Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in Southern Mexico

First Border Crossing

First Border Crossing DON ROBERTO WORKING FOR CHANGE IN THE SIERRA As I reconstructed the history of forced Hispanicizing campaigns that some elder Mames had told me about, I found in several testimonies references to the National Presbyterian church as one of the few places in which the Mam language could be spoken during the 1930s.1 These testimonies, together with the Mam-language Bible that circulated in several communities in the Sierra, awakened my interest in the history of this denomination as well as its role in the lives of Mam peasants. I was advised to speak to Roberto Hernández, a schoolteacher and a governor of the Presbyterian church, who knew well the history of Presbyterianism in the region, was an idiomista, and knew many stories about the ancestors. One October morning in 1993 I left Motozintla for the Sierra communities in search of Don Roberto. Hours later I was knocking at the metal door to a small concrete house near one of the many Presbyterian churches in the Sierra. Don Roberto was a tall man for the Sierra Mam, about sixty years old, wearing an impeccable white shirt and black polyester twill trousers. His appearance made me think of the words in some of the testimonies I recorded: ‘‘whiter children born to Mam women who went down to the fincas.’’ It turns out that this man, with his calm speech, had already caught my attention in one of the regional meetings of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática [PRD]), at which I was present a few months before by invitation of some Motozintla friends. His age and size aroused my curiosity at the meeting, which was attended mainly by young peasants. It never crossed my mind Tseng 2001.4.30 17:41 DST:103 6289 Hernandez / HISTORIES AND STORIES FROM CHIAPAS / sheet 34 of 317 Working for Change in the Sierra 13 that the ‘‘ancient governor’’ for whom I was looking was the same PRDist who had urged young people not to accept the 300 pesos (about US$31) that the government currently offered through its PROCAMPO program (a state subsidy for small agricultural producers), as a way to gain sympathy for the official party. On that occasion opinions were divided between those who thought that PROCAMPO money should be accepted without committing one’s vote and others, like Don Roberto, who said that accepting the money was a way of selling one’s dignity—‘‘We may be poor, but we accept no bribes’’—a view that won my admiration. Don Roberto was highly respected by both Catholics and Protestants, as well as by members of different political parties, despite his membership in the leftist PRD in a region where the official—and center right—PRI was very influential and his being a Protestant in a Catholic country. He was seen as a just person, and the importance of his work as a rural teacher in several local communities was generally acknowledged. However, because of his ‘‘reputation as a womanizer’’ during his youth, some Catholics doubted Don Roberto’s ‘‘Presbyterian rectitude,’’ and there were rumors that he was a chiman (sorcerer) who on several occasions had made use of ‘‘the ancients ’ knowledge’’ to seduce a married woman. In spite of these stories, Catholics, as well as Presbyterians, acknowledged that Don Roberto was a ‘‘man of knowledge.’’ Don Roberto did not seem to be interested in my project of writing a regional history. Although he treated me with respect and listened carefully during my first visit with him, he remained silent and aloof. He gave me an appointment for another day and explained that I would have to spend several afternoons talking with him about the Bible, about my interest in religion, and about my family before he agreed to tell me more about the local National Presbyterian church. It was two months before he began to tell me about his life. With time, he revealed a mistrust of my interest in Presbyterianism. He knew the governmental discourse on ‘‘Protestant sects,’’ which bundled together Protestant denominations with new religious movements, such as the Pentecostals and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and he was afraid that my research was part of some ‘‘witch-hunt’’ against Protestants. During one afternoon, in which he reverted to his old mistrust, we talked at length about Mexican nationalism. He told me about the special role played by Benito Juárez and Mexican Presbyterianism and...