Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in Southern Mexico

NOTES

NOTES Preface 1. The term neoliberalism is used in the Mexican context to refer to a set of policies based on the diminished importance of the state and on privatization and economic and financial deregulation, together with the promotion of the export of manufactured goods.This economic model replaced the statist model, which prevailed from the 1930s to the beginning of the 1980s and was protectionist and based on import-substitution industrialization. In the economic terminology of international organisms, these policies have also been called ‘‘structural adjustment programs’’ and became widespread in the third world at the beginning of the 1980s. 2. NAFTA, known in Mexico as TLC (Tratado de Libre Comercio), is one of the main initiatives promoted by Salinas de Gortari’s government to lock in economic reforms , especially with regard to commercial and financial programs. It is the first open trade agreement in the world signed by two developed countries, the United States and Canada, and a developing country, Mexico. 3. Salinismo is the term used in Mexico to refer to the government programs and administration of Carlos Salinas de Gortari. 4. Arturo Warman, ‘‘Chiapas Hoy,’’ La Jornada, January 16, 1994. Introduction 1. In the state of Chiapas, the 1990 General Census of Population and Housing (Censo General de Vivienda) reports 8,725 persons who identify themselves as Mam. This number includes refugees settled in the municipalities of Frontera Comalapa (629), La Trinitaria (132), Las Margaritas (1,068), Ocosingo (117), and Venustiano Carranza (108). As the Mam refugee population falls outside the scope of this book, their border experience is not discussed. Tseng 2001.4.30 17:41 DST:103 6289 Hernandez / HISTORIES AND STORIES FROM CHIAPAS / sheet 265 of 317 244 Notes to Pages 1–9 2. Ejidos were communal lands divided into small lots and given to peasants for their individual use. These lots could not be sold or mortaged. They could be inherited but not subdivided, and if a peasant moved away, his land remained with the communal governing body. Ejido lands were privatized by Salinas de Gortari’s government at the beginning of 1992 (see Chapter 7). For the historical origin of the ejido, see Chapter 1. 3. The term Mames is the plural of Mam. 4. Throughout I use the pseudonym Las Ceibas to refer to this community. 5. The term mestizo is used in the Mexican context to designate a descendant of mixed Indian-white parentage, used more generally to refer to the Mexican population, which does not identify itself culturally as Indian. 6. For a critique of the conception of culture as cultural difference, see Rosaldo 1987:201. 7. During their first years as refugees, Guatemalan peasants received many demonstrations of solidarity from Mexican peasants, who allowed them to live on ejidal lands and supported them in emergencies. Mexicans gave refugees a piece of land on which to build their huts and cultivate their milpas, while in return the Mexicans could rely on a cheap and ready workforce for coffee harvesting. Over the years, the support the Guatemalans received from UNHCR and other international organizations began to cause unrest among the Mexican population. For an analysis of relations between Guatemalan refugees and Mexican peasants, see Hernández Castillo et al. 1992. 8. Idiomista is a local term that derives from idioma, ‘‘language’’; a closer translation would be the neologism ‘‘languagist.’’ It is used to refer to those people who speak an Indian language. The Spanish term is used throughout this book. 9. The term antiguos, or ancients, is used as a substantive to refer to ancestors. 10. Indigenistas refers to those anthropologists who theoretically justified the acculturation of indigenous peoples in the name of ‘‘progress.’’ The terms campesinista and descampesinista refer to two lines of thought within Latin American Marxism. The campesinistas, influenced by Maoism, underline the importance of the peasantry as a political avant-garde in countries where productive forces are not well developed . Descampesinistas posit the necessary disappearance of the peasantry as a consequence of the development of productive forces and as a prerequisite for the formation of a proletarian avant-garde. For an analysis of these two positions, see Foladori 1981. 11. Coyotes are guides for hire for Mexican workers wishing to cross illegally into the United States. Some coyotes have become notorious for accepting money and then abandoning their ‘‘clients’’ in difficult or dangerous situations. 12. ‘‘Because I am in all cultures at the same time, soul between two worlds, three...