Native Village News Articles For Grandmother Julieta
[Below are several articles selected from
Native Village News publications housed in our archives. The Grandmothers say
that in the Spirit World, all time exists at once. To remind us of this, each
article's publication date is omitted.]
For more
information about these and other news articles, please visit:
News Archives.
TEACHERS KILLED IN OAXACA POLICE ATTACK
Mexico: Several thousand police recently attacked teachers' protesting in
the state of Oaxaca . Entering the teacher's camp at 4.40 am, police fired
tear gas and brutally beat strikers, killing several. Some believe the
attack was an attempt by Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortmz to crush the more
than 50,000 striking schoolteachers who called for his resignation.
According to teachers, Ortmz has spent millions of pesos on unnecessary
buildings and siphoned money to his business. Moreover, strikers allege that
some 900,000 pesos have disappeared into PRI (Institutional Revolutionary
Party) funds. The lengthy teachers' strike more than a dispute over
teachers' salaries. The National Education Workers' Union has attracted
massive support for its demands:
Equal pay throughout the state. Oaxaca is now divided into three salary
zones based on cost of living;
An increase for students receiving grants, which now amount to 450 pesos per
month (that's $40 U.S. dollars);
Decent schools, classroom supplies, and government funding for uniforms,
which poor families can't afford, so kids stay home.
The National Education Workers' Union has attracted massive support for its
demands. Teachers in Mexico are usually very underpaid but highly popular in
their local communities. They have long been a center of militancy and the
social movements.
The Fleecing of Navajo Weavers
Arizona: 90% of indigenous peoples who live in America's Southwest depend
on crafts as their principal or secondary source of income. Yet, of the
yearly $1,000,000,000 sales of American Indian arts and crafts, more than
50% is “fake,” said Andy Abeita of the Council for Indigenous Arts and
Culture. Thousands of Diné (Navajo) weavers are finding their historic
patterns copied abroad, then imported and sold in the U.S. Imitation
Navajo weaving is produced in Guatemala, Peru, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan,
Japan, Egypt, Hungary, Romania, northern Thailand and, in particular,
Oaxaca, Mexico. In fact, a Google search for “Navajo rugs” returned more
than 140,000 hits. The first 100 sites were either those reselling historic
Navajo textiles, or dozens of firms advertising “Navajo-inspired” rugs.
Navajo weavers say that their incomes have declined at least 40% in the past
10 years. Only a handful of the 25,000 weavers make an adequate living.
Many are hoping anthropologists will help Navajo weavers by bringing this
into discussion within the academic realm. Fair traders can help by
marketing cultural diversity and encouraging weavers to use their own
designs.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
Preserving a language, safeguarding a culture
Mexico: An Oaxacan woman, Emiliana Cruz, has completed a Ph.D. on her
indigenous language. She hopes her knowledge will help improve conditions
for her community. "The primary force that motivates me in striving to keep
the Chatino language alive is that the language is not just a verbal form of
communication," she says, "but rather it is intimately connected with the
cultural reality of the Chatino people and their complex history, dynamic
cultural development, and diversity with all its own richness." Although
some experts believe 50-60 languages exist in Mexico, Enrique Fernando Nava,
from the National Institute of Indigenous Languages, believes up to 150
different languages are spoken nationwide. "Zapoteco, for example, is not
really one language but rather a family of languages," he explains,
referring to the largest linguistic group in Oaxaca. "The same is true of
Mixteco and Chinanteco and many others." The number of people speaking
indigenous languages is in rapid decline. According to Emiliana, it's
because the dominant mestizo (mixed-race) culture devalues indigenous
language and culture. "In Mexico, indigenous languages are not considered
valid for education and for written communication because they are thought
of as incomplete and are looked upon as simply dialects or sub-languages,"
she says.
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=8578&tabla=miami
Goldman Winner Donates Prize to Forest Struggle
Isidro Baldenegro Lopez, a Tarahumara Indian leader from Mexico, has
received the 2005 North American Goldman Award. The Goldman Awards, knows as
the "Environmental Nobel," honors environmental heroes from each of the six
continental regions. Lopez was honored for his fight to protect Tarahumara
land from the illegal logging. Baldenegro is donating his $125,000 prize to
the Sierra Madre Alliance, a U.S.-Mexican nonprofit aimed at helping the
Tarahumara and the Tepehuan pursue land-rights claims.
Sierra Club
Mexican drug gangs force Indians to drop tradition
Sinaloa, Mexico: Armed drug gangs from Sinaloa state are forcing Indians in
Sonora and Chihuahua to abandon their traditional crops and grow marijuana
and heroin poppies. The tribes--the Tarahumara, Guarijio and Pima--have
lived in caves and log cabins in the Western Sierra Madre Mountain range in
the area for millennia, surviving on subsistence corn crops. "While some
elders are trying to conserve traditional festivals linked to the maize
harvest, the arrival of these groups from Sinaloa brings ... western
clothes, cassette recorders, pistols and the consumption of alcohol," said
anthropologist Alejandro Aguilar. Aguilar also said the drug gangs had
forced some Indian communities to worship Jesus Malverde, the patron saint
of the drug runners. "The elements from Sinaloa are ... asking them to
venerate the image of Malverde, the patron saint of the narcos, who is not
recognized by the Church."
GENE-MODIFIED
CORN GONE FROM MEXICO, STUDY FINDS
Mexico: Each year, Mexico imports between 5 - 6,000,000 tons of maize from the
United States. Almost half of that corn is genetically modified. In 2001, the
Mexican region where modern corn originated showed signs of genetic
contamination. The report raised alarm and sparked protest from global activists
and groups around the world. Now according to reports from Ohio State
University, the problem has disappeared. "We sampled maize seeds from 870 plants
in 125 fields and 18 localities in the state of Oaxaca during 2003 and 2004,"
researchers wrote in their report. They tested more than 150,000 seeds and found
no evidence of transgenes -- the spliced-in genes used to engineer the corn. "We
now know that transgenic maize isn't growing in Oaxaca." said Exequiel Ezcurra,
a former Mexican official who worked on the study. He credited an educational
campaign that raised awareness among Oaxaca farmers. "If transgenic material
had got into the community because people were planting imported grain
inadvertently, then from 2001 onwards, the communities were well-informed and
they knew how to avoid planting grain of unknown origin," Ezcurra said.
Zapotec women make art their business
Mexico: San Marcos is a Zapotec Indian village in the central valley of Oaxaca.
It is rapidly losing its men -- and, increasingly, whole families -- to the
prospect of higher wages in the North. In response, women like Macrina Mateo
Martínez make up for their absence by adapting the ways of an ancient tradition:
red-earth pottery. "We work red clay," Mateo said proudly of the women of San
Marcos. "We’ve done it for centuries... We go to Oaxaca and other places to sell
our work, to make a little money to support the family." Mateo began pottery
making at age 8 by watching her mother and grandmother roll out red clay in the
house where Mateo still lives. The clay comes from nearby mines where women dig
out the red earth during the winter months before bringing it back to dry. The
location of the mines remains a well-kept secret.