Part 1: Three Months in San Isidro Arenal

From August to November of 2007, I lived and volunteered in a Chinanteco community in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, teaching computer skills to kids and adults. With me came my friend and fellow volunteer Frazer Lanier to teach and learn.

The community is Chinanteco: a Mesoamerican indigenous group found in the northeastern part of Oaxaca on the border of Veracruz. They live in a beautiful and geographically variant part of Oaxaca in the tropical foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range called the Chinantla near Valle Nacional. Our shared experience has been educating and enlightening in regards to the largely untold story of the Chinanteco people and Mexican-Indian immigrants.

My desire to travel to this area began while living in a Chicano neighborhood in the west side of Denver, Colorado where I was exposed to strong Mexican-American culture, which has remained vibrant since the workers’ and students’ movement during the 60’s with figures like Cesar Chavez and Denver’s own “Corky” Gonzalez fighting for the rights of Hispanic Americans. Mexican heritage is strong in Denver. They celebrate El Grito, the Mexican cry for independence, a major holiday in Mexico, which would be the equivalent of Mexico celebrating the 4th of July.

Chicano culture embraces both Mexican and American culture. Some of the families in the Westside and Baker neighborhoods of Denver have been living there for 60 years or more, which is not surprising given that until the middle of the 19th century, Mexico still considered the southern part of Colorado in its territory.

The culture lines between Chicano and Mexican immigrant communities in Denver are blurred, and rightfully so, since many Chicano families who have lived here for two or three generations still have relatives in Mexico. Immigrants find familiar and friendly faces in these neighborhoods, which is refreshing given the current political policies of the United States towards immigrants.

The issue of immigration is one of the most important issues we as human beings are facing in the world. The movement of people for work is a fundamental part of free market capitalism. However, the U.S. is trying to stop this movement, while at the same time destroying the small economies of the poor. The economic choices made by Mexican, Canadian and American governments force people to migrate from their homes, to move away from the poverty, starvation and violence all of which can be traced to an economic policy to benefit a very few amount of people.

Immigration in the Americas also forces one to understand the brutal history of the conquest of the Americas, which this essay acknowledges but does not confront. Rather, this essay looks at the more recent history and the current lives of one indigenous group in southern Mexico – The Chinanteco.

The average person in America probably does not know the affect that his or her government has on the world. The information in this area is severely lacking. In American media and politics, they use words like “illegals” to describe immigrants, even if the person can trace their bloodlines back before the arrival of Europeans. This kind of disrespect and ignorance needs to be confronted in order to assuage the current problems of poverty of the indigenous of Mexico.

Because I do not wish to continually repeat history; because of my own personal experiences living in Denver and in San Isidro Arenal; because I feel much information is lacking in the debate of immigration, I feel it is my responsibility to develop a better understanding of Mexican-indigenous culture.

Part 2 next week...

-Loren Speer, December 11, 2007