tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2013-05-16T20:57:38Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11444 2013-05-16T20:46:47Z 2013-05-16T20:57:38Z

MEXICO CITY - A group of Mexican citizens are preparing the first civil lawsuit in the Mexican courts against British oil company BP for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.The plaintiffs are bringing the class action lawsuit under a...

Emilio Godoy ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 MEXICO CITY - A group of Mexican citizens are preparing the first civil lawsuit in the Mexican courts against British oil company BP for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The plaintiffs are bringing the class action lawsuit under a 2011 reform of the Mexican constitution that allows a large number of people with a common interest in a matter to sue as a group.

The civil lawsuit encompasses “damages to people living in the area or who own residential and commercial property along the coast, and people indirectly affected” by the spill, lawyer Óscar Preciado, with the law firm Rincón Mayorga Román Illanes Soto y Compañía, told IPS.

“Without a doubt, this will set an important precedent. Class action lawsuits have been brought, but in questions relating to consumer, rather than environmental, rights,” said the lawyer, whose firm is representing the plaintiffs.

On Apr. 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, owned by Swiss-based Transocean Ltd and under lease to BP, exploded off the coast of Louisiana, leaving 11 workers dead and 17 injured. It sank two days later.

By Jul. 15, 2010, when the oil leak was finally sealed, nearly five million barrels of oil had been spilled – only 800,000 of which were recovered – and at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants had been injected into the Gulf of Mexico.

The spill poses a long-term threat to flora, fauna and fishing resources in the Gulf of Mexico, which bathes the coasts of the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Quintana Roo, and to tourist sites, although the final extent of the damage is unknown, experts say.

“The government and BP can be sued in Mexico. The government was guilty of omission in this case,” René Sánchez, the coordinator of Colectivas, told IPS. The non-governmental organisation was born in November 2012 to provide advice to organisations and individuals with respect to filing class action lawsuits.

However, the 2011 law on collective action, which allows groups of consumers and PROFECO, Mexico’s federal consumer protection agency, to sue public and private companies, does not contemplate reparations.

The Gulf of Mexico disaster gave rise to a massive class action lawsuit involving more than 130,000 plaintiffs, known as multi-district litigation 2179 (MDL-2179), overseen by federal Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans.

In January, BP pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts and was sentenced to pay 4.5 billion dollars in penalties and fines. However, the amount is expected to climb as the lawsuit continues to wind its way through the courts.

The following month, TransOcean was found guilty by a U.S. federal judge of violating the U.S. Clean Water Act, and was fined 1.4 billion dollars.

Barbier set a Jun. 21 deadline for the attorneys to file their conclusions about evidence presented in the first phase of the trial.

In April, the government of conservative Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto sued BP and other companies in a U.S. court, after his predecessor Felipe Calderón (2006-December 2012) failed to do so.

The government’s lawsuit will fall under MDL-2179.

In 2010, the state governments of Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Quintana Roo, as well as several companies, had brought legal action against BP and TransOcean for damages to the marine environment, the coastline, and local estuaries.

Government agencies in Mexico spent more than 11 million dollars on studies, assessments, lab tests, training and overflights related to the disaster, the state governments argued.

BP Mexico did not respond to IPS’ queries about the government or class action lawsuits.

The dearth of studies on the magnitude of the damages in the Gulf of Mexico has been the Achilles’ heel of the environmental organisations and lawyers involved in preparing the class action lawsuit in Mexico.

“That is the question that has limited us the most,” Preciado said. “The Mexican state has not been very participative.

“The damages will appear over the course of years, and this won’t be easily resolved. But we are not frightened of taking on BP – on the contrary, we are very motivated,” added the lawyer, who is working on another class action lawsuit against Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) involving oil spills in the southeast state of Tabasco.

The class action suit will pose a challenge to the Mexican judges, who are not accustomed to environmental litigation, when it is presented to a federal court in the capital on a date that has not yet been established.

Colectivas’ Sánchez said “we have to see how the judges prepare, and the state of the judiciary’s bureaucracy. One of the first steps is for the plaintiffs to be recognised as a class,” as occurs under the U.S. justice system.

Sánchez is also preparing a collective lawsuit against the eventual approval of commercial planting of genetically modified maize in Mexico.

Despite the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster and a September 2008 blow-out on a BP rig in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan – which was covered up – Pemex signed a technological agreement with the British company in 2012 for deep-sea operations in this country’s Gulf of Mexico waters.

“It is an aberration,” Preciado remarked.
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Jude Joffe-Block ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Traducción al español
Pictured above: Santiago Dominugez, bottom right, poses with his children, grandchildren and a portrait of his daughter, Rosa, who is in Arizona. (Photo: Jude Joffe-Block)



TEPEAPULCO, Mexico -- It’s a typical Sunday in the town of Tepeapulco, in Mexico’s central highlands. Families gather, cook and catch up.

And that’s the scene at Santiago Domínguez’s home. At 82-years-old, he’s the family patriarch. He’s wearing pressed slacks, his dark hair smoothed back. By lunchtime, he’s surrounded by relatives.

But one person’s always missing: Rosa, Domínguez’s daughter. In the living room, there’s a picture of her as a young woman.

“I thought she’d only be gone three or four years—and then come back,” Domínguez said in Spanish.

But it’s been 18 years since Rosa left for Arizona with her two young sons. They went illegally to join the boys’ father there. She’s now 43 and has never returned to Mexico. Without papers, it’s just too risky.

“It got to the point that I told her, ‘You know, I’m not sure if we’ll see each other again,’” Domínguez said.

But now they might.

A proposed Senate bill would allow millions of immigrants who entered the US illegally to apply for provisional status and the chance to work legally and travel internationally.

“There’s hope like never before,” Domínguez said.

And it’s a feeling felt throughout Mexico.

A few towns over, Catalina Cervera knocks on a neighbor’s gate to visit the house next door—the one her younger sister, Sandra, abandoned.

Cervera’s sister left Mexico with her young children about 10 years ago. They crossed into Arizona illegally, picked produce, and now live near Phoenix.

“They’ve taken the door, the windows,” Cervera said in Spanish as she stood in front of her sister’s house.

Since her sister’s been gone, thieves have stripped her house clean, even the roof. It’s a cinder block skeleton.

Cervera said she and her sister feel impotencia, powerlessness—they want to see each other, but can’t.

Her sister couldn’t visit when their mother was dying. And a few years ago, Cervera couldn’t get a tourist visa to see her sister in Arizona.

Cervera said she lacked what’s needed for a US visa: things like a bank account, a business, or a credit card. But now she can envision her sister—and her sister’s kids—visiting Mexico again.

“They are motivated with the dream that this immigration reform is going to happen,” Cervera said of her relatives in Arizona.

But as Congress debates the legislation, the wait continues.

Back in Tepeapulco, Domínguez’s tradition is to sing to his daughter a famous ballad over the phone. It’s called “Sin Ti” or Without You.

“What else matters if being far from you makes me cry,” he sang.

Over a 1,000 miles away, in Arizona, his daughter Rosa has become an activist for immigration reform. She asks to only use her first name because of her unauthorized status.

“I want this to happen now, because our parents’ lives won’t wait,” Rosa said in Spanish.

And if reform does happen and she can travel to Mexico freely one day?

She said she’ll surprise her dad with a mariachi band. And they’ll play that ballad he’s sung to her for the last 18 years.

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11352 2013-05-01T07:05:00Z 2013-05-01T00:24:22Z

Kent Paterson ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Picture above: Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, the presumed leader of the Knights Templar Cartel that controls much of Michoacan, appeared in an April 27 YouTube video.

As immigrants rally in cities across the United States today, another drum beat of protest and revolt beats loudly in southern Mexico. Beginning as a teachers’ strike against a new federal education law last February, the protest is now transforming into a broad popular movement against not only the much-touted Pact for Mexico policies of new President Enrique Pena Nieto, but also the political and economic structures they are based on.

In the bigger scheme of things, the movement is squarely challenging an economic and educational agenda endorsed by the International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Wall Street.

If the movement could be said to have an epicenter, it is in the Pacific state of Guerrero, where the protest against the federal education reform took a big leap this month with the founding of the Guerrero Popular Movement (MPG). Opponents of the law passed last December by the Mexican Congress argue that a new evaluation system imposed on teachers jeopardizes labor rights, and contains other provisions that will foster privatization and increase the cost of sending children to school.

Formed by unions, small farmer organizations, indigenous communities and youth activists, the MPG declared its opposition to the education reform, new mining projects in indigenous communities, any privatization of the national oil company Pemex, and proposals to increase the 16 percent sales tax.

“Now this is not just a movement of the teachers,” proclaimed the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities, the leadership body of the community police and justice system in scores of Guerrero’s indigenous communities. “It’s a struggle of all-small farmers, parents, students, political and social organizations”

Government officials routinely minimize support for the teacher strike, but the MPG flexed its muscles with two large demonstrations that paralyzed the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo earlier this month. According to different estimates, each action drew between 50,000 and 120,000 people.

As its first order of business, the MPG supported an unsuccessful attempt by striking teachers to modify the federal education reform law by passing union-drafted legislation at the state level.

Represented by the Guerrero State Coordinator of Education Workers (CETEG), a large dissident organization within the official SNTE teachers’ union, the strikers combined street protests and occupations of government buildings with intense legislative lobbying efforts and on-and-off again negotiations with Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre.

At one point sensing victory within its grasp, the CETEG suddenly suffered a major setback when state lawmakers from President Pena Nieto’s PRI party, backed by allies from other political parties including members of the once-emblematic PRD opposition party, approved a state law last week that ignored the CETEG’s main proposals and upheld the federal reform. The pro-reform lawmakers asserted that any legislation differing significantly from the federal law would not pass constitutional muster. They deny the reform will bring educational privatization.

Next act, Chilpancingo exploded.

As many as 9,000 CETEG and MPG supporters surged through the streets April 24 chanting slogans and denouncing the legislators. After a rally, protest leaders urged demonstrators to return to the strikers’ encampment in the capital city.

Whether due to manipulation by publicly unknown elements or spontaneous and uncontrollable rage, a large crowd that turned rowdy ignored the post-rally plans and began heading for the headquarters of the major political parties-left, right and center.

The crowd then trashed the party buildings- without political distinction- but dished out special treatment to the PRI, whose headquarters was thoroughly ransacked and torched. Columns of black smoke poured from the building before the blaze was extinguished.

“When the people rise up for bread, freedom and land, the powerful will tremble, from the Gulf to the Sierra!” the rioters chanted.

While some journalists were reportedly rousted, no one was injured in the violence, expect for one protestor who suffered a hand injury.

The April 24 Chilpancingo incident put the CETEG and MPG on the defensive, as the Mexican commercial media, which has treated the strike with hostility since the get-go, flashed images of the vandalism and the PRI fire. A litany of denunciations flowed from the political and business classes.

While in Acapulco for a bankers’ convention, President Pena Nieto curtly condemned the Chilpancingo violence. Faulting unidentified “external forces” for stoking a violent and intolerant movement, PRD Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre announced that 39 arrest warrants were ready for strike leaders. Graco Ramirez, governor of neighboring Morelos state, called strike leaders “true delinquents” who should be detained.

Mumblings from shadowy government and media sources variously blamed the mayhem, with no concrete proof, on the EPR and ERPI guerrilla groups and even on left opposition leader and two-time presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Acapulco Mayor Luis Walton reiterated an appeal to the CETEG to refrain from blockading the Mexico City-Acapulco freeway, a tactic which led to recent confrontations with the Federal Police. Walton urged the strikers to conduct themselves in a manner that would not affect tourism in Acapulco, which accounts for 40 percent of the economic activity in impoverished Guerrero.

“Of course, the Federation should intervene,” Walton added. “It’s a federal law that motivated this problem. There has to be dialogue. If not, this will not be solved…”

Conversely, more than a few messages praising the trashings and arson attack on the PRI circulated on the Internet, with writers reflecting the seething anger a large sector of Mexican society holds for the government and all the political parties represented in it.

CETEG spokespersons eventually acknowledged that some of its supporters were to blame for a rampage not sanctioned by the leadership

If the conflict over the education reform law wasn’t enough to literally inflame a political crisis, a Guerrero state court added fuel to the fire the same week as the Chipancingo upheaval when it freed two state policemen accused of killing two students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college, Gabriel Echeverria de Jesus and Jorge Alexis Herrera, during a demonstration in December 2011.

Ayotzinapa is legendary for its student militancy, and the school is the alma matter for the locally revered guerrilla leaders Genaro Vazquez Rojas and Lucio Cabanas Barrientos of the 1960s and 1970s.

Indeed, a favorite chant of thousands of demonstrators in recent weeks has been, “Cuidado, cuidado, cuidado con Guerrero, estado guerrillero.” Simply put, the chant warns the government not to mess with a guerrilla state.

Last week, Ayotzinapa’s current generation of pupils lived up to the college’s reputation when students- reinforced by thousands of supporters from the CETEG and MPG- briefly blockaded the Mexico City-Acapulco freeway in Chilpancingo in a protest against a judge’s decision to free the alleged killers of their classmates.

Rocks were tossed at a contingent of federal officers monitoring the march, who responded with obscene finger gestures, but no major escalation of violence ensued.

For teachers, their movement has entered a critical phase. Trial balloons of replacing the strikers are floating in the air, and students stand to lose an entire semester if the conflict drags on much longer. Regrouping during the past few days, the CETEG and MPG are organizing May Day marches in Chilpancingo, Acapulco and other towns.

While Guerrero simmers, allied popular movements in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Morelos and Michoacan are turning up the heat in their localities. All four states have very active local affiliates of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), the CETEG’s national organization, and are witnessing the formation of broad popular fronts like Guerrero’s MPG. The CNTE plans an escalation of protests after May 1, when a large national march with other unions will also be convened in Mexico City.

So far, the movement has not gathered force in any big way in the central and northern border states, but teachers in the Resssiste organization of Ciudad Juarez are reportedly planning to stage a protest on May 1, a Mexican holiday.

Oaxaca education workers’ leader Ruben Nunez said the groundwork is being laid for a national strike against labor, education and energy reforms.

“In the (CNTE), we are preparing the terrain, the conditions, for an ongoing national mobilization,” Nunez said. “In Oaxaca, we already have the possibility, at any given moment, of setting the date for the uprising.”

Perhaps what distinguishes the current movement from previous ones is that teachers and their allies are proposing very detailed, alternative public policies or actually implementing them on the ground, as in the case of Guerrero’s community police and justice system.

Following the lead of Guerrero, CNTE affiliates in Chiapas and Michoacan have now struck many schools.

“We are clear that the ongoing strike reduces the number of school days,” said Michoacan CNTE official Victor Manuel Zavala. “But to not struggle against this badly-intentioned reform is to renounce the existence of public schools.”

In what might be interpreted as an attempt to curb the further spread of the movement, the general secretary of the official SNTE in the Pacific state of Colima has announced that two sections of the organization will not participate in the government-sponsored May Day parade. However, SNTE oficialistas in Chiapas have announced they will participate in a May 1 protest alongside the CNTE.

Union official Jose de Jesus Villanueva said the virtually unprecedented decision was necessary to counter “goon squads” from Guerrero and Michoacan trying to agitate the local teachers. However, it’s more likely the decision was made to curtail any possible, embarrassing protests by rank-and-file teachers against the education reform law.

Like Guerrero, the situation in Michoacan is reported as explosive, with student protests adding to a charged atmosphere.

Since last fall, students from the Tiripetio rural teachers’ college have repeatedly clashed with authorities over demands for resources and a guaranteed quota of 1,000 jobs for graduates. Last week, the “Tiris,” as they have become known, commandeered trucks belonging to Coca-Cola, Bimbo and other food and beverage firms. In Robin Hood style, the students gave away goods from companies that have a profitable business in schools to eager passerby in the state capital of Morelia.

In a message handed to the trucks’ drivers, the students claimed they took the action because of a government cut-off of resources to their schools. In preparation for a large May Day protest in Morelia, the Working Peoples Unitary Front declared that the public was “fed up” with low wages, jobs with no benefits, constant price increases, shoddy public transportation, and attacks on free public education.

Complicating the political landscape is Michoacan’s seemingly entrenched narco-violence, a phenomenon separate from, yet economically and sociologically linked to, the poverty and generalized discontent that underpins current social conflicts.

Simultaneous crises related to narco-violence, insecurity and social demands are tugging at the state, worsened by last weekend’s shoot-out that claimed 14 lives and resulted in numerous school closures in the Tierra Caliente region of the state. Finding himself immersed in a socio-political whirlwind, PRI Governor Fausto Vallejo, who was elected in a controversial 2011 election riddled with allegations of fraud, announced earlier this month he was taking a 90-day leave of absence, presumably to attend health problems.

And in an almost surreal cameo appearance in the unfolding Michoacan drama, Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, the presumed fugitive leader of the Knights Templar syndicate that controls a good chunk of Michoacan and surrounding states, popped up April 27 on a YouTube video.

Looking like Farmer Jones with a cow in the background for a prop, Gomez criticized Vallejo’s performance as governor and called for dialogue to restore order in Michoacan. The media-savvy Gomez counseled the state and federal governments to negotiate with his organization as well as the teachers and students. “We are delinquents,” he said, “but we are disposed to seek convincing measures to establish order, not only in Michoacan, but wherever we can.”

Octavio Ferris Leal, who served as an intelligence official under the PRD administration of former Michoacan Governor Lazaro Cardenas Batel (2000-2006), contended that a “hydra” of multiple conflicts, many of them connected to organized crime, has reared its deadly head over the land.

“It’s dangerous, since it could provoke a social explosion, not only in an entity governed by an inept and incompetent PRI, but in the entire country,” Ferris warned. “(Michoacan) could be the spark.”

In Guerrero too, the political fuse is very short, illustrated by the April 29 deliverance of Governor Angel Aguirre’s second government report while under the guard of thousands of police and transported supporters. Despite the recent developments in his state, an upbeat Aguirre insisted that “social peace and governance” prevail.

Earlier commenting on the political turbulence, the Guerrero edition of La Jornada newspaper contended that the conflict sprouting from the education reform law is a complex, multi-faceted one that encompasses issues of poverty, rebellious cultural peculiarities, political arrogance, poverty, and the federal abandonment of schools. The daily’s editors appealed for dialogue over repression.

“One could say that Guerrero is a powder keg,” the newspaper editorialized. “All that is missing is a match.”

In a separate piece, La Jornada columnist Raul Suarez Martinez also called for calm in a state that has “lost control.”

As a remedy to the polarization, Martinez proposed the creation of a peace commission for Guerrero similar to the initiative launched in Chiapas after the 1994 Zapatista uprising.

“The causes are different, which is to say they haven’t arrived to the extremes of Chiapas,” Suarez continued. “ It’s clear that only an external commission, removed from the conflict but which understands its roots and possible solutions, can defuse it.”


Sources: La Jornada, April 29 and 30, 2013. Articles by Elio Henriquez and Luis Hernandez Navarro. El Universal, April 25, 26, 29, 30, 2013. Articles by Alfredo Quiles, Dalia Martinez and Ricardo Aleman. La Jornada (Michoacan edition), April 25, 2013. Proceso/Apro, April 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 2013. Articles by Ezequiel Flores Contreras and editorial staff.

El Sur, April 12, 17, 25, 26, 30 2013. Articles by Lourdes Chavez, Hugo Pacheco Leon, Agencia Reforma, and editorial staff. La Jornada (Guerrero edition), April 24, 25, 26, 29, 2013. Articles by Citlal Giles Sanchez, Hector Briseno, Margena de la O, Raul Suarez Martinez, and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, April 12, 18, 23, 24, 25, 2013. Articles by Antonio Rebolledo and Agencia Reforma.
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Louis Nevaer ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=20281 Traducción al español

MEXICO CITY – With no end in site to Europe’s financial strains, countries in Latin America are looking on as their one-time colonizers struggle to keep popular unrest over unemployment and austerity measures at bay. Many see signs of a historical shift in the trans-Atlantic power dynamic.

Some, notably Mexico and Brazil, see opportunity.

In early March, hundreds of thousands of Portuguese marched from Lisbon to the city of Oporto in protest over slashed budgets. Those protests came on the heels of a series of major rallies in Spain, where thousands across the country demonstrated against government austerity measures from Madrid to Barcelona and scores of smaller cities and towns.

Meanwhile, young Portuguese and Spanish job seekers are leaving their home countries in droves, in search of economic opportunity elsewhere. Add to that the recent "junk" rating given Portuguese and Spanish government bonds, and the resurgence of the Mexican and Brazilian economies, and you have nothing short of a paradigm shift in the making.

Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who was named the world's richest man by FORBES magazine, recently warned that the crisis enveloping the European Union -- Spain and Portugal in particular -- was an unprecedented development with major implications for Latin America.

“It is unimaginable to think that young people [in Spain] can have an unemployment rate of 50 percent, or [even] 30 percent or 25 percent," Slim told the Spanish news organization La Entrevista late last year, suggesting that Mexico and other growing Latin American economies take a lead role in coming to their aid.

Slim’s words carry as much weight in Latin America as Warren Buffett's do on Wall Street – that is to say, a lot.

Mexican and Brazilian officials now find themselves in the unfamiliar, if ironic position of contemplating possible economic lifelines to the countries that once ruled over them.

For its part, Mexico has allowed for the unimpeded influx of young, unemployed European professionals. To date, thousands of Spanish youth have arrived in Mexico, either on tourist or work visas. Brazil, since last year, has considered purchasing Portuguese bonds as a way of infusing cash into Lisbon's treasury.

The moves are not without controversy. In January, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto unveiled an ambitious anti-poverty campaign designed to address the needs of Mexico's poorest citizens. Called Cruzada Nacional Contra el Hambre, or National Crusade Against Hunger, the campaign was launched in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state.

With an estimated 52 million Mexicans living below the poverty line, there is tremendous pressure on the Peña Nieto administration to take care of Mexico first.

In Brazil, too, which is set to host the World Cup later this summer and the Summer Olympics in 2016, ordinary Brazilians question the idea of spending billions to purchase “junk” Portuguese sovereign debt as the country struggles with growing economic inequality and rampant crime.

Colonial memories are also at the fore.

When Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, urged Brazilian companies "to invest" in Portugal, critics mocked the idea as "capitalist exploitation,” citing the very public clashes, for example, between rival Brazilian companies over the acquisition of Cimentos de Portugal. The company was eventually taken over by Brazil’s Camargo Corréa.

For Slim, the lessons of history are clear. "I have argued,” he said, “that the [Latin American] external debt crisis of 1982 … offers a model in which Mexico can invest in the outside world, encouraging exports [and] opening up trade.”

Jerry Haar is a professor at the business school of Florida International University in Miami, where he tracks foreign investment. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek he noted, “Bottom fishing during and after financial crises is nothing new.” What is new, he continued, “is the increasing participation of emerging markets in the game. Where language and cross-cultural affinity are involved, all the more so.”

Still, the impulse to come to the aid of Europe’s flailing economies is not entirely motivated by the promise of monetary gain. Concerns over the potential of a “Lost Decade” similar to the experience of Latin America during the 1980s weighs heavily on debates in Mexico and Brazil.

Officials openly ask what might happen to today's unemployed 25-year-old architects, engineers and doctors in Spain and Portugal. Moreover, do Latin American offers of meaningful employment for these young professionals represent a potentially life-threatening “brain drain” in their home countries?

Such questions point to the thin line now being navigated in Mexico City and Brasilia between opportunism, on the one hand, and altruism on the other. They also point to the historic shift in cross-Atlantic ties.

"We are living through a period of significant change,” noted Slim, “and have to make the structural changes that are required.”]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11138 2013-03-16T00:30:00Z 2013-03-16T00:51:51Z

John McPhaul ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Today marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the Truth Commission’s findings that investigated human rights abuses committed during El Salvador’s 12-year civil war.

Five days after the findings were released, the Salvadoran legislature passed an amnesty law that protected the perpetrators of attacks such as the March 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the murders of six Jesuit priests in November 1989 and the December 1981 massacre of some 1,000 people in the town of El Mozote as well as acts committed by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas.

But a decision last Dec. 10 could change that. The Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered a reversal of the amnesty law, raising the possibility that crimes committed during the civil war may be prosecuted after all.

The seven-member Court ordered the Salvadoran government to investigate the massacres at El Mozote, which by one count took the lives of 500 children. It ordered the Salvadoran government to create a registry of victims (the number of whom is currently uncertain), prosecute the perpetrators and provide reparations for the victims’ next of kin.

The ruling effectively, though not explicitly, calls for overturning the 1993 amnesty that followed El Salvador’s civil war, which was fought between the country’s U.S.-backed military-led government and the left-wing guerrilla coalition FMLN.

The Court’s ruling is binding for states like El Salvador that recognize its jurisdiction. But the judicial body, which operates under the auspices of the Organization of American States, has no enforcement powers.

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes of the disarmed FMLN, now a left-wing political party, immediately issued a statement saying it would abide by the decision.

However, to date no official move has been made to set aside the amnesty law.

Massacre at El Mozote

The slaughter at El Mozote between Dec. 11 and 13, 1981, was carried out by the elite, U.S.-trained Salvadoran Army Atlacatl Batallion.

Though FMLN guerrillas were active in the area, the Court determined that no rebels were in the vicinity at the time of the massacres.

The Court found that the massacres were the part of a deliberate “scorched earth” campaign to eliminate potential support in rebel-held areas, “to deprive the fish of water,” not the isolated aberration of soldiers run amock.

“The massacres of El Mozote … responded to a policy of the state characterized by counterinsurgency military actions, like the ‘scorched earth’ operations, that had the goal of massive and indiscriminate annihilation of the populations that were targeted for suspicion (of supporting) the guerrillas,” said the Court.

The Court expressed its desire for the ruling to serve as a condemnation of such anti–insurgency strategies.

The Salvadoran Catholic Archbishop’s Legal Office reported that based on witness testimonies, the victims numbered 1061, 54 percent of them children, 18 percent women – some pregnant – and 10 percent were older than 60 years old.

Some 440 victims have been identified to date, but the Court said said that many more, “including many children,” remain unidentified.

Exhumations performed to date at 28 sites have turned up at least 281 individuals, 74 percent of whom are children. At one site, the convent in El Mozote itself, of 143 individuals identified, 136 are children with average age of 6 years old, the ruling stated.

The Court determined that the 1993 amnesty, which was established after the peace accord between the government and the FMLN, should not apply to the massacres because they potentially involve war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), said President Funes himself has few options in responding to the Court’s ruling. Overturning the amnesty would be in the hands of the country’s Supreme Court and opening an investigation would be up to the country’s autonomous Attorney General.

“Funes even if he wanted to couldn’t do anything about these two things,” said Thale. “The only thing he could do is perhaps make a public statement urging the Attorney General to launch an investigation and maybe present a case before the Supreme Court to try to overturn the amnesty.”

But given the thorny political issues at play in overturning the amnesty -- including the possibility that members of the president’s own party could face accusations, not to mention the potential for confrontation with the army -- Thale said that Funes would likely prefer to “let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Would he like to see military officers prosecuted? Yes. Would he like to be the one to make it happen? No,” said the WOLA analyst.

Funes issued a public apology on behalf of the Salvadoran government for the massacres at the beginning of 2012 and has also ordered the creation of a registry of relatives of the victims.

Another test of amnesty

Another case that could test the amnesty declaration, said Thale, is that of retired Col. Inocente Orlando Montano, who was found guilty in a Boston, Massachusetts Court for perjury and immigration fraud.

On Jan. 15, the Boston court ruled on sentencing Montano that it would take into consideration the former colonel’s alleged role in the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador. Montano is among 20 people, including 13 military officers, indicted in Spain in 2011 for the murders.

If Montano is given enough jail time in Boston, then Spain would have enough time to seek his extradition to face charges there, said Thale.

“If he’s extradited to Spain, the trial of the military officers would go forward and that would be a powerful blow against the amnesty,” he said.

He pointed to the precedent of Chile where an amnesty toppled after former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was tried in Spain and Pinochet had to eventually face justice in his home country.

Thale said that Inter-American Court ruling could have the effect of “strengthening the rule of law and weakening the military and that would be a good thing.”

“Overturning the amnesty and investigating the massacres would mean jail time for some retired members of the military and civilian allies would push back through public opinion. You’d see a lot of reaction from the military,” said Thale.

The Inter-American Court found the Salvadoran state responsible for a whole list of violations of the American Convention, including violation of the right of life and the rights of children, as well as women’s rights, for the rape of village women.

Miguel Montenegro, director of the nongovernmental Salvadoran Human Rights Commission, told Agence France Presse he hopes the government of El Salvador now “assumes responsibility” for implementing the sentence handed down by the court.

The mainstream media paid little attention to the news of the court’s decision. El Mozote, despite the dimensions of the tragedy, has hardly become a household name. This is partly because the Reagan administration made a concerted effort to discount the accounts of the massacres courageously reported at the time by Raymond Bonner of the New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post.

In 1981, when U.S. Congress had to certify the progress of the Salvadoran Army in respecting human rights, the Reagan administration’s asserted that “no evidence,” existed of the massacre, guaranteeing a continuation of the flow of aid to the army.

But the murder of some 500 children, made all the more appalling because it resulted from a deliberate state policy, cannot easily be forgotten. In its ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights takes an important step toward seeing that the El Mozote massacres do not end in impunity.

John McPhaul is a freelance writer who lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

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Editorial Staff ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 It is quite possible that the only president of Latin American countries most non-Latino Americans can reliably name is Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, who died March 5 at the age of 58. The reason for this is two-fold, and significant in terms of where we go from here.

One reason was Chávez’s personality itself. Flamboyant, charismatic, vocal in both friendship and emnity, and over-the-top, Chávez made no bones about his disdain for U.S. administrations — particularly George W. Bush’s — and once famously declared that the devil had been in the same room and left his stink of sulphur, after the U.S. president addressed the U.N. General Assembly in 2006.

Chávez — a president from the emerging classes who first became a public figure when he was an active member of the military — was a leader who thumbed his nose at those he felt slighted him: he was more mestizo than criollo, more populist caudillo than high-born oligarch. When the King of Spain told him to shut up, Chávez’s response was the equivalent of “who do you think you are to say that to me?”

There is a fine line between self-respect and arrogance, and Chávez danced it, every moment of his 14 years in power.

The other reason Americans know Chávez’s name is that, like Fidel Castro, we’ve long considered him a threat. There are hundreds of good reasons for this that go beyond posturing and verbal slings.

Chávez’s hostility to Israel and public anti-Semitism led to massive exodus of the Venezuelan Jewish community — it was reduced to about a third of its size. There have been ongoing human rights concerns during his tenure, and the kinds of suppression of dissent that come from authoritarian regimes whether they are leftist or rightist. (The former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, even urged the U.S. to consider economic sanctions and the Organization of American States to consider punitive actions against Venezuela if the elections in October of 2012 were questionable.)

The United States has long had a complex relationship with Latin America. Although some of the largest consumers of our goods are in that region (Mexico is our third largest trade partner, and Brazil is our eighth) and even though as a nation we are great consumers of Latin American goods (we’re Mexico’s largest trade partner, and we’re a major purchaser of Venezuelan oil) we have treated Latin America as if it was a younger sibling who we’ll trade with, invest in and give advice to (sometimes forcibly), but who we don’t consider on the same footing as our other allies or neighbors.

While “banana republic” and “tin-pot dictator” are no longer commonplace in our language, they remain firmly connected to the American public view of Latin America, thanks to the way our administrations speak (or don’t) about the region. We publicly focus our attention on the region only in negatives: Chávez and Castro are the Latin American leaders most readily recognized by the American public, and most frequently mentioned by U.S. officials. They were the only two specifically mentioned in the foreign policy segment of the presidential campaign debate, for example. But how many times do we hear about Dilma Rousseff (Brazil’s president), an astute and pragmatic leader who has managed to keep Brazil’s economy resilient and its contraction rate tiny (0.2 percent) during the global downturn?

Or how many Americans, who commonly think the word “macho” is synonymous with Latino, know that Latin American countries have elected women presidents since the late 1970s, and have had seven as leaders of Brazil, Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua?

The vitriol of the immigration debate has contributed to a jaundiced American view of Latin America and Latin Americans as well. The focus on extending and fortifying the wall on the southern border in the past decade or so has cemented a pejorative and skewed view. “The countries you came from are sewers,” is one tweet a member of our editorial team received after posting something about the immigration rate from Latin America.

There is no question that our U.S. officials view the fiery and antagonistic Venezuelan leader’s death as an opening to the possibility, eventually, of a better political relationship between the two countries.

But for us it seems an opportunity for more. It is time for a shift in the narrow way we think and talk about Latin America, both officially and unofficially.

It is time for us to acknowledge that the region isn’t full of “younger siblings,” but of partners.

We may have thornier relationships with some of those partners than others, but we all have the same stake: to help the Americas (please note the plural) be a peaceful, just and prosperous place.

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Louis Nevaer ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=20281 Photo (above): Ciudad Juarez-based electronic music artist Rodolfo Ramos Castro, aka Pájaro Sin Almas.

MEXICO CITY – Mexican youths living in border cities from Tijuana to Ciudad Juarez are redefining the narratives in their respective cities via distinct cultural, musical and culinary movements that are emerging on the heels of a six year, government-led "War on Drugs" that has left many Mexican border communities ravaged by violence.

A new wave of border music

In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s deadliest city, where the drug war has been exacerbated by a well documented (and still unsolved) wave of violence directed against women, a growing number of young people are using music as a platform to raise their voice against the culture of violence, fear and apparent impunity enjoyed by the drug cartels and those shadowy criminals responsible for the wave of femicides.

Since 1993 more than 700 women have been murdered or sexually assaulted in Ciudad Juarez, just a few miles from the mild-mannered suburbs of El Paso, Texas. The violence has been well documented by, among others, Teresa Rodriguez, a Univision reporter whose 2008 book, The Daughters of Juarez, gave voice to the city’s many women who live in daily fear.

The new music being fashioned by young people on the border – one of the more intriguing genres has come to be known as “Nueva Ola Fronteriza” (new border wave) -- stands in sharp contrast, both lyrically and sonically, to "Narco Corridos” (drug ballads), a genre of music that glamorizes the exploits of the drug cartels. Those ballads, which spin tales of drug lords such as Ciudad Juarez's Amado Carrillo Fuentes (known as the Lord of the Skies) and Tijuana's Arellano-Felix brothers, who controlled the drug routes between Tijuana and San Diego, are now held in disdain by many Mexican youth. Their attitudes are perhaps best summed up by a popular Youtube video depicting young people ridiculing legendary narco-corrido groups such as Los Tigres del Norte as "so last decade."

In Ciudad Juarez, the popularity of Nueva Ola Fronteriza music is clearly gaining acceptance. Pájaro Sin Alas (Bird Without Wings), the one-man band of Rodolfo Ramos Castro, is one group at the forefront of the new genre, which eschews the style and narrative of the Narco Corrido groups by creating music with a modern electronic beat and lyrics that speak not of drug deals gone bad, but of Zen and peace. Ramos Castro recently explained to El Pais: "This [music] is rather ironic because it would be fun to make music in a city that usually has a violent stigma.”

Diego Antillon, of the group Airek, also associated Pájaro Sin Almas and the Nueva Ola Fronteriza genre, exemplifies the impulses of the post-Narco Corrido music toward a more evocative, less literal approach to music. Consider the instrumental track, “Magic,” with its dreamy imagery.

The local popularity of other more mainstream Mexican bands, such as Maldita Vecindad (Damned Neighborhood, roughly translated), indicate that youth are moving away from the sounds and lyics of Narco Corridos. That band, which classifies its style as an evolution of rock blending traditional Mexican music with the rhythms of Ska, is so popular that it has garnered major corporate sponsorships, such as from Corona beer.

While the new electronic and rock infused music surges along the Mexican side of the border, less certain is whether the music, and the messages it contains, will resonate in the U.S. southwest, where Narco Corridos have been wildly popular for more than a decade. In 2004, just a short time after Narco Corridos had crossed over to a U.S. audience, the BBC reported that: "In the U.S. the market for Mexican regional music, including Narco Corridos, is worth about $300 million a year, with Los Angeles being the hub of the narco corrido industry. Los Tigres' most recent album sold nearly 500,000 copies in the U.S. alone.”

But the Narco Corrido craze is ancient history to many of today's youth – they were in diapers when Los Tigres del Norte first made a splash in the impoverished barrios of East L.A. -- who are listening to electronic music created on laptops or filling stadiums across northern Mexico.

Meanwhile, a completely different but no less transformative kind of change is afoot -- the reclamation of public spaces by visual and culinary artists -- that is changing the way people think about Tijuana, another Mexican border town deeply scarred by cartel violence.

Tijuana’s mean streets, re-imagined

All it took was The New Yorker magazine praising Javier Plascencia, chef and owner of Tijuana’sMision 19 restaurant in January, 2012, to shift all eyes to the famed Baja California border city as a hot spot of culinary innovation. "Unlike other Mexican states, whose food traditions go back hundreds of years and are rigidly codified, Baja has no established regional cuisine," wrote Dana Goodyear. "Plascencia’s mission is to… turn Tijuana into a site of gourmet pilgrimage. Given the city’s recent history, this is a particularly challenging task. Mexico is regarded as the world’s kidnapping capital and even though conditions have improved, the popular perception of Tijuana as unsafe remains." As a result of Goodyear’s review, well-heeled San Diegans are now prepared to wait weeks for a reservation and trek to Tijuana to have Plascencia prepare them dinner.

Since then, Tijuana has been singled out and praised in various media outlets for the revival of its murals, the renovation of its public spaces, for going green by planting thousands of new trees, and even for inspiring a signature "look" for tattoos.

Reporter Jill Holslin praised "the new, hip Tijuana" in the pages of At The Edges, heralding the revival of two public spaces – Pasaje Gomez and Plaza Madero -- that until recently had been virtually abandoned out of fear of violence. Both places now attract middle class Mexicans -- and Californians -- who appear  in a recent video as relaxed, easy-going citizens enjoying afternoons of leisure, without a care in the world.

The result of the recent changes is electrifying, and exemplifies the resilience of Mexican border communities that have for so long been terrorized by violence. The reality of Tijuana’s recent triumphs sits in contrast to the hysterical portrayal of Tijuana in last year's film by Oliver Stone, Savages.

There's a saying for this in Spanish, of course: “No hay mal que cien años dure,” meaning, “There is no evil that will last a hundred years.”

A generation of young Mexicans living along the border is proving that proverb right.



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W. Alex Sanchez ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Hugo Chávez Frias, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, passed away on March 5, 2013, due to severe health complications. For at least the past year and half, the Venezuelan head of state had been battling cancer that continued to appear in spite of several surgeries. He traveled to Cuba for a new round of treatment this past December 2012, naming his vice President, Nicolas Maduro, as his successor, should the worst happen.

Now, the question is whether Maduro will respect the country’s constitution and call for new presidential elections within the constitutional period of 30 days. The Venezuelan opposition has not yet elected a candidate, though all eyes are on Henrique Capriles Radonski, who ran and lost to Chávez for the presidency in the October 7, 2012 elections. He was reelected as the governor as the state of Miranda in the recent December 16 regional elections.

Venezuela has had the same president since 1998, with Chávez creating a very particular foreign policy. A critical question will be how will the post-Chávez Venezuelan government organize its relations and initiatives with other states, and how vastly will they differ from Chávez’s vision.

ALBA

Regarding foreign policy, a critical question is what will become of Chávez’s pet project, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). This bloc is made up of nations whose presidents were friendly to Chávez, such as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. President Correa recently said that the revolution was larger than one man and would continue even in the event of Chavez’s death. Nevertheless, it is debatable whether any of ALBA’s heads of state, including Maduro, are charismatic enough and have the same interest in the alliance to keep it afloat. Correa was recently reelected and Morales is scheduled to run for a new presidential term in 2014; likely to be reelected. It remains to be seen whether any will be able to carry out Chavez’s vision.

Oil and Petro Caribe

Chávez used oil recourses to not only improve the quality of life of poor Venezuelans, but also as an integral part of his foreign policy. After coming to power, he expelled Western oil companies operating in the country and replaced them with Chinese and Russian based companies. In addition, Venezuela donated millions of barrels of oil to needy Caribbean states, particularly Cuba, but also countries like Trinidad and Tobago.

Without Chávez, it is questionable how Venezuela’s oil will be extracted. Should elections be called for and Capriles Radonski comes to power, would he accept, once again, Western oil companies? Furthermore, even if Maduro continues to govern, will Venezuela continue to provide such high quantities of oil, essentially as gifts, to Cuba and other regional states?

Venezuela-U.S. relations

Finally, an important consideration will be the Caracas-Washington relationship be in the coming years, having been shaped mainly around the personalities of their leadership in the past decade. For example, US Venezuela relations were fairly strained while Chávez and George W. Bush were in power. Chávez went as far as memorably calling Bush “the devil” during a UN conference in New York. When Barack Obama was elected President, there was a general feeling that relations would improve. Indeed, Obama and Chávez met during a summit of the Americas, with both leaders shaking hands and Chávez giving the American head of state a book as a gift. While relations during Chávez and Obama’s first presidential term did not worsen, neither did they improve as desired. One complicated factor was the U.S. maintenance of the Cuban embargo. Chávez regarded Fidel Castro as his mentor. The U.S. also prevented Cuba from attending the April 2012 Summit of the Americas in Colombia, with Cuba’s allies protesting the decision.

Without Chávez, how will Washington-Caracas relations be affected? Obviously, much will have to do with whether Maduro remains in power or Capriles enters the presidency. Maduro may end up not being as hardlined as Chávez while Capriles may seek improved relations with Washington for economic reasons.

Conclusions

Venezuela in the post Chávez era will certainly look different than when he was alive: the question is how different. Will Maduro, who rose up the ranks from bus driver to become foreign minister and vice president, remain faithful to his mentor’s socialist vision? Or will Capriles, or another opposition candidate, win the presidency and take the country in a different direction, potentially making it resemble Venezuela’s pre-Chávez era?

A critical aspect of Venezuela’s post Chávez government is how its foreign policy will be structured. During his tenure, Chávez determined much of Venezuela’s foreign policies in accordance with his ideologies. It will be of interest to see whether the ministry of foreign affairs and its diplomatic corps will have more impact on future policies.


W. Alex Sanchez is a Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

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Louis Nevaer ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=20281 HAVANA — Just over a year after the Cuban government permitted the first sale of real estate between private parties, a housing boom is emerging in Havana. Fueled by an influx of foreign capital, much of it from Mexico, for Cuban exiles the boom is proving to be a major draw.

It also comes amid signs that the Castro regime, which has ruled Cuba since 1959, may be nearing its end.

Since November of 2011, when the country saw its first real estate deal in half a century, there has been a sustained rise in housing prices, particularly in Havana. Asking prices have gained between 10-15 percent, while the number of properties -- some boasting "ocean views" or "panoramic vistas" of the Cuban capital -- coming to market keep rising.

And in a country with no formal advertising, such growth is being fueled by word of mouth – and the Internet. Two of the most popular sites are Revolico and DetrasDeLaFachada, both hosted outside Cuba and linking sellers and buyers with unexpected success.

Still, only Cuban citizens or foreigners lawfully residing in Cuba are allowed to buy or sell real estate. As a consequence, a brisk business in prestanombres, or name lenders, is emerging. The term is a reference to transactions in which a Cuban citizen acquires a property – on paper – while a contract with a foreigner, usually outside the country, establishes a separate ownership agreement.

At present, these arrangements are largely being carried out between Cuban citizens, who in January gained the right to travel abroad without an exit visa, and foreigners in Mexico, where prestanombres has a long tradition.

"For $10,000 USD, I'd be willing to be a prestanombre for anyone," said Joaquin Bustamente, who recently visited the southern Mexican city of Merida. "As long as it's someone who wants an investment in a residential building, I don't have a problem with that."

At the same time, officials at Cuba's consulate in Merida report "a substantial" increase in the number of Mexican citizens inquiring about residency requirements. "Suddenly,” noted one consular employee, “there's an increase in the number of Mexicans who want to go to Cuba to pursue their studies, as 'residents' in Havana."

From Exile to Investor

This latest development, which has further emboldened Cuba watchers, is also changing attitudes within Cuban exile communities where family ties to the island remain strong.

"I'd love to have a vacation house in the Vedado, or a beachfront property in Mirarmar," said David, a long-time California resident whose wife is Cuban. David, who asked that his last name not be used, added he is hopeful that through his wife's family in Cuba he will be able to find an investment property.

Bustamente has other plans. He is currently organizing a trip to Havana for a group of Mexicans and Cuban exiles under the euphemistically titled "Architectural Tours of Havana."

Those far-reaching entrepreneurial impulses are driven in part by economic limitations.

"Houses and family are in Cuba, but the money is abroad,” Alexis Aguilar, a Cuban exile living in Spain, told reporters at the Spanish news agency EFE. “For the majority of Cubans on the island, it's unreasonable to purchase a house on their salaries, [but] many people have relatives abroad who are willing to help them.”

Unless of course those relatives live in the United States, where an ongoing embargo against Cuba can make money transfers that much more complicated.

“It's more difficult to send money to purchase real estate," said David, who explained that funds intended for family in Cuba must first be wired to a bank in Mexico, and then authorized for a subsequent transfer to Cuba’s Banco Internacional, the only bank there authorized to receive U.S. dollars.

Pressure to End the Embargo

On Feb. 20 the Cuba Study Group, a Washington, DC-based think tank made up largely of members from the exile community, called for a repeal of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which extended and strengthened the U.S. embargo.

Doing so, it argued, “would allow the Executive Branch the flexibility to use the entire range of foreign policy tools at its disposal – including diplomatic, economic, political, legal and cultural – to incentivize change in Cuba.”

Carlos Saladrigas, the Group’s chairman, put it more bluntly. “This failed policy has only isolated the United States from Cuba,” he said in a press release. “Worst of all, it is now stifling an emerging class of private entrepreneurs and democracy advocates whose rise represents the best hope for a free and open society.”

The statement marks the first recognition by a leading Cuban exile organization in the United States that Helms-Burton has failed to secure international sanctions from other nations, such as Canada or Mexico.

It also points to the quickening pace of change happening within exile communties abroad and on the island.

"I am going to resign. I'm turning 82 years old, and I have a right to retire," announced Cuban president Raul Castro on Friday as the Cuban leader welcomed Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

If that's the case, I know a splendid vacation home with sweeping views of downtown Havana.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10986 2013-02-07T00:00:00Z 2013-05-16T18:02:10Z

Jason Margolis ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
Image: Students at the Texax High School Regional Mariachi Competition in San Antonio. Photo by Jason Margolis.

Mariachi music is a quintessential sound of Mexico. But in Mexico, it’s a style of folk music that’s never been taken all that seriously and certainly not among music educators. It’s considered bar music, unworthy of academic study. But it’s becoming a different story just north of the border in Texas.

Click here to listen to an audio version of this story.

The story of mariachi music in Texas schools begins with Belle San Miguel Ortiz.

“There are several names that they’ve given me, from godmother to the queen of the mariachis, to la madrina, which is the same thing,” said Ortiz. “I was the very first teacher of mariachi anywhere in the world.”

That’s a tough thing to prove. But Ortiz stands by that claim. “A lot of people will say you’re not the first. Yes, I am.”

When Ortiz first started teaching music in Texas high schools, some people didn’t like what she was doing. “We’re talking about the late 50’s, when discrimination was at its highest. And many of my colleagues reported me saying that I was teaching choir but everything was in Spanish.”

As a Mexican American living in Texas though, she thought Mexican folk music was important. “I couldn’t understand why mariachi music was not taught, especially I thought in this area.”

Finally in 1970, Ortiz got permission to teach a high school mariachi class. It’s come a long way since then.

When I met Ortiz, who is now 79, she was judging a regional competition for a statewide high school mariachi contest.

Ten bands from South Texas participated in the competition. Each had about a dozen members. The boys wore ornate, embroidered suits and the girls wore floor length skirts, sashes, and jackets. The outfits were sewn with elaborate patterns and shiny buttons. The kids looked sharp.

They played violins, trumpets, and guitars. Students also played the two key mariachi instruments: The guitarrón – essentially an enormous guitar – and the vihuela, a small guitar. There was also the occasional harpist and flute player.

High school junior Jonathan Rivera nailed a fantastic harp solo.

“I went up there, and we were playing, and I was like okay, calm down, you’ve done this before,” said Rivera after his performance. “And then we started the song, it wasn’t even close to the solo, we just started the song, and I was already like, ooooh, it hit me, and I was like ‘Oh My Gosh,’ and I got nervous.”

If Rivera and the other students were nervous, it didn’t show. The students also took turns walking to center stage and belting out solos. I kept forgetting that I was watching 15, 16, and 17-year-olds up on stage.

They were great.

“Mariachi is more performing,” said Rivera. “You’re actually like a Broadway show, you go and you sing, and you act. When you go into mariachi, you could have the worst day of your life, your dog died, your parents are in the hospital, and your girlfriend left you, and you’re like oh you have a performance today, forgot about that. And you can’t go on stage, with your face all frowning and what not, you gotta go up there and smile, you gotta do that.”

Rivera also plays in a rock band. But like many of the students I met, he said he gravitated to mariachi because it connects him to his Mexican roots. Senior Celia Vallez chose mariachi as an elective in the sixth grade.

“And the primary reason was that the majority of my family doesn’t speak English, so I felt it was really a way for me to connect to them and back to my Mexican roots and heritage.”

Like other students I met, Vallez’ Spanish was not the best.

“Spanish is actually my first language, but over the years, I haven’t been able to use it as often. It still comes, but it’s not as naturally,” said Vallez. She said mariachi “definitely” helps.

Still, there are some who don’t understand this embrace of mariachi. I heard tales of parents who were upset that their children were wasting their time on this cantina music. It’s seen as kind of a joke by many, not worthy of musical study.

Texas State University in San Marcos is trying to change that attitude. It’s offering classes in mariachi methods and history. Undergraduates can earn a teaching certificate in mariachi music. And the school plans to offer a summertime masters program in mariachi in the near future.

When mariachi was first introduced there in the 1990’s, it was student taught.

“Then I went to the school of music and said, we need to take this class seriously like any other ensemble. You would never do this to orchestra, orchestra would never be student run with a faculty adviser,” said John Lopez, the coordinator of Latin Music Studies at Texas State.

He said putting mariachi in the classroom isn’t just culturally important for Latino students. It’s important musically; it’s a challenging genre.

“All other ensembles are either instrumental or they’re either vocal. But a mariachi is unique in the fact that every single person does sing and every single person does play, and they’re woven almost all the time together.”

Mariachis face another challenge: They have to memorize their music. That’s the way mariachis have always done it. The guys at the Mexican restaurants don’t get to have sheet music.

“They know a lot, a lot of songs. They need to be prepared at any time to play a song that somebody requests,” said Lopez.

That can be anything from Elvis to Lady Gaga, to pretty much everything in between.

There was none of that at the Texas high school competition though, just traditional Mexican folk music. And that made Belle Ortiz, the godmother of the mariachis, quite proud.

“How more beautiful can you get when students coming to me would say, ‘You know what, Mrs. O, my grandmother came in when I was playing and I was singing and she says, where did you learn that song?’ And they say, at school. She (grandmother) says, ‘I used to sing that when I was small, when I was little, when I was young young.’ And she says, ‘Can I sing it with you?’”

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10957 2013-02-04T18:29:14Z 2013-02-04T18:35:06Z

La Opinión ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 The explosion that left dozens dead at the headquarters of Pemex in Mexico City is a test for the brand-new administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, one that involves some of the thorniest issues: transparency and oil.

First of all, the government acted quickly to establish an information center, but did not rush to conclusions about what caused the explosion. There is deep distrust among Mexicans when it comes to the authorities giving explanations. And if these come from the PRI, the doubts are even worse. That is why the official abundance of caution in keeping all options open, even the possibility of an attack against the oil company, is positive.

At the same time, it is interesting that this incident happened at a key time for the future of Pemex.

One of Peña Nieto's priorities is energy reform, which seeks to implement changes because of the fall in oil production that occurred in recent years. The already low level of reinvestment in Pemex has been decreasing, at the same time that the amount of money that the oil company has been generating to fund the government's budget has been falling.

The president says he only wants to open up the company to private capital in order to modernize it, like Brazil did with its state oil company, Petrobras. However, the fiercest critics say this is a road to privatization, raising the flag of nationalism and the possibility that funds will be lost if the percentage of money devoted to public spending gets cut.

In Mexico, an explosion of this magnitude lends itself, rightly so, to all kinds of speculation: from an accident to an attack with multiple possibilities. The government must remain publicly cautious while it investigates. Among the uncertainty that surrounds this incident, we must keep an eye on the impact that this deadly explosion will have on the discussion about the future of Pemex.


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10890 2013-01-23T20:50:26Z 2013-01-23T21:49:01Z

U.S. media coverage of Mexican migration themes focuses on the outflow of people from south of the border to north of the border. But for some, Mexico is viewed as a land of opportunity and a promising new home. Despite...

Kent Paterson ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 U.S. media coverage of Mexican migration themes focuses on the outflow of people from south of the border to north of the border. But for some, Mexico is viewed as a land of opportunity and a promising new home. Despite the well-publicized violence that slammed Mexico in recent years, the country continued to attract immigrants.

A new study released this month by the Organization of American States (OAS) reported that the documented, foreign-born population in the country increased 45 percent from 2005 to 2010, reaching 850,000 people. Focusing on documented migrants, the OAS study reported that 65,000 immigrants came to Mexico in 2010 alone.

In terms of the national origin breakdown of new immigrants in the three-year period from 2007 to 2010, the study found that most came from the U.S. (10,472), seconded by Colombia (5,563) and followed by Guatemala (5,563). Cuba placed fourth on the list (4,871), Argentina fifth (4,242), Venezuela (3,950) sixth and Honduras seventh (3,755). Smaller populations of between approximately 1200 and 2100 people each hailed from El Salvador, Peru, Canada, Brazil, Chile, and China.

Lately, new and relaxed Cuban travel policies have sparked commentary in the Mexican media about a possible influx of Cubans, especially a brain-drain of professionals, who would first come to Mexico as visitors but then stay on to work and live. But a pair of Cuban citizens interviewed outside the Mexican Consulate in Havana discounted such a possibility, saying that Cubans had long been accustomed to traveling to Mexico for different purposes.

“The majority come back,” a man identified only as Rafael was quoted. “But there is always someone who likes it over there and stays a longer time working, or gets married and comes back only to visit. Others go to Mexico with a work contract and from there cross over to the United States because they prefer Miami. There is a bit of everything.”

For Mexico’s new immigrants, the OAS study found that work, family and retirement were the top reasons for moving to the country. In the case of Central Americans, the report’'s authors speculated that changed conditions in the United States were altering the nature of migration from Mexico’s southern neighbors.

“Some of these movements are made up of nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, for whom Mexico, due to the difficult conditions in the north, has possibly been transformed into more of a destination than a transit country.”

Looking at the immigration numbers of persons who go through the legal channels, the OAS report still falls short in calculating the overall number of immigrants currently residing in Mexico since it does not take into account the undocumented population.

Sources: Reforma, January 18, 2013. Articles by Itxaro Arteta and Yolanda Martinez.

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10872 2013-01-18T14:40:26Z 2013-01-22T23:30:54Z

Image: Nahela Morales touring Mexico City with a group of Muslim women from the congregation of Al Hikmah Center mosque in Mexico City.SOMERSET, N.J. -- Tucked away in a quiet rural neighborhood in Somerset, New Jersey is an old brownstone...

Wendy Diaz ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
Image: Nahela Morales touring Mexico City with a group of Muslim women from the congregation of Al Hikmah Center mosque in Mexico City.

SOMERSET, N.J. -- Tucked away in a quiet rural neighborhood in Somerset, New Jersey is an old brownstone that houses the New Jersey Chapter of the Islamic Center of North America’s (ICNA) WhyIslam Project. Within its confines, in a second floor office decorated with rose-colored walls, sits the administrative assistant and only female employee of the department, Nahela Morales. 


In a long black garment and gray headscarf, Morales sits in front of a computer entering notes and taking phone calls from the program’s hotline, 1-877-WhyIslam, a resource for individuals hoping to learn more about the religion. A Mexican immigrant and recent convert, Morales is the national Spanish-language outreach coordinator for the program, part of ICNA’s mission to disseminate information about Islam nationwide. 


But Morales’ efforts go beyond U.S. borders: the 37-year-old recently led a trip to bring Islamic literature, food and clothing to her native Mexico. 


Morales, who was born in Mexico City but later moved to California and then New York, is part of a growing population of immigrant Muslim converts from Latin America – many of them women -- now helping to bring the religion back to their home countries. 


Immigrant Latinas Find a Place in Islam



“Many immigrants are here by themselves,” says Morales, noting that Latina immigrant women are drawn to Islam because of the sense of “belonging” they find within the Muslim community. “When they come into the mosque and see smiling faces, they feel welcome.”

According to WhyIslam’s 2012 annual report, 19 percent of the some 3,000 converts it assisted in 2011 were Latinos, and more than half of those (55 percent) were women. The 2011 U.S. Mosque Survey, which interviewed leaders at 524 mosques across the country, found the number of new female converts to Islam had increased 8 percent since 2000, and that Latinos accounted for 12 percent of all new converts in the United States in 2011. 


Experts attribute the phenomenon to recent migration trends.


Muslim and Latino immigrants are increasingly living side by side in urban neighborhoods across the country, from California, Texas and Florida to New York and Illinois, states that according to data from the Migration Policy Institute constitute 72.5 percent of the total foreign-born population from Latin America in the United States. At the same time, these five states are also home to the highest number of mosques, The American Mosque 2011 Report shows, reflecting a growing Muslim presence as well. 


Wilfredo Ruiz, a native of Puerto Rico who converted to Islam in 2003, is an attorney and political analyst specializing on the Islamic world. In addition to working with various non-profit organizations, including the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), he also serves as the imam at his local mosque in South Florida.


“More women than men convert, both in AMANA offices and in the mosques in Southern Florida,” Ruiz says. Latina immigrants, he explains, often feel exploited both in Latin America and the United States. The higher status afforded women in Islam and their modest dress, he believes, offers a sensible alternative.


“I have heard from Latina women that they seek protection, and they find [that] protection and respect in Islam,” he adds.


Juan Galvan, executive director of the Latino-American Dawah Association and author of Latino Muslims: Our Journeys to Islam, believes that Islam may also hold another, distinctly religious appeal to Latino immigrants because it reveals to them what he calls a more profound understanding of monotheism. 


“Most Latino Muslim converts have had personal experiences with Muslims that first drew them closer to Islam,” he explains. “These Muslims may be their friends, acquaintances, classmates, coworkers, bosses, marriage partners, or others. By interacting with Muslims, a non-Muslim learns about Islamic monotheism for the first time.” 


Because Islam emphasizes God’s, or Allah’s, oneness, Galvan says, it presents Latinos with a unique alternative to traditional Christian theologies that accept the existence of holy deities – Jesus, the Holy Spirit, saints and miracle workers -- which are connected to, yet distinct, from God. 


“While Protestantism may have fewer intermediaries than Catholicism, Latinos come to Islam because they believe in a concept of God that acknowledges Him as the Most Powerful and therefore, needs no son,” says Galvan, who is himself a Mexican-American convert to Islam.


Prayers Answered


Morales found her own place in Islam after a turbulent past.


In 1979, Morales’ mother risked crossing the border into the United States illegally and alone, leaving her infant daughter behind in Mexico under her grandmother’s care. When Morales was 5 years old, she was finally reunited with her mother, who by that time had settled in Los Angeles. Mother and daughter gained amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. However, even as a U.S. citizen, Morales recalls feeling out of place.


“It was a very difficult adjustment since I did not speak English,” says Morales. “I remember entering the school system and not being able to communicate with my teachers or peers. I wanted to go back home [to Mexico].”


Adding to her difficulties, Morales was the victim of years of neglect and abuse at home, and as a pre-teen she was removed from her mother’s custody and placed in foster care and group homes, until ultimately she was able to settle on her own and finish college.


She moved to New York in 2001. Shortly after her relocation, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occurred at the World Trade Center. When news reports blamed Muslim extremists, Morales began to research Islam.


“I was watching the news and they were always showing [Muslim] people shouting ‘Allahu-akbar,’ God is great, so I thought, if your God is so great, why is he allowing you to kill people? If Muslims say Islam [is about] peace, then this doesn’t make sense.” She decided to find the answers herself and purchased a copy of the Quran, Islam’s holy book. Morales also began befriending Muslim women on MySpace. 


“They were so nice, and I became more curious. One of the Muslim women I met happened to be Puerto Rican, and she got in touch with someone in California that could send me an information package about Islam with books, a Quran, a prayer rug, and a hijab [headscarf].” 


Morales continued to make contact with Muslims through the Internet and searched online for the closest mosque to her new home in North Bergen, New Jersey. She began visiting the mosque and eventually converted in 2003, and continues to be an active member of the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center, or NHIEC. 


Situated in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, 30 percent of NHIEC’s congregants are Latinos. The Latino influence is so great that the mosque offers simultaneous Spanish translation of its Friday sermons and Islamic studies classes, and even hosts an annual “Hispanic Muslim Day.” 


During one of her visits to the NHIEC mosque in 2009, a WhyIslam worker overheard Morales speaking Spanish and asked if she would be interested in a bilingual position with the company.


“I asked [God] to please send me a job where I would be able to worship and wear my veil. I knew right then my prayer was being answered,” recalls Morales. 


She has now been working with NHIEC for more than three years, and recently led a campaign to deliver Islamic literature and audio, clothing, and toiletries to a needy Muslim community in Mexico City. 


During that trip Morales met with her own family members in Mexico, who are mostly Catholic. She says that initially they were not accepting of her decision to practice Islam or of her modest style of dress. They accused her of turning her back on her culture. But on her most recent trip to her hometown of Cuernavaca, she took the opportunity to talk to them more about her religion. 


“It is obvious that Islam is still very strange in Mexico,” admits Morales, who says that since her last visit her own family has become more receptive. “But it is also very clear that people want to learn about it.”


Latina Muslims, At Home and Abroad


Isabela Duarte has been in the United States since the age of seven. A Muslim convert living in Chicago, the 30-year-old left Mexico with her family in 1990, crossing the border illegally and moving to the Windy City, where she attended school while her parents worked. After high school, she says, she had no other choice but to follow in her parents’ footsteps. 


“I figured that there was no possibility of furthering my education because I’d lack assistance due to my status,” she explains. She eventually landed an administrative position in a social services agency, but thanks to the recession she soon lost her job.


“That’s when my real struggles began. I searched for jobs everywhere. Immigration laws became tougher … most places of employment denied me any type of opportunity regardless of the experience I had.” She ultimately settled for babysitting jobs that paid under the table.


In the winter of 2008, while her parents faced foreclosure, unemployment, and a divorce, Duarte had an emotional breakdown. Seeking help, she came upon a YouTube video of Quran recitations. Her best friend, who was Puerto Rican, had already become a Muslim, and Duarte soon followed in her footsteps. 


But while she has found solace and community, participating regularly in events held by the Latino Muslims of Chicago, an Islamic group that serves the needs of Latinos, she says her immigration status continues to be a struggle.


“This is my home,” she says. “Chicago has been my home and I don’t recall any other.”


Part of a growing Hispanic population in the United States, Duarte is also among a Muslim community that, according to the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life, is expected to increase dramatically over the next 20 years, thanks largely to immigration from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.


In North and South America, the estimated Muslim population in 2010 was 5,256,000. This number is expected to more than double by the year 2030. 



Thirty-four-year-old Liliana Anaya, a Muslim convert from Colombia and a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., is familiar with the trend. The mosque in her hometown, Barranquilla, Colombia, reports an average of four conversions a month.


Anaya, who converted to Islam in June 2002, is a graduate of Rollins University in Orlando, Florida, where she majored in political science and international relations. She later attended American University to complete a Master’s Degree in international peace and conflict resolution. 


After graduating, she got a job at a non-profit organization offering mediation for criminal, district, and county court systems in northern Virginia. During this time, she met her husband, a Muslim convert from Argentina, and together they applied for U.S. citizenship.


While Anaya was expecting their first child, she decided to travel back to her country to give birth. After their arrival, she and her husband discovered the Othman bin Affan Mosque in Barranquilla, a small Muslim community that lacked adequate resources. Because Anaya’s husband had earned a degree in Islamic Propagation from Umm Al Qura University in Saudi Arabia, they became involved in the mosque, organizing and teaching classes.


“I felt that Muslims in the states are already part of the fabric of the society,” Anaya explains. “But here [in Colombia], we are in the baby steps. If I want something, I have to create it. If I want Islamic classes for my children, I have to create them.” 


Anaya and her husband are now in the process of establishing an Islamic school for the Muslims of Barranquilla. Both say that given their commitment to the work, return to the United States is unlikely. 


“The Muslim community here needs us,” says Anaya, “so we can’t move.”

This story was made possible by a grant from Atlantic Philanthropies, and was produced as part of New America Media’s Women Immigrants Fellowship Program.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.10839 2013-01-11T21:00:00Z 2013-01-12T01:07:54Z

Sin Embargo ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 MEXICO CITY—Harvard University has confirmed that former Mexican president Felipe Calderón will assume a teaching position starting Jan. 28 at the university’s Kennedy School of Government, reports La Opinión. Calderón’s position will be for one year, through an academic fellowship.

The news comes on the heels of efforts by several advocate groups in Mexico and the United States to block Calderón’s appointment, criticisizing Harvard for selecting a “politician accused of the deaths of at least 60,000 missing and tens of thousands who have been displaced because of his war on drugs, which began on December 6, 2006.” Activists also launched an international, online petition through Change.org urging Harvard not to confirm the former Mexican president.

“We recognize that not everyone agreed with his policies or methods, as with all world leaders, but one of the fundamental principles of the Kennedy School and all U.S. universities is the free exchange of ideas,” said David Ellwood, director of the Harvard Kennedy School in a statement regarding the appointment of President Calderón.


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.10764 2012-12-30T08:15:00Z 2012-12-31T21:15:05Z

David Bacon ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Editor's Note: Lorena Hernandez is a young farm worker and single mother from Oaxaca, Mexico. Today she lives in Madera, Calif., with her daughter and aunt. She told her story to David Bacon.

MADERA, Calif.--To go pick blueberries I have to get up at four in the morning. First I make my lunch to take with me, and then I get dressed for work. For lunch I eat whatever there is in the house, mostly bean tacos. Then the ritero, the person who gives me a ride to work, picks me up at 20 minutes to five.

I work as long as my body can take it, usually until 2:30 in the afternoon. Then the ritero gives me a ride home, and I get there by 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon. By then I'm really tired.

Costs of Rides, Childcare on Little Pay

I pay $8 each way to get to work and back home. Right now they're paying $6 for each bucket of blueberries you pick, so I have to fill almost three buckets just to cover my daily ride. The contractor I work for, Elias Hernandez, hooks us up with the riteros. He's the contractor for 50 of us farm workers picking blueberries, and I met him when a friend of my aunt gave me his number.

I've known Elias two years now, since the first time we worked putting plastic on the grape vines. On that job, which lasts a month, we put pieces of plastic over the vines so that it looks like an igloo. They do this so the grapes won't burn from the frost. The grapes are almost ready to pick when we do this, but we don't pick them. Other people come after us to do that.

I pick grapes for raisins or wine with another contractor. I've worked with many contractors doing many different jobs. Sometimes I work a lot with the same contractor, but sometimes it changes -- it depends on how they treat me. I also try to find work that's easier. To me the contractors are all the same, but some treat us better than others, so I go with them.



Lorena Hernandez picking blueberries

I try to find work that will allow me to make enough to pay for my lunch, ride and rent. I have a daughter, Liliana, who's four, so I also have to make enough to pay for the babysitter. That's why I'm picking blueberries -- to support her. I pay the babysitter $8 a day, but when my aunt isn't working, she takes care of Liliana.

Blueberries—12 Pounds Per Bucket

My daughter's still asleep when I go to work, because we leave so early. We start working at six, so I sleep on the way myself, and wake up when we get to the field. There the contractor gives us our buckets and we wash our hands before picking the fruit. The job isn't that difficult, and I love seeing the buckets fill up.

Right now there are a lot of blueberries on the plants, so we can make more buckets. Sometimes we return to a field as many as four times. First we pick the ripe blueberries and then go back, because the green ones continue to ripen with the heat.

Each bucket has to weigh 12 pounds. This is the second year I've picked blueberries, so since I don't have much experience. I can only fill 15 or 16 buckets. When the ripe fruit is scarce, I can only pick 13. Those with more experience can do up to 20 buckets a day.

To pick a lot, you have to skip your lunch break. After a day of picking blueberries, my hands feel tired and dirty and mistreated. We immediately wash them with cold water, but later they hurt a lot. They don't give us gloves because they say they will damage the fruit.

Good and Bad Contractors

Yadira weighs the buckets. She is fair and doesn't give special treatment to anyone. The grower didn't want to put anyone in this position who was related to the contractor, so that there wouldn't be favoritism for certain workers. Elias works directly with the owner. He's been good to work for -- he always has water in the field, and he follows the law.



Yadira, the checker, weighs the buckets of berries picked by a worker

Elias one of the better contractors. He respects the rules, and everything is always on the up and up. He jokes around with us, but he does his job. I joke with him too. I tell him that if one day he doesn't provide us with water, I'll go to the Farm Workers Union or Cal OSHA.

Some contractors know how to treat their workers and others don't. That's when you change jobs, when you see how a contractor treats you. Some only need men in their crews, so we women have to look elsewhere for work. We know how contractors are because other workers tell us, so we avoid the bad ones.

In general, the contractors I've worked for have been fair. The ones with many years of experience know how to talk to workers. And as workers, we understand that when we're doing something wrong, the foreman has a valid reason to bring it to our attention. But they are not permitted to scream at us or mistreat us.

Pregnant at 15

I went to school in Mexico. I'm from a small town in Oaxaca, and I left when I was 15 years old. That's when I crossed the border to come here. I don't have many good memories of those times.

I got pregnant while I was in school and when I graduated. When I got pregnant my parents were very mad and my mother kicked me out of the house. My aunt came to visit during that time and told my mother that if she didn't want me, she would take me with her to the U.S. I made a quick decision to go with her. My aunt helped me out then and she still does.

This is definitely a different country. After my daughter was born I wasn't allowed to work because I was a minor. They told me if I tried they would take my daughter away. So I cared for Liliana at home, and my aunt supported both of us for three years.

When I turned 18 she took me to the fields and showed me how to do the work. It was really the only job I could do because I didn't have much education.



Lorena Hernandez and her daughter Liliana

My first job was picking grapes. She then showed me how to pick cherries and blueberries, and that's how I've learned to do everything I do now. We've picked many different crops and generally we've worked for good contractors. So here I am, working in the fields because it's the only job there is for someone like me.

In my family we've always spoken Spanish. My grandparents didn't teach my parents to speak Mixteco, so they never learned the language, even though it was the language of our town. I'm very proud of being from Oaxaca, and I'm not ashamed to be a farm worker, but I still don't speak it.

Like everyone else in town, my parents worked their cornfield so that we could eat. I never liked working in the fields in Mexico, so they never took me with them. Today, when I call them, they laugh at me and remind me of how I never liked to work in the fields back home. And here I am, picking blueberries and tomatoes.

They ask me why I refused to work with them and now I'm here working for someone else. Oh well, it's the only job I know how to do.

Turning 18 Meant New Responsibilities

I've been working since I turned 18, and now I'm 20. I really didn't want to turn 18, but the years kept passing by. I knew I would have additional responsibilities and would have to learn to work.

I was afraid because I didn't have any idea how to do the work and I knew I would be working in the heat. It was scary for me, because I knew things wouldn't be like they'd been before. But my aunt was always with me, and thanks to her I learned new skills.

When I received my first check, I knew I had to continue working to earn that type of money. I began to work really hard and I was invited to join other crews and pick other crops. When I'm invited to join another crew now, I know how to do the job.

I'm very happy because I work in the fields with other people. Even though I'm tired at the end of the day, I de-stress and love the work I do. I'll continue to do this work for as long as I'm in this country.

We've picked cherries, blueberries, grapes, tomatoes and figs. Picking tomatoes has been the hardest for me because of the buckets you have to carry and dump in the trailers. They're very heavy and it's very hot outside. You run all day long, competing with other workers. You can't allow them to work faster than you, because then they'll fill the trailer quickly, and you'll have to go even faster to catch up to it.

Tomatoes—Good Pay and Back Injuries

Some workers have been doing this for years, so their hands move faster. You always are trying to catch up to them. It's very hard on your back and many people end up with permanent back injuries.

But you earn good money. Even first timers like myself can earn $60 to $70 a day.

I like to pick tomatoes also because our day ends early. We're done at about 10 or 10:30, because after that it's too hot to work. Every year you hear about workers who faint because of the heat and some even die.

You're in danger of fainting if you're working too fast in the heat. It's important to have water, but you can't drink too much. When I first started I drank too much, and I felt like I couldn't stand back up. The contractor sat me down in the shade and gave me a salt tablet.

In November, work gets scarce, so we rest. The pruning season begins in December, but I don't like to do it because it's so cold outside. They just pay 18 cents a vine, so after paying everything I would only make $20 a day -- not enough to pay for the ride and my babysitter. I stay home with my daughter, and start picking fruit in March. So we don't work for three months.

I can't get unemployment benefits, so those months are very hard, but it's better that I don't work. When I'm working I manage my finances and save some money. That's what gets me through those months.

I feel I don't know my daughter anymore, though. She calls my aunt "mama" instead of me. My daughter thinks my aunt is her mother. I understand why -- my cousins call my aunt "mama" and that's what she hears. She worries about my aunt and brings her water and asks her how her day was. My daughter doesn't really understand that I get home tired, but my aunt says she'll understand me better when she's older.

No Vision of My Future

I don't have friends, just acquaintances from work. They don't have responsibilities like I do, so they go out on the weekend. They share their stories with me because since I have a daughter, I don't go out. I just stay at home.

I wash my daughter's clothes on the weekends because during the week I'm so tired. There isn't time to clean the house during the week either. That's what we do on the weekends.

I don't have a vision of my own future. I don't really think about it. I know I want to work every day. I don't think I'll ever return to school because of my age. My job will be working in the fields. I'm at peace with my current situation. I would love to go back to school, but it's too late for me. Perhaps one day.

Photos by David Bacon.

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