La Chinatla Journal

by Jimmy & Danny Burridge

This is an excerpt of an email from Jimmy Burridge, who is a volunteer with a Catholic Marianist Mission in La Chinatla, Mexico. La Chinatla is in the southern, impoverished, and highly indigenous state of Vera Cruz. Burridge works specifically with a program which distributes farm animals to needy families. He also gives workshops on gender relationships and baking bread, and tries to grow vegetables.

Things here are about the same as ever, but maybe a little different. I am getting frustrated with the way we work because we are supposed to be promoting development, or changing the way people relate to each other, but I do not think we do that. We are just like a boss that has lots of animals, and we do not actually change anything. We simply enable people to have more animals and thus a slightly larger income.

Also, we do not have any idea how to relate to the indigenous people here. Nearly all of us are mestizos, and we totally lack an understanding of indigenous history, culture, society, and values, which significantly inhibits our ability to work with and for them. If we do not even understand the people that we work for, the reality that they come from, their vision of the world, their dreams, and how they hope to attain those dreams, how are we supposed to help them to help themselves?

I decided that we needed to change and expand the way we work. I set up meetings with some groups in Chiapas because I know that there they have a wealth of organizations that deal with development and indigenous identity. Raymundo, who is one of three indigenous people that work here, and I drove to San Cristobal last Sunday and came back Wednesday. For me, in was reinvigorating to be in that environment again, and for Raymundo, it was totally new. He, like most people in my community, has never been exposed to different ways of seeing the world before.

First, we met up with the sister that was my guide the first time I went through Chiapas. We talked to her about the reality of Chiapas during the 70’s and 80’s. The indigenous people had to work against structural racism, and against the wealthy, white landholders who controlled virtually every aspect of their lives- from the church, to the schools, to the community store.

In 1994, the Zapatistas rebelled and many of the large landowners fled. The peasants occupied the abandoned land, and continue to occupy it today, which is the source of a huge amount of conflict. After the ‘94 rebellion, the landowners formed paramilitary groups which fight and intimidate the peasant groups, and are often backed by the Mexican army and political parties like the IRP (Institutionalized Revolutionary Party).

The next day, we talked with an organization that works almost exclusively with the autonomous municipalities, or the communities in rebellion, or the Zapatista communities. In the years following the rebellion, the Zapatista communities formed their own system of governance. This occurred not only because the Mexican government had historically disrespected and abused them, but because they felt that as indigenous people, they had a different culture and different needs from other Mexicans, and therefore, a right to govern themselves.

Now, the communities are arranged in what they call “juntas de buen gobierno,” (committees of good government). The organization we talked with works through these juntas. A group of people in a community presents a proposal for a project to their local junta, and then the junta presents it to the organization we talked with. So, all the projects stem directly from a popular need of a community.

The next day we talked with a doctor that directs a program which educates and trains indigenous people that have received little or no education. He runs a mechanic shop, a carpentry shop, metal working and sodering instruction, a bakery, and a tortilla factory. He also has a sewing shop, an architecture school, a women’s center and even a university. All the programs are run for and by indigenous people. The programs are not focused on preparing people to go out into the larger world, compete in the job market, and become like any other working Joe, but rather to acquire a trade, become educated and aware of the world, themselves, their culture, and the value of that culture. They are educated to work in their communities for the benefit of their communities. Maybe that does not sound so special, but it is. Many people in Mexico, and even more so in indigenous communities, see the only way to succeed as leaving their community/Mexico to work somewhere else, leaving behind, or even denying their indigenous identity. We have all been sold the idea that it is desirable to have a high paying job in the city, to be able to buy lots of things, in short, to participate fully in the capitalist society. This organization takes a very different view of development, and with other grassroots groups, elements of the Catholic Church and the Zapatistas, is revitalizing indigenous culture and community.

Throughout our stay in Chiapas, we saw people working for a different world- one where people work, live, and relate to one another in better ways- one where people are not caught up in a culture that only values things that are efficient and profitable, and seeks to diminish culture itself into trinkets and folklore that can be bought and sold, or only appreciated as quaint or romantic. Many people have the desire to do away with the dominate culture and create a different one. They think this can and must be done from the bottom up- that initiatives must come from groups, organizations, and communities, traveling from group to group, and spreading knowledge about alternative ways of living and learning.

So that is what I see happening with some of the organizations in Chiapas. I think it’s pretty exciting how these people believe that another world is possible, and that they want to invent this other world that allows us to live and to relate to each other as real human beings.