Arriving in Guatemala City a day late due to airline troubles,
we quickly met Santiago Boc Tay, Cesar Domingo, and Willy Barreno the founders
of DESGUA (Sustainable Development for Guatemala) and owners of Café R.E.D
(restaurante, escuela, despensa “Restaurant, school, and fair trade store.”
Also RED in Spanish means network, they described their organization acting as
a spider web spreading out to make connections and to strengthen other people
and places in Guatemala) two organizations joined at the hip and committed to
improving the lives of returned migrants and Mayan peoples of Guatemala. After
briefly meeting them, they drove us four hours to Quetzaltenango (Xela), the
second largest city in Guatemala, home to a quarter of a million people. Café
R.E.D, located just blocks from the central plaza, was our home for the first
five days of our trip, but set the tone for the rest of our time in Guatemala.
The best way to unpack the experience is to share DESGUA’s mission statement
because all of our days were spent meeting people and organizations that
embodied it.
DESGUA: Is a grassroots organization and network of community
groups in Guatemala and the United States working to create economic and
educational development with, and for, returned immigrants and Mayan
communities in Guatemala. DESGUA sees the promotion of cultural identity and
historical memory as integral to a sustainable development process.
Through lectures and ‘field trips’ we were exposed to positive
growth of local Guatemalan economics, educational opportunities, indigenous
culture, difficult history, and sustainability that has been around for
centuries.
From the very first day, the pursuit and the creation of the ‘Guatemalan
dream’ (‘To live with dignity and to live well’) was large piece of our
studies. For instance, our first morning in Xela was spent meeting with several
Guatemalans who immigrated to the United States seeking opportunity.
The individual immigrant stories in the United States were
different; for instance, Giovanni crossed the Californian border when he was a
child. He studied music in school, but suffered from a racist school
environment. While living in Denver in his 20s, he was deported. Claudia, who
immigrated to the United States when she was young, took on parenting
responsibilities for her little brother and sister when she was young because
her mom died from cancer. While working at a beauty salon, her boss under paid
her and attempted to get her deported. She found that the ‘American dream’ was
not attainable for her or other undocumented immigrants. There are many reasons
why people immigrate to the United States: poverty, debt, exploitation, a lack
of dignity, and many more.
Café R.E.D
DESGUA wants to find ways to change this, but right now,
neoliberal economics are making immigration one of the only options for
Guatemalans. Immigration can show, among many things, that people are desperate
and seeking options. A major economic force that contributes to immigration are
megaprojects (foreign-owned mass scale factory farms, oil drilling, and
mining). Professor Luis Recancoj at the University of San Carlos de Guatemala
met with our group and dissected the history and effects of the Guatemalan
oligarchy and foreign-owned industries that have destroyed indigenous land,
contaminated the environment, and have kept Guatemala’s rich resources in the
hands of the wealthy. The projects got their start from a variety of places. A
big culprit of Guatemalan resource exploitation and elimination of rural Mayan
and indigenous lands started with the Kissinger Report in 1960s (using military
and political powers to make foreign countries favorable for United States
corporations), followed by a list of free trade agreements from Canada and the
United States that tapped into Guatemala’s oil wells, gold, silver, and
bananas. The trade agreements, and consequently the redistribution of land led
to, and prolonged, the 36 year-long Guatemalan civil war (1960-1996) where
indigenous and Mayan farmers fought to keep their land from the CIA and School
of the Americas-supported Guatemalan military (http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/soa.htm).
The civil war’s history and its effects were illustrated in the
small village of Nuevo Amanecer, a community of expatriates near the border of
Mexico and Guatemala. We spent two days in the humid, and mosquito-saturated
village that was established in the late 90s. Many of the young adult leaders were
born in Mexico, but chose to return to start farms and to build a community of
multigenerational families. Within the community, Spanish is the primary
language, but there are some Mam speakers, an indigenous Mayan language. Like
many indigenous communities in Guatemala, farming means survival and autonomy.
Despite the end of the civil war, small farmers all across Guatemala are still
suffering today. While in the village, we watched with community members, a
short documentary about large factory farm agriculture.
We learned that foreign agricultural companies like Dole Fruits
exhaust the flat Guatemalan lands, pump gallons of chemicals and pesticides
into the land and subsequently into the rivers killing fish and vegetation and
flooding nearby small farms with murky chemical ridden waters; they introduce
invasive crops like African Palm, which demand excessive water (leaving little
for the small farmers), cut through indigenous lands with highways, and
redirect rivers to serve the corporation’s needs. The indigenous farmers cannot
compete when floodwaters destroy their crops. Many have no choice but to buy
pesticides and GMO seeds to compete, and in doing so, go into debt. For those
who work for the Dole banana plantations, they earn pitiful
wages and are constantly exposed to dangerous chemicals. Living in such a
predicament, there is no wonder why people immigrate to feed and to house their
families. For many Guatemalans, there are not many options.
Ceiba is also the national tree of Guatemala.
When we visited Nuevo Amanecer, the effects of remittances were
obvious. The village was built on a long dead-end street, were the houses, the
two schools, the church, and the community space lined the road. From the
cobblestone street, several houses were brightly lit. They had flat screen
television sets, computers, freshly painted walls, and new furniture, all of
which were visible from the open windows and doors allowing the cooler, still
humid, night air to flow through. This seemed to be a more fortunate village
than other Guatemalan communities; they produced honey (although right now
their honey production was down because their bees were struggling to produce
substantial amounts. For what reason, it was unclear. It could be related to
the global honeybee decline (See article following the post for more
information on the honeybee struggle in the United States). The village also
hosts dozens of plants and herbs used for medicines. Immigrants from Nuevo
Amanecer and other Guatemalan villages have established an immigrant community
in Morristown, New Jersey (See article following the blog post for more
information).
Honeybees in Nuevo Amanecer
Nuevo Amanecer gained their land with the support of a local
priest that helped them buy the village property and several outpost worksites;
in fact, we were lucky and got to visit a coffee worksite. The community is not
obviously in debt, which is a rare and fortunate circumstance among small
farming communities in Guatemala.
Developing and supporting small projects, like beekeeping, seems
to be a way to achieve financial security, to improve village resources, but
also to trade with other villages. For example, the village of Cajolá, located
near Xela, is home to a large Mayan indigenous population. Mayan Mam weavers,
is a group of local women that built several looms to practice traditional
Mayan cloth weaving that they sell at Café R.E.D, in Xela, and other nearby
towns. Sharing the four story concrete building with the Mayan Mam looms
was a ‘clandestine’ pre-school that taught not only Spanish but also Mam to the
children. The bilingual school seeks to maintain Mayan culture through teaching
their indigenous language. Unfortunately, after preschool, few if any schools
continue to teach the language. Aside from the weavers, Cajolá had eggs
collected from several large chicken coops, and a woodshopthat made furniture
for the village. These small projects strengthened the communities, provided
jobs, and especially in terms of the Mayan weaving, protected and passed on weaving
traditions.
Another village we visited was unlike the others. La Florida, a
small 50 family indigenous village deep in the green mountainous jungles of
northern Guatemala was almost completely autonomous, achieved through decades
of struggle. Prior to owning the land collectively, there was a plantation
owner whose old house, “La casa grande,” provided our overnight shelter. The
master was abusive, exploited the village, paid women only half of a man’s
salary for the same work, and raped the women. In the mid-80s, the community
unionized, wrote a constitution, and resisted the landowner. The civil war
occurring at the same time could have motivated la Florida’s resistance. After
some time the landowner abandoned the village, and the people of La Florida
successfully became autonomous in the early 2000s, from my understanding.
La Florida – Coffee making…
Spending only a night in La Florida, we were unable to see the
full extent of their lives, but what we did see was unbelievable. Within a
stones throw of each wood plank and tin-roofed house, there were almost 35
different edible plants. The villagers do not use pesticides or chemicals. They
still grow food like their ancestors did centuries before, and carry their
harvest on their backs. They go out into ‘food jungles,’ not monoculture
fields, to harvest their crops. Fruits, roots, and vegetables from their
surroundings make up almost 90 percent of their diet. For many crops, there are
multiple growing seasons because of the lush, nutrient rich soil and frequent
rains.
To get to the village, there is one rocky cliff-hugging road
that weaves its way up and through the tropical mountains. The closest town is
nearly two hours away, but most La Florida inhabitants do not own cars. Asking
them if they sold their wide variety of crops in the market, my lunch and
dinner host family were a bit confused. Almost all their crops were for their community,
not for quetzales (Guatemalan currency). In 2010, they began growing and
processing organic coffee beans (Right now in Guatemala it is easier and
cheaper for Guatemalans to buy instant coffee than organic Guatemalan coffee.
Capitalism is to blame). Each a week a truck comes to the village selling
sugar, wheat, and other staples. From my understanding, the same truck carries
the La Florida’s coffee beans back into the nearby city where it is shipped
elsewhere and sold at a fair price. The proceeds from the coffee went towards
improving village infrastructure, the school, and to buy staples.
La Florida had problems though. Many of the older community
members could neither read nor write, and only spoke Mayan. Over time the
literacy rate has improved, but those challenges make it difficult to educate
and to organize La Florida collectively. Moreover, when we visited, La Florida’s
coffee production was struggling due to a rust plague (See Notes following the
post). And finally, there were a few community members who immigrated to the
United States, but it seemed like an uncommon practice. La Florida highlighted,
DESGUA supported economics that lessen the need for immigration, and promote
sustainable farming practices that have existed for generations.
Aside from building better economic systems for Guatemalans,
efforts to maintain, and support cultural identity, and the sharing of
historical memory with younger generations was epitomized in the 22 family
village of Efraín Bamaca, located just outside Xela. Many community members
were ex-combatants who fought for the URNG (Currently a political party, but
initially started in 1982 as the party of the indigenous guerrillas resisting
the Guatemalan government while fighting for land rights and autonomy during
the long civil war). Although the fighting is over, the village leaders teach
the youth about the war and what it meant. To commemorate the war, the
community painted a mural as reminder. They also included images of their Mayan
heritage, the coming of the conquistadors, the Ten Years of Spring (1944-1954,
when the indigenous and small farmers benefited from pro-small farmer
democratic period with land reform, transparent politics, and free speech),
community heroes, and images of building community connections and working for
a better future. These images unified and celebrated their cultural identity.
Efraín Bamaca does not ignore or distort the past to serve. They keep all of
the bad parts because historical ignorance could lead to the community’s
destruction. If the youth are not connected to their past and are not given a
chance to participate in meetings and community development, the leaders fear
that the youth will leave when they come of age. The community painted a children’s
mural to connect the youth to the community’s history. As the leaders said, “The
youth are studying to build a new society.” Unfortunately right now, the
community depends on pesticides and GMO seeds, but have no other choice if they
want to feed their families and to support themselves in a monetary economy.
Seemingly the environment dictates a lot on how Guatemalans participate in the
capitalist economy. La Florida is deep in the jungles and is not reliant on
food production to pay bills, to feed themselves, and to retain control of
their land.
After entering all these unique spaces, it is difficult to
conceptualize how they interacted to create a bigger picture of Guatemala.
Generally speaking, one could treat each place as its own microcosm, acting and
reacting to its own set of conditions. As a student of history, to design
artificial ties between each place and to assign practical roles to each,
misrepresents and neglects too much. Historians cannot be objective. DESGUA and
Café R.E.D. exposed us to these places and people while showing us alternative
economies, and to: the Guatemalan dream (of living sustainably and outside of
the exploitive capitalist economy), to the dichotomy of the ‘good life’ versus ‘living
well’, and of looking at time from the Mayan cyclical concept of time as
opposed to a linear time progression (The Mayan civilization observed various
natural cycles tied to death and birth, the astrological, agriculture, and
nature); we were exposed to examples of viewing life in terms of “we” as
opposed to “I,” and of seeking a harmonious balance between nature and
technology.
Some awesome compost made from discarded coffee bean
shells and other great stuff.
One of the major topics of group discussion throughout Guatemala
was planning how we would share stories and experiences with friends and family
back home. How might we educate others and instigate change without
systematically signing up everyone to next year’s fall and spring Border
Studies Program sessions? We would need a couple of more vans? Clearly
something needs to happen to insure our time studying the roots and reasons for
immigration is not wasted.
Therefore, the way in which I am going to share my experiences
and the stories that I have heard is through discussing the circumstances and
the overarching systems that seem to encapsulate these stories. Considering my
approach, a few trends have consistently appeared. Most of all the Guatemalan
farmers, indigenous peoples, and returned immigrants we spoke to, wanted to own
the land they worked on, to live autonomously and sustainably, to have dignity,
to have rights, to be healthy, to have access to a better future, to maintain
culture and customs, and to feel secure. However, in every village and group of
Guatemalans we met with, desperation-driven immigration to the United States
existed.
For desperate Guatemalans, immigration seems to be the only way
to make their home in Guatemala a permanent and secure place via remittance
money. It seems counterintuitive to leave home in order to ‘get home.’ However,
for those who are driven into debt buying pesticides, GMO seeds, and farm
equipment to support their families in a capitalist economy, and for those who
are directly affected by foreign-owned megaprojects that chemically contaminate
the soil and water, and deplete their local natural resources, immigration is a
‘release valve.’
A common sight in many rural areas (Picture taken in Chiapas).
There are two things that I believe summarizes our experience in
Guatemala, first the ‘Guatemalan dream,’ and second, the concept of cyclical
time versus linear time. The ‘Guatemalan dream’ has a cousin named the ‘American
dream’ where the objective is to work hard towards an idealized image of
success. Success in the ‘American dream’ seems to be a high-paying,
white-collar job, a McMansion in the suburbs, several cars, and yearly visits
to Disneyland. Moreover, the ‘American dream’ belief is that anyone can
attain this regardless of race or socioeconomic status, akin to Horatio Alger,
Jr.’s (1832-1899) literary classics of “rags to riches.”
The ‘American dream,’ in this form, relies on a consumer culture
to survive. To maintain cheap goods, corporations take over countries’
resources, like Guatemala, to keep banana prices Walmart-low, to extract
gasoline to power our cars, and to mine minerals to manufacture toaster ovens
and wall-tile. Taking control, keeps the ‘good life’ dream alive for United
States citizens who care to believe it.
Different farming techniques and coffee plant preparation.
The ‘Guatemalan dream’ is all about ‘living well’ as opposed to
achieving some ordained ideal life. To the Guatemalans we met and to DESGUA,
living well meant autonomy, land ownership, security, pride, finding solutions
in Guatemala, and dignity, all without needing foreign aid. The dream goes
further than oneself; it connects others and works to uplifts
everyone sustainably. The people we met in Nuevo Amanecer, La Florida, Efraín
Bamaca, and Cajolá all wanted this kind of life.
Looking at time from a cyclical perspective, as opposed to a
linear timeline, supports the ‘Guatemalan dream’ because there is no
destination or ‘good life’ Promised Land. Furthermore, the time perspective can
be viewed in terms of growth versus progress.
First off,growth and progress are not the same.
Progress in United States tends to mean westernization, modernization, and
achieving monetary goals. Growth can be interpreted as
meaning the same things.
Examining the terms through a cyclical time lens, the meanings
change. As time passes, growth is simply the harmonization of
new experiences and knowledge with tradition and customs. In cyclical time,
things change and people evolve, but nothing ever dies. To clarify, labeling
something as either old or new, and then saying one is better than the other,
is a linear perspective. Cyclically, things are timeless.
The term Progress is almost obsolete in
cyclical time. As defined in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, “Progress”
means “the process of improving or developing something over a period of time.”
Developing or improving towards something suggests that whatever one had in
past is inferior to the present. In cyclical time, it is all about adding to
the collective human knowledge, with respect to the past.
One student in our group asked how technology related to the ‘Guatemalan
dream,’ if technology is all about making things better, faster, and smarter
than in the past. Willy, a member of DESGUA and the head Chef at Café R.E.D.,
explained that cyclical time and the ‘Guatemalan dream’ incorporates computers,
phones, and other technologies not to take the place of anything, but to help
their mission and to preserve the past.
The ‘Guatemalan dream’ is not available to all Guatemalans yet,
as many still choose to immigrate. Instant coffee is still cheaper and more
accessible than organic Guatemalan grown coffee in Guatemalan cities. Efraín
Bamaca and countless other villages still rely on pesticides to grow their
crops and to feed their families, and yet the capitalist linear perspective
appears to be breaking as indigenous villages like La Florida and Cajolá find
ways to live outside of the capitalist economy and to preserve their cultural
identities.
So how do we help? I certainly do not have the answer, but I do
have a couple of suggestions. To start, reconsider your life goals, and ask
yourself if they harmonize the past with the present? Second, support local
farmers, reject pesticides, GMOs, farm labor exploitation, and use less
gasoline. I think change starts with what one eats and how one treats.
Taken while crossing the bridge from Guate to México.
Additional Information and useful links:
Coffee Rust Plague: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/26/mexico-coffee-crop-fungus
New Jersey, Morristown: http://www.nj.com/morristown/jamieduffy/index.ssf/2009/10/immigrants_stories_a_guatemala.html
Ten Years of spring: http://www.countriesquest.com/central_america/guatemala/history/the_ten_years_of_spring_1944-1954.htm
URNG: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemalan_National_Revolutionary_Unity http://www.urng-maiz.org.gt/new/drupal/ (IN SPANISH)
Village projects: http://www.mayamamweavers.com/apps/blog http://www.newdawnguatemala.org/p/what-we-do.html
“Progress.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/progress (accessed
March 30th, 2014).
-- submitted by Kory Andersen
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