We're not in Kansas anymore...or maybe we are!

Relocation semi-complete... now mexiroccan from the West Coast. Back on the aquí y alla rocking boat. I normally refrain from using outside images but I thought this image captured the current moment accurately ;]  Back on the blogasphere soon!

Photo by: Corey Arnold

On Women Aquí y Allá

Colectivo Raahuna - Tejiendo por el futuro de nuestros pueblos, Santo Tomas Jalietza, Oaxaca, July 2010.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how we relate to one another, in other words, been thinking a lot about Human Relations. Yep, here goes another curve ball in the all-encompassing slightly schitzo mexiroccan blog coming to you direct from deep down in the heart-of-southern Mexico. Bare with me...it's a bumpy ride but one I think worth taking ;]

Specifically I've been thinking about women and how we relate to one another. I think about these relationships constantly I suppose as a direct result of my own back and forth upbringing, the macho and machista-like tendencies in this upbringing (I urge you not to take my honesty under a US-centric microscope of Oooohs and Aaaaws exotification), my here and there state of mind, and the constant need to reconcile this aquí y alla syndrome in the most productive of ways possible. Mostly, I think, the strong female role models that have surrounded me, as I am sure many of you, throughout my life have led me to seek out other women, to listen, learn, and at times use that bridge on my back as a link between what I understand and what I don't get just yet. You gotta keep that bridge handy living the transborder lives we live these days, gotta bring it out to reach each other just as much as to cross to the other side. 

I've been more aware lately of these crossings, of the reaching, the seeking, the learning. For one, I recently had the opportunity and privilege to meet a grupo de artesanas from Santo Tomas Jalietza, a small rural pueblo in the central valley of Oaxaca, with two Xicanas from Califas who were visiting Oaxaca for a few weeks. The indigenous Zapoteca women from el Colectivo de Mujeres Raahuna originally came together to support each other in the working and sale of their weaved goods, which now includes computer bags and cell phone pouches (how's that for globalization). The experience was humbling as the women worked to organize packages to send back to the US with the two Xicanas. Final destination for the packages...the hands of an indigenous woman migrant who has been living under cover with the threat of deportation for a few years now, who despite her own situation has kept extending her hand out to help. 

Sharing time with the women in Santo Tomas and  the Califas Xicanas, and thinking about myself the pocha living in Oaxaca, and seeing how we all came together a darnos la mano was, at the risk of sounding conry, exilerating and nurturing. Don't get me wrong I am by no means naive enough to believe in some sort of universal sisterhood, hermanahood, or the like. And NO, I am by no means interested in engaging in some sort of we are women vs. machista men dialogue. On the contrary, what I am interested in is finding ways of relating despite or better said, THROUGH our differences. We already do this all the time! Let's leave that second wave feminism cochinadas, as much as they pop-up over and over, where they belong en el pasado. 

What I am interested in these days is finding spaces where we can learn, collaborate, and exchange ideas without leaving behind our differences, mas bien, spaces where we can put those differences to use. In other words instead of beginning from an assumed sisterhood, launching ourselves from difference towards building bridges, links, conversations...

Lately I've been more hopeful of the possibilities, mostly because of everyday experiences here, but also because of you I know personally, because of you I don't but who read, and because of you with whom I exchange brief "how do you do's" with virtually.

Here are just a few more mujeres, you might be interested in checking out what they do:

afrolicious  Fabmexicana  FloResiste   MonikaFabian

ModelMinority   SheBeganToFly   QuirkyBlackGirls

For more on Colectivo Raahuna in Oaxaca click here.

Here There and Back

"Aquí aquí aquí Toledo," Andador Turistico for Toledo's 70th Birthday, Oaxaca, July 2010. 

It's been less than a week since we've been back in town after almost a month long absence. We left at the height of increasingly ugly political campaigns, a week or so before elections for governor here in Oaxaca. World Cup fever was at its height and we had just recently arrived from a trip down south to Chiapas to get the car legalized (long story I'll come back to in another entry). To be completely honest, in some ways leaving was a relief. Sure I looked forward to a month of fubol hibernation and was beginning to psych myself out into enjoying the rain, but I had also grown increasingly homesick (if that is even possible given my tendency to imagine and construct a place called home that in real life does not quite measure up to my expectations).

I had traveled to the Mexican state of Sonora to the border town of Nogales on several occasions in the past. My grandfather, Sam who lives just a few miles from the Sonora border in the Arizona desert, has always been proud of his Mexican heritage and traveling to the border when one of his daughters or his grandkids visit is somehow often on his agenda. Mauricio had often spoken of Sonora when talking about his father since Don Rafael was born there in the coastal town of Guaymas and had lived between Sonora and Minnesota for what seemed at least ten years. The day we left Oaxaca, we literally packed up a few things, picked up and left behind our home, pet's and all other commitments. Mauricio's father was in the hospital and for the next three weeks we would be bouncing around in the desert, from hotel to hotel, from Hermosillo to Arizona to Hermosillo to Guaymas to Arizona.

I must admit that during the time we were gone Oaxaca almost became a distant memory, a mirage in the desert that at times seemed like another lifetime... and yet not. It was strange to walk the three blocks between our hotel and the hospital, (ironically both located on Avenida Oaxaca),  or go through our daily meal routines in Hermosillo and think we were still in the same country. The few times we ventured out or talked to people seemed to confirm the schism we felt within. It was as if we were listening to a record and the needle came to a halting scratch from which it could not recover.

Everything from the language, the food, the car culture streets, the architecture, the land's topography, and even people's mannerisms felt familiar to us yet so foreign to life back in Oaxaca. The hairdryer heat, the Oh too sweet! coyotas and Oh so salty! machaca, no wonder grandpa insists on the 'ton of sugar, ton of salt' balanced meal. The shhhhshing of CHs in words, the unbelievable sunrises and sunsets where the desert meets the sea. The Sonoran affinity for pipping hot menudo or pozole on equally boiling days, their almost all meat diet. Oh and what a delicious diet it is... Hand's down the best meat tacos and tortillas de harina I have ever had. The fast and helpful service, an absolute contrast to the often war one has to wage to buy even the most banal of things in a mercado in Oaxaca or to get served at a restaurant. Yes it almost felt surreal to get our food and check without hounding someone. That's right there was no 1 hour for ordering, 1 hour for food to arrive, and NO1 HOUR WAIT TO GET THE CHECK! phew!

Don't get me wrong I am happy to be back home in Oaxaca, but the time we spent outside also put a lot of things into much needed perspective and made me pick up once again those questions I've had regarding the North South, South North. The month long bouncing from place to place with Mauricio, Setty, Adrian, and M2 felt right. The outpouring of love, the caring, the laughter, the mourning together as some sort of modern-day nomad tribe was a beautiful experience that I for one feel so grateful  to have been allowed to be part of. Not to mention that the drives to Arizona and the time I was able to spend with my grandfather and and uncle were priceless.

As much as I love, respect, and am grateful for my life here in Oaxaca, the last month has also helped me reflect on the horse-blinder-effect that acute regionalism can cause. This is in no way a unique phenomenon to Oaxaca, but this is where I live and have daily interactions and so where I stand and from where I can hope to learn and grow.

On Quesillo Politics

Quesillo in Oaxaca Market, author unknown.

Elections for governor were finally held in Oaxaca and in 11 other states in Mexico this past Sunday on the 4th of July. Six years after the 2004 elections that magically and over night, literally, had the trailing PRI candidate Ulises Ruiz Ortíz leading and declared the winner by morning, his mustache clone budy Eviel Perez Magaña and the same 2004 coalition candidate Gabino Cúe, fought long with over the top campaigns that left a see-it-to-believe-it circus act/mafia taste in my mouth. The outcome this time was "different" with Gabino Cúe, the mega coalition candidate declared the winner breaking an 81 year PRI hold on the state. The "change" is considered significant and although I have been out of the Oaxacan politics loop for the past two weeks, visiting family in northern Mexico, the chants of joy have reached me in these desert lands. I am happy for the "change" but not quite ready to rejoice with the crowds and here's why.

I believe having Cúe as governor will do little to change the current situation of thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of Oaxaca’s, and that on the contrary sometimes having the right face is misleading. What I mean by this is that having a more likable and less brutish person at the forefront with no actual structural or social change and who on the contrary continues to merely reinforce   the system can be more dangerous. I don't want to sound like dooms day here, or like I am expecting miracles to be performed, but something clearly needs to change so things don't continue to go downhill. Something has to be reversed or at the very least stopped because continuing on the same path with a prettier face is not good enough. It might be easy, less worrisome, more convenient and even make one feel like a good and responsible citizen to merely go out and cast a ballot, come home watch the polls and cross ones fingers wishing and hoping stepping right back into our daily routines the next morning, but what good is a vote without any civic responsibility. By this I mean, if we want true change we can't naively think it will come through a ballot. 

What is good about the "change" in Oaxaca is that with Cúe, there might be less politically motivated arrests, there might be less politically motivated disappearances, and there might be less politically motivated assassinations than there could have been with Eviel Perez Magaña. He will most likely meet with more civil organizations give in to token gestures to quell growing discontent as he continues on the same path the PRI has been following, which is not necessarily their path, or the path of any other party, but that of market interests outlined at a much higher level than just Oaxaca. 

There is however a very small opportunity in this "change" that must be seized so that real change might have a slight chance. Real and continued civic participation, genuine interest in what is happening, pressuring the new government to also seize this opportunity to at least take a good look at the possibility of turning the wheels of a run away train that might just be fleetingly at a crossroads. I admit it is hard to believe this is even possible given Cúe's first words of thanks to both Lopéz Obrador and Calderón... (the great irony of his success on a ticket put together by a coalition of the supposed ultra right wing and left wing parties which in itself offers this slight opening as the parties argue over control)... but we are going nowhere and are stuck on this train whether we want to or not. We might as well do something and stop (excuse the language) half assing it sitting around the next six years in hopes of another shot for change...

Aurora y Antonio

'Y las paredes siguen hablando,' photo by Mauricio Magaña. Oaxaca, 2010.

I will try my best to be brief precisely because it is almost impossible to think of brevity after spending hours and hours listening to people weave stories into tapestries of esperanza. Last week was probably one of the hardest and most fruitful weeks of my life. I have had little time to think or wallow in 'foreigness' lately. I have been overwhelmed with emotions rushing gushing and spilling out of me; laughter, happiness, uncertainty, impotence, sadness, rage, and so, so much esperanza it poured out in tears several times. Too much has happened and I had been unable to write anything out of sheer exhaustion. This is my first attempt at reflecting on some of what was lived last week and I have chosen to begin by writing about Aurora and Antonio.

On Friday we went to a local university to hear two ex-commanders of a guerrilla group called the Insurgent People's Revolutionary Army (Éjercito Revolucionario del Pueblo Insurgente - ERPI). The ERPI grew out of another well known guerrilla group here in Mexico, the EPR with whom these two commanders broke from to form the ERPI in 1997. Both Gloria Arenas Agis and Jacobo Silva Nogales, known as Coronela Aurora and Comandante Antonio were political prisoners until late October of 2009 a little over ten years after being apprehended in late October 1999. Curiously the year before their arrests was the year the Mexican government formed the Federal Preventive Police (Policía Federal Preventive - PFP). The PFP was in fact the unit responsible for their arrests just as they were in charge of bringing order to Oaxaca in late 2006 during the APPO rebellion.

Both Gloria and Jacobo were arrested without warrants, both were severely tortured, and both were accused of a long list of crimes including rebellion, sabotage, murder, terrorism, etc. When apprehended neither denied their identities and both were presented to the public at a rueda de prensa in an effort to show the government's efficiency at dealing with crime. Finally both were sentenced to over 50 years in prison. 

Being accused of a crime in Mexico, especially if done for political reasons, means guilty until proven innocent, or to put it bluntly it means guilty with a stroke of a pen and regardless of a person's innocence. Piles of evidence in a person's favor will do nothing to reverse sentencing and will most likely, depending on the judge, never leave a person's file to be reviewed. A case in point here in Oaxaca is the case of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno currently in prison accused of shooting the American Indymedia journalist Brad Will in 2006.

The talk on Friday was inspiring. Walking into the room I recognized Gloria. Something about her was so familiar to me I felt I knew her, I tried to recall why I felt this way while rationalizing in my mind the impossibility. I decided I must have seen her picture or seen a video of her somewhere at some point. Like Jacobo's, Gloria's face reflected an enormous sense of peace that made the idea of  them spending 10 years in a maximum federal state penitentiary seem unimaginable. The room was full and the conversation focused largely on how to conceptualize and live fundamental social change without 'taking power,' ( to recall Holloway's 'How to change the world without taking powers'). Gloria and Jacobo spoke quietly yet with resolution while answering questions, showing an unfledging support and speaking of their incorporation into the continuing lucha for fundamental social change.

What was most surprising however, to most of us listening and asking from the audience was how these two ex-guerrilleros, Aurora y Antonio, political prisoners just recently released, having endured torture, and ten years in a maximum security prison, were tremendously moved by the people of Oaxaca. Their respect for the Oaxacan movement was unprecedented. I have heard reporters, NGOs, people disappointed by the movement, and a slew of academics discuss, speculate, and make conclusions over what exactly happened in the southern Sate of Oaxaca in 2006. The controversies extend from the usual arguments over semantics, (was this a movement? was this a rebellion? was this an uprising? and does it even matter?), to the aloofness of many who decided to shock-it-all-up to a few power hungry individuals pulling their usual puppetry tricks in the name of social change, in other words the tendency to reduce peoples participation to merely political manipulation. Ah but if only it were that simple... If only we could homogenise real life like we do often in our minds or on paper... Pardon me as I celebrate the fact we can't!

Gloria and Jacobo spoke with great admiration about the many lessons Oaxaca had shown the rest of Mexico in 2006, despite the aftermath and the current apathy that seems to permeate the Oaxacan landscape. It was clear that they had taken much from what was experienced in Oaxaca, not in the defeatist sense that many seem to have taken, or in fruitless arguments over whether or not what happened can be considered a movement, but by focusing on the glimmer of esperanza the Oaxacan movement was able to reveal, simply put, by imagining the possibilities.

To them the Oaxacan movement is exemplary of what el pueblo can accomplish, how it can organize, and even how it can surpass more than one would-be leader.  Yes some people within the movement sold their soul to the devil, yes there was repression, yes the same governor is still in power in large part due to the Federal Government's complicity, but beyond the materially and academically measurable how did people move, react, defend, fight, or even understand their own process etc. There will always be those who take the route of politics, who are able to gain materially by taking advantage of movements, but at the same time there will also always be those who will not follow, who will make their own paths, who will challenge through their actions, and surpass movement structures. That was more than evident in 2006.

Yet in a sense those of us in that room needed to hear it, not from the countless NGOs, reporters, or academics who have tried to speculate, but from Aurora and Antonio who have spent a lifetime working, fighting, and believing in social change. Their voices echoed in those walls louder  and more clearly than the voices of those of us who spend a lifetime behind desks analyzing data, deconstructing and reconstructing Babylon. In a sense their presence here in Oaxaca served to re-ignite a lingering flame amongst many Oaxaqueños whose participation in 2006 has been either elevated to misunderstood heroics or diminished to an anomaly. And so the flame of esperanza shines bright in the torn up streets of Oaxaca.

La niña de mis ojos

I received an email on Saturday that filled my eyes with tears of joy. I have known Gloria for over thirteen years of heartaches, joy, failures and accomplishments. At the risk of sounding like a cliche, we have cried and laughed together through the ups and downs of life and in the process have loved, nurtured and even on occasion I am sure have wanted to kill each other as any two sisters might :) Despite the different paths we have taken, despite the geographical distance our friendship has not only endured but grown and matured. We are no longer the two  inexperienced college graduates bound for an English winter in London... The bangs and glasses are gone and we have managed to shed some of our youthful insecurities... When we once watched every movie possible on opening weekend, we are now lucky to get to sit down and watch a movie together...

And so I received an email from Gloria on Saturday telling me about Sofia Elena that filled my soul with so much joy it flowed from my eyes. Every part of my body screamed for LA at that moment. I wanted to run to see Gloria, hug her, tell her how happy I am to know Sofia Elena will be with us soon, and how beautiful she looks with her growing pancita. My head filled with thoughts of tiny hands and feet, little dresses, tiny shoes, pink, yellow, white, fluffy, soft, beautiful...

I began dreaming of Sofia Elena and her arrival and haven't stopped since. In typical Herrera manner I watched the I love Lucy episode where Lucy let's Ricky know they are having a baby. Poor M. just watched me swim in my little pond of sentimentality, smiling, tearing up, and beaming with joy...

Bi yoosho'

En Juchitán se dice que las oleadas de viento significan cambio, el volver a empezar, una especie de borrón y cuenta nueva. Entonces no sorprende el saber que la temporada de ventarrones, (sin contar a La Ventosa donde siempre hay viento y donde se han estableciendo grandes abanicos hidroeléctricos sin beneficiar a sus habitantes), llegan precisamente a finales del año o al empezar el año nuevo. Llegan sin avisar de un día para otro y arrasan sin discriminar. Al mecerse los almendros tiran su fruta, el olor de los guiechachis se extiende, y las nahuas coloridas de las tecas dan la impresión de que van flotando.

En Austin el viento llega al final del año escolar... El va y ven de los árboles frondosos meciéndose imita el murmullo de las olas del mar, y al cerrar los ojos casi casi siento la brisa salada besarme la frente y los labios… casi casi puedo oler las frutas en vinagres, los betabingüis, el pan de elote, queso fresco, y los totopos recien orneados...

Change is gonna come..

I have heard many times people use the phrase "when pigs fly," this usually refers to the impossibility of something occurring. This morning I woke up to the news that pigs are not only NOT flying, (well...NOT YET!), but that people are now afraid that pigs can get infected with the now famous swine flu by being exposed to it through people infected. Osea que para acabarla de fregar estos mentados marranos resultaron muy delicaditos. Ya ni la friegan!

So what is one to do in the middle of so much uncertainty?! How are we to continue living our lives without fear in the middle of a supposed pandemic?!

During the Bush years, fear became standardized so much so it is now color coded... YELLOW, ORANGE, RED... I wonder if there is a purple, what would it mean? blue? green anyone? It doesn't look like the mass hysteria will end any time soon, (I would like to thank Ted Turner for pioneering 24-news channels, now we have people who are payed to scare the pants-off of us all-day and all-night). Maybe what we need to do is change how we take or don't take what they are telling us. It might sound silly, naive, or plain unthinkable, but then again who thought we would have rainbow terrorist threats. I vote for letting Ted Turner and the rainbow alert system dance the tango if they want. I would like to try and change the way I see the world instead, and maybe, just maybe I'll soon see some pigs fly...ja ja ja!

Disclaimer: Look beyond the sponsor ;) After we are turning a page and looking for the good.