Marisol

Her anger filled the room.

It was approaching noon

But the windowless walls

Made our minutes there

Timeless.

We sat on overturned buckets

Munching on the snacks that

Comprised their livelihood.

Food they would sell on the street

Earning thirty dollars a week,

Yet offering it with generosity.

We held up the ends in our minds

Trying to understand how

And if they meet.

We asked and listened,

Reeking of privilege and comfort,

Petting sniffing pups,

Tuning out a blaring TV,

Overwhelmed by kindness and open arms,

Shameful for ever wanting more than we need.

Marisol had stood silently in the corner

As her mom shared the details of their lives:

Their early mornings and long days,

The happiness that enfolds them

As they were never forced to part,

Remembering those who had not been so lucky.

Breaking a lull in the conversation, we ask

“What do you want others to know?

What should we share

With people at home?”

Suddenly, her stillness broke

And Marisol leapt to life,

Finding our gazes as she spoke,

Meeting them with firm eyes,

A perceptible rage animated her limbs as

She implored us to spread this simple message:

“We do not wish to leave our families behind,

We do not love your country more than

each other.

Our fathers do not die in the desert for

your dream

And we don’t miss them with our

entire beings

For the land of opportunity.

We don’t yearn to be hated and scorned,

To be called illegal and unwanted.

We don’t even know how to loath a people so fully,

And we wouldn’t abandon all we know,

Leaving our families broken and torn

So that our bootstraps can lift us into

your prosperity.

These are decisions made for survival,

Plans hatched out of necessity and pain.

Tell them we cross because we have to

Tell them they would do the same."

*Written by Julie Duncan

Mexico and the United States: Facts Everyone Should Know

*This information comes from an August, 2014 lecture by an exiled American professor who teaches at a Mexican University. For his safety, I am keeping his name private. He was forced to leave academia in the U.S. in the 1960s for his radical views and disseminating ugly truths about our government’s foreign economic policies.

• 1940: President Miguel Aleman elected in Mexico. He made industrialization a priority to show Mexico was making progress and keeping up with the rest of the world.
• He wanted the U.S. to invest in Mexico because they did not have the capital to develop on their own, so he invited companies like Chrysler, General Electric, Coca Cola and many more to open factories there.
• Examples of products produced: cars, Kleenex, toilet paper, canned goods, washing machines, detergents, soda, etc. 
• Foreign capital (from the U.S., Germany and Japan) ultimately industrialized Mexico
• Aleman’s practices & policies in this era opened the door for future U.S. economic entanglement

• North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): 
•  Enacted in 1994: it linked Canada, the United States and Mexico’s economies in a free market to break down trade barriers, eliminating tariffs. 
• Permitted the U.S. to buy corn from Mexican farmers without having to pay taxes. Then two years after NAFTA was enacted the U.S. signed The Farm Bill into law, which subsidized American farmers for growing corn so they no longer had to purchase it from Mexican farmers.
• Rural, agricultural areas in Mexico are in economic ruin because of free trade. A flood of cheap corn came in from the U.S., which made it impossible for Mexican farmers to sell theirs in the cities. 
• This has also caused the narcotics trade to increase immensely because the abandoned farm land is perfect for growing marijuana and poppies. 
• Mexico has much less strict environmental and labor laws than the U.S., which American corporations have taken full advantage of. Even more of them started moving their factories to Mexico because they could pay the workers there next to nothing and they have much less protection legally than workers here, which leads to a lot of abuse (long hours, very few bathroom breaks, women are berated for being pregnant & can be fired for it, no unions allowed to organize, scandalously low wages, etc.). The loose environmental regulations have fueled reckless practices by these American corporations that are wreaking havoc in Mexico (Rio Grande totally polluted; babies born with birth defects and deformities with regularity in that region; chronic illness in general; land has become unusable). Since farmers can’t afford to farm anymore they’re being forced into working in these unsafe maquiladoras (factories).
• This export platform has enabled the top 10% of the Mexican population (the uber wealthy) to make more money than ever before. The economy is booming for them and American corporations—the average, annual GDP of all products produced in Mexico is $1 trillion! 
• 20 million people have tried to come into the U.S. because of the economic situation NAFTA has created and more are being thrown out than ever before.

• School of the Americas (SOA): military academy for Latin American soldiers that was started in Panama in 1946 and has since been moved to Fort Benning in Georgia
• It is branded as a school to promote democracy in Latin America, but in reality its purpose is to train & support militarized governments that will help American corporations through economic policies we mandate
• 1979: bloody civil war started in El Salvador. Over 75,000 people were killed (an entire generation) mainly by the El Salvadoran government. 1,000 of their soldiers were trained at SOA. 
• Of the 60,000 soldiers trained at SOA to date, 600 are convicted human rights violators
• At a time when more prisons are built than schools and cuts to education are constant in the United States, the government is using our tax dollars to give scholarships to the Central and South American soldiers sent here to learn how to torture and oppress their own people. As American citizens, we have culpability in this for not knowing or caring where our money is going. 
• In the year 2000, SOA was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for National Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), mainly so SOA protesters would think it had closed. Human rights courses were added to the curriculum as part of this rebranding, but the oppressive tactics are still taught as well. It operates in the same building as SOA.

• Comparing the U.S. to Mexico on...

• Nationwide Unemployment Rates:
• in the United States: 5.5%
•  in Mexico: 50% (one of the highest in the world)
• Federal Minimum Wage:
• in the United States: $7.25 an hour *President Obama hopes to raise it to $9 in stages by the end of 2015
• in Mexico: 65 pesos a day (less than $6)  

• Other Facts about Mexico:
• The same political party has been in power for over 70 years (PRI), with two exceptions of Presidents from the PAN party in the 21^st Century ( elected in 2000 & 2006). Because PRI has been in power for so long these two PAN Presidents (Calderón & Fox) did not have much of a political structure to rely on and the majority of positions under them were still held by PRI members. 
• Honest voters in Mexico are ones who are “bought and stay bought.” Loyalty comes through bribery and coercion (people are offered financial incentives for their votes and physically dragged from their homes and forced to vote a certain way). There is a very limited understanding by the general public of how the electoral system works in Mexico than there is in the United States.
• The United States is the biggest consumer of illegal drugs in the world, so we are fueling the narcotic trafficking crisis so many of us criticize and fear.  The drug industry accounts for $100 billion of the Mexican GDP (10%) total, so it feasibly can’t be eliminated, even if it could be, because the economy would really crumble.
• Socioeconomic Breakdown:
• Top 10%: the super rich and multinational corporations 
• Middle 20%: the middle class: professionals
• Bottom 70%: marginalized population, small business owners

*Compiled by Maddy Mitchell

Live in Peace

Live in Peace!

One of the many reasons I am here in Mexico is to understand other ways of health care that exist outside of the “traditional” medical model. The indigenous people here in Mexico have been using the earth to heal since the beginning of time. The earth has all that we need. 

“The energy in our hands and hearts is the energy from God”, said Nacho Torres, a healer from a small, remote town close to Cuernavaca, Mexico. According to Nacho, this energy is a force from God. We all have the light. We have a connection to the earth, our roots. 

I can naturally see the intersections of a person's mental health and their connection to the earth. I believe it is super important for an individual to connect back to their roots in an effort to find wholeness. To be human is to be connected, connected to other humans as well as to the earth and the cosmos.

¡Vivir en Paz!

One of the many reasons I am here in Mexico is to understand other ways of health care that exist outside of the “traditional” medical model. The indigenous people here in Mexico have been using the earth to heal since the beginning of time. The earth has all that we need. 

“La energia en nuestros manos y corazones es la energia de dios”, dijo Nacho Torres un curandero de un pueblito cerca de Cuernavaca, Mexico. Esta energía es una fuerza de dios. Todos somos las luces. Tenemos una coneción con la tierra, nuestras raíces.

I believe it is super important for a person´s mental health for them to connect to the earth. To be human is to be connected, connected to other humans as well as to the earth and the cosmos.

*Originally posted by Terri Shelton on August 24, 2014 at: http://gsswblog.du.edu/globalpractice/2014/08/24/vivir-en-paz/

Me nombre es lucha

Movement for Peace, Justice and Dignity is a non-violent group of Mexicans that fights against the Mexican government that began in 2011. Like the Zapatista movement, this movement does not use 
bullets to fight, they use words.

Over the past decade the Mexican government has been responsible for killing 100,000 people, 10,000 have been displaced and no one knows how many people have gone missing because of violent crimes. 

Today, on average, 1,800 people are killed each month by the Mexican government. During a discourse with a young, Mexican organizer, someone from our group asked him if he was scared to organize against the violent government. He quickly said, “No”. Then he explained the difference between being scared and being terrified. To be scared is to be alert, having all senses open, always moving around and on the go. To be terrified, on the other hand, paralyzes people. Then, he paused before saying that it is good to be scared and the fear motivates him. The fear does not stop him. 

So, what can we do? What can we do as Americans to help the Movement for Peace, Justice and Dignity in Mexico and around the world? I think it starts with knowledge. Knowledge of the truth and the reality of what is happening in Mexico. 

...Me nombre es lucha

Me nombre es lucha...

Movimiento por la Paz y Justicia Dignidad (MPJD) es un grupo de no violencia contra el gobierno de México que empezó en 2011. Como el movimiento de las Zapatistas, no usan balas para luchar. En cambio, usan palabras. 

En la última década, más o menos, había 100,000 muertos por la culpa del gobierno mexicano, 10,000 personas han sido desplazados, y nadie sabe cuantas personas han estado desaparecidos por causas de violencia. Todavía, hoy en día, promedio de 1,800 personas se encuentran muertos cada mes. Durante una discurso con un organizador, alguien le preguntó si tiene miedo organizando contra la violencia. Le dijo, “No”. Entonces explicó la diferencia entre tener miedo y tener terror. Tener miedo es estar alerto, todos sentidos abiertos, siempre moverse adelante. Tener terror, en el otro mano, paraliza la gente. Pues, es bueno tener miedo. En este sentido, es mejor tener miedo.

Entonces, ¿Qué podemos hacer? ¿Qué podemos hacer para ayudar los intentos de los movimientos de paz in México y en el mundo? Creo que empieza con conocimiento. Conocimiento de la verdad y realidad de que esta pasando.

…Me nombre es lucha

*Originally posted by Terri Shelton on August 29, 2014 at: http://gsswblog.du.edu/globalpractice/2014/08/29/me-nombre-es-lucha/

Stranger

Extranjera

Speaking words that aren’t

mine

from a place I can’t call

home.

Sometimes

I ask myself,

me pregunto,

if I´m a walking,

talking

symbol

of oppression,

Of a mother´s wish

to throw off her culture

to be like everyone else,

to reject those that scorned her,

to make life easier.

Extranjera

Sounds and smells

so familiar,

yet,

not entirely my own,

A passing memory

or a childhood dream,

Hard to cling to

and muddied by time.

Extranjera

A diluted phenotype

begs questions:

Where are you from?

Why don´t you speak Spanish?

Calls for isolation:

Los primos blancos

The Mexican cousins

Extranjera

Like an uprooted tree

replanted

in unnurturing ground,

looking for nutrients

searching for

a fixed identity

¿De donde soy?

*Originally posted by Julie Duncan on August 24, 2014 at: http://gsswblog.du.edu/globalpractice/2014/08/24/stranger/#more-'

Gloria

Yesterday, a woman named Gloria shared her story. Gloria is a survivor of the civil war in El Salvador (’79-’92); she recounted to us her experience living in a small village called Tacachico until 1981. Her story is one of oppression and courage, fear and fearlessness, struggle, and ultimately of survival. She spoke of marching in the thousands against a corrupt government only to be fire-hosed with water and later captured if found drenched. She stood in front of us as a testament to the pain and suffering caused by losing her loved ones; first her father, then her siblings and mother. They were killed for working towards a better existence, for believing in community, or simply for fleeing too slowly. Gloria retold her family’s countless escapes to the surrounding mountains where they would wait for their village to settle again. She discussed her own capture with her two children and how she couldn’t eat for fear of death; how she couldn’t feed her baby for lack of nutrients; and how she worried incessantly about her feverish son. She eventually fled El Salvador to where she lives now in Mexico.

It was powerful to be in that room with Gloria, to feel her story through her voice; it’s something I wish I could share with everyone; and it’s something I will carry with me always.

As someone who is community-minded, I can’t help but acknowledge that her personal struggle is couched in a greater global, economic, and political context. Furthermore, millions of people have stories filled with pain and suffering that are also pieces of a larger picture, constructed by systems that often ignore the need or will of the people. For instance, Gloria’s family was repressed by a military that received U.S. aid in the form of arms, military funding, and training for soldiers at the School of the Americas. This is something we don’t discuss in school, through the media, or in popular politics.

I recognize how difficult it can be to ask hard questions, to truly scrutinize the world we live in, and to attempt to be an agent of change every day. After all, it’s difficult to know whether or not the men and women who harvested my strawberries were paid adequately and treated humanely. Yet, to me, my experience in Puebla has renewed my energy to be conscientious of everyday decisions, to work toward a more sustainable and healthy future, and to do what I can for the betterment of all.

Ultimately, I am left with an important lesson: I may not be able to change our society’s oppressive structures tomorrow, but doing nothing is not (and will never be) an option.

*Originally posted by Julie Duncan on August 27, 2014 at: http://gsswblog.du.edu/globalpractice/2014/08/27/gloria/

The Power of Listening

The Latino Certificate group with one of the families (and their adorable puppies Chito and Osito) that invited us into their home

We have had so many impactful interactions with such wonderful people in the eight days we’ve been in Puebla so far that it is difficult to pick one to write about in this second post. That said, I think I’ll talk about two of the most humbling experiences for me so far. This past Sunday we went to visit two families in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city of Puebla. To give you an idea of the level of poverty they are struggling with, the monthly rent at their homes comes to about $76.40 and $114.61 respectively. To those of us who live in the U.S. that seems like absolutely nothing, but it is a struggle for these women and their children to come up with that money because their only form of income is selling food they make on the street. On a good day one of the women said they might make 100 pesos, which is around $7.65 to give you some perspective on how difficult it is to earn enough for rent on a monthly basis. On top of rent they need to buy food for themselves and pay their electric bill every two months, not to mention clothes and other things they might need. Sending their children to school also costs around $114 a year per child and there are no free and reduced lunch programs in Mexico, so they must send food with them to school every day as well. At ten and twelve years old the kids start contributing, which they are happy to do because supporting themselves is a collective, family effort. As real as their struggles are, they also feel blessed that their families are still together because so many others have to separate out of economic necessity and are often never reunited.

Sitting in these families’ one room apartments on chairs they insisted on finding for all fifteen of us, I couldn’t help but feel unbelievably ungrateful for ever complaining about the extremely easy life I’ve led. This wasn’t the first time I’ve thought about how fortunate I am, but it is one of the only times I’ve been confronted with it in person by hearing these women and their children’s stories—listening, asking questions and connecting with them as a fellow human. It’s one thing to be aware that extreme poverty like that exists & discuss it in the confines of a classroom and an entirely different experience to see and talk to the people living it day in and day out.

Estela talking to us about her pueblo, Cohoapa el Grande

Another powerful and humbling interaction was hearing a young woman named Estela from a tiny mountain pueblo called Cochoapa el Grande—the poorest municipality in the state of Guerrero—talk about her mission to bring the most basic of necessities to her village. It is three-four hours from the nearest city of Tlapa and does not even appear on a map. The children there only have classes three days a week because it takes the teachers a full day to get there and back and they don’t like staying there for longer than that. Many of the people living there have no form of identification because they were born in the mountains and never received a birth certificate, so according to the Mexican government they don’t exist. There is one clinic in the village for 1,975 inhabitants which often overwhelms the one doctor, three nurses and three interns. If you need to see a specialist or get a specific kind of medication you have to make the three-four hour trek to Tlapa and it isn’t uncommon for people to die on the journey. One of us asked if there was access to clean water nearby and she said it wasn’t far at all—they only had to walk an hour to get to the river and then boil the water before they used it. Estela is fighting to further her education and get better educational access for those in her village & effective social services without much familial or community support. I couldn’t help but think during her talk that she is so much braver and stronger than I could ever hope to be. I have never had to fight for the things I believe in like she has or needed the confidence she has in what I believe in to not be deterred when very few people support me. And she does all this with the utmost respect for her culture and village—she just wants their lives to be better in the most basic ways.

After gaining all this new knowledge, I am continually thinking about what it will be like going back to my daily life in the States. I am envisioning I will find it difficult being forced to care about the things that used to seem so important and being surrounded by people who don’t know or simply don’t care about these real and pressing issues. I also worry that I’ll get caught up in myself and school again and let all of this knowledge and anger go, becoming complacent because caring is too hard. However, I also sense that I may have reached the point of no return—I can’t go back knowing what I know now; this experience will never leave me. I hope I can rely on and invest in the support of my classmates on this trip with me and maintain the closeness we’ve developed because of this shared experience. So, instead of getting overwhelmed by all the change that needs to happen, I am going to focus on something small I can do every day to chip away at all the grand social problems looming in front of me. I’m done waiting for something in my life to change so I feel ready to act—the time is now and I can’t do it alone. ¡Si se puede!

*Originally posted by Maddy Mitchell on August 28, 2014 at: http://gsswblog.du.edu/globalpractice/2014/08/28/now-what/ 

Choosing Awareness

El Mercado Cinco de Mayo in the city of Puebla

As a group of social work students who are a part of a Social Work with Latinos Certificate at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work, we have done a lot of self-reflection since arriving in Puebla, Pue.—Mexico to learn more about the Mexican culture and its people. Although I have been passionate about doing the certificate and working with the Latino population in Denver all along, I had trouble verbalizing why I was coming to Mexico and what the exact purpose of our trip was. Now after just a few days here in Puebla, I understand how critical this experience is for my development as a social worker and as a white American in particular. We´re only here for two weeks, which is no time at all but even this short stint of cultural immersion is going to be critical in helping me become a part of a movement for social change in an effective and genuine way. As a social work student, I have come to understand the importance of cultural competence—not assuming you have all the answers or know about every aspect of another person´s culture and beliefs, and also being respectful of that culture and not imposing your own beliefs and values on anyone else. But just like I think it is difficult to learn a language unless you are living in a place where you can completely immerse yourself in it, I think it would have been incredibly difficult to feel at all culturally competent when it comes to working with Latinos without this experience in Puebla. Obviously, I am only in one place talking to and interacting with a small percentage of people who are not representative of all Mexicans, but it is still so valuable to witness and hear about the problems and pain & suffering that are causing so many people to migrate to the United States. My hope is that this new knowledge and understanding will make me both a more empathetic and culturally competent social worker.

a typical street in the city of Puebla

One of my biggest takeaways from this experience thus far is that as Americans we are unbelievably lucky simply to live in a country where we can fight for social change without the fear of death. The corruption and government control is so extensive here in Mexico that speaking out against the oppressive conditions automatically puts you at risk. There are a lot rights like free speech that feel so basic to us and we take for granted on a daily basis. So many of us are completely ignorant to how bleak the economic and social conditions are in Mexico and they are our neighbors! Seventy percent of the Mexican population lives in poverty. The unemployment rate here is a whopping fifty percent (highest in the world) compared to roughly a mere seven percent in the U.S. Although it has improved, the general consensus is that our job situation is pretty bleak. Imagine what life would be like for the majority of us if our unemployment rate was that high! Hearing these shocking statistics makes me wonder if our ignorance is chosen. If more people knew them, along with the role the U.S. has played in creating the situation, would there be increased empathy for the stream of immigrants coming to our country just to survive?

What I am realizing is that as social workers, especially those of us interested in community organizing and advocacy, it might be our job to educate the general population on such social injustices. It´s a job I am whole-heartedly committed to taking on, but I still wonder if it´s possible for me to genuinely be a part of the solution when I am passively part of the problem as a white American leading a very privileged life. I think the key is to treat my job as a future social worker as a process I continually approach with a sense of humility and desire to learn from those I am working with instead of on behalf of. If we have any chance of creating any real, lasting social change a sense of cooperation and continuous exchange of knowledge & ideas is absolutely crucial.

*Originally posted by Maddy Mitchell on August 24, 2014 at: http://gsswblog.du.edu/globalpractice/2014/08/24/choosing-awareness/