Turning of the seasons....

Sandy cliffs towered behind me, the ocean rolled in with moderate waves before me.  The beach stretched on in each direction, with no other human in sight.  Strong sun warmed my skin in the cool air.  The National Seashore on Cape Cod is a gem in the lovely days after Memorial Day and before the summer crowds arrive.  I am grateful for those who worked to preserve it and grateful for a little time to let the rhythm of the waves and the calls of the birds sooth the spirit.
Early June is a turning time in organizing, as well.  The state legislatures are in their final days, which will require all the energy that can be mustered.  It has been a frustrating year.  While some really bad bills were stopped, most of the bills that would make life better for people of color or people who are low income are going nowhere.  The footprint of monied interests/corporate power is everywhere.  As in Wisconsin, money rules and it is very skilled at protecting its interests.  If you can show up at the RI state house on Thursday and Friday, there will be many things you can buttonhole legislators about.  See our State House Watch for legislation to keep talking to them about.  Not on that list are the bills to address tax equity (trickle down is not working, time to end a failed policy and put back the taxes that were lowered a few years ago).  If you can't be at the state house, phone calls are good!  The same process is in place in Massachusetts.
Once that madness is over, the tide shifts.
PLEASE HELP WITH THIS EFFORT!   June is the month in Massachusetts to collect signatures to put the Budget for All resolution to a vote by the people.  WE NEED YOUR HELP collecting signatures to get the resolution on the ballot. PLEASE contact us if you are able to help collect signatures!  It is really important to have a variety of towns and cities get the item on the ballot.  It only takes 200 signatures for a state house district - grab a few friends and head to the farmers market, local ball fields, grocery stores, etc to collect signaturs.  We will most eagerly help you learn all you need to know to do that.
Windows and Mirrors is coming to Providence!  Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan is a traveling mural exhibit that makes a powerful statement on a nearly invisible reality.  The exhibit consists of more than 45 large scale paintings by artists from all over the country that memorialize Afghan civilian casualties.  The exhibit includes images collected from Afghan high school students by Dr. Zahir Wahab, a professor at Lewis and Clark College, who asked young Afghans to draw images from their daily reality. The exhibit will open at the URI downtown Providence campus on July 9th.  There will be special events every Thursday through July and most of August, as well as several other events.  Please plan on visiting!
I hope that each of you will find some time as the tide turns to change your pace and renew your energy.  For your summer reading, AFSC posted recommended books on War and Peace in the fall issue of Quaker Action.  Click here to go to that edition then scroll through toward the end of the issue.  There are some great suggestions.
In Peace,
Martha Yager

Women Making a Difference

We sat in the kitchen of our host family, talking about migration. The husband of one of our hostess's sisters had moved with his family from the village of Teotitlan de Valle to the U.S. when he was ten and stayed there through college. He came back to reconnect with his roots and fell in love. They now have three children. At one point he returned to the U.S. to earn money to build a house. As one of the women pointed out, it is possible to make enough money to live, but hard to save. one of the sisters had worked in New Haven for awhile and now does domestic work in Mexico City. One brother left for the States years ago but they have never heard from him and have no idea if he is dead or alive.

Most families shared similar stories of migrating north. Some went as kids only to be deported to places they have no connection to as young adults. Some went for 20 years or more then came back to care for elders or were deported. Some found ways to go with documents, but that is terribly expensive. It is clear that there was a long history of movement back and forth across the border. Both countries thought little of it until 1) NAFTA began destroying the rural economy and 2)September 11 intensified a focus on sealing the border and criminalizing undocumented migration.

Charlie spoke of the pain of deportation, forcing him to leave behind two daughters and returning him to a place he had left when he was a small boy. 

 Our home-stay was arranged as part of our visit to a women's collective called Vida Nueva. It's current form began with a group of 14 women, some of them single, who built on the work of a previous group to help women build their own economic security through developing their own handicrafts businesses. The area is known for its weaving, but they also developed a candle business and a pastries business. The goal was to help the children in the family, especially the girls, be able to stay in school longer so they would have more opportunities. They helped the girls learn the local folk dances, and all were thrilled as they entered local dance competitions.

Women from the collective in the front row.

In 2000, after hearing ads for government programs to help local development, they decided to apply. That began a huge learning process, taking them to Oaxaca city for the first time. They got connected with NGOs and began doing more in the community on many levels. They held workshops on running a business, domestic violence, women's health issues, learning Spanish (many still speak Zapotec at home). And they began saving as a group for projects to help the collective and the community. (The community still is run in the old way, with collective decision making and required community service.)

In 2006 they decided to do a project for the community. Concerned about the impact on their health by the wood stoves in the kitchen, they worked with a student from Oregon to build ecofriendly stoves and toilets. In a year they did 30 stoves.

In 2007 they decided to place trash bins on Main Street with an awareness-raising message on them. At first there was resistance, then support from the town. The bins are still in place and the town now has added more.

One of the recycling bins near the market place.

Next was a project of care baskets for older women without children. Again, their small project grew beyond their dreams.

In 2009 they decided to tackle reforestation, beginning in a small way with the 30 trees they could afford. (tree cutting, both by local people and by timber companies has and a bad impact on the ecosystem.) Because much of the land is held in common, they had to go to the town government to ask permission for where to plant their trees. The council decided that this was a good project and that to protect the trees, everyone needed to be involved. They required a community service day for the preparing of the land and the planting. In the end 600 trees were planted and a fence built around it to,protect the small trees from grazing animals. They created a committee to care for the trees, so that they get watered every day in the dry season. Young people caught drinking too much or in other trouble may be sent to care for the trees as a way of repairing their relations with the community.

Food is a chronic problem. In a community without a lot of cash, growing your own food is a good idea. In 2011 they began a project to help people grow small gardens both to feed their families and to sell extras in the local market. They have held workshops helping people learn what they need to know food.

All of this has played a role in changing the possibilities for women in the community. Women play a more active role in the community assemblies. More girls are staying in school for longer times, and young women have access to information about health issues and domestic violence. They have ways of selling the stunning woven tapestries they make, as well as other handcrafts.  And when there is more economic security, there is less need to migrate.

It was a deeply complex visit, full of both inspiration and the sadness so families pulled apart by migration and deportation. And great beauty in the physical setting and in the crafts.

We returned today in time to see a huge (500-800 people) march through Oaxaca, ending at the nearby zocalo, of teachers, teachers in training and students protesting privatization of education, the closing of the community college (which is free, making education accessible to indigenous youth from the villages)and other education "reforms". Their energy and creativity was great! Slogan of the day "Revolution is not an act of rebellion- it is an action for justice!".

The Face of Migration

Juan sat in the small circle of our delegation, grinning self consciously at the attention, probably a little unsure what these people from the U.S. wanted to know about him. We asked a few broad questions, then, as he grew more comfortable and as we had a better sense what to ask, his story unfolded.

Juan is 22. He is from rural Guatemala. The violence there killed his mother when he was very little. His father fled to the U.S.   He hasn't heard from him since.  Juan was raised by his grandparents and spent some time in an orphanage. At 15 he headed north. When he got to the border, he worked for a bit to get the money needed, then paid someone to help him get across the border. They put a tire around him and pulled him across the river. Once in Texas he would find bits of work and kind people. Eventually was picked up at 17 and sent to a detention center, where he spent a month. "I was put in this white rabbit suit. It was one piece and had a hood. But they treated me pretty good because I was a minor."  Once back in Guatemala, he did his military service, then returned to the U.S. A priest helped him hop a train by showing he when the surveillance camera was pointed away and gave him some money to help till he found work. When ICE brought dogs to search the train he rubbed his whole body with garlic. Men nearby were picked up, but he made it undetected. He found work, found a place to say, then got an apartment. It was looking good till for a moment his youth got the better of his good judgement and he was picked up for an open container on the street and deported. This time he was warned that if caught again he would spend a year in jail.

So here he sat, one of the thousands of migrants from Central America making their way through Mexico. It was clear he felt Guatemala held no future for him. He had no family. No community. The jobs he had at 14 and 15 paid less than $3 a day which was not enough to live on let alone feed a family. In the U.S. he could work in kitchens or do agricultural work for $100 a week or more which, even with higher costs, seemed doable to him.

We asked if he had any questions of us. Yes. If caught, would he spend the year in jail or detention? We answered most likely jail. He nodded. We asked if knowing that he would still go. He shrugged. Yes. There was no reason not to try.

Juan will stay with me for a long time.

We met Juan at a shelter for migrants in Oaxaca. There are a number of these facilities across the country along the main migration routes. While they primarily serve people traveling north from other Central American countries they also sometimes assist internal migrants. They try to educate, to make sure people know what they are getting in to, assisting them with medical needs (common after the swampy crossing on the southern border of Mexico).

Memories flooded in of people I met at a similar shelter in the north who were so frighteningly unprepared for a dangerous crossing, the faces of my Guatemalan friends at home and the haunting memory of my friend Giovanni, who was killed shortly after returning to Guatemala in the very violence he had fled in the first place. It was a powerful morning.

This afternoon included a visit to RASA (food sovereignty and security in urban Oaxaca). Through mutual aid and networks people in the city support each other in community projects that involve food sovereignty, which they see as the ability to decide for ourselves what we will eat and how it will be produced. They are part of the indigenous network addressing food sovereignty throughout Mexico. Their work is so exciting.

As we reflected on our visits so far many of us commented that these amazing projects give us hope but that they seem so small in the face of the huge tsunami of neoliberal globalization.

Tomorrow we travel to Teotitlan de Valle, about an hour south east of the city. We will be visiting the Vida Nueva Cooperative, a women's weaving collective. We will spent the night in the homes of women who are in the collective and return to the city on Friday, so I won't be writing here tomorrow night.

Into the Mountains

Oaxaca is a fascinating city, but my country spirit was thrilled to climb on a bus for the Mexteca area north of the city. We traveled north in the Central Valley for a bit, then began to climb into the mountains. (Oaxaca, like Denver, sits at about 5,000 feet above sea level and the mountains go to 10,000 feet and more.)

After a stunningly beautiful ride, we arrived in Nochixtlan, where we visited the CEDICAM project (center for Integral Development of Campesinos of the Mexteca). We were greeted by Phil Dahl-Bredine (worked for many years with Mary Knoll in Latine America and has spent more than the last decade as a volunteer with CEDICAM).

Phil took us on a tour of the little museum that tells a little of the Mexteca story and in particular their relationship to the land. For several thousand years they have lived on this land, growing corn so drought resistant it can go form5 months with no rain, inter-planting crops in a way that maximizes growth and continuously feeds the soil. Food crops, flowers and medicinal plants are all grown together in complex mixture.

CEDICAM was started in 1997 after beginning under another organization. To be a member you must be a campesino and a Mexteco. There are 14 facilitators who train local people to be promoters in the villages, helping people relearn the traditional ways of farming so that they don't have to buy seed or fertilizer or expensive tools while benefiting from research and technology when it benefits this sustainable way.

Much of our lively discussion revolved around the amazing work being done on sustainability that we in the north don't hear enough about. Monoculture is destroying the earth. It isn't sustainable. We have much to learn from the local economies that live more sustainably and use more local agricultural methods. Phil has a book you might be interested in, The Other Game. I will try to write more on this in coming months.

Following our meeting with Phil were climbed back in the bus for a wild two hour rodeo very tiny and hilly dirt roads to the village of San Miguel Huatla, at about 7,000 feet above sea level.

Home to about 250 families, about 75 families are active members in CEDICAM and they are looking to double in size. Everyone here is a subsistence farmer. CEDICAM helps them expand their crops, increase yield with organic practices, supports the communal practices that help reduce the need for cash and strengthens community. Actually very few people migrate from this village, which suggests it as a model for other struggling agricultural communities. Several amazing women took us for a hike up the hillside to see the see their gardens, worm farms and wheat/pea/and corn fields. It was an incredible afternoon.

 

A tired crew got back on the bus for the three hour trip back to the city. Doing the winding dirt roads in the dark added a whole new layer to the experience!  (The stars were beautiful!)

Lessons from Oaxaca

This morning after a lovely breakfast and time together for reflection, we climbed into taxis and rode to the building housing Services for an Alternative Education, where Miguel AngelbVasquez de la Rosa made a presentation on their work. EDUCATION is an NGO that focuses on responding to the most urgent needs of the people in situations of economic, social and political vulnerability. EDUCATION supports indigenous communities and organizations in Oaxaca in defense of their rights to civic participation, observation of electoral processes in indigenous communities and studies the traditional judicial system in the Coastal, Mixteca and Southern Mountain region of Oaxaca.

After an amazing lunch and walk in the neighborhood we went to a lovely convent where Witness for Peace had rented a room. Our next speaker was delayed because of some street blockades near his office - apparently a common thing. The occupy movement could learn a great deal by studying the social movements here!

Juan Gutierrez, from the Oaxacan Migrant Services Institute (IOAM), the state agency that provides legal assistance an other services to Oaxacan migrants and their home communities. They use various strategies (street theater, programs in schools, films and conferences) to educate Oaxacans about the risks and realities of migration, as well as works to create opportunities for migrants to build community and share information. Both our speaker and the agency director are indigenous people themselves, and have experience with binational community organizing. They are proposing some reforms to state government to better address the complex reality.

And complex it is. Agricultural workers migrate within Oaxaca on a seasonal basis. Because of the rural poverty (created in large part by a series of U.S. and Mexican policies) many also migrate within Mexico, going both to Mexico City and to agricultural areas further north. A sizable number go to the United StAtes (many also used to do that seasonally before the border tightened). In part because it is so hard to come back, the demographics shifted from migration being something that primarily men did, to something men and women did together, to more recently, whole family groups and communities migrating together. The other sizable piece of the challenge is the movement of Latin American and Central American migrants through the state.


The afternoon ended with a "game" of Soccer for Suckers, a fun way to learn about imbalance of power in the global economy, followed by an exploration of how the "Drug War" factors into the complexity.

The evening was for slow walks in the lovely cooler air, dinner near the zocalo, and preparing for tomorrow.

First Day in Oaxaca

Today is the first full day in Oaxaca Mexico with the AFSC/Witness for Peace delegation to Oaxaca to learn from people here about their economic reality, the roots of migration and the impact of migration on the communities people leave behind.

The view of the courtyard and sky from our room.

We woke to cool fresh air and brilliant blue skies. Using the Hostel Don Miguel as our base, we set about the process of becoming a group for this week of learning, then moved on to interactive learning about the global economy, and in particular it's impact on Mexico. In the afternoon we went for a history walk, with local Witness for Peace staff briefing us on Oaxacan and Mexican history, including indigenous history.

Oaxaca is a city of about 500,000 people in the State of Oaxaca. It is the second poorest state in the country. About one third of the state's population speak one of the sixteen indigenous languages. More than 50% of Oaxacans farm, the majority on community held lands.

Farming has been devastated in many ways by global finance, NAFTA, and programs the government agreed to to get IMF and World Bank loans. when people are hungry and unable to provide for their families, one of the main options is to move to a place with more opportunity. There has been substantial migration with in Mexico as well as movement to the United States.

A sculptural installation along several blocks representing the huge impact of migration on the city.

Tonight our heads are spinning with the complexities of economic history, the history of a variety of empirial powers, and how it has all played out in this place. We have had a little time to explore the zocalo (central plaza) and some of the nearby neighborhoods. Tomorrow we begin meeting with people from the community who will share their insights and experience.

Making Change Happen

This month's calendar is full of ways to help work for change.  There are meetings and legislative press conferences, general assemblies and vigils.  At a recent Occupy meeting I listened to a young activist lending support to some work on the state legislature say "We have to do more than march around in the street.  The marching is good, but we have to talk to people who can make things better".
It's true.  The marching is important.  And there are limits to what the existing political structure can do.  But if it can help stop racial profiling by the police and if it can keep people in their homes after foreclosure - let's try to make it happen.  So learn about your favorite issue (AFSC-SENE has a list of bills we would love your help on, on the website)  We will update this list weekly with information on hearings, press conferences and rallies.  You can watch the great video on racial profiling made by Youth in Action here.
Take Action: I know, calling Congress can feel like a pointless exercise, but it isn't.  On a good day, a flood of calls does make a difference,  On a bad day, they know we don't like what they are doing - and that matters.  Our silence can be read as agreement.  I don't want my grandchildren asking "Why didn't you try to fix it, Nana?"   We owe our kids and grandkids that.  And if it all feels pointless, get involved with the Occupy movement, which stands outside of most political activity and insists on deep system change.
That said:  go to http://www.afsc.org/action/tell-congress-they-must-cut-military-spendingand voice your thoughts about the attempts to make deep cuts in human needs spending while sparing the military spending (which at about 60% of the spending, should be the place to start).  Email your congressional people and/or write a letter to the editor.  The link helps you with wording if you want help.
  Many thanks