The Zacapoaxtla Battalion and the Battle of 5 de Mayo, 1862
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Mexico Profundo
Reclaimng a Civilization
Author: Guillermo Bonfil Batalla
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exbonmex.html

Indigenous Peoples Studies

Introduction

This book has two purposes. On the one hand, it attempts to present a panoramic vision of the constant and multiform presence of that which is Indian in Mexico. "The Indian" refers to the persistence of Mesoamerican civilization today among specific indigenous peoples. It is also expressed in diverse ways in larger sectors of the national society that form, together with the Indian communities, what I have called the México profundo. Based on the recognition of this México profundo, the second purpose of the book is to present arguments for broader analysis, which all Mexicans should take into account. What does the coexistence of two civilizations, Mesoamerican and Western, mean in our history, our present, and, above all, our future?

It might seem that reflecting on the problem of civilization is inopportune at a time when the country is going through difficult circumstances and faces economic, political, and social problems that demand immediate solutions. What sense does it make to think about civilization? I think that it makes a profound kind of sense. I suggest that the immediate problems that besiege us with their simultaneous and growing presence will be only partially and incompletely understood, and only partially and incompletely solved in the best of cases, if they are not placed in the context of the unresolved dilemma of the presence of two civilizations. Two civilizations mean two civilizational programs, two ideal models for the society sought after, two different possible futures. Whatever decision is made about reorienting the country, whatever path is chosen to escape from the current crisis, implies a choice for one of those civilizational projects and against the other.

The recent history of Mexico, that of the last five hundred years, is the story of permanent confrontation between those attempting to direct the country toward the path of Western civilization and those, rooted in Mesoamerican ways of life, who resist. The first plan arrived with the European invaders but was not abandoned with independence. The new groups in power, first the creoles and later the mestizos, never renounced the westernization plan. They still have not renounced it. Their differences and the struggles that divide them express only disagreement over the best way of carrying out the same program. The adoption of that model has meant the creation within Mexican society of a minority country organized according to the norms, aspirations, and goals of Western civilization. They are not shared, or are shared from a different perspective, by the rest of the national population. To the sector that represents and gives impetus to our country's dominant civilizational program, I have given the name "the imaginary Mexico."

The relations between the México profundo and the imaginary Mexico have been conflictive during the five centuries of their confrontation. Imaginary Mexico's westernization plan has been exclusionary and has denied the validity of Mesoamerican civilization. No room has been allowed for a convergence of civilizations through a slow fusion that gives rise to a new civilizational plan, different from the two original ones but arising from them. On the contrary, the groups embodying the two civilizations have permanently confronted each other, sometimes violently. They constantly confront each other in the activities of daily life, which put into practice the deeper principles of their respective cultural matrices.

This confrontation does not happen between cultural elements but between the social groups that bear them, use them, and develop them. It is those social groups that participate in two different civilizations that over the period of half a millennium have maintained a constant opposition. The colonial origin of Mexican society has meant that the dominant groups and classes are also those who foment the project of westernization, the creators of the imaginary Mexico. At the base of the social pyramid are the peoples resisting, those who embody Mesoamerican civilization, who sustain the México profundo. Power and Western civilization coincide, on one pole, and subjugation and Mesoamerican civilization coincide on the other.

This is not a fortuitous coincidence, but, rather, the necessary result of a colonial history that until now has not been superseded inside Mexican society. A basic characteristic of every colonial society is that the invading group, with a different culture from the dominated, ideologically affirms its immanent superiority in all areas of life and denies and excludes the culture of those colonized. The decolonization of Mexico was incomplete.

Independence from Spain was achieved, but the internal colonial structure was not eliminated. The groups that have held power since 1821 have never abandoned the civilizational project of the West and have never overcome the distorted view of the country that is the essence of the colonizers' viewpoint. Thus, the diverse national visions used to organize Mexican society during different periods since independence have all been created within a Western framework. In none of them has the reality of the México profundo had a place. Instead, it has been viewed only as a symbol of backwardness and an obstacle to be overcome.

The México profundo, meanwhile, keeps resisting, appealing to diverse strategies, depending on the scheme of domination to which it is subjected. It is not a passive, static world, but, rather, one that lives in permanent tension. The peoples of the México profundo continually create and re-create their culture, adjust it to changing pressures, and reinforce their own, private sphere of control. They take foreign cultural elements and put them at their service; they cyclically perform the collective acts that are a way of expressing and renewing their own identity. They remain silent or they rebel, according to strategies refined by centuries of resistance.

NAHUACALLI

Embassy of the Indigenous Peoples

www.tonatierra.org

The Zacapoaxtla Battalion and the Battle of 5 de Mayo, 1862

UNPFII: Global Climate Change Strategy - Evo Morales, Bolivia
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Newman, National Day Labor Organizing Network, 323 717 5310
Rebecca Smith, National Employment Law Project, 360 534 9160, cell 360 970 4979        

Day Laborers seek to bring issues of racism to the world stage

U.N. TO PROBE U.S. RECORD ON RACE AND COMPLIANCE WITH TREATY ON DISCRIMINATION

US Treatment of Migrant Workers Among Issues to be Reviewed

Phoenix, Arizona, February 15, 2008 -- Groups representing migrant workers of color are going to the United Nations to highlight routine human rights abuses in the United States.  Salvador   Reza, an organizer with the Macehualli Day Labor Center in Phoenix, will brief the United Nation's Committee on the Elimination of Race Discrimination in meetings on the daily human rights abuses suffered by day laborers in United States, during a session to be held the week of February 18, 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, also known as CERD, is an international treaty designed to protect individuals from discrimination based on race. The Convention requires parties to “take effective measures to review governmental, national and local policies … which have the effect of creating or perpetuating racial discrimination.” As a party to the treaty, the United States reported on its compliance with the CERD in 2007. Its report provoked a torrent of criticism from groups working on the ground, who accuse the Bush Administration of whitewashing the problems of race in America.  A “shadow report,” which serves as a rebuttal to the official U.S. report, was submitted by activists and lawyers working in several industries, including day laborers. The CERD committee, a body made up of eighteen independent experts from around the globe, will review that report on February 21 and 22 in Geneva.

Communities directly affected by these policies, including the growing day labor community in the United States, will be there.  They have already submitted a “shadow report” to the UN which argues that the United States' history of slavery and racialized immigration and labor policies persist today in sectors of the economy where immigrants and people of color labor at the lowest-paid, highest-risk jobs.

These include day laborers, who suffer routine theft of wages by unscrupulous employers, and have been the focus of anti-immigrant vigilanteeism which extends from the street corner to state capitols.  

Day labor in the United States has become a flashpoint for the most racist wing of the anti-immigrant movement in the U.S., through ordinances and state legislative proposals that outlaw the practice of seeking work on street corners, racial profiling tactics by police, vicious attacks by hate groups at the corners where day laborers seek work, and chronic non-payment of wages.

Salvador Reza, Coordinator of Macehualli Day Labor Center in Phoenix Arizona has faced many of these abuses head-on, as Arizona has become “ground zero” for day labor abuse.  "Each human rights violation that goes unanswered makes us all complicit and paves the way for future abuses.  No one understands this more than migrant day laborers living and working in the United States today.   There is tremendous demand for their service, but people tend to look the other way when they hear of the wage theft, unlawful arrests, harassment and dehumanization by vigilante militias."

“We call upon the United States to eliminate the policies that foster widespread conditions that can only be described as violations of human rights.  We must guarantee decent work at free and fair conditions to all those at work in our country.  These are American values.  These are human rights values,” said Rebecca Smith, coordinator of the Justice for Immigrant and Low-Wage Worker project of the National Employment Law Project.


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The report refers to a number of research studies that document abuses in these sectors:

Abel Valenzuela Nik Theodore, Edwin Meléndez, and Ana Luz Gonzalez ,On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States (January 2006), available at http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/issr/csup/pubs/papers/item.php?id=31
The United States CERD report may be found here:
http://www.ushrnetwork.org/files/ushrn/images/linkfiles/CERD%20Report%204-07.pdf

The full “shadow report” may be found here:
http://www.ushrnetwork.org/files/ushrn/images/2008_shadow_report/Shadow_Report_2008_web.pdf

The chapter on labor and migration may be found here: http://www.nelp.org/document.cfm?documentID=859

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TONATIERRA: Jornaleros Macehualli denounce US Racism at UN in Geneva

San Francisco Bay View, Commentary,
by Mumia Abu-Jamal,
Posted: Jan 11, 2008

Editor's Note: The first black president in North America led Mexico some 173 years ago. Vicente Guerrero -- a decorated revolutionary hero -- helped write the Mexican constitution.

For much of the U.S. populace, the very idea of a black president is one so new, so novel, that it forces many people to think of it as if it is barely possible - as if it is the stuff of fiction, not fact. Fiction has indeed been the realm of this idea, as in movies and television series, actors have played the part; but that, of course, is on TV.

Of course, time will tell if that is more than imagination, but for millions of people who share this vast land space we call North America, the idea is neither new nor ground-breaking. That's because there are some 100 million people living in Mexico, and that country had a black president, albeit briefly, some 173 years ago.

It was during their war for independence from Spain when a warrior emerged, a black Indian named Vicente Guerrero. In his first battle, he was commissioned a captain. As the independence war raged on, many of the leading revolutionaries were either killed or captured. Guerrero fought on, leading some 2,000 men into the Sierra Madre mountains to continue the fight.

By 1821, the Mexicans were prevailing over the Spanish, and Guerrero was hailed as an incorruptible independence fighter. In 1829 he became president of Mexico, and as scholar William Loren Katz writes in his 1986 book, "Black Indians":

"He began a program of far-reaching reforms, abolishing the death penalty and starting construction of schools and libraries for the poor. He ended slavery in Mexico. Yet, because of his skin color, lack of education and country manner, he was held in contempt by the upper classes in Mexico City."

This president, who had, according to U.S. historian M.H. Bancroft, "a gentleness and magnetism that inspired love among his adherents," was still "a triple-blooded outsider."

Black historian J.A. Rogers summarized Guerrero's striking accomplishments by calling him "the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Mexico" (page 48).

Guerrero, who in his youth was an illiterate mule driver, once bitten by the bug of Mexican independence, rose to the highest office in the land.

He learned to read when he was about 40 and helped craft the Mexican Constitution, of which he wrote the following provision: "All inhabitants whether white, African or Indian, are qualified to hold office." He wrote this in 1824, over 30 years before the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision, which announced, emphatically, that "ablack man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect," and that Black people weren't, and could never be, citizens of the United States.

In that era of revolution and social transformation, a black man became president of the second largest country in North America. Today, 178 years later, we still wonder if such a thing is possible.

What does that say about the United States?

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Dr. Carlos Muñoz, Jr.
Professor Emeritus
Department of Ethnic Studies
510-642-9134
http://ethnicstudies.berkeley.edu/faculty/munoz/
"Life is struggle and struggle is life, but be mindful that Victory is in the Struggle"
- Carlos Muñoz, Jr.

Indigenous Alliance of the Americas on 500 Years of Resistance
Declaration of Quito, Ecuador
July 1990

.DOC or .pdf

Congressman_José_Serrano.doc

Congressman José Serrano's Speech on U.S. policy Towards Latin America
November 12th 2007, by José Serrano
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2826

(Extract: full text in attachment)

They, themselves, claim to be revolutionaries, and that, again, we hear that word, that upsets us. We forget that this great system we have here was created through a revolution against the British. But we were the last ones to use that word in a way that we liked it. Now anybody who calls himself a revolutionary we get upset about. But these people are revolutionaries. They’re trying something new in Latin America. Embarrassing as it may seem, it is new to many countries in Latin America, this whole notion that the person at the bottom, the person who’s been suffering for years, the indigenous people, the darker skinned people, that they would now have an opportunity to have something better.

Now, and this is important what I just mentioned about the fact that in Latin America, the darker skinned folks are beginning to feel that they have a stake in their system.

When Secretary of State Colin Powell, one of the greatest Americans, left the administration at the last, the end of the last term, he came before our Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and I was the ranking member at that time. And he said to us something very important when he was talking about Latin America. He said, the big change in Latin America, and what we Americans need to understand, now he didn’t say it was good. He didn’t say it was bad. He didn’t say it was a problem for us. He just said it was something that was happening in Latin America, that we as Americans have to pay attention to. He said, those folks are beginning to elect people who look like themselves. Now, that’s a heck of a statement by a very intelligent man who has a good understanding of the world.

I don’t know if that upsets some of us, but I think it does upset some folks in this country and throughout the hemisphere, that countries that are composed primarily mostly of indigenous people and people of color have now decided to elect people who look like themself, people who come from them. And when they decide to make changes that are very dramatic and, yes, very revolutionary, we get upset because it doesn’t serve the corporate interests of a lot of American corporations.

http://www.tonatierra.org/

Serrano: US Policy and the Revolution of the Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala

BARRIOZONA
http://www.barriozona.com/rally_pruitts_furniture.html

Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo, other than personal use, must be obtained from BARRIOZONA, Call 480-983-1445 or e-mail admin@barriozona.com with your request

Joe Arpaio and Demonstrators Stir Up Immigration Debate at a Rally in East Phoenix United Nations observers witness the Sheriff's impressive deployment of force to monitor a small protest.

By Eduardo Barraza
BARRIOZONA
October 30, 2007

The quest of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to crackdown on illegal immigration and day laborers reached an impressive high, when he personally —along a little battalion composed of his posse, uniformed deputies and men in plainclothes— showed up at the parking lot of Pruitt’s furniture store. Arpaio and his detachment were there to guard the store’s parking lot from a group of demonstrators who gathered there to protest against Pruitt’s owner as well as the Sheriff office’s actions toward men who hang around the “superstore” seeking day labor.

Called by workers’ rights advocates, Saturday’s rally was in response to several arrests of day laborers made by Arpaio’s department in previous weeks, as well as to voice disapproval for the employment of off duty sheriff deputies providing a sort of private police-surveillance of Pruitt’s premises against men who they see wandering around seeking work, and presumably undocumented.

Arpaio’s security apparatus in front of the store’s building was laughable compared to the number of demonstrators who showed up for the rally. The Sheriff justified the proportion of his deployment by assuring that he was led to believe that about three thousand people were showing up. Seeing the posse, the number of deputies on foot, and the fleet of marked and unmarked county vehicles, and Arpaio himself orchestrating the pointless show of force, a demonstrator using a bullhorn yelled at him, “Did you also bring the tear gas and the water hoses?”

The demonstration was also special for the presence of two observers to the United Nations who witnessed, literally from the horse's mouth, the tense and volatile situation in Arizona. J. Wilton Littlechild and Tonya Gonnella-Frichner were present at the rally, but they were virtually ignored by “America's toughest Sheriff.” Arpaio requested to talk to Salvador Reza —the forefront advocate and organizer of day laborers in the County— as well as approached demonstrators to exchange arguments face to face, but did not show any desire to talk to the observers. When Captain Paul Chagoya, Arpaio’s speaker, learned Littlechild was there, he shook hands with him, checked his I.D., and pulled him into the parking lot —by then a restricted zone— to briefly talk to him. Nevertheless, Littlechild returned shortly after to the small crowd, without given a chance to speak to the Sheriff.

Meanwhile, protesters were not just expressing their disapproval of Joe Arpaio’s crackdown on day laborers an exaggerated tactical operation for the protest. Among the strident sound of vehicles’ horns, they became personal and were yelling insults against the Sheriff, who at times waved his hand friendly, smiled, joked, and even took time to sign autographs. “Clown, clown, clown!”; “Arpaio, you belong to the KKK!”; and, “Hitler, Hitler, Hitler!” The Sheriff cracked up when he was surprised by a dog inside a private vehicle that barked at him, catching him off guard momentarily, and then said something pointing to the dog, and smiling at the crowd. Arpaio and demonstrators shared the spontaneous moment of laughter, until a man from the crowd expressed his opinion about the dog’s barking, “See Arpaio, not even the dogs like you!”

A more serious tone saved the protest from becoming a complete circus spectacle at taxpayer’s expense. Interviewed by BARRIOZONA (watch video), the observers to the United Nations expressed perhaps the most articulated and logical statement of the day. J. Wilton Littlechild —a Cree Canadian lawyer and member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues— declared, “We are here as part of our obligation as U.N. members to monitor situations like this, so there can be peaceful resolutions to matters like these. First of all to recognize that there is a right to work for people; and on the other hand, there’s also a balance that you have to question: What might become illegal police activity? So when that matter comes to me as a serious concern, I have to be here to make sure that there is, not only a peacefulconduct, but also a peaceful resolution.”

Tonya Gonnella Frichner —from the Onondaga Nation, and recently named as the North American Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues— sent a message to Arizona senator John McCain. “We need some serious negotiations and a critical solution solving. So I would encourage Senator McCain to take on that leadership. Arizona could be the leader on this.”

Salvador Reza —a member of Tonatierra and coordinator of the Macehualli Labor Day Center in North Phoenix— stated that “Joe Arpaio’s method of fighting immigration is by listening to racist individuals, friends of Chris Simcock, so they come and deploy sheriff deputies (at the furniture store); sheriff deputies on the County’s payroll. In other words; they aren't sheriff deputies doing the work for the community; they are deputies being paid (by a private citizen). That is inadmissible.” Tupac Enrique Acosta —also from Tonatierra— who invited to Arizona the two observers to the United Nations, pointed out what he considers an irony in the midst of the immigration debate in Arizona. “Pruitt is a Greek name;Arpaio, Italian; and we, the original peoples from Arizona, are the ones who are seen as foreigners. That is what’s wrong with this picture,” he said pointing toward the Sheriff and the Pruitt’s building.”

A demonstrator who identified himself only as “Alejandro”, stated that “enough is enough about Joe Arpaio’s hunger for power; he doesn’t get tired —and he won’t— of of being the main character in the Media; the reality is that Hollywood is not located here. The community needs a lot of help; there’s a lot of theft, and much violence; I think he needs to focus more on the community.”

Reza announced that they will continue the weekly protests every Saturday, and that they will forward with their actions until the situation changes.

Copyright © 2007 Hispanic Institute of Social Issues
Grassroots Journalism
www.barriozona.com

M I C C A I L H U I T L

Celebración Tradicional Azteca
del
Día de los Muertos
2y3 de noviembre 2007
NAHUAC A L L I
802 N. 7TH ST  Phoenix, AZ
Izkalotlan, Aztlan

Friday - viernes 2 de noviembre
6pm - 8pm Levantamiento del Altar NAHUACALLI
Preparation of NAHUACALLI Altar

9pm - 12 am TOZOZTLI
Velación Tradicional - Traditional Vigil Izkalotekah

Saturday - sábado 3 de noviembre
6am - 10am La Corrida de las Calaveras Barrio Run
11am - 3pm  Ceremonia de la Danza Azteca
Ceremony of la Danza Azteca

4pm Danza Tequani de Coatepec
Guerrero,México

Sponsored by:
Asamblea del Barrio Garfield
Nahuacalli Neighborhod Association
TONATIERRA

Friday - viernes 2 de noviembre
6pm - 8pm Levantamiento del Altar NAHUACALLI
Preparation of NAHUACALLI Altar

9pm - 12 am TOZOZTLI
Velación Tradicional• Traditional Vigil Izkalotekah

Saturday – sábado 3 de noviembre
6am - 10am La Corrida de las Calaveras Barrio Run
11am - 3pm Ceremonia de la Danza Azteca
Ceremony of la Danza Azteca

4pm Danza Tequani de Coatepec

Guerrero,México

La Corrida de las Calaveras

Ceremonia de la Danza Azteca

For more information: (602)254-5230

www. t o n a t i e r r a . o r g

Mandate of Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations to the States of the World
Chimoré, Cochabamba - Bolivia, 12th October, 2007
.DOC or .PDF

Declaration of World Encounter of Indigenous Peoples - Bolivia October 12, 2007
.DOC or .PDF