Alternatives and Resistance - Kira Cohen

Reflecting on the travel seminar, I was most struck by the ways that many individuals and communities that we had met constructed alternatives to the world they see around them, to try and strengthen their communities and worlds in the face of a governmental and economic system that doesn’t always make that easy. Obviously, one of the most extreme examples of alternative practices is the autonomous Zapatista community, whose members have created “another world” in the form of their community spaces. When I think about the Zapatistas, and the thoughtfulness and cohesion that goes into their internal workings, I get excited about the possibility of living life in ways that are completely different from those that may seem possible given the status quo. The autonomy the Zapatistas practice looks to me like a form of alternative living taken so much farther than I’ve ever seen it before, to the point of creating real structures that can be sustained, and that will continue to nourish a group of individuals for as long as they want.

At the same time, though, I have doubts about how much these autonomous alternatives work as resistance to an outside government that remains dysfunctional. I think that we have often equated alternatives with resistance, and it seems to me that there is a spectrum of ways in which resistance works. While the Zapatistas provide a wonderful example of how to function autonomously, they are not necessarily affecting change for those not within their world. Their work, their lives, doesn’t exert pressure for this outward change beyond serving as an example for others. I realize that affecting broad change is not necessarily the goal of the movement, and that the Zapatista community is doing what works for them and creating a model for other communities to create their own sustainable systems that are appropriate for that context. The Zapatistas work in a different way. However, if everybody simply opted out of the government, how would it ever change? That’s what has been on my mind lately.
I think the method that the Zapatistas have taken is incredibly inspiring, especially since their communities and services are so developed. I know that others have been inspired as well, and I believe that many more would be if they saw this “other world. ”While we are lucky enough to have been able to learn more about the Caracol firsthand, it seems a rare experience for outsiders to see in. As Mario at Promedios said, nobody cares about the health clinics or the schools. The broader public wants to hear about conflict. And when the Zapatistas are not rising up in arms, they are not a threat to their government, other than their occupation of space. Promedios is helping spread the message, but obviously the audience is limited.

I’m just not sure if alternatives always automatically equal a form of resistance that will create significant change. There is a big question to be asked about whether the dominant paradigm can shift in big ways, or whether it can happen in small steps by people opting out. I want to recognize what is and is not effective when it comes to acts of resistance. However, I think that the ultimate goal should be strong communities, and it’s not everybody’s responsibility to attack the government or to try and make big-picture change.

I can only truly speculate on the so-called “effectiveness” of this resistance, based off of my observations. But beyond that analysis, I have to say that being in such a thoughtful, autonomous space was incredibly inspiring for me as a sign that people can take what they see as being wrong and begin to make something better, in a countless number of ways. And that in itself is, to me, an act of resistance. There are many ways of challenging the government, challenging the static state of the world. And taking action, showing that “this works too, and this works better,” is one way to do that. I wish that more people could see the work of the Zapatistas firsthand, or at all, and begin to take action as well.

Border Views - Sophia Yapalater

My Field Study

As much as I have enjoyed my classes with my teachers and other students in the program, the most fulfilling part of my experience in Tucson has been my field study with Tierra y Libertad Organization (TYLO for short). Before my semester with TYLO, the only sort of organizing experience I had was on my campus. With my campus groups, it is almost as if we felt into a trap of focusing on the problems of the college rather than strongly demanding the administrators to implement our ideas for change. Even when we articulated our visions for a more meaningful and radical education, we were pushed by the administration to use their institutional channels such as writing up research reports and then presenting at administration meetings to explain why we think it's important to increase the numbers of faculty of color, justify the need for Latino/Asian American/ Native American studies, and increase the class and racial diversity of the student body. We never got anywhere because our college found ways to defeat the more radical actions in our campaign by forming committees that pretended to listen to us. As a result, when I arrived to Tucson I was pretty disillusioned with the idea of working for change either on my campus or in the larger immigrants' rights fights for the DREAM Act or "comprehensive immigration reform."

Although the struggles on my campus feel important to me, it has been through my experiences listening to people's stories of resistance in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Paso and most importantly learning from badass community organizers in Tucson, that I have been reminded that fighting for liberation and self determination, creating beautiful communities, and speaking truth to power are not academic skills one can learn. Considering that a majority white middle class campus community won’t be my reality after I graduate Swarthmore, it’s been crucial for me to absorb as much knowledge from TYLO’s small and local but deep and meaningful work in a barrio very similar to one I grew up in because then I can take what I have learned to start the process of change in my community. It's been through my experience with TYLO that I have truly learned to value the importance of creating a vision for change that is more compelling, nourishing, and transformative than simply fighting or attacking the injustices we see.

For those who don't know the work of Tierra y Libertad, its a grassroots organization based in the predominantly Chican@/Mexican/Native Barrio Wakefield community, working to build examples of positive social change and community transformation. Of course, this short description doesn't give justice to the amazing work by TYLO's members so I want to share a few pictures of the current positive change undergoing in the neighborhood as well a short description of TYLO's current campaign.

The pictures of the murals are part of what is known as the Barrio Alleyway project. There is an alleyway behind TYLO's centro comunitario that members of the community particularly youth decided they wanted to transform into a space that expressed love, art, safety, family, hope, and ownership of their community. And the transformation has happened through long and difficult work that included talking to the neighbors about what they wanted to see represented in the murals as well fundraising for the project. TYLO members organized several Saturday workdays where we first cleaned up the trash and then had skilled graffiti artists and other community members spray paint murals onto the walls. And in the very near future, we will plant some native desert plants and food producing trees. Already I have seen some many more people walking through the alleyway, taking their time to see and enjoy the murals, and creating connections with other people in the community by simply talking to each other. It is in those moments that I am most grateful for the privilege to have witnessed and been part of this community transformation. When I walk through the alleyway, my memories of the friendships I have formed and the images of the murals remind me of why we need to more intentional about building communities that are beautiful in every sense of the word.

TYLO has shown me that when we are trying to create another world that is free from oppression, violence, injustice, creating that world requires creativity and love for your home/family/friends and your barrio/hood. TYLO reminded me that community is everything. And I’m glad I’m not ending my experience in the borderlands just yet. I’m excited for this summer and the opportunity to continue sharing and learning with TYLO members and most importantly being part of their process of creating a beautiful community.

Rainwater Harvesting - Emily Pfleiderer

This week for our Critical Issues class we spoke with Brad Lancaster, who is a water sustainability activist. He spoke to us about methods to create an urban landscape that is like a sponge and not water-phobic. The idea that urban landscapes are hydrophobic stems from how cities are constructed; streets direct rainwater into sewers and away from the community. Essentially, urban designers do not welcome water from the sky but rather (especially in Tucson) spends absurd amounts of energy and money moving water long distances, or depleting easily accessible ground water. I had never thought about the type of water that I use for my daily activities but Brad pointed out the absurdities of common practices such as watering plants, flushing toilets, and washing clothes with purified drinking water. I highly recommend that you check out his website, and if possible, utilize some of the strategies. I want to point out that the ideas on his website are not just his, that what he writes about comes from a wealth of knowledge from practices around the world. I think Brad is a messenger trying to spread awareness about water practices and help others see how accessible it can be to change their lifestyle and their community. http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

This weekend my friend Oto and I talked with Primitivo (host family friend) about rainwater harvesting and we gave him a tour of the barrio. One of the benefits of how the Dunbar-Spring neighborhood has changed since Brad has been there is that it inspires other people and challenges the idea of what a typical neighborhood should look like. I think the neighborhood instigates small-scale projects, but as of yet, not national.

El Paso/Juarez - Chiara Azzaretti

We just got back from El Paso yesterday, and even though a weekend in Texas sounds much less dramatic than three weeks in Guatemala and Mexico, being there for a short time did a lot to change my understanding of the border. The experiences I've had in the Tucson border region have been wide-ranging and valuable, but having them doesn't mean I automatically understand the border as a whole, especially in places like El Paso that are so dramatically different.

The difference that struck me immediately was the close proximity of El Paso to Ciudad Juarez. I had seen the two cities on maps and heard stories of past Border Studies students crossing between them daily, but knowing those things didn't prepare me for actually seeing the border. From the view in the Franklin Mountains (which is the only way Border Studies students can see Juarez these days), the two metropolises appear to be colliding as they both expand along the Rio Grande river and into the desert. The border wall is constantly visible along the highway, along with the Border Patrol, who showed up in under five minutes when our group stopped to have a discussion by the Anapra section of the fence. Even the desert itself (which around El Paso is the Chihuahuan, not the Sonoran), with its lack of saguaros and a Saturday-afternoon dust storm, seemed more foreign to me than I had expected.

In Tucson, “the border” often remains an abstract concept. In El Paso, there is no way to think of it as something vague and distant. Just as I had on the travel seminar, I often had the feeling that I was seeing firsthand many of the issues I'd been studying all semester. There was economic inequality in the contrast between what we could see of Juarez and the suburbs and mansions of El Paso, and we saw the arbitrary nature of borders in the fact that a citizen of either US or Mexico could be arrested for stepping over a line in the middle of a public park. Over and over again, people we met in El Paso reminded us that while we were visiting one of the safest cities in the United States, Ciudad Juarez was experiencing an average of eight murders per day – a fact that made questions of privilege and injustice immediately apparent.

I'm grateful for the space I have as a Border Studies student to learn about these issues and examine my own place in the systems that created them. However, I'm also grateful that I got to spend time in El Paso, where the border is a constant physical presence. Many of the people we met there were working in direct, pragmatic ways against the way these systems affect their communities, whether they were providing lodging for migrants, establishing a community center that fights post-NAFTA unemployment, or working to make low-cost childbirth available to mothers from both sides of the border. I often felt uncomfortable and overwhelmed by learning about the border in El Paso, but the trip also provided a reminder not to get lost in thinking about everything on such a large scale that I lose sight of the need and value of smaller-scale, more concrete work.

Learnings - Emily Pfleiderer

While in Chiapas Mexico, during the travel seminar, our guide Julio Cesar acted as a mentor and teacher. He gave plácticas (talks or lectures) as we were traveling. He talked both at an indigenous school named CIDECI and at Caracol IV - Morelia after we talked with the Junta de Buen Gobierno. The following is a summary of what Julio said and my reactions. Additionally, I write about the impact of these experiences on my future partially because the Zapatistas asked us about what we were going to do with our lives after this trip and because I am trying to figure out what kind of person I want to be (as corny as that sounds, in a capitalist society jobs can be used to define a person).

Driving in Chiapas we saw many military checkpoints and it fascinated me how the military is able to suspend people's rights by installing themselves in what ever territory they please. I learned from Don Julio that the military serves a territorial purpose, que pueden ver cuanta gente se mueve y quien...el ejercito es cerca de communidades indígenas y por eso hay menaza, repressión, y invasión de territorio. Apparently, declaring a state of emergency, while not constitutional, serves to further the military and government's goals. With time, military presence becomes almost normal, but citizens are not supposed to justify why they are moving within their own country. I had previously thought that paramilitaries were completely separate from the military, yet Julio Cesar said that the military recruits Indigenous youth to join paramilitary groups to create terror. Rules that are supposed to curtail military behavior, especially in regards to violations of human rights, do not seem to apply to paramilitary forces. In my life I want to learn the roles that paramilitaries have played in creating chaos whereas the official military is depicted as bringing order and security.

I want to learn more about the ways in which governments display and enforce their power; how seemingly innocent actions morph into a police-state. It was fascinating to compare what democracy and its ideal form look like: the Zapatista Junta de Buen Gobierno is actually democratic in the sense of who is represented, how decisions are made, which voices are heard and their impact, while the democracy Mexico and the United State espouse seems like a farce. Does reform come from the outside, such as the creation of numerous autonomous communities, or is large scale fair and just government realistic? Personally, I do value the idea of big government with social services (I am not an anarchist or a libertarian). I think the concept of guerra interna is helpful, that Mexico is in state of war, in that it reveals that the War on Drugs is not actually why the military is employed as it is. I will probably use the term to illustrate to others that the Mexican government is fighting against its own people, not drug runners from the outside.

In relation to migration, I will keep in mind throughout my future how intimately connected the military, neoliberalism, and the creation of fear and desperation are to creating the environment for migration. I had not realized the extent to which the Mexican military is implicated in indigenous migration; not only due to genocide, but also because of using territorial power to move people off of their lands and destroy (or attempt to) their cultural knowledge as it relates to their rooted place. I've realized that I can not view an action, such as checkpoints as an isolated issue, that they are indicative of how a government relates to its people. It speaks to how Mexicans are portrayed as helpless, poor, ignorant, drug users who simply need the help of their benevolent gobierno to rescue them. Julio Cesar made some comments about the PR campaigns in which the government appears to give indigenous people dignity and a better life. In my job and life, I want to be conscientious of how institutions depict people. I want to be critical of how I frame people or how I might subconsciously view their abilities as limited- that I don't view people as in need of saving, as the Mexican government does.



I don't know to what extent what I learned from Julio Cesar will impact my job per-say, but I will focus more attention on how norms are established and how governments can simultaneously bleed the power from their people, squelch autonomy and resistance, and view their people as inferior/needing the assistance of the government. Of course, governments are supposed to aid their people, but they are not supposed to destroy the ability of people to take care of themselves. It is not transparent of the government to act as if indigenous people are situated as they are, isolated from the military's actions. Erasing history is a powerful tool, but as Julio Cesar showed, there is enough resistance to overcome the government's attempts, and norms are not permanent.

Food Justice - Nora Berson

For a while now, I've been really interested in learning about and working toward food justice. I've had short-term volunteer stints at places like soup kitchens, community farms or urban gardens in Massachusetts, and a visit to the National Farmers and Ranchers Union in Nicaragua, but I felt I needed to do more critical reflection. I was immensely grateful for the challenging readings on white privilege in food justice movements that Katie assigned us last week for our Identity, Privilege and Social Justice class. The authors discussed case studies of food justice movements whose work was being hindered by unaddressed issues of power and privilege. I will attempt to summarize some of the most salient problems these articles made clear for me, and offer some ideas of how to address them. In case you are interested, I've listed the readings at the end of this post.

One important idea that has emerged is the danger of evangelizing. In international “development” programs, and community food projects within the U.S., there is a tendency for people with white privilege and class power to dictate policies and impose projects. Whenever programs are designed to reflect the ideals of those in power instead of the desires and needs of the communities the programs are supposed to serve, they reproduce dynamics of power and oppression. Although well meaning, programs to teach people to eat healthier by changing their food habits can easily come across as paternalistic. Anytime we make paternalistic assumptions that we know what is best for other people, not only are these assumptions bound to be misguided, but they also insult the intelligence, dignity and autonomy of the people denied a voice in these decisions.

Another shortcoming of the alternative food movement are its very claims to be new, innovative and “alternative.” While it is true that local, chemical-free, polyculture farming may be an alternative to the current system of agribusiness, it is by no means a newfangled invention. Indigenous people have been farming this way for centuries, and it was colonization that violently displaced them and tried to destroy this knowledge. To teach about sustainable agricultural practices without acknowledging the long legacy of these practices among indigenous groups fails to honor this history, and misses an opportunity to learn from people who have roots in this knowledge. In order to nurture a holistic food movement, it is crucial to retain a strong sense of place, and recognize the people with deep ties to that land.



In addition to remembering traditional practices for cultivating food, holistic food movements should celebrate and honor the cultural traditions around eating food. Good food is about so much more than eating the “right” calories. Food should be about sustenance and community. This belief leads me to criticize food aid programs that feed poor people the processed junk that supermarkets overstocked. This reflects a narrow view that food serves merely to prevent starvation. Programs that limit themselves to this goal miss out on seeing food as an important element of culture, and a joyful part of life.

I don't pretend to know the solutions to these issues, but the asking the questions is an important step. I want to challenge myself (and you!) to think critically and inclusively. What is my role? How are societal problems and power dynamics affecting the work of food-related organizations? How can we change these organizations to empower marginalized groups and center their needs and desires? How do we work together to build a food system that works to benefit everyone?

I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to read and talk about these issues, and I want to keep doing so. Leave a comment, email me, and start a conversation. Tell me your ideas, recommend an article, call me out on something. This struggle needs all of us.

Citations for readings:
Guthman, Julie, “Bringing good food to others: investigating the subjects of alternative food practice,” Cultural Geographies 15:431 (2008). http://cgj.sagepub.com/content/15/4/431

Jensen, Derrick, “Forget Shorter Showers: Why personal change does not equal political change.”

Mares, Teresa M. and Devon G. Peña, “Environmental and Food Justice: Toward Local, Slow and Deep Food Systems,” in Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability, edited by Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).

Slocum, Rachel, “Anti-racist Practice and the Work of Community Food Organizations,” (Oxford: Antipode, 2006).

Autonomy & Resistance - Otis Wortley

Autonomy and resistance were two terms that were reiterated time and time again during our travels in Guatemala and Southern Mexico. These ideas were reinforced both by the goals, actions and beliefs of the people we heard from and conversed with, but also by the trajectory of our program, which advocates these two terms as central to the inspiring work being done by the numerous organizations with which we met. Having heard about autonomy and resistance prior to embarking on our travel seminar, and the continuation of their use in the discourse of our pláticas, I almost began to feel like I was becoming numb and apathetic to their meaning, and their importance in the struggle against the horrors of global capitalism. Soon enough, however, I found myself in deep reflection, considering what it means for communities to be autonomous, and what forms of resistance were manifested in autonomy. Through picking apart the themes of our discussions in Guatemala and Mexico and applying our preliminary explorations and experiences in the borderlands to them, I began to understand more lucidly and concretely what autonomy and resistance actually looked like.

My greatest epiphany came from our visit to CIDECI (Centro Indígena de Capatación Integral), an alternative university at the very edge of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Apart from being aesthetically outstanding—radiating a sense of hope purely through its tasteful and well-coordinated colors, design and architecture—the school was a very blatant example of the two terms I seek to further understand. CIDECI strives to offer education and skills that directly benefit the small, rural and Indigenous communities of Chiapas. The school offers classes and instructions in various subjects and skills that not only benefit the students involved, but serve as catalysts towards building a stronger and more sustainable community. A community upheld by the work of its own members, in fact, is a blaring form of autonomy. Whereas conventional Mexican national history often emphasizes the legacy of a nation-state achieved through invasion, conquest, colonialism and subjugation, a more resistant form of education (like that of CIDECI) examines history from the bottom up.



The impressions left with me after visiting CIDECI helped to explain the congruency of autonomy and resistance with the substance of our previous discussions with people in Guatemala and Chiapas. Maria Elisa Orozco told us of the various “invasions” of Guatemala throughout its history and how each new layer of conquest has contributed to the institutionalized and structured subjugations of the working class, indigenous people and women as well. The history that has been taught, and the history that has materialized in the realities of the various indigenous communities in the places we visited results from the centricity of the state and its power, both relics of a colonial past. However, Maria Elisa’s acknowledgment of Guatemalan history as being constructed by and composed of the layering of oppression and invasion surfaces a very alternative and unconventional perspective. By giving thought to how the women and indigenous communities of Guatemala have been shaped and impacted by these forces, rather than how they formed the nation-state, puts an oft-ignored subject at the center of the story, illustrating an example of how history can be reclaimed.

By understanding the history of people whose voices are often over-looked, it is possible to challenge—and thus resist—the conventional narrative of how things have come to be. However, in order to build upon the autonomy of these communities involved, that history must be considered for shaping the future. The invasions that Maria Elisa mentioned have not ceased to continue. Today’s oppression and subjugation comes from the forces of multinational, capitalistic interests, whose actions seek to amass great quantities of resources and power much to the disadvantage of those on the lowest rungs of the social strata. These interests have initiated the very free trade agreements that have sparked considerable migration from rural areas into the urban cores and the global north, a phenomenon that threatens and obstructs efforts to preserve language, culture and familial and community cohesion. When Willy spoke to us about El Sueño Guatemalteco at DESGUA, he imagined communities upheld by its members, emphasizing the collectivity rather than just the individual. This same notion was apparent at CIDECI, where skills and information can be shared and taught among people from across Chiapas for the purpose of empowering and supporting their communities.



Having now returned to Tucson, I’m interested to consider what I’ve learned about popular education in Guatemala and Southern Mexico and how it relates to relevant issues in the Borderlands. Recently, Tucson has become ground zero of a battle being waged over a ban on Ethnic Studies. In Guatemala and Mexico, I was able to observe how certain organizations of people were striving to reclaim history through their own perspectives, and here in Tucson the Mexican-American Studies program had done just that. Understanding the importance of taking a “bottom up” approach to education and the construction of historical narratives through the examples set by the inspiring individuals we were able to meet in our travel brings to light the dire nature of the attack on Ethnic Studies. It has become clear to me that resistance to oppression, subjugation and marginality for the purpose for obtaining more sustainable and autonomous communities and futures is done in the name of respect and human dignity.

Sharing Stories, Solidarity - Sophia Yapalater

Meeting with NISGUA seemed like a fitting way to start our travel seminar. We were going to meet a former Border Studies student, from Oberlin nonetheless, and see how she was moving forward after college. It was also going to be a look into how one can use their privilege of US citizenship in a potentially productive manner in another country. This was an exciting way to begin after already spending a lot of time questioning my passport privilege and wondering if it is possible to do solidarity work in countries other than my own.

This first platíca was in English, so it took a little while before it hit me: Spanish. I would need much better Spanish to work with NISGUA. What help could I be if I couldn’t even effectively communicate with the people I was trying to work with? This feeling of dread was solidified in our next meeting with HIJOS as I struggled to understand what was happening around me. Afterwards, getting someone to review the points of what had just been talked about felt wrong. I thought back to readings that we had done for Katie’s class that spoke of the importance of hearing people’s experiences first hand. Was getting a translation comparable to hearing the HIJOS members speak? Was this first hand or second hand communication?

This theme of language continued to manifest itself in different ways throughout my time in Guatemala and Mexico. I continued to wonder how much I was missing. I worried that the people we were meeting with could tell that I could not fully understand what they were saying to me; that every time we met eyes they could not see interest and focus, but fear. When people from home asked me in emails about the people that we met, I felt almost guilty telling them about conversations, much of which had been recapped for me. I felt like I was co-opting the experiences of the students who had translated or summarized for me, as if only hearing was enough to make it my own, and that experiencing a person without their words was not. The question still stood: did it still count as a first hand experience if someone had to translate it for or explain it to me? This was complicated by the fact that in some of the communities that we visited, some members did not speak Spanish, but Indigenous languages that were translated into Spanish by others, and that for some reason, I did not question if this was getting a second hand experience. I only did so with English.

Now, back in the United States, I am thinking more about the role that language plays as I navigate sharing my travel experiences with others. I have questioned whether or not, even if my Spanish were stronger and I had gathered the majority of our platícas on my own, it be truly accurate to now convey that story to others who had not been there in English. Through this thought process, I have begun to see that my discomfort is not with having people translate things that I do not understand for me, but with the English language, one that is so associated with the power relations we have been studying. The real question is not of translation but of what an effective and appropriate way is to share the stories of people effected by issues of power and oppression in a language that presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Puerto Ricans need to learn if they want statehood.

In both Spanish and English, I have heard stories from individuals in the migrant shelters we have spent time in, from women deported to Nogales, from the many activists and community leaders we spoke with, and from people that I have worked with here in Tucson. And I have not quite known what to do with them. I now think back, once again, to a pre-travel seminar reading that spoke of the importance of speaking with someone rather than for them. I still am not sure how to do this, particularly when that someone is not there to speak for themselves. Especially when I am not speaking their language. I hope to spend my last month in Tucson learning how to share these stories of the people that I have met in a way that is appropriate, effective, and in solidarity with their work. Even if it means I need some help doing so.