Archive for the ‘Inequalities’ Category

Return to Tlapacoyan

Posted: 02/24/2012 in Development, Education, Immigration, Inequalities, Justice, Labor, Mexico, Non-Profits, United States
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This past weekend, I returned as part of a team to Tlapacoyan, Veracruz for what is likely my final outreach trip during my time here. We were in Tlapacoyan before Christmas and managed to get in some rafting and awestruck gazes at a waterfall around our workshops and meetings. Tlapacoyan is a community where CDM has done a lot of work in the past and where there are a number of migrants who travel on temporary visas. It is difficult to find anyone in these communities whose life hasn’t been touched by immigration in some way and, during this trip, we learned of busloads of workers who had gone to pick oranges in Florida and a bus leaving the next day to bring carnival workers to the northeast United States.

We gave five workshops while we were there, traveling to small communities on the outskirts of the municipality, up winding dirt roads into the mountainous jungle. The area is strikingly beautiful with banana and orange groves pressing close against the highways. The air was thick and humid and, one night while I sat in the hotel lobby, I watched the plaza fill up with low-hanging clouds before a tremendous rainstorm.

Our new rights-promoter and outreach worker, Brenda, in Zapote Redondo, Tlapacoyan, VER.

I spoke briefly about minimum wage and overtime in San Pedro Buenavista, Tlapacoyan, VER.

Brenda and Lilian display a minimum wage map as part of the curriculum I've been writing in Novara, Tlapacoyan, VER.

As we spoke to workers, it became obvious to me that, while cases of abuse are rampant (from illegally low wages and wage garnishing to racially motivated assault), workers are not easily convinced to pursue their damages. The internalization of their condition is profound and there is a hesitancy to speak out as they believe this might endanger their ability to get one of these temporary jobs, even with these abusive conditions, in the future. I sat in on several interviews with Silas, our legal director, who with time and careful explanation, was able to convince these men to accept help. I witnessed a stark transition in these interviews. When we would knock at their doors and introduce ourselves, we were told there was no time, “I was just leaving,” or “I’m busy.” With persistence though and a few questions about their life in the United State, the tone shifted dramatically from insisting “No, no… no problems…” to excitedly bringing out battered folders to show us their pay-stubs and carefully collected documents and calling their brother on the phone to see if he would be interested in joining the case. We spent hours in their homes, drinking juice out of tall glasses, and listening to their stories while Silas guided them to reveal their own experiences.

This, I believe, is what we study in development as empowerment. It’s a tricky phrase that we dance around defining academically. It’s frequently a part of mission statements, a goal of development organizations, and appears as an objective in logframes. Is it something you can teach or something you can facilitate? Is it formulaic or always individual? I don’t know, but something lit up in these interviews with patient legal questioning about schedules and pay and living conditions. I believe it was the unspoken phrase that these men could hear, an undercurrent to the interview that they understood: What you experienced was not right, but there is something that can be done.

 

More Attention Paid to the Moon Than “…the millions of souls locked inside our very own prisons.”

Posted: 02/20/2012 in Capitalism, Inequalities, Justice, Mexico, United States, Violence
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There has been some terrible news out of America’s prisons in the past few days. Yesterday, a prison riot in Mexico near Monterrey resulted in 20 deaths, the latest in a string of prison riots in the country (31 deaths in Altimara, Tamaulipas in January, another 20 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas in October of 2011 to cover just the past six-months). In Honduras, an indescribable tragedy occurred last week when 358 prisoners, at latest count, burned alive in a fire. Most had not been convicted of any crime.

Although we have more effective facilities in terms of control –better systems, I suppose, to prevent the destructive chaos of riots and fires– the United States ought take the longest and hardest look at itself following these grievous and preventable outrages. The state and federal governments of the United States incarcerate  far more of their own citizens than any other industrialized country in the world –a large percentage for non-violent drug crimes.

I am grateful for Chris Hayes reporting on this silent population that we too often discount in our minds as being undeserving of our attention. How dare we, or any other government authority, shutter people away in such great numbers and with so little recourse?

I highly recommend watching his excellent reporting here.

Et Tu, LEGO? The LadyFig Not Much of a Step for Humankind

Posted: 01/11/2012 in Capitalism, Gender, Inequalities, Personal
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I get a lot of petitions from Change.org and I’m not sure how effective they are but I appreciate the role the play in bringing issues to my attention. It’s not as if I didn’t know that toy-makers make stupid toys for girls, but this one hit a little close to home as LEGOs were some of my favorite toys growing up.

This is a LadyFig, apparently. I'm sure she is brushing her hair before she goes to present at an international conference on human rights.

After 4 years of marketing research, LEGO has come to the conclusion that girls want LadyFigs, a pink Barbielicious product line for girls, so 5 year-olds can imagine themselves at the café, lounging at the pool with drinks, brushing their hair in front of a vanity mirror, singing in a club, or shopping with their girlfriends. As LEGO CEO Jorgan Vig Knudstorp puts it, “We want to reach the other 50% of the world’s population.”

From the Change.org petition letter.

My brother and I had an ongoing cast of LEGO characters. They were all space explorers and all male, but only because it wasn’t possible for a LEGOnian to wear both a space helmet and one of those pop-on hair-dos that indicated femaleness –an incarnation of an issue that I continue to confront.

Space... man? Who cares?

To be fair, my brother was much better at constructing spaceships and bases but he was also almost three-years older than me and now, as an adult, is an aerospace engineer at NASA. I like to think I contributed a great deal to the plot of the crew’s adventures and to character development. Our spacemen had occupations such as chemist and engineer and I don’t recall ever feeling that a vanity or jacuzzi was missing from our expeditions.

Click here to sign the petition to tell LEGO that these “girls” toys are dumb and offensive.

Teotihuacan: Twenty-Twelve and the End of the World

Posted: 01/10/2012 in Environment, Inequalities, Mexico
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Teotihuacan is a giant archaeological site –the former great city of several long lost peoples: those who built it, now called the Teotihuacanos, and those who came upon it once they had disappeared, most famously the Aztecs who named it the place where gods are made. The sheer scale of Teotihuacan is humbling. The pyramids seem built to rival the mountains around them.

Renamed the Pyramid of the Moon by the Aztec --the far smaller of the two great pyramids at the site.

This is an immensely complicated site, founded around 100 B.C.E. and expanded and occupied by various peoples in the subsequent centuries. Although there are many Mayan influences to be found here, the site itself has nothing to do with the 2012 apocalyptic predictions of the long-count calendar. Nevertheless, the world of the Teotihuacanos ended, obviously, and the site is assumed to have been largely abandoned when the Aztecs happened upon it.

The new beginning of a new year and my first visit to the site gave me pause. Scholars think there are two overlapping factors that brought about the end of the first era of Teotihuacan and both are presciently facing our global society today: drought, caused by changes to the climate, and a popular uprising of the common against the elite classes in their city. Apparently the academics used to think that Teotihuacan was attacked, sacked, and burned, triggering its downfall. Broken artifacts and traces of charring seemed initially to corroborate this. On closer examination, however, archaeologists discovered that this kind of destruction was limited to the structures related to the upper classes, indicating the revolution of a people who had lost faith in their leaders.

I put exactly zero stock in doomsday predictions, but walking through the ruins of such a complex and advanced city does make me think that there is no reason to not believe  in the end of the world as we know it. For me, this usually manifests itself in fantasies of somehow collectively manifesting a better world, one without poverty and violence (or, even in my fantasy, let’s hedge and say significantly less of these). There is, however, no reason to assume that great, global change, the kind that might wipe out a people who built a mountain, isn’t in store for us if we don’t move forward with humility and great forethought and caution. It is a good reminder to not be flippant with our experiences of climate change and social unrest. It is a good reminder to not be flippant with our world or each other.

On one of the upper terraces of the Pyramid of the Sun.

 

Carefully climbing down the steep steps.

The man-made mountain: the Pyramid of the Sun.

The Work and the Project

Posted: 01/07/2012 in Activism, Development, Education, Immigration, Inequalities, Labor, Mexico, Non-Profits
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Sometime right after Thanksgiving I went to the field to work. In Tlapocoyan, Veracruz and the surrounding communities. The outreach team split up into two groups, but I managed to get in on every workshop we gave. In total we spoke to about a hundred people about the workplace rights of migrants in the United States. Everyone came on invitation. Here I am reading aloud a part of a case study. The guy in the red shirt had a pretty sad story of being badly injured working for one of the traveling carnivals in the northeast United States.

Taller in El Jobo, Veracruz. Participants read a case-study of a migrant fair worker.

Right after Christmas, I came back to the office and to my project. I’m writing a curriculum for CDM’s basic workshops.

Workshop titles include:
Wages and Hours
Health and Security
Discrimination
Recruitment
Reprisals
Temporary Visas
Civil Rights (which includes things like ones right to remain silent and speak to a lawyer and ones right to be protected from warrant-less searches in the home).

Writing a whole curriculum with content and facilitator instructions in Spanish has been a challenge and I have been at it since mid-September. It is finally coming together. I’ve drafted all seven of the presentations and one of my Mexican colleagues has made track changes in Spanish. We’ve introduced them to comité members (who will be receiving and giving the trainings and learning to facilitate using these materials) and gotten and incorporated their feedback. Once I finish incorporating all of the track changes and doing some formatting, I’ll be done with this significant part of my project.

Also, when I went to Veracruz, the outreach team took a brief detour to go rafting to and swimming in an amazing waterfall. I feel very blessed entering a new year.

The team rafting. It's hard to look cool in this getup, but who cares?

El Encanto cascada/waterfall.

Good for perspective. This cave was huge.

 

Looking good in those rolled up pants. I know everyone in this photo felt so happy just then.

Vamos 2012, let's see it.

 

 

That Time I Accidently Supported Child Labor and Xochimilco

Posted: 12/09/2011 in Education, Inequalities, Labor, Mexico
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We luckily don’t really have any equivalent in the United States to the kind of child labor that occurs in other parts of the world. We may have, especially in newer immigrant and/or extremely poor communities, some child participation in the informal labor market –taking care of the younger kids in a family so one or both parents can work, for example, or helping out in the family restaurant or watching the family store. I was making babysitting money when I was eleven or twelve, but got my first job with set hours and paycheck during the summer when I was 15.

In Mexico, it isn’t uncommon to have really young kids selling or begging in public spaces and there are far fewer social taboos against children working –the protections against child labor are poorly enforced and pushed aside out of economic necessity and by cultural expectations. I once raised my eyebrow at a store owner who casually sold three packs of cigarettes to a kid that looked like he was about six. The shop owner explained to me that the kid then sells the cigarettes on the street (which are technically illegal for purchase by anyone under 18), but that if he saw the kid smoking, he wouldn’t let him buy any more.

Certainly there is a balance between the entitlement culture we too often have in the United States and the exploitation of children. For one, I believe work absolutely shouldn’t interfere with school, either the hours in class or the opportunity to complete work and study after. Which is why I felt supremely uncomfortable to find myself on a kind of tour boat piloted by a ten-year-old at 2:00PM on a Friday afternoon.

To back up, one of the fun, touristy things to do in Mexico City actually lies to the south of the city in a community called Xochimilco (say it zo-chee-mil-co). Xochimilco retains the Venice-like design of Mexico City from when it was the capitol of the Aztec empire, a marshy lake dotted with reedy islands navigated by canals and boats. Now, it’s popular to rent a lancha for anywhere between an hour or three and have a guide push you around to the sites while you enjoy the water, the floating mariachi bands, floating restaurants, and floating vendors. You can buy a beer off a lady in a canoe full of coolers while you float by or pay a few hundred pesos to have a mariachi band link their boat to yours and serenade you along your way.

Devon Davey, my guest and friend from Brandeis visiting from her practicum in Guadalajara.

Floating mariachi band, $100 pesos a song.

As we finally agreed on a trip, a price, my guests and I settled into our boat which was being backed out by a very young looking boatman. I assumed he was just helping out with the  family business and, once we were away from the dock, he would hop off and our (presumably adult) guide would take over.

Instead, the boss-man who took our money shouted that we had paid for an hour and half and the kiddo acknowledged this and started off, at which point I jumped up and went to the edge of the boat to argue with the boss. I was not at all reassured to learn that this is a “tradition” and that there are even younger kids than our guide, Alexis, doing this work. By this point we were not a short distance away from the dock with our mini-guide –two teachers and a child’s rights activist. We sat back, pretty uncomfortable, and tried to make the most of it. Alexis was plenty capable, talked to us a little about school, and even let me try my hand at his work.

Pushing a boat along on the bottom of the riverbed with a huge stick is pretty hard work.

We asked Alexis for permission to take his picture and he wasn’t at all hesitant. We tipped him. We treated him like a human being and we wished him all the best at the end of our tour. It’s not very much, I know. I debated for a long time about writing this post, but I think telling the little that I know of his story is worthwhile. As is mentioning that two boatmen shouted at him to go to school as we glided past. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a boatman in Xochimilco, but childhood is short and Alexis should have as many choices as possible.

 

Seven Billion and Counting

Posted: 10/24/2011 in Development, Environment, Inequalities, Justice, United Nations
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What do you get a planet for its seven-billionth person?

Grist.org published this article back in May announcing the UN claim that in just a few weeks, around Halloween of 2011, the seven-billionth person will be born on Earth. We started thinking of ourselves as a six-billion person planet way back in 1999. At least we started referring to ourselves that way –I’m not sure six billion is something we’re capable of thinking of.

World population hit 1 billion people in 1804. It took 123 years to add the next billion, but less than a century to cruise past the next four billion — from 2 billion people in 1927 to 6 billion people in 1999.

The music is cheesy, but this is worth a watch. It’s not that there are just too dang many of us –or them, more likely– it’s that we seem to be fundamentally so bad at sharing

An Occupy Wall Street Primer

Posted: 10/02/2011 in Activism, Capitalism, Inequalities, Justice, Politics, United States
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I had some catching up to do on Occupy Wall Street this week. Why did I not know much about this thousands strong anti-corporate, anti-Wall Street movement sweeping the country? Here is a bit of what I’ve learned and a bit of what I think.

This is my fault and it is also the fault of the media which has consistently under-reported progressive activism. Despite that the largest anti-war protests in world history swept the globe in 2002-3, the media largely sat out the anti-war outcry and focused instead on the much more entertaining political drumbeat to war in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. There was no reason to expect the brilliant work of Billionaires for Bush, the efforts of Code Pink, or the grassroots firestorm in Wisconsin, just to name a few, to be any different.

But Occupy Wall Street does feel different and not because the media is paying attention to it (they largely aren’t). It feels different because it really feels like there are a lot of people out there who are out of options, for whom If not this, then what? is a legitimate question. I think the lull and distraction of entertainment is wearing off and the frustration has itched to the point of sparking action. One thing I’ve consistently read about this protests is that there are lots of young people, college students and recent graduates especially, in attendance who don’t have jobs and do have tons of debt. Looking at any press, however, it seems like there are a range of people with many ages and backgrounds represented. It would seem from the photographs that there are a range of people who feel that for them the economy is a failure.

The little bit of history I’ve read on the protests indicate that they started “as a call to arms from anti-consumerist magazine AdBusters” which is the same anti-consumerist magazine that got me to stop eating meat over eight-years ago (true story). The popular criticism in the media is that the protesters are not organized and demands are not clear. There is a fascinating and super educational report on Up with Chris Hayes on the organization and aims of Occupy Wall Street (it is the first segment on this clip). The movement is 14-days old and complaints are multitudinous and complex, so I think a little disorganization can be forgiven so far.

I agree that our economic system, focused on power and wealth accumulation rather than poverty reduction and shared prosperity, is a failure.

So, what’s going on down there? There’s lots of chanting, drumming, marching –standard street-protest stuff. There’s also apparently an amazing nightly General Assembly (which you will learn about if you watch the report linked above from Chris Hayes) where opinions are heard and decisions are made in a fascinating display of direct democracy. There are some confrontations with the police, like today where apparently 700 protesters were arrested. Protesters have also been attacked with pepper spray even though the movement has consistently been peaceful. They’ve been getting a lot of outside donations and support, especially food.

In other big news, big unions like the Transport Workers Union in New York, teachers unions, health-care unions, and progressive groups like MoveOn.org are just now joining up, so it seems like we can expect this to get a lot bigger in the coming weeks which is sort of exciting, though I also feel wary and nervous for the participants. At my most un-cynical core, I wish them all the best and hope their progressive, inclusive, anti-corporate message grows and resonates and sparks positive change.

I snagged these pictures off the comments thread of the Huffington Post article and would love to credit them:

Some of the crowd on day 14 of the protests. Photographer unknown.

 

Amen to this man's message from day 14 of the protests. Photographer unknown.

Press Conference, Charging the United States With Failure to Protect Migrant Workers

Posted: 10/01/2011 in Activism, Development, Immigration, Inequalities, Justice, Labor, Mexico, Non-Profits, Politics, Uncategorized, United States
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On September 19th, CDM called a press conference to announce the filing of a complaint against the United States under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) claiming that the U.S. is failing to uphold its obligation to protect migrant workers.

From the Media Center at the AFL-CIO:

(Mexico City, Sept. 19) “The AFL-CIO, together with Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM), the Southern Poverty Law Center, PRODESC and other civil society organizations filed a complaint today against the United States under NAFTA’s North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) on behalf of workers who were brought to the United States to work under the H-2B visa program.  The workers have attempted under U.S. law to gain redress with no success so are using NAALC to hold their employer accountable. The complaint states that the United States failed to comply with its obligations under NAALC by permitting companies to routinely pay H-2B workers less than the minimum hourly wage and deny them overtime and reimbursement for  travel, visa and recruitment costs.” Read the rest of the article here.

CDM's Comité members speak out against workplace abuses in the United States (photo by Gracia Cuzzi).

Comité members who signed on to the complaint spoke at the press conference, along with Silas, CDM’s Legal Director in Mexico City. Seven or eight press organization attended, including the New York Times and Univision. This action highlighted the existence of complaint mechanisms under international law but also, perhaps more importantly, the need to publicize their use as widely as possible in the hope of raising awareness and increasing the likelihood of a desirable outcome.

More press here (Spanish) and here (also Spanish).

Practicum: Comité Reunion and Cumple

Posted: 09/20/2011 in Development, Education, Immigration, Inequalities, Labor, Mexico, Non-Profits, Personal
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Sunday, September 18th, was one the major events of CDM’s calendar year –the annual national reunion of their comité members. This was essentially a leadership development conference for the local community leaders who carry CDM’s message and mission to their communities, continuing to train other migrants in their rights. Twenty comité members from around the country –Zacatecas, Hidalgo, Queretaro– came to Mexico City to participate in the event. For some, this was their first time to the capitol. Also, like every September 18th, I marked another birthday. It’s become the norm for me to experience my birthday in a new place with new people every year and this was no exception.

There were several purposes to the day: providing rights-based training, facilitating networking opportunities, promoting leadership development, and motivating participants in their work as comité members. I wrote and adapted activities for a significant part of the agenda, so I was very interested to see how they played out with the group of migrants and former-migrants from across rural Mexico.

We started off the day with an icebreaker (of course). Everyone was given a notecard with a question on it. Some were funny –Describe the perfect sandwich. Others were more serious –What are you most proud of? We paired off, introduced ourselves, said where we were from, asked and answered the questions we’d been given, then switched cards and partners.

Lilían explains the activity.

Adelina from the CDM Oaxaca office introduces herself to a comité member. In the background, Don Jesus congratulates me on having a birthday.

Don Regino and Don Ángel from the Zacatecas Comité.

Rachel (CDM Executive Director), Don Isabel from the Zacatecas Comité, and Lilían.

Next, there was a discussion of expectations. In small groups we talked about why we were there, what we wanted to learn, what we wanted to share, and what we hoped to leave with. This created an ideal segue, actually, because many of the comité members said they were eager to learn more information about their rights and any new laws or policies that would impact them. We transitioned from there into a training about the complaint mechanism under NAFTA and a Know Your Rights! training led by our legal team.

Silas, CDM's Legal Director in Mexico City, presents the Know Your Rights Materials.

The screen reads: As a migrant and a worker, I have rights.

Comité members look over the new Know Your Rights! booklets.

Silas clarifies questions about minimum wages and expenses.

Having just received this training, the comité members were tasked with discussing their possible options for addressing abuse and injustice in small groups. We, the CDM team, took advantage of this time and the incredibly harsh late-morning sunshine to take some mediocre group pictures.

Mexico City team, minus Gracia, our photographer. From left to right: Myself, Jesus, Sarah, Ingrid, Nick, Lilían, and Silas.

Upon reconvening, each comité group presented their thoughts on each course of action (meeting with their employer, contacting an attorney, approaching the press, etc…) and discussed why they believe it was or was not a viable option, given their experiences.

Comité members under the mission statement they had developed during previous reunions.

Don Antonio presents for his group.

After a delicious lunch, there were more activities. One focused on identity and group identity. Comité members were asked to develop a motto and a symbol for their organization and then present this to the other participants.

Don Isabel explains the symbol and motto for his group. The quadrants read: strength, unity, confidence, and aid.

Don Martín Davila, a  comité member who had recently traveled to Syracuse, New York, and presented on behalf of the comité at a conference there, shared his experience. It was powerful to hear him recount the trip, why it was meaningful and the challenges it entailed. He also said he was more nervous to speak here, in front of his fellow comité members, than he had been to speak at the conference in New York.

Don Martín gives a testamonial about his experience in Syracuse, New York.

One of the last activities of the day focused on leadership development. I introduced a short video on César Chávez, which, aside from introducing myself, was the only time I presented during the day. Lilían encouraged me to talk more, but I’m very shy about using my Spanish in a professional setting. Now it is my professional goal to look friendlier and less scared next time than I do in the picture below.

I took the floor briefly to introduce a leadership development activity.

The comité members filled out a leadership evaluation assessing their own strengths and weaknesses. Even though it was late in the day, they took this part of the training seriously and several presented their leadership positions –a short statement saying where they wanted to be in five-years and what their contribution in the comité would be.

Comité members complete their personal leadership evaluations.

Comité members reflect on their personal strengths and weaknesess as community leaders.

It was a long and tiring but fulfilling day.

Afterward, my fellow team members, Gracia (the photographer) and Alissa, who will be spending a year with the team in Oaxaca, went out for a birthday beer. Truthfully, I was too tired for more celebrating, but, as I explained to all who congratulated me on Sunday, I was grateful to be busy helping to do such good work on my birthday.

(Thank you Gracia Cuzzi for letting me repost and share your awesome photos.)

Leaving the reunion.

Alissa and I at the end of the day on Sunday.

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