Week 13: Students Travel to Oaxaca in Southern Mexico

Sarah Leach
Saint Louis University

In our last long weekend, some of the students planned a trip to Oaxaca City, Oaxaca. It was a great trip! We were able to get to know some of the staff, Ismael (driver) and Lupita (cook), and their two boys better. We also got to visit many places, and at times we were able to connect what we were learning there with what we had learned about indigenous cosmovision in our Religion Class.

The drive to Oaxaca was 5 and a half hours! We left early Friday morning and arrived that same afternoon. We started out site seeing with Monte Alban, a pyramid site just outside of the city. After that we visited many other places... among which were: the largest tree in the world El Tule; Hierve el Aqua (A natural spring); Iglesia (church) de Santo Domingo; many markets, and a Mezcal distillery.

Just many of the road signs we passed on the way to beautiful Oaxaca

One of the more exciting visits that was off the beaten path was a trip to the village of Tilcajete. The village was known for its carved wooden figurines that were hand painted as well. Here too, is where we, the students, were able to make connections to what we were learning in the classroom.
One of the wooden figures, hand painted with symbols from the Zapotec Calendar.

The trip to Tilcajete was an unexpected one, and when we arrived at the house of one of the major artisans, we were given an impromptu tour and explanation of the art work.

One of the things we have talked about a lot in our Religion Class in regards to Indigenous Theology has been the fluidity of life. During the demonstration they talked about the spirit animal that every person has with them. This is a fluidity between the spiritual and the ¨tangible¨life here on earth.

The spirit that every person has with them through life acts as their protector. This idea is very different from a Western ideology, which separates the body and the spiritual, and which a majority of the time places the spiritual ( the spirit ie soul, religion) above the bodily. Though this idea has different manifestations within the two ideas it was very interesting to think of there being a fluid movement between what we think of as tangible and what we think of as "other" worldly.

Something that we saw, which we were convinced was true magic, was a demonstration of how they mix their paints. In this demonstration, they mixed various fruits, minerals, and acids to make their natural painting colors. These colors ranged from blues, reds, and browns, to magenta, greens and yellows.

Demostration of the colors! Mixing fruit, minerals, acids to create colored paints.

Another important topic in our talk on Indigenous Culture has been the importance of the land. In a talk with a woman in a nearby village, she spoke of how important the land is, and how there is a fluidity between what the earth provides for us and how we then become the land. I think that the demonstration of the paints was a great demonstration of this.

Talk with a woman in a small, nearby village

What do we need acrylic paint for? we can create brilliant colors from the land itself. And aren´t we just imitating nature any way when we create colors such as robin´s egg blue, and pomegranate?

In the end the trip was a great success! And we were able to see another beautiful and amazing part of Mexico!

Week 12: Students Learn and Live with Diverse Host Families

Mia Fortunato

Oberlin College

Three weeks ago, the Crossing Borders and Business students transitioned from living in program housing to living full-time with Mexican host families in Cuernavaca. For many students abroad, living with host families can be one of the most difficult or rewarding experiences in their time living in another country and making cross-cultural connections.

The home-stay program at CGE is unique because of the their process of choosing families and matching them with each individual student. Among other factors, students’ interests, their religious beliefs and practices, and their involvement in various types of activism and organizing are considered in the process of placing them with appropriate families with whom they will connect, feel comfortable and hopefully form lost lasting relationships. Some students in our program were placed with couples, others with large multi-generational families.

Cecilia with her queer host family at Teotihuacan (archeological site near Mexico City)

The families’ diverse interests include involvement in Christian Based Communities, alternative medicine and healing, entrepreneurship, and the Zapatista movement. Our host family members include teachers, store and business owners, opera singers, and labor union organizers. For all students, being placed with families that share their interests in some way or another eased the transition process and facilitated more meaningful cross-cultural sharing.

Ashlee with her host family at a Quinceañera (celebration of a 15-year old girl´s b-day) in Acapulco

For some students, like myself, the queer home-stay option provided an exciting opportunity for students to live, some for the first time, with LGBT identifying adults and feel comfortable being themselves and being out with their host families. For me, as someone who is queer identifying and interested in labor organizing back home in the U.S., being placed with a lesbian couple who are both active in the Telmex union and other social justice organizing here in Cuernavaca was a perfect match.

Over the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to attend an all-day national conference in Mexico City on violence against women, weekly courses for union members on diverse topics, and a March in downtown Cuernavaca to protest the femicides that have led to the deaths of thousands of young women in Mexico, particularly in Cuidad Juarez and the border region.

Me (in the background) walking in front of two local artists and activists at the march in Cuernavaca to protest the femicides in Cuidad Juarez.

As the month-long home-stay comes to a close and we move back into the program housing to finish up with final projects and prepare to head back to the U.S. to see friends and family, we are having to say goodbye to our host families and reflect on the impact the past month has had on us each individually.

For me, the CGE home-stay program, particularly the queer home-stay option, has been an important and meaningful part of my experience abroad and one that wouldn’t be possible in most other abroad programs because of the care and intentional placement of students. Personally, I hope to stay in touch with my host family and bring what I have learned from them back with me when I return home.

Week 11: Celebration of Day of the Dead

Chelsie Duckworth

Augsburg College

In October- November there are days dedicated to the remembrance of loved ones that have passed in the last year. There are days for how they died or how old they were and they conclude with a final Day of the Dead on November 1st. It is a beautiful celebration of the life of the person with all of their favorite things and a gathering of people.

An alter in a small town near Cuernavaca set up in honor of a late husband. His favorite things are displayed including Italian food for his heritage

For this day students went to participate in the celebration of peoples lives in a little community and in the center of Cuernavaca. There was a diverse range of homes from rich to poor, queer and strait, big and small families each offering all they could for the people that passed through. The women made food and greeted and men sat by the alters or in living spaces.

Katie stands next to a skeleton decorated by a childrens group from Cuernavaca in a celebration of Day of the Dead. A local park, Jardin Borda, puts on a competition for the best decorated skeleton each year

It is a very interesting comparison to how people in the United States deal with death and in our studies of liberation theologies there is a good explanation why. We have been learning that in these queer and feminist liberation theologies, there is the idea that everything living and passed is constant, the living and their loved ones actually live together in spirit in the same way that God is present in everyone and everything. Their ideas of a non-judgmental God is clear as they allow all types of people into their homes and share the food they have and their grieving time with complete strangers.

In the U.S. it seems much more closed off. It is private and a much sadder time; it is more a grieving period than a celebration and even though in many Christian masses that I have been to they say that we should not be sad and should celebrate, I have never seen it actually carried out that way like they do here.

Mara by another skeleton at the Jardin Borda

They have truly used their liberation and their belief in a community God in their views and practices around death. It is a wonderful celebration that is touching and so telling of a peoples faith.

An alter dedicated to painters Frida Kalho and Diego Rivera with rice and beans and lots of sugar skulls

Week 10: Body and Sexuality through Feminist Views

Jane Stitt
Carleton College

This week, we traveled to Mexico City and learned about some of the positive--and even religious--aspects of sex and bodies. We heard from a range of people about this subject, from a group of young Catholic reproductive rights activists, to two feminist liberation theologians, to an excerpt from The Color Purple that illustrates some of our speakers' key ideas about sexuality.

In the excerpt from The Color Purple[1], Celie and her lover Shug discuss God and what they must do to make God happy. Celie says that to please God, humans must lead pious lives--"go to church, sing in the choir, feed the preacher and all like that.¨ But Shug says that God loves it most when humans enjoy themselves and appreciate the world God made. In particular, Shug suggests that God wants humans to enjoy their bodies and having sex:

Shug: Oh, God love all them feelings. That's some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that's going, and praise God by liking what you like.

Celie: God don't think it dirty?

Shug: Naw. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love....[and is] wanting to share a good thing.

Alendi and Ashlee, two CGE students, act out the conversation between Shug and Celie.

God created bodies, sex, and sexuality, Shug suggests, and wants humans to enjoy these things. Many of the speakers we met this week felt the same way. For example, feminist liberation theologian Rebecca Montemayor[2] explained that feminist theology strongly affirms human's physical bodies. Just like Shug in The Color Purple, these theologians "see the body as something positive, as something to be enjoyed, not as a source of guilt and shame"[3].

And not only is bodily pleasure a positive thing, some of our speakers suggested, but when society mistakenly represents sexuality as a shameful, sinful subject that should not be discussed, it puts humans in great danger.

One political activist group called Catolicas por el Derecho a Decidir (Catholics for the Right to Decide) also just called Catolicas, has discovered that young people in Mexico are extremely mis-educated about sex and condoms and are therefore at risk of HIV/AIDS. "[Young Mexicans'] ideas about sex are filled with myth and tradition," Catolicas explained, "and the majority of young Mexicans do not use condoms. Thus, 93% of youth with HIV/AIDS in Mexico are between 15-24 years old, mostly through sex"[4].

CGE Crossing Borders students enjoyed spending time with youth from ¨Jóvenes Católic@s por el Derecho a Decidir¨ in Mexico City

To combat Mexican society's harmful idea that sex is a sinful activity, Catolicas launched a campaign "to reclaim from the Bible a new idea about sexuality as something pleasurable, which we should...enjoy in freedom, and responsibly"[5]. Drawing on the Biblical book Song of Solomon, Catolicas distributed hundreds of posters that say, "Pleasure is not a sin. Risking you and your lover's life is. Protect yourself. Use a condom"[6].

Sex and sexuality were created by God for humans to enjoy, these speakers suggest, and we should enjoy our bodies, understanding that God wants us to use them in joyful--and responsible--ways.

[1] Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. NY: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1982. Excerpt, pp. 175-179
[2] Rev. Rebecca Montemayor López. Feminist biblical scholar & the 1st woman to be ordained in a Mexican Baptist church in March 2000. Talk about Latin American Feminist Liberation Theology & Feminist Interpretation of the Bible; Mexico City, Oct. 29, 2009.

[3] Ibid

[4] Talk by Young Catholics for the Right to Decide: Minerva (“Mine”) Santamaria Hernandez, Juanita Mercado Alcantara, Flor Alegria Mar, and Jose del Carmen Ramos Samudio; representatives of Jóvenes Católic@s por el Derecho a Decidir (JCDD) Young Catholics for the Right to Decide; Mexico City, Oct. 28, 2009.

[5]Ibid

[6] Ibid

Week 9: Students Learning about Feminism in Mexico

Max Beshers

Oberlin College

This week, the theme for the Crossing Borders program was feminism in Mexico. Our readings and class discussion were augmented by talks with two Mexican women who have been active in feminist movements. On Tuesday, October 20th, Irene Ortiz[1] came to talk to us about women’s movements in Mexico. She discussed some of the particular difficulties that Mexican women face, such as the idea that they must have children to be “real” women, and commented on some of the differences between feminist movements in Mexico and other developing countries, as opposed to the U.S.

On Thursday the 22nd, we were able to build on what Ms. Ortiz shared with us when we drove out to Tejalpa, a neighboring town, to visit Alicia Arines [2] – “Licha” for short. Licha, an active member of a Base Christian Community (BCC) and former candidate for ­­mayor of her municipality with México Posible, a radical political party, had a lot of amazing stories to tell us.

Alicia (“Licha”) and Ann, our Program Director, listen to a student’s comments on the lecture

She grew up in great poverty, working from a very young age and having to fight to get any access to education, and was raised in a conservative Catholic environment. As an adult, her participation in Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir (CDD; Catholics for the Right to Decide), a Catholic women’s organization that works for access to legal abortions and around other issues of women’s reproductive health and sexuality, was a major factor in helping her to see “a different way of being a woman,” as she put it. Through her time with CDD and other activism her Catholic faith has remained strong, but she has developed radical new ways of understanding God and the Bible through a feminist and liberationist lens.

These two Crossing Borders students are excited for the talk with Licha!

Talking with Licha was one of those really cool moments where the things we read about for our classes were brought to life in guest speakers. Having just read a set of articles on feminist liberation theology in Latin America, it was amazing to hear Licha express some of the exact same viewpoints as the authors we had read. For example, she talked about the need for new interpretations of the Bible that include women’s perspectives, and reminded us that when we find parts of the Bible that are oppressive and sexist, we don’t have to believe them!

We rounded out our visit with Licha by purchasing some of the beautiful handmade crafts that she sells, and eating a delicious meal of traditional pozole (a chicken soup), gorditas, vegetarian ceviche, and other dishes prepared by her and her daughter.

Pozole, gorditas, and sopes were some of the wonderful dishes we had for lunch.

Both of our talks with Mexican feminists expanded our views of what feminism means and encouraged us to reflect on the differences between the feminist movements we’ve heard about or been part of in the U.S. and those in Mexico. We finished up a busy week with a lab group reflection session on Friday afternoon, but instead of meeting in our classroom, we decided to enjoy the nice weather and have the session in the lovely Jardin Borda, the botanical gardens in downtown Cuernavaca!

The whole group relaxes in the shade at Jardin Borda after a long week!

[1]Irene Ortiz, "Feminism in Mexico", given at the CGE-Mexico site on October 20th, 2009.
[2]Alicia "LIcha" Arines, "Talk on Feminism and Theology", given at her home in Tejalpa on October 22nd, 2009.

Week 8: Students Learning about Globalization

Sarah Leach
Saint Louis University

October has brought us students back to Cuernavaca, back to speakers, back to Spanish Classes. On returning to Mexico the Crossing Borders students have been investing a lot of time into learning about Globalization and Neoliberal economic thought. This week in our Political Science class many of us are learning new concepts involving the idea of Globalization and feminist thought.

To start classes out and to be prepared for many of our speakers it was obvious that we needed a definition of the G-word. GLOBALIZATION.

A paper and a test later we learned that globalization was, as Anthony Giddens wrote in Global Capitalism, “The intensification of world-wide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice-versa.”[1] Or a much simpler way of thinking is the USA sneezes and Mexico catches pneumonia as Fred Rosen[2] stated in his talk on Neolibral thought and economic Globalization.

Globalization in Mexico

I think that one of the more exciting talks was with Irene Ortiz[3], who gave a Mexican woman’s feminist viewpoint on globalization, and it’s effects here in Mexico as well as the US. One of her main points was drawing from a book we had been reading called Liberating Economics[4], which contained a diagram of economics based on gender views and societal views. Contrasting Gender as natural with gender as socially constructed, intersected by society as independent and collective. The best place for feminist economics is where gender as socially constructed meets a collective society.

I thought that the talk on society as a whole lead to some good questions. I think that as US citizens, with in the US culture it is easy to forget just how independent we are. Children are encouraged to leave go their own at about 18. Part of our independent culture encourages us to do well on our own and then we can make up the whole of society. But do we really benefit all of society when we do this, or just ourselves? Where as here in Mexico and else where cultures are more collective, meaning that society is a whole and cannot be reduced to parts. Everyone is responsible for everyone.

Studendts Learning and Discussing Globalization

These societal viewpoints are important. But the heavy influence and struggle for individual has lead to the hurt of many. Because there is no struggle for the collective, it is hard for unions to form. People, mainly women, are afraid to unionize because it may result in the lowering of their wages. They want what is best for the individual, the highest price, even in the event that is requires more work than is necessary.

The question then becomes, how does a collective society come into being? And will the individual be lost within the collective? Or will the lives of many be better due to sacrifices of a few?


[1] Anthony Giddens, notes from POL 359 class, 14th October, 2009.
[2] Fred Rosen, economist and journalist, talk on Neolibralism and Globalization 9th October, 2009
[3] Irene Ortiz, Feminist and Organizer of Domestic Workers, talk 13th October, 2009
[4] Barker, Drucilla K and Susan Feiner. Liberating Economics: Feminist perspectives on families, work, and globalization. University of Michigan Press, 2004.

Week 7: Education. Seeing the Impact in Mexico.

By Jane Stitt

Carleton College

Last week, our Liberation Theology class did two main activities. First, we painted murals, wrote articles, and gave presentations to the class about our experiences in El Salvador this September. Second, we met a panel of Mexican women who shared stories with us about their experiences of physical abuse and poverty here in Mexico.

I found both of these activities very moving, but at first I wondered how my two experiences--as a student and a sympathetic fellow human--connected with each other. How could I stand to watch these women weeping and hear their stories of poverty, and then spend my time showing off my knowledge about El Salvador to my class, or reading and writing? How could I hear these women's heartbreaking experiences and then go back to my books, selfishly educating myself instead of bursting out onto the streets to protest the social injustices that have made these women suffer so much?

I have been struggling with these kinds of questions throughout my life as a student.

Me, presenting my paper and power point about Liberation Theology in El Salvador to our class (10/5/09).

For a long time, I felt that people should study only in order to get a basic grasp on what problems exist in the world. Once they understand some of these problems, I thought, people should stop studying and take action. Any education beyond that seemed based on selfish motivations: to feel clever or to win approval from society through good grades, a fancy degree, and a well-paying job. I felt that with all of the injustices occurring in the world, humans should abandon their selfish studies--those attempts to surpass their fellow humans in knowledge and prestige--and devote their energy to fighting for justice in the world.

But through encounters such as our talk with the Mexican women this week, CGE is powerfully expanding my ideas about education. Education, I am realizing, can be a transformative force in people's lives that goes far beyond any self-serving attempt to get ahead. Instead, education can change humans' whole view of the world and their place in it, and thus change their entire lives.

Panel of Mexican women discussing Christian Base Communities and women's self-esteem workshops. From left to right: speaker Felisa Cruz Garcia, speaker Dolores Diaz, speaker Teresa Velazquez, intern Christina Olson, student Jane Stitt.

The women in the panel this week are involved in many grassroots educational projects, particularly "Base Christian Communities" and women's self-esteem workshops. These groups have dramatically impacted the women. For example, Felisa Cruz Garcia[1] said that until she joined a women's self-esteem workshop she had never even heard of the phrase "self-esteem." Learning this term--and working to improve her own self-esteem along with the other women in the group--was a life-changing experience for her.

This group "has really helped me to love myself and value myself and pursue what I want," Felisa said; and because of her new value of herself and her life, she has realized her dreams of opening a natural health clinic, where she will offer low-cost medical help to her community.

CGE is helping me understand that education can be a very important, transformative experience. Through sharing our ideas with one another in essays, panels, class discussions--and women's self-esteem groups--we can develop powerful new ideas about how to live.

[1] Felisa Cruz Garcia, member of Catholics for the Right to Decide, participant in women's self-esteem workshop, and head of a natural healing clinic; panel presentation on October 7, 2009 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.