Witness for Peace

Today officially started the Witness for Peace portion of my trip.

There are 13 other people here in la ciudad de Oaxaca on this delegation trip who come from a mix of backgrounds and life experiences. Most of us are from the Pacific NW (one from Canada, although originally from the UK) and a few from the New England region.

I am impressed by the amount of knowledge in the group about various issues including free trade, trade relations and immigration (as well as many other random subjects). For example, my roommate, Olga, is a chicano literature profesor in Long Island. Her family immigrated here from Mexico and she was born in California. Her first language is Spanish but she is fluent in English as well. She has been helping me practice Spanish a bit and has been a respectful and fun roommate. Where she lives and teaches now, in Long Island, is not a place that welcomes immigrants. Tragically, weekly beatings and few deaths have accumulated from the mix immigrant presence and racism. She explained that after living in more open minded California and New Mexico, Long Island was quite a shock. If you want to understand more about the community environment and stance on immigrants there watch the powerful documentary Farmingville. http://www.pbs.org/pov/farmingville/

Olga has suggested some books about the subject of immigration and I plan to start them when I return to the states. If you are also interested in this subject you might want to read some David Bacon. These are not the exact titles, but close enough 1. The Children of NAFTA
2. Illegal People...

Another woman on this trip, who will be going to Cambridge, MA to study divinity reccommended Brotherland/La Frontera, a bilingual book by Gloria Anzaldula.

Today we learned about the culture and history in Mexico in which 500 years of history was crammed into 2 hours. So obviously it wasn´t an in-depth look but now us delegates have a historical context as a basis which will help us better understand the people from here who are going to share their stories. We also talked about the history of neoliberalism (economic shock policy) in the country, which was a good review for me. Go here -- http://inzanetimes.wordpress.com/?ref=spelling for more information about what we did today. This is the blog of a fellow delegate.

I come into this delegation with quite a bit of bias, cynicism and criticism of the U.S government´s role in the exploitation of vulnerable people. I am also aware and disenchanted by the power of mega corporations that impact people negatively in order to make a profit. However, Mexico´s government has played a role as well and there is surely more Mexico could do for its suffering people. Just as in the U.S. in Mexico the rich are getting richer, the middle class is fading away and the poor are hanging by a thread. My hope is that before it gets too horrible people, in the U.S. especially, will become impassioned to act...

The themes I hope to explore further during this delegation and the rest of the time in Mexcio:

1. I would like to explore and understand food sovereignty issues better
Monolcultre, gentetically modofied organisms (GMOs), the dissappearence of small family (people)-run farms ...basically the streamlining and uber processing of our food for increased profit has negatively impaceted us all equally. This has large implications about our ability to continue to feed the growing world poplulation. It has also impacted immigration from here to the states.

2. I would like to learn more about the various methods and reasons behind non-violent protest. There are many examples here. (However the government has been known to respond with violence.)

3. I hope to understand more about the government of Mexico´s role in immigration. There is money here. You can´t ignore that the wealthiest person in the world right now is from Mexico. But the majority of the people do not see this wealth...

4. I want to know what Canada is doing about immigration. Kathleen mentioned that Canada has guest labor programs. How do they compare to the U.S.´s immigrant labor programs?

5. I would like to understand and compare the European Union´s trade policies with NAFTA. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a response to the formation of the EU but the EU has been better able to integrate the countries and balance power...

6. Finally (for now) I am going to be thinking more about how the U.S´s economic situation influences our ideas regarding immigrants. I am pretty sure there is a strong link to US unemployment and negative feelings toward immigrants.