Tag Archives: immigration

Working From Home Has New Meaning: From Oaxaca to North Carolina and Back Again

Posted on Tuesday, June 5, 2012 | 4 Comments

This blog post is about work, working from home, retirement, immigration reform, and travel on the secluded Oaxaca coast. A hodgepodge.

You haven’t heard from me much in the past few weeks and I admit I have been remiss in writing and blog posting. I left Oaxaca at the end of April for the luxury of a 10-day sojourn with my family (son and family, brother and family, sister) in California, then continued on to North Carolina for a long-overdue reunion with my husband Stephen. I have settled into working from home in NC until I return to Oaxaca on June 21 for our summer Market Towns and Artisan Villages photography workshop that starts June 28. Working from home has taken on new meaning for me. Some days I even take this to a higher level: “working from bed.”

At this moment, I am looking out at a lush green perennial garden filled with hot pink echinacea, equally hot phlox, silvery coriander with yellow flowers, yucca stalks sprinkled with white blooms, and hydrangea blossoms bigger than my fist. The pollen is about killing me! But, I delight in the contrast between this landscape and my beloved Oaxaca where magnificent mountain ranges ring the expansive high desert plateau punctuated with herds of grazing sheep, maize and agave fields. Oaxaca is always on my mind and in my heart. I feel fortunate to be able to go back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico and love living in both places. My round-trip plane tickets originate and end in Mexico!

Now, for the serious stuff!

Thank you, Damien Cave, The New York Times Mexico City foreign correspondent, for writing about another Mexico — Mexico: Without the Crowds, or Attitude (June 2, 2012) and the tranquil fishing villages of Oaxaca’s Costa Chica — Mazunte, Zipolite and San Agustinillo. This is where you can still sleep in a hammock or a 3-star hotel and hear the ocean roar, dip your toes into rock protected coves, and visit the sea turtle preservation sanctuary. This is the real part of Oaxaca, far from the over-developed Huatulco (in the style of Cancun), where you can be lazy, eat and sleep well.

Also, in The New York Times on June 1, 2012, Jorge Casteñeda and Douglas Massey published Do-It-Yourself Immigration. They discuss immigration reform, the controversy around undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and the natural decline in migration from Mexico to the United States. Jorge G. Castañeda, the foreign minister of Mexico from 2000 to 2003, is a professor of politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. Douglas S. Massey is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton.

Working from home now constitutes organizing workshops for the coming year, confirming registrations, making lodging and restaurant reservations, and setting itinerary plans for moving participants from one location to another. It also means having the time to do market research and planning. So, while you haven’t heard from me, please know that I’ve been busy working!

And, as always, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know if you have any questions. I haven’t talked much about what it’s been like after taking retirement from UNC Chapel Hill last December. I don’t know if that would be interesting to you. I did worry about whether I would be able to continue to be creative without the structure of a traditional work day and if I could sustain myself financially–all those things that we worry about when making life transitions. But, it’s working out. For anyone out there who is afraid of taking the plunge, I will give you encouragement.

Sending all my best, Norma

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Oaxaca travel, Photography, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats

Tagged blogsherpa, immigration, Mazunte, Mexico, migration, Oaxaca, retirement, work lifestyle

Witness for Peace in Oaxaca, Mexico: Advocates for Sustainable Agriculture and Immigration Reform

Posted on Friday, July 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

Wood-yoked oxen with traditional plow

Several days ago, I wrote that Stephen and I were planning to attend a Witness for Peace (WFP) presentation by a U.S. delegation that had just returned from Oaxaca. Nineteen people from across the U.S. ranging in age from 18 to 73 years old, teachers, artists, and advocates participated in this delegation.

We did attend and heard from Sharon Mujica, Jane Stein, David Young and Eduardo Lapetina who had spent a week in Oaxaca in June 2011 meeting with local community-based leaders, living in villages, and hearing about immigration, sustainable agriculture, economic development, and the impact of the drug wars. Their mission, as volunteers, was to learn as much as they could, immerse themselves in the culture, return to the U.S. and help raise awareness about issues facing Oaxacaquenos. The NC chapter of WFP started many years ago as the Carolina Interfaith Task Force on Central America when NAFTA was under consideration in the U.S. Congress.

Sharon Mujica has been part of the Latin American studies program at UNC Chapel Hill since the early 1990′s and lived in Mexico for 20 years. Jane Stein is one of the founding directors of CHICLE, an intensive language school in Carrboro, NC. David Young was a founding director of Visiting International Faculty (VIF) program that hires international teachers of English and places them in rural NC public schools. Eduardo Lapetina is an artist originally from Argentina.

Taking alfalfa to market

Here is a brief summary of what they discussed:

Oaxaca is a microcosm of what goes on in Mexico
It is complex, rural and isolated
There is tremendous out-migration; people in search of jobs
76% of Oaxacaquenos live in extreme poverty
The state is rich in natural resources
It is very much affected by NAFTA
57% of the population is indigenous
14% don’t speak Spanish (they speak an indigenous language)
In Mexico, 17% attend University but only 5% graduate
Saw no impact of drug war in Oaxaca; localized to border states
90% of guns used in drug war come from the U.S.
Globalization and industrial farming result in chemically treated, genetically modified corn and beans
Small family farms are at risk; cross hybridization results in contamination of indigenous seeds
NAFTA floods Mexico with below market corn, small farmers can’t compete, drives them out of business
Multinational corporations are present to extract minerals and other natural resources
There is a strong desire for economic parity to keep young people from migrating; out-migration is a necessity not a wish
NAFTA was supposed to “float the boat”

Plowing the milpas to plant corn, squash, beans

These are some of the local organizations the delegation visited to learn more about sustainable agriculture and indigenous human rights:

Centro de Derechos Indigenas Flor y Canto
Universidad de la Tierra, post-secondary alternative education
La Vida Nueva women’s cooperative in Teotitlan del Valle
CEDI CAM reforestation/water catchment project in the Mixteca

Delegation members stayed with families in homes and took their meals with them.

Shucking dried corn kernels for planting in the milpas

Witness for Peace (WFP) is a politically independent, nationwide grassroots organization of people committed to nonviolence and led by faith and conscience. WFP’s mission is to support peace, justice and sustainable economies in the Americas by changing U.S. policies and corporate practices which contribute to poverty and oppression in Latin America and the Caribbean.

WFP has a field office in Oaxaca, Mexico, currently staffed by four team leaders. Oaxaca is a state in southern Mexico with one of the largest indigenous populations in the country. Its rural population has been devastated by corn imported from the United States as a result of NAFTA. Many small farmers from Oaxaca have few options but migration. Learn about the complexities of this state and the movements being formed to make a better world possible!

Witness for Peace, 3628 12th Street NE. 1st Fl., Washington, DC 20017 – 202.547-6112 – 202.536.4708

Dried corn husks will wrap tamales

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Cultural Commentary, Mexican Immigration, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism

Tagged agriculture, blogsherpa, genetically modified corn, human rights, immigration, industrial farming, Latin American studies, Mexico, NAFTA, Oaxaca, Witness for Peace

Chipil Grows Wild in North Carolina

Posted on Saturday, August 21, 2010 | 2 Comments

Jose is with us today helping Stephen in the yard, clearing out the woodshed in preparation for winter, sorting through the detritis of a cluttered garden shed, and making a haul or two or three to the dump. He and his wife just had a new baby boy, his third, three weeks old. They named him for the king of birds. “It’s a Native American name,” he tells me. “Those are my roots. I am indigenous.” His high cheekbones and sculpted Mayan-like profile speak to that. Jose is from Veracruz, Mexico. It is a place I’ve never been, but he speaks of it fondly. His parents and some siblings are still there. He hasn’t seen them since he came to the U.S. some years ago. I suspect he is not documented, but it’s another version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” This is his third boy, age three weeks. All the children were born here in North Carolina and that makes them citizens. When we talk about this, I can see Jose is proud. The two older ones, age seven and eight are getting an education and there is hope that there will be work for them that pays a good wage when they come of age. Not like home.

Image by www.nicksaumphotography.com

We are talking about food. “Did you know chipil is growing in my garden,” he says to me, more of a statement than a question. Chipil is a green leafy herb that grows wild in the Oaxaca countryside. It is plentiful in our village of Teotitlan del Valle, is gathered and sold in the daily market, and used for flavoring much like cilantro. “I don’t know how it got there” Jose says. “Maybe a bird brought it in.” I think, perhaps, or another immigrant in his neighborhood missed this herb so much that he brought it back with him when he returned and the seeds scattered. I think of how indigenous people use what is given to them from the land — a centuries, millenia old practice.

Ah, chipil, I say. The aroma of a mint-like parsley comes to mind. That’s what is used to flavor tamales and squash blossom corn soup, yes? “Yes,” says Jose, and I see the faraway look in his eyes. Are you homesick, I ask. “Sometimes,” he says. “But, the work here is good and I am happy to be living here.” We are grateful for his work, too, and for his company. He is a bright, handsome young man who gives us a hand when we need it most.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/chipilin

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Food & Recipes, Mexican Immigration

Tagged chipil herb, chipilin, immigration, Mexican food, North Carolina, Oaxaca, tamales, Veracruz, wild herbs

Cultural Preservation & Sustainable Tourism

Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 | Leave a comment

The artists and artisans of Oaxaca depend upon tourism for their livelihood. Now, almost two years after the APPO “troubles” tourists are beginning to come back to Oaxaca and that is very good. But there are still too few tourists and the economy is hard hit. The troubles hit the villages hard even though they were beyond the reach of political confrontation. Many artisans have gone back to working the fields or have gone to other Mexican cities and El Norte to find work. I know families who have moved away, left their homes empty, in search of work. As they put their artistic talents aside, the message sent to the children is that this livelihood may not be sustainable. Children may begin to plan their own futures based upon these observations along with absorbing television and film messages of a better life somewhere else. In the book, “The Unbroken Thread,” the authors talk about villages that are no longer weaving because the elderly craftspeople have died and with them, their extraordinarily beautiful work. Do we have a responsibility to preserve this cultural heritage? It is difficult in rural Mexico for most. Talented workers earn about $15 USD per day. Tourism will determine whether the artistic endeavors of individuals and villages survive, I believe. And yet, we know that the impact of tourism can be devastating … creating a Disney-esque destination that loses its authenticity. Indigenous people become actors on the stage of travel entertainment. I raise this because each of us has a responsibility as we travel to Oaxaca or other destinations of treading lightly and leaving a small footprint. I see tour buses full of elder hostel travelers, educated, with money to spend, interested in learning, and I know that they would be unlikely travelers without this accommodation. They benefit the local economies significantly. Tour buses have influenced the construction of big houses on the highways where it is easier to pull in and unload a big group, bypassing other equally worthy weavers who live further down the road in the village, funneling the economic opportunities to those who can afford to build the big houses on the main road. This phenomenon has happened in Teotitlan and it is now happening at in San Martin Tilcajete, where Jacobo Angeles has built a beautiful gallery on the road to Ocotlan that also represents work by talented colleagues from his village, too. What is the more authentic experience? What is most valuable to the people of a village and the sustainability of their culture?Not everyone has the ability or desire to travel independently and explore the back alleys of a foreign village where they don’t speak the language. I don’t have answers. I am only raising these questions for consideration.I want to say it again. I want to shout it. Traveling to Oaxaca is completely SAFE. It is a wonderful international heritage city, a colonial gem. It is at the crossroads of Mesoamerican history and culture. It is the region where corn was first cultivated thousands of years ago — a gift to the world. It is mountains, beach, desert and tropics. I don’t want Oaxaca to become Cancun or Huatulco, but I do want tourists to go there because I want it to thrive.