Week 9: Gender, Sexuality, and Latin American Feminisms

By Shana Rubenstein

Camille and I taking a walk during a birthday party for a three year old host relative in Tejalpa, Jiutepec (Photo by Daniel Staples)

In addition to experiencing our first week with our host-families, we also had the opportunity to speak with three women who engage in the fight for social change and structural justice from different perspectives: struggling against patriarchy and oppression within the Church, working within a feminist organization to empower women and youth and recognize the socio-historical constructions within society that value men over women, and working towards the recognition of people of African descent within Mexico, as well as the deeply engrained racism in Mexico that is often denied. Elsbeth is going to talk about the first speaker, Alicia Arines, so I will focus on the other experiences of this week.

At CIDHAL (Comunicación e Intercambio para el Desarrollo Humano en América Latina) we spoke with Flor Dessire, who shared with us about both the work of CIDHAL and various interpretations of feminism. CIDHAL has existed for over thirty years and was the first feminist organization in Mexico. Today, it provides a number of services including medical services that understand the specific needs of women, workshops within schools to open up dialogue around gender and sexuality, and a documentation center where information regarding the fight for women´s rights is available in Spanish and English.

One factor she mentioned that echoed the sentiments of other speakers and readings is that feminisms in Latin America are very different from the early feminism of the US. While feminism in the US has a history of being individualistic, representing for many only liberation for middle-class white women which often reinscribed patriarchal systems by relying on the domestic work of women of color and women from lower classes to allow time for jobs and feminist organizing[1], feminism in Mexico, although influenced by US and European feminisms, also stems from a class struggle and recognized the interplay of oppressions on women’s lives. Flor explained feminism as a theory and a social movement, as well as an instrument of analysis that allows us to explain the realities of women[2].

Much that we learned here reiterated and personalized what we have been reading in Barker and Feiner´s Liberating Economics, Feminist Perspectives on Families, Work, and Globalization, where the historical split between the public sphere of men and private, domestic sphere of women systematically devalues women’s work, despite the fact that it is integral to the reproduction of society. Women as caregivers is a view that has been naturalized and is now often seen as women´s essential role, but Barker and Feiner outline how ¨the development of this essentialist view of gender led to a system of laws, conventions, and social customs that ensured the subordinate status of women in the family, the church, and the state¨.[3] A feminist analysis, however, recognizes the historical construction of such beliefs as those benefiting a patriarchal culture, and attempts to dismantle this type of power relation.[4]

Flor also stressed the importance of recognizing diversity within the category of women, saying that women of different nationalities, social classes, races and ethnicities, ages, etc. will all have different experiences as women, but that all women are united by the common experience of the female body.

While we spoke mostly in broad terms of women’s experiences of oppression stemming from the devaluing of domestic labor, Nadia Alvarado, a woman of African and Indigenous descent working to reveal the presence of Afro-Mexicans, spoke extremely personally of her experiences of racism in Mexico. During her childhood through both her family and larger society, she witnessed and received overt racist messages where people with lighter skin were consistently favored and those with darker skin were devalued in assumptions of their intelligence and ability.[5] Meanwhile, while people in Mexico will admit that classism exists, many assert that there is no racism despite the fact that many of the poorest people are indigenous or of African descent[6]. Connected to the denial of racism is the denial of people of African descent in Mexico, for the history of the slave trade, the creation of communities of people of African descent who escaped slavery, and the historical contributions of Afro-Mexicans has been erased. Nadia outlined various parts of Mexican culture that have been influenced by different African cultures, and added that despite the denial of an African cultural presence in Mexico, the permeation of negative stereotypes about black men and women are pervasive.
Through her talk, Nadia also showed a side of Acapulco that tourists remain blind to, where people, economically strangled by the situation in Mexico created by neoliberal globalization spearheaded by the United States, are forced to work in the service industry for tourists, many of whom are American, who come to enjoy the beach and sample another culture. She shared with us about her struggle against internalized racism and her fight to raise children who take pride in and understood their background. Now, her thesis is about her father’s life as a man trying to reconcile his African and Indigenous heritage in the midst of a racist world. Although Nadia did not speak of feminism, she seemed to embody the feminist notion that the personal is political, and conversely, the idea that the political is personal, for in her life she both politicizes her personal experience of racism as evidence of the larger culture’s destructive biases, and realizes the personal affect of erasing from Mexican history the contributions of Afro-Mexicans as people of African descent.

[1] Flor Dessire, Talk at CIDHAL on Friday, October 19, 2007
[2] Flor Dessire, Talk at CIDHAL on Friday, October 19, 2007.
[3] Barker and Feiner, Liberating Economics, Feminist Perspectives on Families, Work, and Globalization (University of Michigan Press, 2004) p. 26.
[4] Flor Dessire, Talk at CIDHAL on Friday, October 19, 2007
[5] Nadia Alvarado, talk at CEMAL, Friday, October 19, 2007.
[6] Nadia Alvarado, talk at CEMAL, Friday, October 19, 2007.

By Elsbeth Pollack

A friend of the family, my host mom, Mariana, my host sister Abi, and me, walking in Puebla.

I was especially struck this week by our visit with Alicia “Licha” Arines, a feminist activist and leader of a Base Christian Community. She talked with us about feminist liberation theology and the participation of women in politics. This discussion pulled together a lot of issues that I have been struggling with lately, especially when Licha was asked why she continues to work within the church when there are so many challenges to her political and social involvement and to her identity. She shared that in the end, she believes that you have to struggle from within, as hard as that might be. As a priest once told her, “If our mother is sick, we aren’t going to abandon her, we are going to look for a way to cure her.” Alicia sees her participation in the church as giving her a right to follow and a right to question what she wants to, even though she struggles with being involved on a daily basis.

An article by Daphne Hampson, who discarded Christianity coming from a theological perspective, brought up a lot of the same struggles that Licha talked about. “The challenge of feminism,” she shares, “is not simply that women wish to gain an equal place with men in what is essentially a religion which is biased against them. The challenge of feminism is that women may want to express their understanding of God within a different thought structure…. While men (and some women) consider whether women can be full insiders within the church, women debate whether or not they want to be.”[1] There has been, for Licha, a reinterpretation of what being a religious person who loves God means.[2] She now sees God with a masculine and a feminine face, something for which she has been questioned about immensely, especially by priests and religious leaders.[3] It is not that she wants to be a man, she shared, but that she wants to be recognized as a strong and intelligent woman working for change. “I’m not a man,” she told us, “I focus on my family and their health and education [unlike most of the men that I know]. Don’t compare me to a man.”[4] Licha shared, however, that it has been hard for her to work within the church because while the communities talk about political and economic oppression and liberation, there are few spaces where she can discuss women’s issues from a theological, religious perspective. She no longer feels fulfilled by the retreats with the priests and the hierarchy with the “padrecito”.

For many of the authors that we have read this week, the fact that there has needed to be a re-interpretation, a re-reading, or a re-anything for that matter, brings up the question of the validity of Christianity in the lives of women, especially those with a feminist agenda, when there is such a struggle against the history of patriarchy and male-centeredness of Christianity.

These ideas really hit home for me this week. I have been struggling with patriarchy and inherent power that this brings to the people who benefit from it, whether in the church or in the larger society. And sometimes I get to the point where I think that you can no longer work within the system; that some things need to be radically changed. And I see so many people outside of the church, or the system in general, that accomplish so much for the world, a lot more than many people who call themselves “Christian” accomplish, that I start to wonder about the benefits of the church for women. As Licha shared with us, she has come, like I have, to the conclusion that “race and religion don’t matter if you are searching and struggling for justice. Your presence can say a lot, your presence of searching for justice. Solidarity doesn’t have a frontier or borders, a religion or a race.”[5]

And at the same time, I value so much the power of not just the institution of the church, but of the people of the church. I have been influenced greatly by strong Christian women in my life that have empowered me and shown me a place for intelligent and inspired women to have a voice within the Presbyterian church, of which I am a part. Like Licha shared, she stays a part of Catholicism because she feels that she has to fight to “create a space for women in the future so that they can discover their own liberation.”[6]

On a very personal level in dealing with identity and placing oneself within a system, I, along with everyone else in our program, have had big changes and experiences in the past week with our homestay families. It has been a great way to break down the stereotypes of the “typical Mexican family,” because there really isn’t one. Our families come from different economic, religious, ethnic, sexual, and social backgrounds, and have been giving us great insights into the sometimes unrecognized complex diversity of Mexican families and what that means. I have had the chance to attend a Quincineria and to visit Puebla with my family, which have been great bonding times. Laughter has been the sustaining piece in our time together, whether over a miscommunication or an inside joke.

I look forward to the upcoming challenges and laughter that we are all sure to experience, whether from speakers, classes, or our informal time together. Love and peace.

An example of Talavera pottery, native to Puebla. This is probably one of the most common phrases in Mexico!

[1] Hampson, Daphne. Theology and Feminism. Blackwell, 1990. p.4
[2] Hampson, Daphne. Theology and Feminism. Blackwell. 1990. p. 1
[3] Alicia Arines, 10/16/07
[4] Alicia Arines, 10/16/07
[5] Alicia Arines, 10/16/07
[6] Alicia Arines, 10/16/07

Week 8: A Week of Departures

Students getting acquainted with their new host families at the Homestay Convivio

Students having dinner with their new families

By Camille Hart

This past week was one of a few departures. Monday we departed CEMAL for the morning to visit the Benedictine Convent of the Hermanas Guadalupanas. Wednesday we departed for a two day seminar excursion in Mexico City and Friday we departed good ol’ CEMAL for our long awaited home-stays. Each departure was different in what we experienced. Some experiences will be longer lasting than others but over all, this past week was one of the most important ones of our semester abroad in Mexico.

During each excursion I learned about something I had never given thought to before but after experiencing each I have been more attentive to things that are or should be happening in the present and things that have happened in the past. For instance, Monday we met with two sisters, Hermana Fabiola and Hermana Teresa, of the Benedictine Covent of the Hermanas Guadalupanas. Hermana Fabiola gave us some history about the relevance of the name of the group and their beliefs. She said that both are Christ centered and that ties them together. The most interesting part of her speech to me was about what the Virgin of Guadalupe symbolized. One example of the symbolism is the sun that surrounds the Virgin of Guadalupe represents her being another god, which is interesting in itself because the group sees the Virgin as a reincarnation of God. Hermana Teresa’s part of the lecture reminded me of the Base Christian Community meeting we had attended a few weeks before. One student read an excerpt form the book of Exodus and then we discussed how the story of Guadalupe was similar to the story of Moses in Exodus. (Exodus 3:6-8) That was one interesting conversation. From there we talked about the periphery which another speaker had discussed during a previous visit to CEMAL. I can truly say that during that earlier talk I had no idea what was being said about the periphery but Sister Teresa had a way of making thing clearer. To her, the Virgin of Guadalupe was in the periphery along with different liberation theologies and in the center where people like the Bishop in the Catholic Church and institutions that marginalize others. One of the most important things to me that Sister Teresa said involved the formation of Liberation Theologies. She said that Liberation Theologies start with those who are in need but in no way is it saying that the poor are the best there are. So when we hear that the church needs to have “preferential option for the poor” it is not trying to exclude others.

As eye opening as the talk with the Sisters were on Monday I had no idea how I would analyze things differently after a couple of our visits in Mexico City. Our first speaker in Mexico City was Dr. Patricia Contreras, a Mexican psychologist, Baptist pastor, and professor of Women’s Studies & Pastoral psychology at the Communidad Teologica. Dr. Contreras spoke to us about the Mexican family and the different ways women are viewed within the Mexican culture. The “Mexican family … is the absence of father, excess of mother and many children.” Her reasoning for this composition of family in Mexico is due to the conquest by the Spaniards. Men were made slaves or killed if they resisted and women were used for sexual pleasure by the conquistadors. The mothers are left only with their children. I really liked that explanation. Dr. Contreras later shared her research with us about the four types of women in Mexico. We spent most of our time discussion the Mother figure which has some characteristics of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The other three figures were the Amazon who tries to defend her femininity so much that she ends up losing it. Then there is the partner who’s life in intergraded with her man. Last is the medium who apart of the universe making it difficult to be in touch with her self. The mother figure is valued the most in the culture because of her similarities with the Virgin of Guadalupe. She is caring, protective, and nourishing. This at times can become overbearing and detrimental to her children by making them dependent on her (the son) so she will never be alone. An example of that was shown to me later in the week.

While in Mexico City we also met with Catholics for Free Choice who are doing great things to educate others about such things as violence against women, contraceptives, safe sex, and the decriminalization of abortion. The goal of the group is the make others informed and empowered. They are an organization made up of young people. The organization is based in the United States but is doing much work in Latin America. We also met with Rebeca Montemayor, a feminist theologian & Baptist pastor. She discussed women’s role in the church. According to her women read the Bible through different lenses and their class also has a role in their interpretation. In some churches in Mexico women are not allowed to participate. Some churches even make men and women sit separately. In the church service I attended Sunday I viewed the opposite of this. Women, men, and children read scripture and lead songs for the congregation at the podium. I really enjoyed her answer to a question of how to keep youth involved in the church. Mrs. Montemayor said that the church needs to give youth the opportunity to talk about the issues they wish too and be open to listen to them. That is something that all churches should take heed to. The church should be a safe place for youth as well as adults to discuss different issues from the Bible to sex. If one can not talk about it in the church, then it should not exist. Therefore I feel everything should be free to be discussed there in my opinion.

Our last meeting in one of the most populated cities of the world took place at El Closet de Sor Juana (a lesbian organization). There we met with Gloria, one of the founders. The Closet of Sor Juana is currently an open safe space for working class women to come and relax. Originally according to Gloria it was to be a political group but the late eighties there was lack of interest in political involvement. They are involved in national groups. Gloria felt that the group needed to be more focused on political action (working to change policies) than social action such as providing workshops for the women.

Friday was a day that everyone has been looking forward to with mixed emotions of excitement, fear, and nervousness. It was the day we met and moved in with our host families. Friday afternoon began with a ice breaker then small group discussion with students and host families. You can only imagine the nervous but friendly tension in the air. We all had tamales and chocolate together before closing with a group meeting about the expectation and vulnerabilities of students and families. This was where I first encountered the mother figure that Dr. Contreras Ulloa as spoke of earlier during the week. The mother figure was my host mom! During the final orientation, I viewed my host mom urging her daughter in law to take her son a napkin for his eye because they were watering. The daughter in law refused but the mother kept urging. I remember thinking that is still her baby. It was neat revelation to have and keep having during my home stay. My eyes will stay open for more examples. That mother figure crosses many cultures. I think most of us can view our mothers that way-- always wanting to take care of us even though we are old enough to take care of our selves.

Emily and Dan getting to know their new families before departing CEMAL!

Crossing Borders students Jess and Janet talking with new family members

By Emily Schaffer


Frida Kahlo´s house in Mexico City

On Wednesday we woke up bright and early and traveled through the cold, rain, and fog to the largest city in world, Mexico City. During our time there we heard from many interesting speakers on topics such as marianismo and machismo, reproductive rights, feminist liberation theology, and also a visit with a lesbian organization. All of these speakers gave us helpful insight into the function of radical women in Mexican society and some of the ways they themselves try to empower those around them. The two that I keep referring back to in my daily thoughts occurred on our first day there.

Our first talk was from Dr. Patricia Contreras, a Mexican psychologist and professor of Women’s Studies and Pastoral Psychology at the Communidad Teologica, on marianismo and machismo. Her talk gave us a psychological insight about what forms the typical Mexican gender roles. The conquest was a mile stone in shaping the family and before this time men and women both had work which was equally valued in their communities. At the time of the conquest indigenous had difficulty relating to Christianity because of the fact that God would sacrifice his son. The story of the Virgin of Guadalupe helped to relate Christianity to many indigenous people of Mexico and provided a strong influence in the role of women in Mexican society. Dr. Contreras told us that through her studies she found that in Mexico there are two main female figures, the Virgin and the mother. She used Jung’ opposites model to show how the emphasis on the mother over partner and medium over amazon influence the make up of the “typical” Mexican family. Too much emphasis on one aspect can turn that positive aspect into a negative. The idea of the “good goddess” in which a woman does not act out against her husband’s abusive actions, instead she deals with it calmly gains her respect in the community and makes him look worse, even though she must deal with the abuse. Another extreme occurs when mothers are too controlling of their children, when this occurs the mother is most likely fostering the perfect environment to raise a “macho.” This is because the son is always babied and taken care of by their mother and as a result never gains independence.

We then left and went to Coyoacan for some free time. Coyoacan is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Mexico City. It has colonial buildings and is the town that Frida Kahlo grew up in. Across the street from the Frida Kahlo museum we visited the offices of Jovenes Catolicas por el derecho a decidir (Catholics for a Free Choice). One of the youth leaders, Elva Garcia, informed us about the way the organization functions and how they work within and against the Catholic Church. The organization uses the feminist liberation theology lens which allows women to use their sexuality for more than just reproduction. The organization passes out condoms to youth because they believe people have the right to protect themselves from AIDS and to decide when they want to become pregnant. The Bishop came out and excommunicated the group and said it was wrong for women to say these things and preferred the companionship of dogs over women. This is an example of the oppression and disrespect that women face within the Church and what Catolicas and other organizations are fighting to change. Abortion has been decriminalized in Mexico City, but every state and city has different types of people and some areas are more progressive than others, so it is hard to legalize all over the nation. Elva quoted the late Pope John Paul II saying, “if you are following your consciousness, you are taking the best option supported by God.” This is the manner in which the organization functions because the members truly believe and are conscious that women should have the right to decide to use contraceptives and to protect themselves in anyway from having a baby.

I believe that these two speakers complimented each other well because one dealt with the traditional make up of women and family and the other was a younger, more progressive manifestation of the traditional. During Pat´s talk I was a little confused and frustrated at the way in which women have been influenced to be quiet and calm and serve their “macho.” Our talk from Catolicas was totally different because it showed that some women are tired of being forced to sit there and not stick up for their rights and their bodies. I always find it reassuring to see people fighting for their rights and standing up for what they believe even if it is challenging one of the strongest powers, religious leaders.

Virgin of Guadalupe at the Cultural Museum in Coyoacan, Mexico City.

Week 7: Introductions to the EZLN and change in Chiapas

By Jordan Beall

The focus of Week 7 here at CEMAL centered on the EZLN and the role of indigenous women and indigenous Liberation Theology as a compliment and pillar of that movement.

We began our week with a guest lecture by Myrian Fracchia, a woman who currently works for Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) in Mexico. Her work includes non-violent solidarity work and studies on rural sociology. Through these areas of focus, she has spent a large amount of time studying and work with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation or Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) movement in the state of Chiapas.

Ms. Fracchia gave us an in depth background on the motives behind the EZLN uprising, their goals, and the structure of their governance. The crucial motive behind the revolution was the distribution of land, and how the indigenous of Chiapas had been so severely marginalized and ignored. One of the points I found particularly interesting was that when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed, land redistribution was effectively cancelled, thus leaving most of the indigenous of Chiapas without any chance of reclaiming their ancestral lands. The EZLN uprising was a response to not only this policy change but to the continued marginalization that they face. Currently their goals are to re-claim and expand their territory of ancestral lands and to maintain their autonomy as a government separate of the Mexican government. The Zapatista government also has established itself as an autonomous entity that governs itself in a true democratic fashion.

Our second guest lecture of the week was by Dr. Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, a scholar of critical Mexican anthropology who has worked extensively in Chiapas concerning the refugees, Liberation Theology, and Protestantism. Her perspective was particularly interesting because she was very knowledgeable about the role of Protestantism in Chiapas, which was unusual because we have concentrated mainly on Catholicism. She spoke about how the outside perspective of Protestantism is that it is an imperialistic construction from the United States, yet she shared how amazing it was that the indigenous practitioners had assumed Protestantism and had adapted it to their needs and granted them a sense of dignity. In that spirit, Dr. Castillo also discussed how the indigenous women were struggling similarly to reject the traditions within their communities that oppress them while embracing those that they find empowering. These two movements parallel each other and thus compliment each other, as the Zapatista movement has worked to create equality amongst its people.

One of the most fascinating ideas that I picked up from both lectures is that of the empowerment of women within the EZLN and Protestant Liberation Theology. From the outside, many would view the indigenous women of Chiapas as marginalized within their own communities because one does not often hear an indigenous women speak to foreigners, but one of the things we don’t often understand is how strong their roles are as community leaders, family providers, and as a force of military might. It is this empowerment that not only the women have created, but the EZLN’s struggle and success with establishing autonomy has created a similar liberation.



By Kathryn Sweet

Week 7 was Chiapas week – after studying guerilla movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the preceding weeks, our focus turned to Mexico’s southernmost state and the controversial guerrilla group, the EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista de la Liberacion Nacional, or Zapatista National Liberation Army). The subject matter this week was of particular interest to me because, almost two years ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a week in Chiapas and learn about the EZLN in ways that were inaccessible to the average tourist – for example, meeting with Zapatistas. This was not, however, a boring week of things I already knew; there is always more to learn.

Since my visit to the Zapatista caracol (the name for their five autonomous government centers in Chiapas; literally “conch shell”) of Oventic, I have been interested in women’s status in the EZLN, and the role of women’s liberation within the movement. The Zapatistas have a very unique code written into their laws, a set of ten demands known as the Revolutionary Women’s Law. While the EZLN is clearly not a feminist movement in itself, women’s rights have been on the Zapatista agenda – or, at least, in their rhetoric – since the first day of their uprising in 1994. We read an article by Dr. Rosalva Aida Hernandez Castillo (who later gave us a guest lecture) which discussed a major contradiction that Zapatista women have tried to reconcile: the tension between the struggle for indigenous autonomy and the struggle for women’s rights.

In the early 1990s, an article of the Mexican constitution was amended to give indigenous groups the right to maintain their traditions – known as usos y costumbres, or “uses and customs.” One thing that this led to, however, was an abuse of cultural relativism, justifying detrimental practices like domestic violence and forcible marriage as “part of the tradition.” To demand better treatment was to be an assimilationist, under the influence of North American feminists. While this wasn’t true, their fear was somewhat justified. (This is something we’ve grappled with all semester – the boundaries of our North American forms of a social movement, and where it becomes more oppressive than liberating.) With the presence of the Zapatista rebellion, however, women have had a space to fight for their rights both as women and as indigenous people, insisting that the two movements don’t have to be contradictory.

Week 6: Our experiences in an indigenous community and an introduction to the FMLN of El Salvador

Doña Ximena speaks to the group in her corn field.



By Megan Vees

On Friday afternoon, we went to an indigenous community not far from Cuernavaca to participate in a ceremony of thanksgiving in honor of the Festival of the Pericón, the Feast of the Goddess of Xilonen, and the Feast of St. Michael. Here, we made indigenous crosses (that is those that are equal lengths in each direction) out of pericón flowers. One community leader, Guillermo González Rodriguez[1], shared with us some of the significance of these crosses, which can be seen hanging in doorways of homes and businesses all over Mexico. The pericón crosses are intended to ward off evil spirits. There are several aspects of the flowers that endow them with symbolic meaning: first of all, they are made up of many smaller flowers; second, their golden color represents the sun; and third, the way the plant itself grows resembles a cross.

Members of the group make pericón crosses

After making the crosses, we participated in a syncretic ceremony that blended aspects of indigenous tradition and Catholicism. The group stood in a circle, in the center of which burned a fire with ears of corn. The ceremony consisted of turning in the four cardinal directions, then to the sky, and to the earth. In each direction, a conch shell was blown. Afterwards, incense was blown on each member of the circle and the prayer Our Father was recited in Nahuatl, an indigenous language spoken by some members of the community. Guillermo explained the meaning behind the ceremony and the Feast of the Goddess Xilonen, the goddess of young corn. That day represents the time when the corn begins to mature so that humans may eat it, or as it was described to us, the corn begins to self-sacrifice for humanity. Though this tradition is anywhere from seven to ten thousand years old, it has now been integrated with Catholic tradition.

Guillermo blows the conch shell as ceremony participants face in one of the cardinal directions

The next day, we met with two members of the community who fulfilled non-traditional roles with regard to gender and sexuality. One was Doña Ximena[2], a woman of seventy-two years who had never married and who owned and worked her own corn fields. She described the pressures she had received from the government and those outside her community to change her farming practices, to use chemical fertilizers and change the type of corn she grows. She also described the difficulties in competing with the cheap, genetically modified corn that has flooded the Mexican market. We next talked to a young man of nineteen years, Adolfo[3], who spoke about being openly gay in his small community. He too fulfills a non-traditional gender role by working as a stylist and dance instructor, and also by serving as a care-taker for his ailing mother. His talk allowed us to see some of the positive aspects of influences from outside of his community. He was able to achieve success through training in a non-traditional career for a young man, and he also found his identity as a gay man – one that is very seldom embraced in small communities – as a liberating factor in his life.

Our visit to this community allowed us to see the effects of the blending of cultures on a small scale. The blending of ancient Mesoamerican religious tradition and Catholicism was demonstrated in all its beauty and complexity in the ceremony and feast of Friday night. The talks with Doña Ximena and Adolfo allowed us to see both positive and negative affects of blending of cultures. For Doña Ximena, the traditional ways of growing corn are being threatened by a culture of modernity. However, for Adolfo, embracing an identity that would not usually exist in an indigenous community has been liberating. Yet both speakers we heard and the ceremony and feast we participated in also represent the overcoming of oppressive forces. Doña Ximena and Adolfo triumph by surmounting traditional roles, while the entire community overcomes a dominant culture that marginalizes traditional indigenous culture and spirituality by continuing in their customs and traditions.

[1] A pseudonym used to respect the requested privacy of the speaker. Information from a talk given before the ceremony on September 28, 2007 in a community (also to remain anonymous out of respect for wishes of community members) in the state of Morelos, Mexico.
[2] A pseudonym used to respect the requested privacy of the speaker. Information from a talk given September 29, 2007 in unnamed community, Morelos Mexico.
[3] A pseudonym used to respect the requested privacy of the speaker. Information from a talk given September 29, 2007 in unnamed community, Morelos, Mexico.


The group stands in a circle before the ceremony begins.






Héctor Ibarra Chavez speaks with the group






By Dan Staples


This week we learned about the popular revolution and concurrent emergence of Christian Liberation Theology in El Salvador during the 1980's. One important theme I noted throughout this history was the struggle for autonomy, both for women and for the peasant class as a whole.

Our first speaker this weak was Héctor Ibarra Chávez, former “Comandante Genáro” of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a guerrilla organization from the El Salvador revolution, and a current Masters student at the National School of Anthropology & History (ENAH) in Mexico. Hector told us about the religious roots of revolution and guerrilla movements in El Salvador, in which Liberation Theology played a key role. The revolution emerged as a class war between the ruling class of the military dictatorship and armed peasants, or campesinos, who were extremely impoverished by the unequal distribution of land and resources. However, rather than the more common trend of Marxist-Leninist guerrilla vanguardism, Héctor told us how the campesino communities of El Salvador organized themselves by means of Base Christian Communities (BCCs).

In our reading of Anna L. Peterson's Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion, we learned that the transformation of religion in campesino communities, via reinterpretation of biblical text, took power away from the Catholic Church hierarchy and created a horizontal, popular movement of autonomous lay parishes, from which BCCs emerged. Through education and empowerment initiatives, BCCs strengthened collective identity and helped campesinos, men and women alike, to develop leadership and organizational skills. It was only after these local, autonomous groups were organized that the guerrillas came and mobilized them into a mass movement of armed resistance.

On Thursday, we had another former FMLN guest speaker, Lucia Raya, a current doctoral student at ENAH. Lucia spoke to us about women's experiences in the FMLN military during and after the El Salvador revolution. Life in the guerrilla armies let women experience freedoms outside traditional, patriarchal norms. For instance, women had autonomy in their sexuality, with the liberty to have sexual relations outside the confines of marriage and monogamy. In addition, reproduction and maternity took on different, though arguably negative, forms. However, women found that traditional gender roles and expectations were still prevalent, even inside the guerrilla movement.

Lucia described the experience of women militants as the process of overcoming (or losing) their gender identity, having to conform to the expectations of a militant, a traditionally male role. Lucia described militancy to us as one's total commitment, self-surrender, and sacrifice to a cause. This clearly opposes the idea of autonomy, which I would define as self-determination, independence, and self-government. Therefore, by becoming “equal” with their male compañeros in the war to gain class autonomy, they lost the ability to gain autonomy for their gender.
Lucia Raya

However, the struggle for women's autonomy didn't end after the war was over. In Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution, Karen Kampwirth notes that the negotiated peace accord ending the civil war in El Salvador completely leaves out mention of women. She says the failure of revolutionary politics to improve the lives of women caused many women's groups to seek autonomy from their sponsoring political parties or guerrilla organizations. Despite aggressive reactions from the so-called “revolutionaries”, the women's autonomy movement in El Salvador achieved notable success. This was the result of Salvadoran women's groups organizing gatherings in solidarity, international support and influence, the examples set by earlier women's groups who successfully achieved autonomy, and the courage of truly revolutionary women.

These struggles have a lot of importance to me because I believe that no matter what oppression we fight, we cannot fight without autonomy. In addition, successful liberation means nothing if it is not based in autonomy for all. There are many mistakes we can learn from in the El Salvador revolution, but we must find inspiration and guidance in its successes if we don't want this bloody history to repeat itself