The stage curtain has closed on this act: living in Mexico. During one of my final evenings, I watched baile folklorico at Bellas Artes in downtown Mexico City – original Mexican art in arguably the most important cultural venue in the country. The choreography was warm and close, the costumes were colorful, the movement told a story. It represented everything I have learned this beautiful country to be. The performers lined up to bow at the end, and the audience stood up to applaud. I couldn’t stop smiling, but I didn’t want it to end. Then, the music began for an encore. This time the performers pulled people from the audience to join in the dancing, and the mariachis played a song that cued everyone to spontaneously yell !viva! in unison. The entertainment became a communal effort. When the bonus piece ended, the audience stood to applaud again, but it still wasn’t over. After four full encores, the curtain finally closed. Each additional piece seemed to say, “why do you have to leave already?” The lights came on, and I slowly stepped my way through the row of seats toward the exit thinking of an answer to that question.

I have left already, back to the United States. My last few weeks in Mexico also felt like a series of encores. Those days were marked by many goodbye’s and despedida gatherings. One goodbye per person just isn’t enough in a place where relationships are the fabric of society. In a place where all efforts are communal and where relationships are not just a way of working, but a sense of identity, goodbye’s cannot just be a few, short words. In my final weeks, my friends and coworkers sent me off with words of blessing for my future and by sharing the ways they have learned with me over the past year. The extended goodbye’s invited me to think about all of the ways in which I’ve learned and grown, too.

 

In my rigidity, I’ve learned to let go of control and trust in people more than plans. In my black-white morality, I’ve learned to see the grey when the “best” resolution to conflict is not a realistic one. In my seriousness, I’ve learned that laughter is a tool for resilience and peacemaking. In my faith, I’ve learned to hope for truth-telling and reconciliation for a history of church violence against indigenous peoples. In my pride, I’ve learned to be humble and ask more questions than give answers.

 

“Why do you have to leave already?” The short answer is that in August, I’ll start working on an M.Div. at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. The long answer isn’t as simple. It’s not easy leaving people that have taught me so much, and a place that has etched its own permanent piece of art in my memory. What is sure, though, is that I will bring all of the colors of Mexico with me in my mind and heart, even if I can’t be there every day. And Mexico, si Dios quiere nos volveremos a ver. God willing, we’ll see each other again.

 

 

(photos taken by Quinn Brenneke and Soleab Loun)

All eyes in Mexico are wide-open, waiting to see who will win. On one hand, the presidential election is taking place on July 1, and on the other, the Mexican national soccer team is playing in the World Cup. As I walk home from work these days, I see signs of the upcoming election – literally billboards, advertisements, songs, parades, and concerts from local and national candidates from every side of the aisle. I also see t-shirts doning the Mexican flag, televisions playing reruns of the most recent World Cup game, and the faces of the national soccer team athletes in the windows of seemingly every other business. After Mexico beat the reigning world champion German soccer team in their first game of the Cup this past Sunday, I’ve heard more optimistic comments about where Mexico is headed. However, I think everyone here is still holding their breath when it comes to the presidential election. Migrants especially are waiting to see what to expect.

The presidential election in Mexico

Following the presidential election in Mexico at times feels like watching a telenovela. The three leading candidates seem to more often critique each other rather than propose their own solutions to issues, often creating quite the dramatic scene. All men, the candidates are running for a six-year term as president of the United States’ southern neighbor, with a one-term limit in office. Mexicans are widely suspicious of politicians, whom they see as highly corrupt and dishonest. Corruption has actually been a leading issue for voters and candidates in this election, if not explicitly, then at least in the the historical patterns that polls seem to show are changing. The PRI party ruled Mexico from 1930 until 2000 when Vicente Fox of the PAN party won, and another PAN candidate won the following election in 2006. Power returned to PRI with the election of current president Enrique Peña Nieto in 2012. Peña Nieto is widely unpopular throughout the whole country, so it seems to be no surprise that current PRI candidate is lagging in third place in the polls, perhaps indicating that Mexicans are looking for a change. However, if the three leading candidates have anything in common, it’s opposition to U.S. president Donald Trump and his policies and rhetoric towards Mexico. Mexican president Peña Nieto has mostly remained quiet and compliant in the era of Trump, only recently speaking out against a Trump move to send the National Guard to the U.S. southern border. While migration hasn’t played a large role in political debates among the Mexican candidates for president, it seems that the candidate with the most confrontational approach to Trump is leading the polls.

The favored candidate according to most polls has taken a nationalist and protectionist “Mexico First” approach that appears similar to the populist tactics of Donald Trump, but his politics are much different than those of the U.S. president. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, former Mexico City mayor and leader of the leftist Morena party, seems to be on his way to “Los Pinos,” and he has said that he will bring with him an end to corruption and crime. He is in favor of reworking the widely unpopular education reforms, and negotiating to maintain NAFTA, although he said that if he isn’t successful in this regard, Mexico would at least be able to focus more on its internal economy, specifically in rural areas. In terms of migration, he has proposed the idea of lowering taxes and increasing wages near the northern border to incentivize people to stay in Mexico. He has also mentioned creating programs to help integrate returned migrants from the United States. Like all other candidates, Lopez Obrador is against U.S. proposals to build a border wall between the two countries, and instead has proposed working with Trump to increase economic development in Mexico and in other Latin American countries. He has also talked about containing migration on Mexico’s southern border, although he has not specified what he means by this. Some analysts believe that even if Lopez Obrador wins the election, an uncooperative congress will make it hard for him to pass any legislation. 

In a not-so-close second place in election polls is “Mexico In Front” candidate Ricardo Anaya. Some would call him a more conservative candidate, but recent analysis of Mexican politics have erased the ideas of “left” and “right” and more accurately describes politicians in Mexico as “opportunists” who present proposals on individual issues for specific groups of people rather than adhering to any kind of ideology. In fact, the political alliance that Anaya represents is formed by PAN, a widely-thought centrist party, and PRD, the leftist party which Lopez Obrador left in 2014 to form the Morena party that he currently represents. The blurring of these lines of politics actually reflects a reality in Mexico that is seen after almost every election: politicians jump between political parties based on which one has the most power. Some of Anaya’s political ideas might be seen as conservative, for example when he said in a recent debate that “the best social policy that exists is employment, well-paid employment.” However, he is also in favor of eliminating taxes on citizens that make less than $10,000 MXN per month, which is roughly $500 USD. In terms of immigration, he has been openly in favor of welcoming Central American migrants arriving at Mexico’s southern border, saying that doing so would give Mexico moral higher ground over the United States. He has also mentioned increasing funding for Mexican consulates in the United States to better serve Mexicans living aboard.

If it’s worth mentioning at all, polls are calling Jose Antonio Meade, candidate for the ruling PRI party, the third-place guy. His unpopularity is probably more indicative of the unpopularity of current PRIista president Peña Nieto than Meade’s own politics. With most eyes looking toward Lopez Obrador, Meade seems to blur into the background. In a recent debate, he expressed his favor for equipping hospitals with necessary supplies, improving the wage gap between men and women, and increasing high school graduation rates among young people. He hasn’t quite offered any specific strategies on any of these issues, which mirrors his suggestions on migration-related topics. In one debate, he mentioned wanting local-level authorities to create programs to keep Mexicans at home instead of migrating.

July is yet to come

I will be in Mexico City during the quarter finals of the World Cup and the presidential election, in the capital city and center of it all. A colleague shared with me the other day that he believes the coinciding of these two big events is a strategy. He thinks people will be so distracted by the World Cup that they won’t vote, and that the corruption that has plagued Mexican politics will continue, as if it were all planned this way. His skepticism reminded me of what Octavio Paz wrote in his book about Mexican life and culture, The Labyrinth of Solitude. Paz writes that, “modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the maze of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.” The more we analyze reality and “open our eyes,” the more pessimistic we become. Perhaps it’s true that there is often no hope after reading the news. But, what if we hope for a world that is to come rather than what we already have? What if we close our eyes and put our trust somewhere else rather than in politics and bureaucracy?

Paz continues: “When we emerge, perhaps we will realize that we have been dreaming with our eyes open, and that the dreams of reason are intolerable. And then, perhaps, we will begin to dream once more with our eyes closed.”

The simple answer I often give to many of the questions I get about Mexico is “it’s complicated.” Politics are complicated, environmental devastation is complicated, culture is complicated, migration is complicated. In just two words, it’s a pretty truthful answer, but not very enlightening. To untangle the complications of the context I’m living in, the most helpful tool I have found is a history lesson.

My colleague Manuel Gómez Hernández and I traveled to Chiloljá, a small indigenous town here in Chiapas, to facilitate a workshop with a community group a few weeks ago. Manuel asked the group in Tseltal, the local indigenous language, to draw a three-part picture of their community: what it used to look like, what it looks like now, and what they hope it will look like in the future.

The participants in the workshop presented their artwork and discussed the changes they have seen in their community. Elders in the group shared their memories of a place where people upheld their culture, where everyone ate healthy food that they grew themselves, where the land was fruitful and natural resources were abundant. Younger people noted that although they have seen improvements since then like a school and a basketball court, the forest is disappearing, people buy cheap food and snacks from little corner stores, and many people leave the community to find work in northern Mexico or the United States. I sat with the group reflecting on their reality, wondering “how did we get to this?” It’s complicated.

If you have the same question, “how did we get to this?” and you want an answer longer than “it’s complicated,” here’s what I can give you. (History buffs, help me out here.)

Let’s backtrack a bit. The whole world was captivated with the idea of socialism after World War II ended, some with hope and others with anxiety. Some activists in Mexico were hopeful, leading protests and demonstrations. Many were looking for social reforms that were promised when the Mexican constitution was rewritten in 1917. As inequality in the country grew, these voices grew stronger. The United States and other political powers in the world were anxious. While the U.S. military engaged in the Cold War beginning in the 60s, trying to squash any hints of socialism around the world, Mexico entered its own internal Dirty War with a similar objective. During this time, the Mexican government widely used violence to quiet the unrest. Indigenous people in Mexico were among those speaking up for reforms and uniting their voices. The National Indigenous Congress, which nearly missed securing a candidate in this year’s presidential election, was formed in 1974. A more radical organizing of indigenous people came into formation in 1983 when the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN by its initials in Spanish, got its start here in Chiapas. (More on them in just a bit.) The sentiments of the revolutionaries of this period in Mexican history continued through the 1980s, but other actors began entering the scene at the same time.

The world had a lot of hope in the Mexican economy at the beginning of the 80s. Investors poured loans into the country, looking to exchange a small investment for big returns in the industrializing nation. Instead, Mexico began defaulting on the loans. With this, enthusiasm to invest in Mexico sharply dropped and so did the value of the Mexican peso. One U.S. dollar could buy 23 Mexican pesos in 1980, but just five years later, the same could buy 350 pesos. By 1993, the U.S. dollar was trading for 3,000 Mexican pesos. That’s when the Mexican government stepped in to try to save the currency from downward spiral by issuing new pesos. So as the coins in Mexicans’ pockets became more and more worthless throughout the 80s, is it any surprise that many of them began looking for other options for livelihood? The Mexican immigrant population in the United States nearly doubled between the 1980 and 1990. I’ll come back to this, but first, NAFTA.

While the country was facing a harsh economic downturn, Mexico also was in the midst of negotiating a trade agreement with Canada and the United States. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into effect on January 1, 1994, opening up tariff-free trade between the three countries. On the same day, the EZLN (the Zapatistas – I said I would come back to them) made their international debut by invading several cities in Chiapas by surprise, including my current home of San Cristobal de las Casas, to make it known that their interests should be considered in these policy decisions. They eventually entered into the San Andres Accords with the Mexican government, mediated by catholic priest Samuel Ruiz, to come to a peace agreement. (As it turns out, the Mexican government didn’t keep up their end of the bargain and conflict continued, which could be another blog post entirely.)

NAFTA had an immediate impact on Mexico, as the Zapatista uprising seemed to predict. The peso dropped in value again, calling for a $50 billion financial aid package from the U.S. government and the International Monetary Fund. In connection, the gross national income in Mexico dropped sharply in 1994 and didn’t recover until 2000, meaning that Mexicans were widely making less money after NAFTA than they were before. Poverty levels spiked, but they have since leveled off and remain close to what they were pre-NAFTA signing. Inequality indicators also remain about the same as they were in the early 90s. Although, Mexico’s GDP has grown since NAFTA was signed, signaling an overall economic growth, the number of Mexican migrants coming to the United States has also grown. (This phenomenon might be explained by recent research showing that country emigration rates actually tend to rise to a certain point as an economy develops.)

The Mexican immigrant population in the U.S. doubled again between 1990 and 2000 during the aftermath of the NAFTA signing. As poor Mexicans were looking for a way to survive the immediate economic turmoil, the “American Dream” caught their attention. A rise in unauthorized immigration caused politicians in the United States to take action. During the 90s, under the Clinton administration, the U.S. government started building border fences to deter migrants. However, if you pay attention to the numbers, the effort was fruitless. Migration from Mexico to the United States has nonetheless continued to grow since. The new barriers like walls and fences have only caused migrants to attempt more dangerous routes through places like the Sonoran Desert and migrant deaths and disappearances have increased. A recent RadioLab podcast series discusses this issue in depth. In response, organizations like Voces Mesoamericanas, the MCC partner I support, have begun projects using DNA databases to inform families of disappeared migrants if their missing loved ones were found deceased near the border.

 

In the middle of this complicated history are individuals, families, and communities whose lives are affected by decisions made by powerful government bureaucrats. People in Chiloljá have lived through the economic downturns caused by large international partnerships like NAFTA, and they have also witnessed those agreements spur the growth of big businesses that now sell products in the little stores that sprinkle their small community. They have seen their young people leave the community – some don’t come back, while some do and bring with them a new culture. It’s complicated, but some things are clear.

Diego López Aguilar, the community leader who organized the group in Chiloljá, has a dream. He hopes to improve his community by creating a sustainable food system that will keep his family healthy and also incentivize others to not make dangerous trips north. He is studying agriculture science at a local university and has organized his community to begin experimenting with new techniques. If history is any indication, hope is in the Mexican DNA. It certainly is in Diego’s.

When I had the choice to take a language class in 7th grade, my dad’s wisdom was to learn Spanish. He predicted what has become true, that speaking Spanish would be endlessly helpful in my life. By one measure, the United States is already the home to the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world. Learning Spanish has since opened up communication between me and 559 million people worldwide, which adds to the 527 million native English speakers that I could already communicate with. (Who knows how many non-native English speakers exist.) So to put it simply, learning Spanish was a great idea. However, aside from its obvious benefits of being able to travel widely and communicate with at least twice as many people, learning a new language is valuable because it opens up new ways of thinking. Let me tell you why learning a new language, even one that only 21,000 people speak in a small, beautiful corner of the world, is worth it.

Before colonization introduced the Spanish language to southern Mexico and Central America, the native Mayans in the region had their own language which has since has carried encouragement and hope in its words through generations of enslavement, discrimination, violence. Today, some estimate that there are 56 linguistic groups in Chiapas which trace their roots to an old Mayan language. I’ve recently begun learning one of these languages, Tsotsil, the language of my host family and some of the communities where I work. Several communities in the area speak their own variation of Tsotsil, which is mostly understandable among native speakers, but has strong distinctions. I am learning Tsotsil from the Huixtan community, where my host family is from. A Google search tells me that there are around 21,000 people living in Huixtan, which means there is probably one person who speaks the Huixtan variation of Tsotsil for every 26,600 Spanish speakers in the world. So if the benefits of traveling widely and being able to communicate with nearly an entire continent don’t apply to learning Tsotsil, what are the benefits? I have learned to think of the world in new ways, even by just learning a few phrases, because ideas are expressed uniquely in different languages. Here are a few words and their literal translations in Tsotsil that have let me think in new ways, and ultimately, see the world with more nuance and color:

1. bats’i k’op – Tsotsil, literally “natural, true word”

How do you say Tsotsil in Tsotsil? Actually, there is no word. The way someone from Huixtan would find out if I speak Tsotsil would be to ask me, “Do you speak our natural, true word?” That is to say, speaking Spanish as a Tsotsil-speaking Mayan descendant is unnatural. For me, this is a clue to understanding how Mayan people see themselves in the light of Spanish colonization. The imposition of a foreign culture, language, economy on another people is unnatural. It’s not how things should be.

2. ok’on to – goodnight, literally “tomorrow, still”

There’s something really hopeful about this way of ending a day. I think it’s wrapped up in the symbolism of sundown, which brings to mind old western movies that end with cowboys riding off into the sunset. Day turning to night is such a powerful symbol of closure because everyone can relate to a day’s end. Night just as well symbolizes the rest time before morning, new beginnings. In times of bad news and desperation, the daily reminder that tomorrow is yet to come is a word of hope. The sun is sure to rise again. Ok’on to.

3. nichim ko’nton – I’m happy or it’s a pleasure, literally “my heart is flowering”

This phrase is said whenever someone is welcomed into a home, or meets a new person, or thanks someone for a favor. In Tsotsil, attention is given to the heart. “How do you feel?” sounds more like “how is your heart?” When one feels good, their heart is like a healthy patch of land full of flowers. Living in a new country requires a lot of vulnerability and getting used to feeling confused or lost. This phrase has called on me to pay more attention to when my heart is dry and when it is flowering.

“I can only imagine the fear that Mary and Joseph felt, the same fear that Laguna Larga families feel right now,…”

Celebrating Christmas away from home was new for me this year. I’ve enjoyed experiencing other traditions that I will likely take back with me to the United States. A few weeks ago, I went on a trip that left me with memories I will also probably carry with me for a while. Here’s a blog post I wrote for the MCC LACA website that tells a little bit about my trip.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. From wonderful friends and colleagues to opportunities and adventures, this year has been full of goodness. Since my last post, I celebrated an ex-pat style Thanksgiving, kept a few Christmas traditions, and went on a retreat with the MCC Mexico team to Durango, Mexico to visit the old-order Mennonite colonies. Here are pictures from the last few weeks:

My work here in Chiapas has included visiting schools to give workshops, which has often reminded me of the past few years I spent as a teacher. Those memories will always stay with me, as well as everything I learned. Actually, I might have learned more about reading as a teacher than as a student. Some of what I learned as a reading teacher might explain why reading the Bible here in Mexico has been different for me.

After I gained experience teaching, I began to notice patterns as my students learned to understand and think about the stories we read in class. For example, I noticed that my students enjoyed and better comprehended stories that related to their lives. Any time we read a story about football, my students were able to tell me many similar stories of times when they attended local football games every fall growing up. They knew exactly what a football looked like, how a freshly-cut field smelled, and many knew multiple facts about their favorite players. Some teachers call this information “background knowledge.” Students who have a lot of background knowledge about a story tend to have higher comprehension than those who don’t. This is to say, life experience matters a lot when one reads. I will always remember a student who thought it was strange that a character in our book wore a “fleece.” She asked me, “Why would he put fleas on himself?!” In the hot climate of south Texas, my young student thought first of “fleas” rather than “fleece.” Isn’t it true that two people can hear the same thing and understand it very differently? This is also true when it comes to reading. 

Living in Mexico has given me a lot of new background knowledge. Like my student who heard “fleas” instead of “fleece,” I am finding that I hear and read things differently than I did before. Particularly when I read the Bible, I have found new understanding and clarity in many passages. To show what I mean, here are a few examples:

1. Let the whole Earth tremble before the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. -Psalm 33:8

A teacher I had in middle school once told my class about a time she experienced an earthquake. I had seen them in movies before and one time slept through a rare, small tremor in my Indiana hometown. Obviously, none of this made me an earthquake expert. However, I had an idea of what to expect before moving to a place in Mexico where I might experience a real earthquake. I also had an idea of what the Psalmist meant by “let the whole Earth tremble before the LORD.” Waking up in the middle of the night to an 8.1-magnitude earthquake a few weeks ago brought all of that to light. What I thought I knew before didn’t quite capture the sense of fear, awe, and surrender that I felt when the Earth literally started to tremble that night. I wonder if the Psalmist had experienced an earthquake before writing these words. If so, perhaps he meant that standing in awe of God feels like an 8.1-magnitude earthquake. “Let the whole Earth tremble,” or rather, let the whole Earth feel completely out of control. Or, let the whole Earth turn all senses on high alert. Or even, let all people feel in their bones that they are being moved by something much bigger, stronger, and more powerful than themselves. Perhaps the Psalmist was writing to people who thought that they were in control of their own lives. I’m tempted to think the same way sometimes – that my planning, effort, and efficiency can get me to where I want to go in life. If so, then the Psalmist calls to me to “tremble before the LORD,” and know that I am not in control. Something bigger can always change my plans.

2. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. -Deuteronomy 10:19

God paid attention to the lives of immigrants, so God’s followers should do the same. Among the many commands that God gives Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, several have to do with how to treat non-Israelites who migrate to and through Israel. In other words, immigrants. Those rules have an obvious connection to my work with migration and being a “stranger” myself here in Mexico. Reading these words with new background knowledge makes them evermore clear. God is straightforward in his instructions to Moses about immigrants: love them. In fact, as I read through the Old Testament, this same instruction is reoccurring. A few of the instances I’ve recently read are in Deuteronomy 24:17, 26:5-10, and 27:19. Very often (more than in these passages) God commands his followers to show love, hospitality, and justice to immigrants. These commands are mixed together with multiple stories of migration. Take for example the Biblical stories of Sarah and Abraham, Naomi and Ruth, Joseph and Mary, or the apostle Paul. Even Jesus and his disciples did quite a bit of migrating during their lives. Throughout scripture, God is clearly present in the lives of these migrants, keeping them safe and using their movement to accomplish God’s plans. As a sort of immigrant myself, I now come to these stories with new questions. Did Sarah and Abraham ever get mixed up speaking a new language? Did Naomi and Ruth ever get lost on their way to the market in Bethlehem? Did Joseph and Mary like Egyptian food? Did Paul have to wait for hours in customs in Rome? I imagine that immigrants in the United States will come to these stories with other questions based on their particular experiences, too. Perhaps they might ask, did any of these Biblical migrants feel unwelcome? Were they ever mistreated? Was migrating their only option to escape violence or poverty? All of these questions will bring readers into deeper understanding of the text, and for Christians, a deeper understanding of God. Imagine all of the insight that is missed when Bible readers don’t take time to listen to the migration stories of immigrants in their own communities. How much more will Christians understand God when they embrace immigrants as their neighbor with love, hospitality, and justice!

3. “Wait for the LORD” -Psalm 27:14

The word in Spanish for “wait” is the same word for “hope”. I’ve been paying attention to these translation details because I sometimes translate documents at work and I help my host sister with her English homework at home. Words like these present a challenge in translating Biblical passages, but also present an opportunity for understanding them better. How does one explain the difference between waiting and hoping? I gave this problem some thought and came to the idea that waiting for something means that one knows it will happen. Hoping for something means that one believes it will happen. So, if you will follow me, waiting goes with knowledge and hoping goes with belief. Knowledge has room for error because it can be proved true or false with logic. So in time, one will see if waiting pays off or not. Belief is more of an internal decision. Proving that a belief is true is not quite as clear and can be doubted. In the same way, hoping for something comes with a certain amount of doubt that it might not happen. Considering all of this, it becomes interesting to me that the Psalmist’s translators chose the word wait. The text says “wait for God,” or in other words, “know that God is going to act and allow time to prove it true.” In the light of seeing the difference between waiting and hoping, this lofty call also seems to say, “don’t doubt that God will move; don’t just hope, wait.” What a challenge! It’s funny – I almost thought that the biggest challenge in this text was the translation.