters away. After a short while (but a little longer than I felt comfortable being without my passport), she returned and told me I could pass through the side gate. She instructed me to go to the security office to check in. There, a young man behind a desk, also with the Zapatista bandana, looked at my passport, asked me questions (nationality, occupation, organizational affiliation, what I wanted to do there), and took notes in a register. There were a few other people in the room observing. They didn’t smile. They looked at each other with knowing glances and spoke a few words in their indigenous language. Then, the young man behind the desk turned to me and told me that I had the permission to make my request to visit to the Mesa Directiva (Directive Board) of the caracol. One of the men in the room showed me the way to the board’s headquarters, located in another building a few meters down the road. The board was busy, so I waited outside the building on a bench. Soon, they invited me in to the windowless room and shut the door behind them. There were about six people in the room, seated at a table in front of the room. They all war the Zapatista-style black ski masks with holes at the eyes and mouth. There were two or three women among the group. I sat in the chair facing the table. The room was plastered with photos, posters, and articles chronicling the years of the Zapatista struggle. A woman towards my left at the table was the first to speak to me. “What is your intention here, compañera?” she asked me. I explained my situation. I also mentioned that I was interested in learning more about their health care system, so if there was any way to visit the clinic briefly, in addition to seeing my friend, I would very much appreciate it. They asked me another series of questions, many of the same that I had been asked previously in the other place. They passed me a notebook and asked me to note who I was and what organization I belonged too. I thought it would probably look good to show affiliations I’ve had with peace and solidarity groups, so I put down LEPOCO, a peace group based near Allentown, Pennsylvania. Perhaps that was a mistake. The Zapatistas had never heard of LEPOCO and they eyed me suspiciously. They spoke to each other in the indigenous language. I got nervous. Finally, the first women who had spoken to me turned towards me and told me that, to visit in the way I was requesting, I needed a letter of support from the organization I belonged to, to prove my affiliation and my good intentions. “It’s all over,” I thought, “an hour and a half of traveling to get here, and now I’m going to have to turn around and just head back.” I had been aware that a letter was needed to study at the language school, but I didn’t think (and in fact I had been told otherwise) that a letter was needed to just visit for the day. So I thought I’d try just one thing more. “Well, what if I just visit my friend. She is expecting me. I only plan to spend a few hours,” I said. They looked doubtful. I continued to plead a little more, and apologized for not having brought the letter. Also, I explained that I wasn’t there representing LEPOCO, rather, I put it down to show my participation in peace and solidarity groups. They started talking amongst themselves once again. Perhaps they took pity on me. At last, the woman directing the conversation turned to me and said that I could have permission to visit my friend, and only that. They filled out a form and wrote in my name and the parameters of my visit. I was permitted to leave and instructed to carry the permission slip on me during my time there. I thanked them profusely and was on my way.


The Autonomous Clinic in Oventic

So after this, I was, needless to say, feeling a little vulnerable and discredited. Even though I know the Zapatistas appreciate international solidarity, I felt somehow guilty for who I was. Nevertheless, the reason I was glad for the experience, was that I realized that these are feelings that indigenous people in Chiapas must experience all the time in their lives: people speaking about them in a language they don’t understand, making decisions about what they are able to do and not do without explaining why, making them wait and go through long lines of bureaucracy to achieve what they are looking for. And in fact, the experiences that indigenous people have are probably worse. The Zapatistas, although they were suspicious, treated me with utmost respect throughout our entire encounter. Unfortunately, for many indigenous people interacting with authority figures and, for that matter, fellow Mexican citizens, lack of common respect and violations of human rights are frequent.

I, on the other hand, am used to, in general, getting what I want without having to fight very hard and without having to worry about my rights being violated. If my rights are violated, I feel pretty confident that I would be able to make a complaint and something would get done about it. In Mexico my privileges often feel augmented. My position as a foreigner and tourist award me a certain power, and I often feel like I have a red carpet rolled out for me. Non-indigenous Mexicans have also noted this phenomenon. My friend Alma told me about a time when she and her sister went to buy jewelry, but they could hardly get the attention of the girl who worked there because she was so preoccupied with attending to the foreign tourists who, in the end, didn’t even buy anything. For indigenous people, the situation is often much worse because of the strong history of racism and discrimination that has been practiced against them in the country and still continues to this day. I’ve heard stories from indigenous people in which they say they went to the hospital and were ignored for hours, that the doctors didn’t want to attend to them. And only 15 years ago or so, indigenous people were still expected to step down from the sidewalk in the streets of San Cristóbal to allow mestizos to pass.

In Oventic, I wasn’t treated with discrimination or disrespect. But the power that I’m used to feeling in Mexico was taken away from me. I was just like any other unknown person who arrives at the gate of Oventic. Nevertheless, this feeling of generality, of being treatment with even a smidgen of suspicion, was shocking to me. Of course, I know that in the majority of my life, I’m still going to live with and project the accumulated privilege and power I have been granted due to my place of birth, skin color, native language, family structure, and a gamut of other factors. And I know that I’m never going to really know what it feels like to be an indigenous person in rural Chiapas, discriminated against and marginalized, but fighting for their rights. Nevertheless, I hope that throughout my life, I will remember was it was like to have a small taste of that feeling of unimportance, of generality, and of being just another person, equal to all others in this world.

Report: Crossing the Line

With all I'm learning about regarding the problems migrants experience here on the Southern border, I've been thinking a lot about how U.S. policy influences the situation here. Nevertheless, there's another, much more obvious side to how the U.S. government affects the well-being of migrants, that occurs on the northern border. A new report from No More Deaths, a non-profit based in Tuscon, Arizona, provides a shocking picture of the routine violation of the human rights of migrants by our very own U.S. funded, trained, and operated Border Patrol. Go to their website http://www.nomoredeaths.org/ to read the executive summary or the full report.

Mexican Independence Day

September 16th is Mexican Independence Day. For Mexicans, that means a day off from work and a time to express pride in being Mexican. The night before, "el quince de septiembre" is also a time for celebration – it commemorates the cry for freedom of Manuel Hidalgo that set off the war for independence from the Spanish in 1810. Around 9 pm, people started gathering in the Zócalo of San Cristóbal. The Municipal Palace was lit up with lights in the colors of Mexico’s flag. At 10:00 was the reenactment of the Hidalgo’s “grito” for freedom. The emcee called out the names of all of Mexico’s heroes through the sound system and, after each one, everyone screamed “¡Viva!” (long live the heroes). Afterwards, there was a fireworks display right over our heads. Then came the music. One of the bands that played was a popular Mexican Duranguense band called AK-7. One of the songs they played was particularly striking. I don’t remember the exact words, but the basic gist was “I want to tell all the gringos that we Mexicans come to the U.S. to work and that we’re hard workers and they shouldn’t discriminate against us and we’re better than them in some ways anyway.” Very interesting how this consciousness about what emigration means for Mexico enters into pop culture in so many ways, particularly on the night of celebrating Mexican Independence. I think there’s a pretty significant double meaning here – that Mexicans would like their independence from the cultural imperialism and economic/political control of the United States in their country. This thought isn’t just coming out of thin air – I’ve heard this opinion articulated quite clearly by a number of friends of mine. These friends have lamented that many people in their country seem to only aspire to be more like the gringos up north – that they dye their hair blonde and follow the fashions and eat up the pop culture the U.S. feeds them. As one friend put it, “we have to decolonize our minds and start focusing on advancing our own culture.” All this is very interesting for me to hear, especially from my perspective, not only as an outsider, but also as a citizen of the U.S. And perhaps the viewpoint of my friend is more widespread than she thinks – because when AK-7 started to play their “gringo” song, everyone in the zócalo lifted up their arms and cheered.

La Ciénaga

During my visit to Oaxaca City at the end of August, I took a day trip to visit La Ciénaga, a town about 1 hour outside of the City of Oaxaca and a major sending community to Poughkeepsie and the Hudson Valley. While writing my senior thesis, I read quite a bit about the transnational relationship between Poughkeepsie and a few specific communities (2-3) in Oaxaca. These communities are prime examples of chain migration – many people in the towns migrate to the United States and almost all go to the same place, in this case, in the Hudson Valley. They also provide examples of transnational identity – connections are kept with the home communities and there is a significant amount of communication and information sharing between the two distinct places. In this regard, one author I read spoke of a continuum of space and culture between Oaxaca and Poughkeepsie. While living in Poughkeepsie, I was fascinated by the results of this phenomenon as they were exhibited there. Even though the immigrants there were in a different country, many of them still had many strong social networks in the city, and they maintained many connections with the home communities. Of course, there was a wide diversity of immigrants in Poughkeepsie, but these processes could certainly be detected on a general level. I was told that with some communities, connections were so strong that if you went to the home communities in Mexico, everyone would know about Poughkeepsie.

Well, when I was in Oaxaca City, I realized I had the opportunity to see for myself. So I got on a bus and headed to La Ciénaga. The driver seemed a bit confused about why I was going there, but didn’t ask any questions. The bus dropped me off on the highway next to a long, paved road heading to the town. There was a sign announcing that it was the road to La Ciénaga and also described when the people of the town pooled together the funds to construct the road. I had a feeling that remittances probably had a hand in that construction (in fact, for many emigrant communities, pooling of resources gained from remittances for public works projects in the home communities is quite common).

I walked the mile or so past farm fields and a tomato farm to arrive at the town. I walked around the town a bit to get a feel for it – a mix of dirt roads and paved roads. Modest homes. A few corner stores interspersed. There was a main road with more restaurants and schools. There was also a town square (almost completely deserted when I was there) surrounded by the church, the government building, a playground, and the clinic. The donkey parked in front of the clinic is a statement of the rural nature of the town - the people who work in the town mostly work in agriculture.



After walking through the town, I was thirsty. Also, I was interested in talking to some people there. So I stopped in a small corner store and bought a juice. While paying, I asked the woman behind the counter, “Do you know Poughkeepsie?” She said, “no.” In Spanish, the question “do you know,” when used with places, often means “have you been there?” So when the woman behind the counter said “no,” I initially started worrying that I had come to the wrong town. But then, a second later, she said “but yes, I know about Poughkeepsie. I lot of people from this town are there.” Apparently, she had thought I was asking if she’d ever been to Poughkeepsie. But as far as knowing about Poughkeepsie, well she hardly had to answer – of course she knew about Poughkeepsie. That’s the attitude I sensed with her response. I explained to her why I had come, that I had lived in Poughkeepsie and was interested in visiting to see the town. She told me her name was Celia. We got to talking. She told me she had relatives there. She asked me if I knew the bridge that was there. Pretty soon, a man entered the store to buy something and Celia asked him if he had been to Poughkeepsie. He said no, but that his sister lives there now. He himself worked for 7 years in New York, but in the city.

Later, I stopped in a restaurant for lunch. There, I was served by Graciela. She told me that her son was in the Hudson Valley, working as a bus boy and living with an uncle in Highland. She showed me a photo of him. He’s been gone for about 2 years. She misses him. While I was eating, someone else came in to the restaurant for their lunch. His name was Antonio. He too had been in the U.S. working. He left for the U.S. at the ripe age of 13 and he worked in both New York City and the Hudson Valley and he worked there for about 12 years. While we ate, we got into a conversation about politics in the U.S. and the upcoming presidential elections.

In the combi headed back to Oaxaca City, I chatted with Rodolfina, an older woman seated to my left. Apparently she had lived in the Hudson Valley as well, in Highland. She moved back to Mexico, however, because she has problems with her legs and it was too difficult there with hardly any public transportation and everyone in their own house. Rodolfina has a daughter who lives in Oaxaca City and the rest of her children live in the U.S. She was incredibly nice and encouraged me to come back to visit and stay in her house. To my right in the combi was a very friend young woman named Jennifer. She too had lived in the Hudson Valley – in Hopewell Junction for the first 13 years of her life.

In sum, what I had been told about La Ciénaga and the connection with Poughkeepsie and the Hudson Valley was incredibly true - every person I spoke to in the town had some sort of personal experience with migration to the region (whether through a personal migration or the migration of a close relative). In addition, everyone I talked to repeated the same phrase “Yes, there are many people from La Ciénaga over there.” In truth, I barely scratched the surface when it comes to understanding how emigration affects the town. I intentionally didn’t ask very probing questions in my conversations and avoided pressing when the conversation turned touchy or emotional – I was there as a visitor, not as an interviewer or researcher. Hearing painful stories about how Graciela misses her son, for example, would have allowed me to leave the town saying “oh, how sad,” but wouldn’t have done much good for Graciela or anybody else. Nevertheless, even with the surface-level conversations I had, the impact of emigration on the town was notable. Emigration was a fact of life. Being separated from family members was common. And a general knowledge about the Hudson Valley was clearly present in the town, even among those who had never left. Here, the transnationalism I had read about and been told about was certainly evident.

Corruption

We are on a trip to the state of Tabasco to learn about new migration routes through the state, and my professor Jorge, his doctorate student José and I are hungry. We park the car in front of a restaurant in the modern city of Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco. After a delicious meal of various types of pavo and tortillas, we head out to the car. There’s a police officer next to our little VW beetle, looking it over with a clipboard in hand. Apparently we’re in a no-parking zone. Jorge and José start talking to the officer, telling him we just parked there for a minute and that we will move the car right away. The police officer wasn’t having it. He asked to see José’s license, because Jorge had said that José was the driver. He didn’t have it; he had forgotten it at home. We’re getting a little nervous at this point, and José goes over the police car with the officer. A few minutes later, he comes back. “Get in the car,” he tells us. We get in and José drives away, a bit quicker than necessary. “What happened?” we asked him. “50 pesos,” he tells us, “all he wanted was 50 pesos” (equivalent of $5 USD). The thing is, from what I'm told, situations like this are commonplace in Mexico. Ah, the corruption.

Militarization

We are in the small VW bug traveling to Tziscao – Jorge, my professor, at the wheel and me in the passenger seat with my seat-belt on like a good gringa. On the road after the city of Comitan, Jorge starts telling me about how, during the height of the Zapatista uprising, that whole area was controlled by the Zapatistas. The smooth, paved highway we were driving over was new, he tells me, constructed by the government so the army troops could pursue the Zapatistas through the region more easily. Now, the Zapatista presence in the region is still felt (for example, we pass an autonomous clinic along the side of the road), however the uprising in the region has been effectively squashed, and the government has regained control over the territory.


Even with this regained control, the presence of the military in the region is distinctly felt. This continued presence is considered by many as an intimidation tactic and a method to maintain the campesino population “under control.” Increased militarization has in fact proliferated all over Chiapas. It’s common to see trucks filled with soldiers tooling through the streets of San Cristóbal. I have seen, at the least, six different military installations along the side of the road in my travels in Chiapas. One was located right next to San José Pohló, a Zapatista community in the caracol of Oventic. When I was in San Andrés, the town where accords were signed between the Zapatistas and the Mexican government, I stumbled upon a military installation, complete with armed guards and barbed wire, at the crest of a hill on the edge of the town. The government military is, literally, “always watching.”

As a testament to this militarization, soon after Jorge tells me about the Zapatistas and the history of the region, we get pulled over at a road-side check point. Jorge tells me not to say anything, that he’ll do the talking. Without giving any explanation, the men in army fatigues make us get out of the car and inspect the interior. Jorge tells them where we are heading. I am struck by how vulnerable I feel, even with a fairly firm belief that, considering the U.S. passport in my pocket and the ECOSUR logo on the car, I won’t be taken advantage of in this situation. I can only imagine what a person in a more marginalized position would feel.

At last, we’re given the go-ahead and we continue along our way. Jorge is fuming. “The Constitution of this nation says that all Mexicans have the right to freely move throughout the country!” Nevertheless, these types of roadblocks and checkpoints are fairly common now, throughout Chiapas – serving as a strategy of intimidation of the indigenous population, in blatant violation of the Constitution of Mexico.

Acteal

On December 22, 1997, paramilitary forces descended on the villages of Acteal, in the highlands of Chiapas, and opened fire on a group of townspeople attending a prayer meeting. 45 people were killed, including 18 women and 17 children. It is widely believed that the paramilitary forces were acting in the interests of the government and that they targeted this village because its governing body, Las Abejas, was believed to be aligned with the Zapatistas (whose movement the government was actively working to contain and repress during that time period). Last Monday, September 15th, I had the opportunity to visit the town of Acteal, speak with Antonio Gutierrez, the current head of the Las Abejas regional political body, and bear witness at their memorial site for the victims of the massacre.

I traveled to Acteal in the back of a truck with my friend Hector. When we descended from the truck at Acteal, we saw at the road’s edge a “Pillar of Shame” statue erected to serve as a memory of the massacre. Similar pillars have been erected in other parts of the world where other “shameful” events have occurred, such as in Tiananmen Square.

We followed a staircase to descend to the town center, where there is a pavilion (where events are held once a month commemorating the massacre), a church, and the building that houses “Mesa Directiva,” or governing body of Las Abejas. A meeting was in progress, but the men agreed to meet with us to answer any questions when they were finished. We waited until they were done but, before meeting with us, they invited us to share the mid-day meal with them - a beautiful act of generosity.

When we sat down and spoke with Antonio, he shared with us his vision for indigenous rights and self-determination, based in their identity as Mexicans and their Mayan roots. While Las Abejas do support the Zapatista increased indigenous autonomy and rights within the Mexican political structure, Antonio emphasized that they are not Zapatistas. Las Abejas have renounced the Zapatista’s use of force to achieve their goals, instead advocating for a pacifist and Biblically-inspired path. He also spoke their participation in the wider struggle for human rights and freedom for oppressed people all over the world. For example, he mentioned to me that he stands in solidarity with the struggle of African Americans in the U.S.

Although the Acteal massacre occurred over 10 years ago, justice has yet to be served to the prepetrators. The paramilitaries arrested after the massacre have been being held in the capital of the city, but the case has been stalled. Some believe that this delay is, in part, a strategy of the government to allow more time to find ways to get the accused "off the hook." Nevertheless, with increased pressure from advocacy agencies and civilians, the case was re-opened this past July. So there is renewed hope that some justice will be served. Nevertheless, there is no and has not been any judicial case against the PRI government in power at the time of the massacre, even though many believe was the true responsible party that called for the massacre.

Another aspect of the current situation is that Las Abejas still struggle with the Mexican government, and have not received formal recognition from them. They have decided not to involve themselves in government projects, such as the government health care system, because they do not want to be forced to participate in a Western-style system that doesn’t align with their indigenous values. Nevertheless, they assert their identity as Mexicans and believe they have a right to receive support from the government to create their own, self-determined structures. Ideally, they would like to be able to receive support from the government so they can build self-determined health, judicial, and educational systems. They recognize that avoiding the use of government systems often puts them at a more marginalized and disadvantaged state, but they firmly believe in their vision and will not compromise their long-term goals for short-term gain.

After meeting with Antonio, another member of the governing body took us on a short tour of the memorial site of the massacre. He showed us the bullet holes in the old church, the rock crevice where the people hid in an attempt to escape, and the pictures and memorial plaques with the names of each of the victims. Although of course the massacre would be a colossal disgrace even if all the people killed were active leaders of the political group Las Abejas, which has some friction with the Mexican government, what is even more shocking is that the victims were ordinary civilians, targeted only because of their position as villagers of town of Acteal.

The visit to Acteal was an eye-opening experience. It was very moving to bear witness to the horrible injustice that occurred there in 1997, and to think about the way that innocent marginalized people the world over fall victim to acts of violence and oppression. It was also inspiring to see the commitment of Las Abejas to keep on in the struggle for social justice, for themselves and all citizens of the world, even in the face of increased poverty, indifference, a slew of other challenges. All of my respect for the people of Acteal. We will never forget.

A New Project and a New City!

Well, flexibility is a virtue. As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I first arrived here in Mexico, I found out that the funds had not come through for the project I was scheduled to work on. So my professor and I decided that I would work on doing background reading and learning in preparation while we waited for the funds. Now, a month later, it has become clearer that perhaps the funds will not come through during my time here. For that reason, my professor and I have agreed that it will be best for me to find another project.

Luckily enough, when we decided that, I already was aware of a project being put into action that wonderfully matched my interests and ethics. When I had visited friends from Allentown in Tepotzlan, I decided to take advantage to our proximity to the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico (INSP) and try to arrange a visit there. At the time, my main interest was just to see what the Institute was like and to learn about current projects in the field of public health. I e-mailed some researchers to request a meeting, and the next morning I was in Cuernavaca at the Institute shaking their hands. One of the researchers I met with was Dr. René Leyva Flores. He told me about various facets of a research project he’s been working on related to HIV/AIDS in mobile populations (including migrants) in Central America. I was incredibly impressed by the scope and foresight of the project, as well as its orientation towards action.

Beginning in 1999, the INSP responded to what they saw as a need to understand the relationship between Central American migrants and their risks of acquiring HIV/AIDS during their migration. Many studies have shown that there is a clear link between migration and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Mobile, migrating populations of people generally experience conditions of social and economic vulnerability which serve to increase their risk of contracting HIV. To confront this issue, the INSP developed partnerships with other institutions throughout Central America, and together they began a comprehensive study of the HIV/AIDS situation in 11 transit centers in Central America. Throughout the centers, clear links found between local conditions (such as the presence of gangs, corruption, lack of financial resources of migrants, physical and mental stress, risk of sexual violence, and the flow of drugs) and increased vulnerability of mobile populations in the area to beatings, muggings, extortion, rape, sex work for money, drug use, and other forms of violence, all of which contribute to an increased risk of contracting HIV. Area-specific information was gathered and reported for each transit center.

Using the information gained from this initial evaluation, the project partners have begun designing comprehensive, collaborative, and integrative models of attention for HIV/AIDS care in the transit centers. These models respond to the identified needs and conditions in each specific locale. In Chiapas, one of these models has just begun operation in the city of Tapachula.

It is generally agreed upon that the situation for transmigrants is particularly harsh in areas like Tapachula in the southern border region of Mexico. Here, the threats listed above are amplified, and compounded by increased vulnerability in the face of increased immigration enforcement and corruption of local law enforcement agents. Increased risk among mobile populations here also spill over into the local population. The epidemiological effects of increased HIV/AIDS risk among the populations in the city are evident – Tapachula has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS cases in all of Chiapas and one of the fastest rates in all of Mexico. Responding to the information gained from the study of HIV/AIDS vulnerability and risk in Tapachula, the model of attention here involves prevention efforts directed toward migrants, sex workers, and other mobile populations; HIV testing; humanitarian aid; medical care; and psychological and emotional support. It also involves the collaboration of key local agencies, including the Secretary of Health, the local Public Health Jurisdiction, and a migrant shelter, the Casa del Migrante.

A key component to the execution of this project will be monitoring and evaluating its effectiveness and success, learning from its short-comings, and fine-tuning different aspects of the model it proposes. This evaluation will not only help to ensure the highest quality model of care in Tapachula, but will allow the INSP to share a successful model and with other transit centers participating in the Central American collaboration, with the idea that the model or aspects of the model could be reproduced in these other locations. The model of attention can also be shared with the academic and public health community, to increase global knowledge about strategies of providing HIV/AIDS attention to mobile population.

As I already mentioned, I was very impressed by this project, and excited about what it could mean for the development of successful HIV/AIDS prevention and attention for migrants in Mexico, an effort that I believe needs to be undertaken in order to fight for migrants’ human rights to safety and health. Therefore, when I began to seriously search for new projects, I contacted Dr. Leyva to see if he would accept me as a research assistant on the project. Fortunately, he agreed, and we have begun to iron out a plan for my participation on the project. Currently, I will be involved primarily in the monitoring and evaluation component of the project. I will collaborate with the implementation and research team in Tapachula, including INSP employees and the partner agencies. Following the protocol that details the proposed model of attention to HIV/AIDS, I will monitor the participation of the different partner groups. I will evaluate progress at the local level using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. For example, surveys will be employed with migrants in the Casa del Migrante and more in-depth interviews will be conducted in partnership with a local sociologist with immigrant sex workers in Tapachula. Informed by the results gained from these research methods, I will work collaboratively with local actors and the primary investigator to suggest any necessary changes to the model of attention.

One down-side to my participation on this project is that it means that I will have to move to a new city. I really love living in San Cristobal and have been able to establish a nice social network here. It will therefore be tough to uproot and move seven hours away. Nevertheless, buses run between the two cities frequently and are relatively cheap, so I plan to continue visiting friends in San Cristobal every month or so. Overall, I’m very excited about the move and the work on the Tapachula project. As I get settled and my work progresses, I make an effort to share key learnings regarding the project with you all through this web-site. All the best, Juliana

"Modernization" of PEMEX

One hot-button issue in Mexico right now is the proposed restructuring of PEMEX, Mexico's state-owned oil company. As I understand it, the restructuring would pave the way for increased privatization and foreign investment in PEMEX. The stated benefit is that increased investment will allow PEMEX to grow, modernize, and be more financially viable. However, many opponents see this change as just one more step forward in "selling out" Mexico's natural resources to foreign interests and assert that the changes will ultimate drive more Mexican families deeper into poverty. Indeed, historically increased control of Mexican assets by foreign companies has led to concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, expropiation of resources, and decreased reliance on local economies (and therefore increased poverty among the lower classes in Mexico, including many of the people of Chiapas). The following is a newsy piece on the restructuring: http://www.as-coa.org/article.php?id=989. And here is a more in-depth analysis: http://www.coha.org/2008/06/demerits-of-pemex-privatization/.

Reproductive Rights in Mexico City

The Supreme Court of Mexico recently upheld a 2007 decision to legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in Mexico City. The following is a summary of the decision from Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/08/29/mexico19715.htm. Although a victory for reproductive rights, many challenges are still faced in Mexico. In the lead-up to the decision, I was made aware of the issue by hearing news about civic opposition to the bill, in this largely Catholic country. Conservative President Felipe Calderón is expected to fight further efforts to expand reproductive rights. Elsewhere in Mexico, abortion is allowed only in cases of rape, when the mother's life is in danger, or if the fetus has severe deformities.

Chiapas Health and Human Rights Report

Link to a 2006 report by Physicians for Human Rights in which ECOSUR, the institution with which I'm collaborating, participated. The report describes the dire health conditions people in Chiapas are experiencing, relating these conditions to the broader political and social climate and framing them within the discourse of human rights. There is also a brief, readable summary posted.
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/news-2006-06-22.html

Tziscao: Emigration and Health Care Access

Doña Ilaria’s head hurts. She’s had this problem for eight years, she tells me. When she’s having a relatively good day, it’s not so bad. But every eight or fifteen days, it gets really bad and she’s bedridden.

What’s worse, doña Ilaria’s heart hurts as well. Her two sons are have been off in the United States, working in the fields there the past three years. She misses them and she also worries that the authorities are going to catch them and put them in prison.

The irony is that doña Ilaria’s health problem was the main reason her sons took the decision to go work in the U.S. in the first place. They wanted to earn money for her to buy pills and go see the doctor in the city. And there efforts have proved successful in some respects. Ilaria feels better most of the time, and she has been able to see a specialist in the city.

However, things have been changing for the family. Currently, the boys in the U.S. are out of work and are no longer sending money. Ilaria has had to stop seeing the specialist. When she was still seeing him, he recommended that she undergo a surgery to help alleviate her pain, however there is no way the family is going to be able to come up with the money to pay for the surgery, especially now that there’s less work for them in the U.S.

So, with doña Ilaria’s sons return home any time soon? Most likely not, she tells me. They had actually been thinking about returning home fairly soon, but a new health problem has arisen in the family. One of the sons of her eldest migrant son, her grandson Javier, has just recently been diagnosed with Hepatitis. The family still doesn’t know which type of Hepatitis because they didn’t have the money to pay for the blood test, but the symptoms he’s expressing fairly clearly suggest that it is one of the types. Now, doña Ilaria’s sons feel the need to stay in the U.S. longer in the hopes of finding some work so they send money for medicines for Javier. They would like to come home for a bit and then return to work in the U.S., but the border crossing is so costly and dangerous, they don’t want to risk having to go through that again.

So “así es,” as they say in Spanish; that’s the way it is. Even as someone who’s thought a lot about access to health care in the United States, hearing this story opens up my thinking a whole new dimension of the definition of “barriers to health care.” In an effort to access health services, this family has taken on the strategy of international migration, a strategy that brings along with it familial separation, sadness, and emotional stress as its side effects.

Tziscao: Migrant Flows and Community Changes

In my interview with don Angel, he helped explain to my why international emigration has developed in Tziscao and how this emigration has affected the community. Like many other villages in Chiapas, out of all the types of migration, emigration to the United States from Tziscao is the newest, appearing within the last 10-15 years. The reasons, according to don Angel, are mainly economic. After land reform in the 20s, 182 families in the town received plots of land that they could work. However, if you don’t have a plot, or you don’t have a document to prove that you have a plot, or you only have a small plot (a problem that arises when land is passed down to multiple children), you aren’t going to be able to make a living off the land. This is the case for many people in the town. They go to the U.S. so they can earn money to buy their land, their house, and their truck and then the majority, according to don Angel, returns to live in Tziscao. Other people put the cause of emigration more simply, “Well, the poverty.”

Despite the newness of this emigration, its effects are keenly felt in the village. Don Angel told me that the young people don’t want to work in the fields anymore, that they come back with vices and drinking habits and they act proud. Indeed, I could feel many of the effects of emigration (and, in general, the increased integration of Tziscao into the global system) just by walking through the town. I could fairly easily pick out the houses that have been built with remittances. They are strong looking houses with adobe walls and tiled roofs and decorative metal gratings on the windows. Many of them stand empty. Some young men drive around with their new trucks. The children, primary school age, ask me about how much certain car models cost in the United States. One mother tells me that her 12-year-old son is already talking about what it will be like “when he goes to work in the United States.”

While it’s impossible to rate the wide variety of these changes as either entirely good or entirely bad, it is clear that emigration has brought new challenges to the people of Tziscao. I think one of the most striking realizations for me was that emigration interferes with efforts to build community. Don Angel and his cousin Fernando, with whom I also spoke, are working hard to improve their village for all ho live there: they both participate in a coffee cooperative in the town, they are working on sustainable tourism projects, and they volunteer their time to work in town government. They have pride in Tziscao and they want to help make it the best place it can be, a place that truly responds to the needs and wants of the community of people living there. However, don Angel is worried, because the youth are leaving for the U.S. at earlier and earlier ages and, as he puts it, they no longer care about working the land and following the traditions of the town. There is a danger, therefore, that the work to build community in Tziscao will be lost with a new generation of emigrants.

Tziscao: A Multiplicity of Migration Experiences

During my time in Tziscao, a village on the southern border of Mexico, I had the opportunity to interview people in the village about their experiences with migration. Jorge Luis, the professor with whom I’m working, has done extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews in the town, however, being a man, he has had trouble getting interviews with the women. He is working on articles currently that have to do with migration and identity, and he wanted to be able to include more on a woman’s perspective. So he sent me to try to get some interviews.

When we arrived in Tziscao, Jorge Luis introduced me to don Angel, a good friend of his from the time he lived in the village and a community leader. Because of his position in the community, don Angel was able to arrange interviews for me and, by serving as intermediary, helped me establish trust with the interviewees. Overall, I conducted six interviews with community members – four women and two men – primarily relating to their migration experiences. In addition, I was able to talk with a local health promoter and the groundskeeper of the local community-run alternative medicine clinic.

I think what most stands out to me when I consider the interviews as a whole is the wide variety of migration experiences the people had had. There was the mother who longs for her two sons working in the United States, the wife who misses her husband and also has migrated in order to escape violence in Guatemala, the mother who spent a year and a half working in the United States, the husband who spent the years of his children’s childhood working away from home in other parts of Mexico, the woman who worked in factories in Tijuana, and the man (don Angel) who has stubbornly refused to move and has struggled to build community in Tziscao while he watches his family and friends continually pack their bags and head to the United States. In sum, this southern border town has immigrants, international emigrants, national emigrants, transmigrants (immigrants crossing Mexico to get to the U.S.), and the people (mostly women) who stay behind. In just my small sample of interviews, I heard stories related to almost all of these phenomena.

The above posts highlight some of the themes of the interviews that most resonated with me.

[NOTE: I must admit, I felt a bit uncomfortable jumping into doing interviews on my own on such sensitive subjects right at the beginning to my time here. When looking for opportunities to work on research projects in Mexico, I made a concerted effort to search for projects that have already been defined by local researchers – on which I could assist and learn through observing and asking questions of the researcher, but not be directly imposing myself and all that my identity means (as a foreigner, U.S. citizen, well-off first-world resident, etc.) on the participants. I expressed these worries to Jorge Luis before the trip, but he didn’t seem worried and told me that I should just see how it goes this first visit. So I decided I would put my faith in his judgment and go to the community with open eyes and a sensitive heart. In the end, I still am not entirely sure that obtaining these interviews was the "right thing" to do, however they certainly helped me learn a lot and I do plan to follow up with each of the interviewees. Also, I asked each of the interviewees their opinion on why they were willing to share their story with me. Most indicated that they want to share their story with a broader audience. I therefore hope that, in sharing some of these stories here and spreading awareness about the migration experiences of the interviewees, the interviews will inspire others to address these issues and will somehow end up bringing some good to the people of Tziscao.]

Casa Chapulin

During my time in Oaxaca at the end of August, I attended a workshop in international solidarity at the Casa Chapulin Collective in Oaxaca City. The Casa Collective is a very interesting concept. From their website: “CASA, Colectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Acción, responds to the call for international solidarity with grassroots indigenous and campesino movements by maintaining two centers in Mexico for education, support, and activism: one in Chiapas and another in Oaxaca. We seek to further social justice and sustainable development in Mexico and the United States through education, network building and facilitating first hand experience of globalization and human rights issues. We provide volunteers affordable housing, resources, a space for reflection and support, and orientation to social justice, privilege and solidarity issues in Chiapas and Oaxaca.” The workshop I participated in is part of this latter goal.

The bulk of the workshop focused on Plan Mexico, a United States 1.4 billion dollar aid package to Mexico and Central America that focuses on beefing up the security and military capabilities of these country, particularly Mexico. The plan has been “sold” mainly in terms of a tool to combat drug trafficking through Mexico into the United States. However, advocates have questioned the true motivations of the package, seeing it as a part of a broader effort of the U.S. to establish increased geopolitical control in Mexico. These advocates have pointed out both the contradictions inherent in the plan and its possible (and often likely) negative effects on the people of Mexico. For example, it provides aid for arms and hi-tech military equipment to a military and police force that, in general, have been made infamous for their corruption, retaliation against innocent civilians, and harsh oppression of social resistance.

I am deeply worried about what the plan could mean for the safety and security of the Mexican people, particularly indigenous people, and for the possibility of the people to engage in social action, including peaceful protest. Unfortunately, the plan has already been passed through the U.S. Congress. Nevertheless, it is important that we are educated on the content of the plan and its possible implications. The following article by Laura Carlsen provides a good summary and also places the plan in its recent historical context: A Primer on Plan Mexico http://www.narconews.com/Issue53/article3093.html.

Atenco

On August 30th, I stumbled across a protest in one of the main central plazas of San Cristóbal. The group was protesting to demand that the government of Mexico free the political prisoners that are being held as a result of a military confrontation in the pueblo of Atenco on May 3, 2006. Four years prior, the people of Atenco had successfully resisted an effort by the government to build an airport on their land and displace the villagers. In 2006, residents of the nearby city Texcoco, began their own resistance in response to the government’s decision to block the activities of local flower vendors. Because of their knowledge of the prior Atenco protests, the people of Texcoco sought assistance and support from the residents of that village. Erroneously sensing a massive and seditious uprising, governmental representatives cracked down on the resulting protest from the two communities - and sent 3,000 violent policemen to quell the generally peaceful activities of 300 marchers. The result? Several dozen severely injured, hundreds thrown behind bars, many brutal raped and at least two murdered in the prime of life. 212 of the marchers from that day are still behind bars.

The protest in San Cristóbal on August 30th featured a street-theater play that told the story of the conflict and its aftermath. Below are photos from the event:





There have been a number of international campaigns to protest the imprisonment of those arrested at Atenco in 2006. The most recent one I found is being organized by the Coletivo Contraimpunidad. They ask that all members of the international community sign on and spread an International Open Letter which will be sent to the government of Mexico as a result of the unjust sentences to the political prisoners from Atenco. The text of the letter is posted below. To sign on, send your name, occupation (optional), city or country to: contraimpunidad@gmail.com. In the subject line or text of the message, you can write: please sign me on to the international open letter for Atenco or para firmar la carta abierta internacional para Atenco.

August 2008
International Open Letter
As a result of the scandalous sentences announced on August 21 against the activists, victims of the violent days of May 3 - 4, 2006, in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico.
Just women and men from Mexico and the world repudiate the jailing of innocents and demand the government:
1. Immediately drop the 67-year sentences against activists Ignacio del Valle, Felipe Alvarez and Hector Galindo, unjustly sentenced in 2007.
2. Immediately drop the 45-year sentence against Ignacio del Valle, unjustly sentenced on August 21, 2008.
3. Immediately drop the 31-year, 10-month and 15-day sentences of activists Juan Carlos Estrada Romero, Oscar Hernandez Pacheco, Narciso Arellano Hernandez, Alejandro Pilon Zacate, Jorge Alberto y Roman Adan Ordonez Romero, Pedro Reyes Flores, Ines Rodolfo Cuellar Rivera, Edgar Eduardo Morales Reyes and Julio Cesar Espinoza Ramos, unjustly sentenced on August 21, 2008.
4. Immediately free all the political prisoners from Atenco.
5. Bring to justice the murderers of Alexis Benhumea and Francisco Javier Cortes.
Because we will not give up!
We will not be silenced!
We will not forget!
Down with impunity in Mexico!

The Effects of Civil War: the Memory of Guatemalan Refugees in Tziscao

On December 8, 1982, Guatemalan state military helicopters landed on the community field of Quetzal, Guatemala and troops began to fire at the people of the village. The women picked up their children, some picked up a pot of beans from their stoves, and they ran over the hill into Mexico, where they lived for at least 14 years until they could return to their lands in Guatemala.

I spoke to one woman who is currently living in Quetzal. She had began her life in that town, however the army descended on the village when she was only a girl and she had to flee with her family to Mexico, right over the border into Tziscao. Her father had already died at that point, so her mother had to work hard to support her, her sister, and her brother. They were away from their village for many years and they stayed away because they heard the army was occupying the town. But eventually they returned because they heard things were better and they were struggling to live in Mexico, without land. They returned could have a little bit of land to work and live after. Nevertheless, soon after they returned, the army came back again. And the result? As she put it matter-of-factly, “Well, many people died.”

What makes this story even harder to hear is knowing that what happened in Quetzal was happening all over Guatemala in those years. From 1960-1996, Guatemala was embroiled in a civil war, one of the longest and deadliest in recent history. The state government, in an effort to put down guerrilla groups of mainly indigenous people, engaged in “scorched earth” practices that affected primarily indigenous civilians in the Guatemala countryside. My good friend Amanda is currently working as an accompanier in Guatemala to help ensure that justice is brought to the victims of this conflict. She has also been incredibly important in educating me about the situation in Guatemala. As she put it in a letter last December, “At the conclusion of the conflict, an independent report by the United Nations Historical Clarification Commission determined that over 200,000 civilians – over 80% of whom were indigenous – had been killed or disappeared, more than 600 villages and communities had been destroyed, and more than a million civilians had been forcibly displaced. The report also concluded that the state military and paramilitary forces were responsible for 93 percent of the worst atrocities, including perpetrating acts of genocide against Maya populations.”

While this report has been disseminated, little has been done to hold the perpetrators of these atrocities accountable. In short, there is much more work to be done. To learn more about current work for human rights in Guatemala, visit http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/guatemala/.

Constructing (and resisting) the southern border

Similar version cross-posted to the Casa Colectivo blog: http://www.colectivocasa.org/node/74335


Beginning the 19th of August, I spent four days in the town of Tziscao, Mexico. Jorge Luis (the professor I’m working with), has done extensive field work in this Tziscao, exploring the themes of identity and migration through in-depth interviews. He brought me to Tziscao so I could become familiar with the southern border and to help him get some interviews from women of the town regarding their experiences with migration.

Tziscao is situated right on the southern border between Chiapas and Guatemala. The town is fairly small, with modest houses interspaced with a few small stores and plots of land for harvest. There is a small tourist industry because of its proximity to the “Lagos of Montebello.” Tziscao is a town of “borders” in many respects. It abuts Guatemala, it receives flows of migrant Guatemalans (particularly during political violence of the 80s), and has in recent years become a major sending community to the United States.

When we arrived in the town, we first went to the home of don Angel, a friend of Jorge’s that he knew when he was doing his fieldwork in the town. We all got in the car Jorge had brought and drove the 5 minutes on a dirt road to Guatemala. We drove right into the town of Quetzal, Guatemala to say hello to another friend of Jorge’s. On the way back, we stopped on the “border,” to observe how it was delineated and so I could stand with one foot in Guatemala and one in Mexico.

The border was marked off by a series of white pillars and a line of cleared foliage. We could see the pillars extending into the distance, placed every 200 meters or so. There was a lake that we could see below, over which a suspended rope marked off the border.


Standing there, with feet in two different countries, having just driven from one to the next without noticing any difference in landscape or “feel” of the land and people, it was striking to me how arbitrary this border felt. Later on during my stay in Tziscao/Quetzal, this arbitrariness was reaffirmed when a woman I was interviewing on the Guatemala side kept referring to her family as “Mexicans.” Indeed, she had actually lived on the Mexican side of the border for many years. But to her, it hardly makes a difference that they are now living on the Guatemala side. They still have ties in Tziscao, they still go to Mexico for medical care, and, because the passage is so easy, they most likely go there to do some of their shopping as well.

In addition to this arbitrariness, it also was striking how unnatural the physical border felt. It was almost comical to see the little white monuments trying to delineate a boundary that both human nature and the environment seem to naturally resist.


It was also interesting to see how the border was being constructed before our very eyes. The first day we arrived, there were a group of men working near the monument right alongside the road. When we stopped right on the border, we asked them what they were doing. They told us that they were building a sign that would signal the Guatemalan and Mexican sides of the border. Sure enough, when I walked back to the line two days later, the sign had been raised and the men were just putting on the finishing touches. On one side, it proclaimed “Welcome to Guatemala” on the other “Welcome to Mexico.” I wondered who had commissioned this “public work.” Indeed, the physical border was being constructed before our very eyes.

Visiting the southern border of Mexico naturally caused me to think about the country’s northern border. When I visited the northern border a year and a half ago, I did notice to some extent a feeling of physical arbitrariness of the border. For example, the city of Nogales felt fairly similar on both sides of the border; it was just divided across the middle by a big, tall wall. Nevertheless, on the northern border, everyone was incredibly cognizant of which side of the border they were on and what it meant to be on one side or the other. And how could it be otherwise – to cross from one side to the other you had to go through a border checkpoint along the road and to cross from Mexico to the U.S. you had to have your vehicle inspected and your documents checked. There certainly wasn’t the same nonchalance about nationality and location that I noted on the southern border.

Nevertheless, I have read and been told that, at one point, this nonchalance and relative freedom did exist on the northern border, as social and economic ties that had existed for centuries in the region were maintained even as national boundaries moved around. It is only with increasing enforcement of the border, build-up of physical barriers, and militarization along the border-line that the distinct physical presence of the border has been distinctly felt. And of course, it is only with this build-up that the border has become a truly toxic zone, where danger, abuse, and death can come in the form of thieves and gangs, dehydration, sexual exploitation, dangerous wildlife, and corrupt officials.

So it made me nervous to see the group of men building the sign marking off Guatemala and Mexico, literally “constructing” the border. In recent years, Mexico has ramped up its own immigration enforcement, at least partially due to pressure from the U.S. to control South and Central American immigration before it arrives on the U.S./Mexico border. The abuses and extortion that many Central Americans experience at the hands of corrupt Mexican police “enforcing” immigration laws are well known; in some places it is almost expected. Some say that U.S. pressure is pushing the border further south, so it possible that enforcement along the southern border of Mexico will continue to increase, and that this border will become the new “war zone” of immigration enforcement.

Standing in the bright sunlight, hearing the slow chirping of birds, and watching the green hills around us reflected in the stillness of the turquoise lake below, it was hard to imagine that the peace and continuity of this border-line could ever be turned into the heavily controlled border we see in the north. But all things can change, I remember, as I hear the chink of the hammer behind me, steadily driving in the foundation for the new Guatemala/Mexico road sign.

Rosa's story

I had the privilege of spending a Saturday afternoon with an amazing woman, Rosa (name has been changed), and her two children. We met to discuss the work that she does with a women’s rights group that operates in various indigenous communities in the area. We met each other in a center plaza in San Cristóbal and found a bench to sit and talk. I shared with her a little bit about the work I’m doing here, and she told me about her duties as a health promoter.

To Rosa, working with people in indigenous communities is something she has always felt compelled to do. She has always been involved with women in the communities where she has lived, working with them and trying to help them. When explaining her motivations, she repeatedly said “As an indigenous woman…” and then would go on to speak about her perspective. Her identity as an indigenous woman was clearly an important motivator for her work.

Rosa also told me about how she came to San Cristóbal. Her family was too poor for her to go to school, so she had to go to work. To find work, she moved from her home village about three hours away, to the city of San Cristóbal. I think she was a young teen at the time. While living here in San Cristóbal, Rosa met her husband. They are still together, however currently her husband is away working. He has to migrate to other places, Rosa says, because there is no work for him here. About one year ago, they were able to purchase a little bit of land and are building a house on it. This could be an important step towards getting them out of a vicious cycle of poverty (that can come from renting), however they still don’t have a roof for the house. So currently Rosa and her husband are working to save the money to buy their roof, and that’s why he’s away working. He’s still in southern Mexico currently, but he’s thinking about going to Tijuana to get better work.

Might Rosa’s husband try to cross to the U.S.? Rosa’s pretty sure that he won’t. He went there once to work in the past, but now, Rosa says, it’s just too dangerous and financially risky to make the crossing. She told me about how people die crossing the desert, about the various abuses migrants endure. She told me about how a person from Chiapas needs to spend 25,000 pesos (~2,500 dollars, often gathered and borrowed from family and friends) to make the trip and pay the coyote (guide) to cross the border, and often they just end up getting sent back and losing the money. In short, she is fully aware of the situation on the “frontera norte.” Rosa does have two cousins who are currently working in the U.S. and she says that they’ve been trying to get her husband to make the crossing once again. From the way she spoke about it, it seemed like she really didn’t want him to go. Still, Rosa maintained that she doesn’t think he’ll try because it’s too dangerous. So I hope, for her sake, that she is right.

Like I said from the start, Rosa is an incredible woman – strong, compassionate, motivated. She has worked all her life to support her fellow indigenous women and to work for social change. Now she would like to have a good, strong roof for her house. It seems strange that, given the way our global economy is structured, the way for her to achieve that is to live without her husband at home and with the fear that he might attempt a potentially lethal border crossing.

The first taste.

The more I experience, the more I realize how little I know (and how much there is to learn!)

The beginning of my trip got off to a beautiful start. I had the privilege of spending the first few nights of my time here with the family of my professor. They have been wonderfully open and generous and have helped orient me to San Cristobal.

I have so far spent my days walking the city, running errands (everything takes longer here for me because I don^t yet understand how basic things function - i.e. how you get things at a bakery (it^s by taking a basket and tongs and picking out the things yourself, by the way)), and by reading about the indigenous communities in the area. My first task in the research will be doing a lot of background reading and research. First, Jorge (my professor) and I are reproducing a course of his on the indigenous ^question^ and indigenous populations in the area, which includes information on the Zapatista struggle. Very interesting. I^m planning to supplement this with visits to indigenous communities and maybe a homestay in a village, if I can swing it.

So although I am eager to get started doing something in the more active sense, I realize (after discussions and receiving the advice of Jorge) that I have to first learn about where I am and get to know the people around me. I need to take small steps, but make sure that they are intentional and that I am taking in all my experiences as I go, as he puts it, with an open heart, and open mind, and an open heart.

And now the page turns...

Welcome!

The purpose of this blog is to document and share my experiences as I live, work, and learn in Chiapas, Mexico from July 2008 through May 2009.

The work that I will be doing will be with a university in Chiapas entitled El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (English translation: College of the Southern Border). I will be serving as a research assistant on a project that’s using interviews, focus groups, and conversations with local people and agencies to investigate possible links between migration patterns in the region and women’s health (particularly the transmission of sexually transmitted infections). My work will focus on conducting interviews, analyzing transcripts, and doing background research.

Background:

Chiapas is a region that is currently experiencing substantial changes in migrant flows. People are emigrating from Chiapas to the Yucatan and United States, others are returning from these regions, others are moving to the cities from the country, and still others from the cities to the country. In addition, migrants from Central America and South America head northward through Chiapas to the US or the industrial farms in Northern Mexico. Despite the prevalence of all of these migration patterns, they are mainly relatively new. While there is a long history of chiapanecos (Chiapans) migrating around Chiapas to follow the crops, within the last ten years there’s been a shift to more long term and lengthy migrations to the United States and tourist regions of Mexico for work. Starting in 1994, there has also been increased migration to and from the cities and towns, related to the uprising and ensuing political tensions related to the Zapatista movement. Chiapas is therefore an ideal location to explore the impacts of new migration patterns on the people and communities of the region.

Two more important characteristics of Chiapas that have already been linked with the migration in the region, are poverty and violence (including human rights abuses). Poverty in Chiapas has increased significantly in recent years. Farming communities that have traditionally been able to provide for themselves through subsistence agriculture and the sale of agricultural products suddenly (in the last 12 years or so) find themselves unable to do so. There are a number of reasons for this change, however many prominent thinkers point to the imposition of NAFTA as a major cause for this decreased capacity. As low-priced commodities have flooded the Mexican market, the demand for local production decreases and local production and commerce gets stamped out. As a result, many people have felt pressured to migrate to places like the U.S. and the Yucatan, where they can find work and provide for their families.

Violence and human rights abuses have also been linked with migration, but more as a product than as a cause. The transience and vulnerability of migrants passing through Chiapas has caused many people to take advantage of these migrants, often in ways that lead to violence. Gangs patrol the areas along the popular routes northward and have been known to rape, steal, and beat migrants passing through. Mexican police officers have often been known to take advantage of vulnerable Central American migrants passing through Chiapas.

The Project:

The project wants to see if and how all of these changes are affecting women’s health and the transmission of STI’s. For example, the sexual violence encountered by female migrants passing through Mexico can lead to increased rates of STI’s.

I was drawn to the project (and came to find it, in fact) because of my deep interests in health and human rights, as well as Latin America. I’ve been active as an advocate for immigrant rights in the U.S., have studied global health and health policy, and feel very passionate about the importance of preserving what the International Declaration of Human Rights deems “the right to health.”

If there is indeed an increased an increased prevalence in STI’s among people who have been affected by migration, as we are hypothesizing, then I see this as an assault on their right to health and I think that it is important that it be addressed. Fortunately, in addition to examining these links, the project team will try to work in conjunction with local organizations and key stakeholders to think about how certain changes might be made to counteract negative health outcomes. Having a better understanding of how migration patterns are linked to sexual health will most likely facilitate these changes.

Another important potential effect of the project is that the information obtained in this project may serve as a powerful political tool to challenge the situations and policies that determine migration and create the conditions for human rights abuses outlined above. NAFTA, United States immigration policy, and Mexican government policies all have a hand in determining the reality migrants experience in Chiapas. If this project finds that migration patterns are indeed partial causes of increased rates of STD transmission, that could serve as a powerful argument against destructive policies and help frame the argument in the context of human rights.

Please help!

As I gather stories and continue to learn through the project and its partnerships, I expect that I will encounter examples of how difficulties in Chiapas could be improved by policy changes. Many of these changes our tied to the government of the United States. Thus, despite our distance from Chiapas, as United States citizens we actually can have a say in improving the situation for the people of the state and for ensuring that human rights are preserved in the region. I will be sure to share with you any action steps you can do that I encounter (another main purpose of this blog). Please check back often to see how you can help.

Nevertheless, I do not mean to turn anyone away with this political aspect of the blog. If you do not agree with my statements or requests, I would hope that you are not made uncomfortable and that you continue to read for other aspects of the blog. Better yet, email me and let’s enter into conversation about our points of difference.

But whatever your political leanings, customs, favorite foods- for anyone and everyone, thank you for taking the time to glance at this small view from Chiapas and to share my experience with me.