Who are the Indians of Oaxaca and what do they want?

The last time I was at the Census Bureau in Oaxaca I inquired, “How many Indians are in Oaxaca and Mexico?” The answer, as always, “We don’t count Indians, we ask people if they speak an indigenous language and report the total of ‘speakers of indigenous languages’ in our information.”
So who are the Indians of Oaxaca? To begin with the term Indian was created by Colombus when he misnamed the continent he found (it wasn’t lost) while he was searching for India. In North America the indigenous people call themselves Native Americans or First Nations, in South America they are aboriginals or natives or indigenous or tribals. In Oaxaca they are Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Trikis, Chontales, Huaves, Amuzgos or several other tribes. Or in their own languages they are Diidzaj, Ñuu Savi, Driki, and so on. The names we commonly use for them are often the derogatory Aztec terms for the indigenous people, such as calling the Pame “Chichimeca” (dogs), or naming several distinct groups “Chontal” (strange languages).
Going back to who is an Indian, we have to ask ourselves what is the criterion for being an Indian, and why does it matter. In the US, to be a Native American means having political rights and economic benefits. The history of North America was a massive influx northern Europeans who displaced the native people but made treaties with the political heads of the tribes. This resulted in reservations and treaties, which the present day native people are using to their advantage. An Indian in the US is someone who can trace their lineage back to one ancestor among dozens of non-Indians, although they do not speak an Indian language or dress or live in the traditional way. As Indians recover economic benefits, there has been an increase in their population as people discover their roots and declare themselves as such.
In Mexico and parts of Latin America conquered by Spain, the invasion was primarily by soldiers, “conquistadores”, religious orders and not by a large civilian population. A very small force defeated the ruling civilization, be it the Aztec in Mexico or the Inca further south. They replaced the rulers and destroyed much of the royal hierarchy, but the vast bulk of the citizenry conserved their culture and languages, as proven by the millions of Latin Americans who still speak over 900 languages. Since most of the invading and ruling force was male, they procreated forcibly or consensually with the indigenous women, creating the mestizos or mixed population. These offspring of two cultures were generally not welcomed by their indigenous relatives, or recognized by their Spanish fathers. Over the years the percentage of mestizos grew, and as allies of the ruling Spaniards born in the new world, eventually they overthrew the yoke of Spain in Latin America.
In Mexico alone there are 10 to 14 million language speakers, of which one million do not speak Spanish. Again, who decides if someone speaks a language and is indigenous? The Census takers ask people if they speak a language other than Spanish. In a country where 90% of the people are racially indigenous, but are ruled by light skinned descendents of the Spanish invaders, where all the people visible on TV are fair skinned, where “Indio” is synonymous with dummy, where thousands of indigenous people are forced to work stoop labor in agricultural fields for a pittance, where they are ridiculed for not speaking good Spanish, and to get ahead you have to abandon your traditional ways – with all those pressures it is a wonder that anyone says, “Yes, I speak Chatino or Mazateco.”
The discrimination against the indigenous people by Spanish speaking fair skinned people is more cultural than racial. It is common to see older people in traditional garb speaking their language, while their middle aged children wear western garb and speak both languages. Their children in turn are fluent in Spanish, are educated as professionals, and have abandoned their indigenous roots. And of course there are dozens of people from every village in Mexico all over the US, adding English and pop culture to their collection of languages and likes. So we can say that being an Indian in Oaxaca means that of all the options available to a group of people – migrating to the big city to be a mestizo, going farther north to be a brown “gringo”, or staying home to till the land and sell craft to tourists – they have chosen to remain indigenous in their own land. Land is held collectively by the tribes or by individuals, and in many areas the indigenous people are able to earn a good living through agriculture, forestry, trade, tourism or selling their handcrafts.

Now that we know who they are, what do the indigenous people of Oaxaca want? I am not an Indian, I am a blond, blue-eyed American of Swiss-German-English descent, as you can see from my picture at www.gerryoaxaca.blogspot.com. However, I have lived among Zapotec Indians in Oaxaca for the last 55 years, have two Zapotec daughters, and a half Zapotec brother and sister. For 30 years I have been a practicing physician among Zapotecs and other ethnic groups in Oaxaca, and have visited almost all of the ethnic groups of Mexico. As an observer of indigenous people in Mexico and Latin America, I think am qualified to speak about what they want.
First of all, the indigenous people are a subset of a group called humans, and share all the human desires and needs – food, shelter, to be part of a family, respect, remunerative work, to know and fulfill their role in their community, and be at peace with God.
In my first article about Oaxaca, I mentioned the primary actors on the scene, the Indians, the Spanish speakers, and the recent arrivals. Before the arrival of the third party, the poor, illiterate Indians and the ruling mestizo class had arrived at an uneasy peace. But the presence of foreigners has changed that balance of power. The tourists, missionaries, hippies, anthropologists, drug dealers, snowbirds, surfers, retirees and radicals who arrived in the last 80 years began to know, appreciate and love the indigenous people. As their customs, languages, ruins, crafts and society began to be valued by others, the indigenous people began to realize their true worth. The old alliances of religious/civic power that kept the indigenous people ignorant and impoverished were broken, and they began to educate themselves and their children for a different world.
The various tribal groups of Oaxaca have different histories: Zapotecs have better land and are prosperous traders; Mixtecos have poorer land, less valuable crafts and migrate to improve their lives; the Trikis are fighting among themselves over land and power; the Mazatecos, Chinantecos, Amuzgos and other groups have different needs and desires. But all want to have more autonomy in their communities, better prices for their products, bilingual education for their children, respect for their cultures, and hope for a brighter future.

Oaxaca – What happened to our “peace”?

On the hillside overlooking the beautiful city of Oaxaca there is a statute of Benito Juarez, Oaxaca’s most famous native son. Juarez’s famous saying, “Respect for the rights of others is peace” is spelled out in white rocks, visible for miles. A year ago the narrow, winding road into town was closed so that it could be widened. Now there is an ugly brown landslide which has eaten away the green mountain and the “peace” is missing from both the saying and the city.

As the whole world knows, Oaxaca has been in turmoil for months. The conflagration that has been smoldering for years finally burst into flame, fanned by hidden people with hidden interests. What has destroyed the peace of Oaxaca?

To understand what is going on you have to discover who Oaxaca is. One of the most fascinating things about the city and state is the coexistence of three completely different societies in the same physical location. In all of the Americas, Oaxaca is the most ethnically diverse area. The ancient populace is Native American, more than a million people speaking 150 varieties of 15 languages. The other two million people in the state are Spanish speakers, originally produced by the rape of Indian women by the “conquistadores” but now making up the majority of the population, called mestizos. The third component of Oaxaca is the foreigners from the entire world who come to enjoy the climate and scenery, the archaeological ruins, the Indian crafts and markets, and the peace of Oaxaca. The Indians till the soil, craft beautiful and practical articles to sell, the foreigners observe and buy, and the Spaniards make a profit on it all. Although there is constant interaction between these groups, each remains complete distinct, for historical reasons.

The Zapotec and Mixtec Indians have inhabited the valley of Oaxaca for thousands of years, sharing and fighting over the lush farmlands watered by the Atoyac River. Cortez, who led the Spanish invasion 500 years ago, demanded the valley as his reward for conquering Mexico. There is a hotel on the town square called “the Marques del Valle” in his honor. The Spanish subjugated the Indian population not just militarily, but spiritually with the forced evangelization by the Dominicans, culturally by burning their codices and enslaving their nobility, and physically by transmitting European diseases which killed close to 90% of the population. After years of conflict Mexico and Oaxaca obtained freedom from Spain and other foreign interests during the time of Benito Juarez, the only Indian president of any Latin American country until recently. Since then a fragile peace has reigned in Oaxaca, with the Indians carrying out their millennial existence of farming, crafts, interlocking markets, and ancient religious practices overlaid with a veneer of Catholicism. They have survived by isolating themselves in the steep mountains and conserving their customs. It is staggering to think that several hundred thousand Oaxacan Indians are still monolingual; 500 years after the Spanish conquest they still have not learned the conquerors’ language.

The arrival of non Spanish foreigners in the last 70 years has changed Oaxaca dramatically. There have been tourists who braved the mountain roads, missionaries who lived among the Indians to translate the scriptures into their languages, engineers mining for gold, hippies looking for cheap high, anthropologists and archeologists who study the past and present Indian cultures, drug lords seeking isolated mountainsides for their crops; entrepreneurs making fortunes, snowbirds seeking sun, surfers riding the best waves at the coast, retirees quietly spending their last years, and radicals from failed revolutions who have found haven in Oaxaca. We all love Oaxaca, but like parties in a marriage, some want her never to change, and some have come to transform her into their vision of paradise.

For the last 4 months a group of teachers - who receive a paycheck from the federal government – and other malcontents have held the city hostage. They have burned busses, closed businesses, caused massive unemployment among Indian craftsmen and sellers, blackened Oaxaca’s good name internationally, scared away the tourists who sustained the economy, frightened the cops off the streets, interrupted all the public works improvements, blanketed the city with graffiti, blockaded the streets, beat up the trash collectors, “liberated” the Radio and television stations, invaded peoples homes, confiscated vehicles, turned the town square into a public bathroom and trash heap, all in their effort to “create a better society.

Amazingly enough, the city has functioned in spite of the efforts to disrupt civilization. The survival of the city is a tribute to the wonderful people of Oaxaca who stop at the intersections, drive carefully down whatever streets are open, buy and sell when they can, patrol their neighborhoods, attend the sick, discuss the situation with their neighbors of different persuasion, and pray for the peace of their city.

Most of the original protesters have gone home, several thousand are marching toward Mexico City, and no more than 4 or 5 thousand are barricaded in a couple areas in the city. There is not popular support for a revolution, 420 of the 570 municipal leaders in the state have asked the national congress to intervene on behalf of the besieged governor. The poor people and Indians are not in revolt, what they want is to be left alone so that they can earn a living, sleep in peace, and have a chance to educate their children for a better life. Those wanting to change Oaxaca have forgotten the wisdom of Benito Juarez, trampled the rights of her citizens, and crushed peace underfoot. There will be no true peace in Oaxaca until the Prince of Peace reigns in individual hearts and lives. May that be soon.