Indigenous communities in Mexico are subject to live under austere conditions but they are not the only ethnic group that is marginalized. Afro-Mexicans are an ethnic group in Mexico who not until recently were ignored even from the census. In 2015, the Inegi (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía) revealed that over 1 million of Afro-Mexicans live in Mexico. After the Spanish conquest, African slaves were trafficked to New Spain and were forced to work the land, serve as assistants to the conquistadores, or work inside the domestic sphere. Even though slaves came from distinct spaces, they were all classified as one group, as is the case with indigenous communities. In the colonial system of castas, a hierarchical structure based on ethnic inequality was established. The peninsula residents (Spanish) were at the top of the hierarchy, following the criollos, mestizos, indigenas, mulatos, and negros. There were over sixteen ethnic combinations. After war of independence and the abolishment of slavery, blacks were still subject to vulnerable and exploitable conditions.
After the revolutionary war of Mexico, the State was in charge of unifying the nation and deeply focused on Nationalism. The Nationalist project promoted the idea that Mexico consists of one culture, race, and ethnicity- the Mestizo. Indigenous communities and Afro-Mexicans were left out of this racial project insinuating that these two groups were not part of the Nation. Even though Afro-Mexicans make up a great percentage of the population, little is known about their living conditions and not until recently were they considered an ethnicity. Since the colonial era, they have been considered invisible to the rest of the population and they suffer discrimination.
In contrast with indigenous communities, who despite facing discrimination and being left out of political agendas they are still considered members of the population, the existence of Afro-Mexicans is always in denial. There have been cases were Afro-Mexicans are deported to Honduras or Haiti because Mexican officials insist that there are no blacks in Mexico. Despite receiving recognition in the census, they are not classified as a minority group by the Mexican government because they are told they do not meet the criteria. The history of Afro-Mexicans is been ignored and erased from the political agenda.
Afro-Mexicans have organized political groups, especially in the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero where most Afro-Mexicans reside, but they have not created social movements such as the indigenous communities in Chiapas- the Zapatistas. In an interview with BBC, Humberto Hebert Silva Silva states that Afro-Mexicans may have to rise up in arms like the Zapatistas did in 1994 in order to demand human rights:
"With the Zapatistas, the indigenous rose up, and it was an armed uprising, to claim their rights. And well, our community is thinking the same. It's thinking, in the distant future, to rise up too, …It may be the only way to get the rights we're entitled to. It can't be right that the constitution of our country doesn't recognize us. There's a big gap between what the politicians say and what they do. We'll have to take action to give them a warning."
In the Primera Declaración de la Selva Lacandona (first declaration of the Selva Lacandona), the Zapatistas state that they are a product of 500 years of struggles: against slavery, independence war from Spain, North American expansion, French imperialism, dictatorship under Porfirio Diaz, and the Revolutionary war. During the Spanish Conquest (1519-1521) and the colonial era that followed for 300 years, indigenous communities were killed or forced into assimilation. “Indios” or Native Americans, as categorized in the system of Castas, belonged to a marginalized group of society and suffered from repression and abuse. More than 500 years after the Spanish Conquest, indigenous communities still live under similar conditions – they have no land, no access to health care, no access to education, no proper alimentation, no salary, and no home. Their vulnerable condition is a product of colonialism and through the Zapatista movement, they are taking back what is theirs and inviting others to “fight against the political war, the recognition of indigenous rights, the transition to democracy, an economic model that serves the people, for a tolerant and inclusive society, for the respect to difference, for a new country where peace, justice, and dignity is for all.”
Property
President Carlos Salinas de Gortari modified Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution to where the State no longer had to provide peasants access to land, as previously established by the agraraian reform. This greatly impacted indigenous communities who were made up of mostly poor peasants that produced corn, coffee, or livestock, and depended on this land for survival. The Zapatistas defied this reform by occupying lands such as Ocosingo, Altamirano, and Las Margaritas on January 1st 1994. After the cease of fire from the Mexican government and many failed attempts of dialogue, the Zapatistas declared an autonomous state and recovered the lands that had belonged to their ancestors. These lands gave rise to autonomous towns and zones known as Caracoles. Currently, there are 5 caracoles: La Realidad, Morelia, La Garrucha, Roberto Barrios, and Oventic. Each Caracol consists of their own autonomous towns, Juntas de Buen Gobierno, division of labor, and distribution of land. As autonomous towns, the Caracoles have their own methods of economic resistance. They cultivate the land by growing corn, beans, coffee, and by also taking care of livestock. Zapatista women also lead artisan collectives. Each group decides how they want to distribute the money, a percentage can go to their income but the rest must go towards the Caracol – it can be spent in education, health care, transportation, or other public necessities.
Image: “You are entering Zapatista territory, the people are in charge and the government obeys...” https://www.pinterest.com/pin/402579654175081640/
Transnational Context of the Zapatista Coffee:
Even though Zapatista coffee is produced in more than one Zapatista autonomous community and it is distributed to many nations, I will be focusing on the circulation of coffee beans from Oventic, Chiapas to San Diego, CA. The Zapatista movement came to arms in the inauguration of NAFTA as a way of rejecting the economic treaty between the US, MX, and Canada. It will be interesting to study how the Zapatistas trade their coffee with US corporations and how these corporations use their profit as oppose to big coffee corporations such as Starbucks that also sell coffee from Chiapas.
Women in the Zapatista movement developed their own reform known as the first women’s revolutionary law in which they demand the right to participate in the revolutionary movement, the right to work and receive a just salary, the right to education, a life without sexual and domestic violence, and reproductive and sexual rights. Within each Caracol, women occupy a range of spaces from political organizations to the domestic sphere. Women have their own collectives, such as Por la dignidad and Mujeres de la Resistencia (see video) where they sell their own hand made crafts at a price they consider fair. Women decide how much of the profit they keep as their own income and how much they give back to Zapatista communities. Their work is extremely valuable to the sustainability and growth of the Caracoles. Moreover, Zapatista women also influence the circulation of coffee in a direct form. Not only do women work the land but they have also formed their own collectives where they roast and sell coffee. One such collective is located in San Cristobal de las Casas called Slekil Muil.
Coffee can be studied through an intersectional analysis because it is a product of a racial, class, and gender movement. All these three aspects are mutually constitutive in the Zapatista movement. The Zapatista movement is not only a struggle against racism towards indigenous communities, nor just a struggle against the violence towards indigenous women, but rather it is a movement that fights against both in a simultaneous way.
Video 1: Mujeres por la Dignidad: artisan women collective
Video 2: Women in the Zapatista movement
Resources:
"Ley Revolucionaria De Mujeres". Palabra.ezln.org.mx. N.p., 1993. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.
Participación De Las Mujeres En El Gobierno Autonómo: Cuaderno De Texto De Primer Grado Del Curso De "La Libertad Según L@As Zapatistas". Chiapas: N.p., 2013. Print.
OBJECT: Zapatista Coffee
THEMES: Indigenous Internationalism. Globalization and Labor Circulations.
In January of 1994, two events occurred that marked the history of Mexico: the launch of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico, and Canada; and the uprising of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN). By doing this, the EZLN makes clear its opposition with the neoliberal shift and reveals the exploitation, poverty, and discrimination under which indigenous communities live. In contrast with other uprisings, after the war came to a halt, the Zapatistas formed autonomous indigenous communities that follow a horizontal political organization and include women’s rights in their demands. As autonomous communities, the Zapatistas have established various collectives in order to sustain their way of life, such as coffee plantations.
Coffee exportations in Mexico generate about 700 million dollars in national earnings; however, coffee growers earn unlivable wages. Most of the coffee plantations are located in poor indigenous communities. After the privatization of the communal lands (ejidos), indigenous communities were displaced from their lands and were forced to work what was once their land but for the benefit of big corporations. In contrast with coffee plantations that belong to the nation-state of Mexico, Zapatista coffee cooperatives provide a dignified income to the coffee growers while the rest of the capital is invested in the autonomous programs of education, health, and various social structures within each Caracol.
Zapatista coffee has circulated within the nation of Mexico and across nations. It has been distributed in Hamburg, New York, Denver, Rome, Vienna, Zagreg, Paris, Athens, Bergen, Barcelona, and among many other cities. For non-Zapatista nations, Zapatista coffee may represent a form to support these communities or in the case of the nation of Mexico, it may represent a threat to its political repressive state. For the Zapatistas, coffee is another method of economic resistance.
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