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After the Teachers' Strike: Let's go to Oaxaca!
Oaxaca, Mexico – Oaxaca City, Oaxaca.− Would you destroy or cause
damage to something you love and is yours? Would you stain with
fluorescent phrases the most valuable and precious thing you have,
something the entire world admires and is even a cultural heritage
for humanity?
The truth and the answer to these questions, which are captured in
words and colors unfamiliar to the natural colors of cathedrals,
streets, walls, and colonial buildings, beg us to revive what
happened in the beautiful streets of Oaxaca, and to stop, as
tourists, chastising the Oaxacan people with indifference. Oaxacans
have contributed to the entire world with so many valuable things
yet so inexpensively; undoubtedly, the people who love Oaxaca
wouldn’t have defaced their own cathedrals with graffiti.
Who hasn’t purchased precious hand-made rebozos, wooden
craftworks delicately carved by hand, or silver jewelry designed by
our indigenous people, and which enhances the beauty of any
woman? Or who hasn’t be delighted with its innumerable delicious
dishes such as turnovers filled with yellow sauce, mole, tasajo or
tlayudas*?
A blending of anger, indignation, and sadness is caused when
observing –while comfortably sitting at a coffee shop in the main
plaza, or from the window of a car driving through, the most distant
and impoverished remote small villages of Oaxaca– the Oaxacan
indigenous citizen arduously working with the hope to be able to sell
some of his creations, and to know that his only happiness is just to
have something to eat. Then, who were those who caused damage
and defaced with graffiti the cathedrals and buildings? Was it the
people that proudly live in Oaxaca, or was it people from somewhere
else, people who know that they will be paid, even if they don’t
work?
This battle in someone else’s land, though, did not destroy the
people’s heart and the core of their beings. Just a few weeks later
after the arrest of the APPO’s** leader, I sensed a more beautiful
than ever Oaxaca, and its people smiling more than ever, like a child
waking up in his mother’s lap after a nightmare. That peace, like a
morning’s breeze emerging from the green quarry, I was able to
capture and share it with more people.
Those written messages (see photo gallery), next to the poinsettias
of the flowerbeds of the Zócalo Plaza, sometimes expressing
gratitude and peace and in some others indignation, are a sign of
what happened, something the merchant or the craftsperson never
approved. “Arise, Oaxaca, I trust in God that you never be kidnapped
again. An Oaxaca’s merchant; JMS family” (a hand-written sign
reads.) Also, the conversations I had with many merchants who
described their happiness to see so many tourists from Mexico and
abroad, confirmed this fact to me.
Of everything that happened during the six-month conflict in Oaxaca,
today it could be seen that only some streets surrounding the Zócalo
were being watched by Oaxaca ’s preventive police.
Let’s go to Oaxaca ! It is waiting for us with open arms!
* Mole: sauce of cocoa and chiles
Tasajo: a folded tortilla in a bean sauce with a piece of steak sliced extremely
thin
Tlayuda: large tortillas - sometimes 12 inches in diameter - strewn with
beans, aciento, tomato, avocado, quesillo (a string cheese found only in
Oaxaca )
** APPO: Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (Popular Assembly of
the Peoples of Oaxaca). Author refers to incarcerated leader Flavio Sosa,
arrested in México City on December 4, 2006, shortly after new Felipe
Calderón became president.
(Article translated in English by Eduardo Barraza)
damage to something you love and is yours? Would you stain with
fluorescent phrases the most valuable and precious thing you have,
something the entire world admires and is even a cultural heritage
for humanity?
The truth and the answer to these questions, which are captured in
words and colors unfamiliar to the natural colors of cathedrals,
streets, walls, and colonial buildings, beg us to revive what
happened in the beautiful streets of Oaxaca, and to stop, as
tourists, chastising the Oaxacan people with indifference. Oaxacans
have contributed to the entire world with so many valuable things
yet so inexpensively; undoubtedly, the people who love Oaxaca
wouldn’t have defaced their own cathedrals with graffiti.
Who hasn’t purchased precious hand-made rebozos, wooden
craftworks delicately carved by hand, or silver jewelry designed by
our indigenous people, and which enhances the beauty of any
woman? Or who hasn’t be delighted with its innumerable delicious
dishes such as turnovers filled with yellow sauce, mole, tasajo or
tlayudas*?
A blending of anger, indignation, and sadness is caused when
observing –while comfortably sitting at a coffee shop in the main
plaza, or from the window of a car driving through, the most distant
and impoverished remote small villages of Oaxaca– the Oaxacan
indigenous citizen arduously working with the hope to be able to sell
some of his creations, and to know that his only happiness is just to
have something to eat. Then, who were those who caused damage
and defaced with graffiti the cathedrals and buildings? Was it the
people that proudly live in Oaxaca, or was it people from somewhere
else, people who know that they will be paid, even if they don’t
work?
This battle in someone else’s land, though, did not destroy the
people’s heart and the core of their beings. Just a few weeks later
after the arrest of the APPO’s** leader, I sensed a more beautiful
than ever Oaxaca, and its people smiling more than ever, like a child
waking up in his mother’s lap after a nightmare. That peace, like a
morning’s breeze emerging from the green quarry, I was able to
capture and share it with more people.
Those written messages (see photo gallery), next to the poinsettias
of the flowerbeds of the Zócalo Plaza, sometimes expressing
gratitude and peace and in some others indignation, are a sign of
what happened, something the merchant or the craftsperson never
approved. “Arise, Oaxaca, I trust in God that you never be kidnapped
again. An Oaxaca’s merchant; JMS family” (a hand-written sign
reads.) Also, the conversations I had with many merchants who
described their happiness to see so many tourists from Mexico and
abroad, confirmed this fact to me.
Of everything that happened during the six-month conflict in Oaxaca,
today it could be seen that only some streets surrounding the Zócalo
were being watched by Oaxaca ’s preventive police.
Let’s go to Oaxaca ! It is waiting for us with open arms!
* Mole: sauce of cocoa and chiles
Tasajo: a folded tortilla in a bean sauce with a piece of steak sliced extremely
thin
Tlayuda: large tortillas - sometimes 12 inches in diameter - strewn with
beans, aciento, tomato, avocado, quesillo (a string cheese found only in
Oaxaca )
** APPO: Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (Popular Assembly of
the Peoples of Oaxaca). Author refers to incarcerated leader Flavio Sosa,
arrested in México City on December 4, 2006, shortly after new Felipe
Calderón became president.
(Article translated in English by Eduardo Barraza)
Irma Sofia Navarro Viloria January 18, 2007
| Hispanic Institute of Social Issues © 2006-2011 All rights reserved. webmaster@hisi.org |
Some of the streets in Downtown
Oaxaca City remain closed and under
the eye of police officers. Streets were
blocked for months by teachers during
the strike. View Photo Gallery
Photo: Irma Sofia Navarro Viloria
Oaxaca City remain closed and under
the eye of police officers. Streets were
blocked for months by teachers during
the strike. View Photo Gallery
Photo: Irma Sofia Navarro Viloria
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| Weaving Machine in Oaxaca |
| Video by Irma Sofía Navarro |
| Irma Sofía Navarro Viloria © 2007 |
Irma Sofía Navarro Viloria is a political scientist graduated
from the University of Darmstadt, Germany where she has
resided for more than 10 years. She is a frequent
Barriozona contributor.
from the University of Darmstadt, Germany where she has
resided for more than 10 years. She is a frequent
Barriozona contributor.
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