Wednesday, August 28, 2019

IN MEXICO, A NEW DAWN FOR INDEPENDENT UNIONS?

IN MEXICO, A NEW DAWN FOR INDEPENDENT UNIONS?
By David Bacon
NACLA Report on the Americas, 7/2019
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714839.2019.1650507


In his speech to Mexican Congress during his December 1, 2018 inauguration, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador charged that 36 years of neoliberal economic reforms had lowered the purchasing power of Mexico's minimum wage (now worth about $4 U.S. per day) by 60 percent. "Neoliberal economic policy has been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country," he charged. "During the neoliberal period we became the country with the second highest rate of migration in the world-24 million Mexicans, living and working in the United States... We will put aside the neoliberal hypocrisy. Those born poor will not be condemned to die poor."

At the end of April of this year the new government took one step toward undoing this neoliberal inheritance, when the Chamber of Deputies and then the Senate passed a labor law reform bill proposed by López Obrador's party, the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA).

Workers and independent and progressive unions in Mexico have high hopes that the new government will undo many of the policies that have tilted the economic and political playing field sharply toward corporations. Labor law reform is just one component of such a process, but the debate around it highlights the extent to which conditions for workers and unions have deteriorated in three decades, and their impatience to reverse course.



People greet the inauguration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.


The new labor reform deals primarily with the rights of unions and the workers that comprise them. For more than half a century, a set of established, conservative ("charro") unions have been tied to the government and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which ruled for most of that time. In return for political support, "charro" leaders held office sometimes for life, with no accountability to their members. Labor boards made up of representatives of conservative unions, employers, and a pro-employer government made it extremely difficult for workers to form independent organizations. In thousands of workplaces, "charro" unions and employers negotiated secret "protection" contracts guaranteeing labor peace. Whenever workers would try to organize independently to win better wages and conditions, employers would usually claim a "protection" union already represented them, which would pose an enormous legal obstacle to the workers in any attempts to establish their own unions.

In the quarter century since the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), however, independent and progressive unions have grown despite the obstacles. The strength of the old unions, meanwhile, appears increasingly hollow as their membership declines.

Achievements and Limits of the New Labor Reform

The MORENA labor law reform drastically changes practices of collective bargaining and internal union life. Leaders must now be elected by direct, secret ballot, making them more accountable to members. Contracts must be public, and members must have the right to vote on them. Unions that don't comply will lose their legal status. And labor tribunals-as part of the judicial system-will replace the old pro-company labor boards. The law explicitly covers domestic workers, but not agricultural workers.

The near-unanimous votes in both chambers in favor of the reform demonstrated just how badly the old unions had lost power in last July's presidential election. Carlos Aceves del Olmo, the head of the largest "charro" union, the Confederación de Trabajadores de México (Confederation of Mexican Workers, CTM) called the law "impossible to implement." He fumed that the new Secretary of Labor Luisa Maria Alcalde ,was just a puppet of her father Arturo Alcalde, one of Mexico's most respected labor lawyers. She was "hiding reality" from President López Obrador, Aceves charged.

Another old-line official, Rodolfo González Guzmán of the similarly-named Confederación Revolucionaria de Trabajadores (Revolutionary Confederation of Mexican Workers, CRT) threatened that the new law would lead to the "fragmentation" of the labor movement. But a third, Isaias Gonzalez, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and leader of the Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana (Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants, CROM), reluctantly admitted that "times have changed and unions can no long oppose free elections."

Some progressive unions, however, felt the reform didn't go far enough- in part because it did not reverse a fundamental change in Mexican labor law made in 2012 under then-President Felipe Calderón. The 2012 reform allows companies to outsource, or subcontract, jobs, which was previously banned. It allows no-cause termination during workers' first six months on a job, and allows for part-time and temporary work and hourly pay rather than day-long rates. Workers can be terminated without cause during their first six months on the job.

"All of the independent unions support the changes in the new MORENA law, but many say they're not enough," according to Hector de la Cueva, director of the Independent Center for Labor Investigation and Union Research (CILAS). The law's critics include unions for telephone workers, electrical workers, and employees at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "The changes deal with the collective rights of workers," de la Cueva explains., "Bbut in terms of their individual rights, workers are still vulnerable. Unions argue that if there are no changes in the labor law of 2012, union rights will be affected as well."

In just one example of the consequences of the 2012 law, Grupo México, one of the world's largest mining companies, was able to replaced strikers at the huge Cananea mine in Sonora by contracting out their jobs. Inexperienced replacements died in mining accidents, and allowed a huge spill of toxic mine tailings into the Sonora River, contaminating communities and sickening residents. Nevertheless, the miners' union supports the MORENA reform, in part because its leader, Napoleon Gómez Urrutia, was elected a MORENA senator.

At the time of its passage, Arturo Alcalde called the 2012 reforms "an open invitation to employers, and a road to a paradise of firings." Subcontracting proliferated. In Mexico City alone, 22% of the labor force, or about 800,000 workers, are now subcontracted.



Benedicto Martinez, former general secretary of the Authentic Workers Front, fought for many years for reforms to Mexico's labor law.


According to Benedicto Martínez, co-president of the independent union federation, the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (Authentic Labor Front, FAT), "The motivation of the government, assisted by corporate unions, was to encourage the layoff of longtime employees, who could be replaced by subcontracted workers. There are companies now where all the workers are subcontracted, who have no employees of their own at all. The conditions are very low, just slightly above the legal minimum, and sometimes below." The FAT also supports the MORENA reform.

"The government and Congress say that there will be another period of discussion of the second stage of reform, beginning in September, but nobody really knows if this will happen," de la Cueva warned. "The companies are very unhappy even with the current reform, so it will really depend on what happens in society at large."

Other unions would like to address additional issues. University workers, for instance, can't organize a national union, so each their unions are tied to a single institution. At the Autonomous University of Mexico (UAM), workers had been on strike for almost three months by the end of April. University authorities, apparently unworried about the new pro-labor atmosphere, told the Union of the Workers at UAM (SITUAM) that they'd put their best offer on the table, but wouldn't negotiate any further.

In addition, the new law sets out a period of four years before the labor tribunals will replace the old labor boards. During that period a growing number of workers will undoubtedly demand elections for their leaders, and will petition for legal recognition of new unions.  Moving forward, Labor Secretary Luisa Alcalde set up the Coordinating Council of representatives of government bodies, including the courts and others, to plan the implementation of the labor law reform.  She set up as well a new agency called the National Center for Conciliation and Union Registry.  The old charro unions are continuing their protests, and in Chihuahua the CTM went to court to get an order to stop the implementation of the law entirely.

There is no budget yet for the new tribunals, however, and setting them up and training their personnel will be very costly. As a result, AFL-CIO's President Richard Trumka to refuse to support the labor provisions of the new U.S., Mexico, Canada Trade Treaty. "Sham unions," Trumka charged, have signed 700,000 'protection' contracts. "That means that they'll have to change 175,000 [leaders] a year over the four years that they've been given in the agreement and they'll have to have 175,000 elections," he told the Economic Club of Washington. "We want to see their ability to do that."

It's unlikely that all workers under those contracts would ask for those elections all at once. But the pressure on the "charro" unions is growing. "There were many negotiating points in the [USMCA] trade negotiations, but one of the most important was the labor section," de la Cueva believes. "That made the changes necessary, the most basic of which was ending the system of company unions. The current reform will have a big impact. One effect will be the democratization of 'charro' unions, and independent unions are preparing to take advantage of the new situation. It will be good for independent and new unions. There will be a new wave of workers' struggles-in fact it's already happening."

Reforming the Maquiladoras

López Obrador himself was responsible for the first wave of such demands, when in his inauguration speech he promised to double the minimum wage on the U.S.-Mexico border. Keeping his word, on January 1 he raised that wage from 88.36 pesos ($4.63) per day to 176.72 pesos ($9.25) per day. Then in January and February, taking the promise seriously, over 40,000 of the 70,000 maquiladora workers in Matamoros plants walked off their jobs demanding its fulfillment.

The maquiladoras are foreign-owned factories that manufacture goods destined for sale in the United States, the product of an economic development policy begun by the Mexican government in 1964. The attraction for foreign companies has been a wage level far below that of workers just a few miles north in the U.S., and the lax enforcement of environmental and worker protection laws, thereby ushering in increased profitability for manufacturing. Along the border today, more than two million workers labor in these factories.

In January, Matamoros factory owners declared that they would not increase their workers' wages because they were already making what López Obrador had ordered. According to Juan Villafuerte Morales, General Secretary of the Union for Workers in the Maquiladora Industry, workers were earning between 156 and 177 pesos per day. Villafuerte's union is part of the CTM. On the border, CTM unions have acted as labor enforcers for the government policy of using low wages to attract foreign investment.

However, Julia Quiñones, director of the Border Committee of Women Workers in Ciudad Acuña, says employers were playing tricks in the way they calculate wages. "The base wage in most maquiladoras is 90-100 pesos. But workers also earn a number of bonuses-for productivity, attendance, transportation, and other reasons. They depend completely on these bonuses. When the workers said their base wage should be doubled, as the government promised, the companies said they'd eliminate the bonuses and the result would be the same as not raising the wages at all."

Matamoros' unique labor history made it unlikely that workers would accept such tricks. Older workers remember the pre-NAFTA era when their wages were much higher, and when the CTM union was run by a more militant leader, Agapito González Cavazos. From the late 1950s to the late 1980s, the period in which the maquiladora industry mushroomed, the Matamoros maquiladora union had 50,000 to 60,000 members. In the 1970s, when the national minimum wage was 140 pesos (then worth $11.20), in Matamoros it was 198 pesos ($15.84). In 1983, González negotiated a famous agreement with a 43 percent salary increase, and an arrangement in which workers were paid for 56 hours of labor, but only worked a 40-hour week.



Busses that will take maquiladora workers to work, or to the border crossing, in the workers' neighborhood of Derechos Humanos in Matamoros.


González Cavazos opposed the neoliberal reforms of then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, which included privatizing national enterprises, ending land reform, and preparing the ground for NAFTA. In February 1992, as NAFTA's terms were being finalized, Salinas had him jailed. At the time, González Cavazos was negotiating union contracts with 42 companies, including General Motors. Both the United Auto Workers and the AFL-CIO in the United States protested his arrest.

In the NAFTA era that followed, labor opposition weakened and wages fell drastically. In 1992, just before the agreement was ratified, González Cavazos was demanding the equivalent of $19.50 per day. Today's minimum wage, even after being doubled by López Obrador, is $9.27. The workweek has gone back up from 40 hours to 48 hours in most factories. Making matters worse, while Matamoros's maquiladora wages aren't the lowest in Mexico, the cost of living on the border is much higher than in the rest of the country.

In fact, the price of many basic necessities is actually higher in supermarkets in Mexican border cities like Matamoros and Tijuana than it is just across the line in Brownsville and San Diego. A woman on the assembly line in Tijuana has to labor for half a day to earn enough to buy a gallon of milk. Prices have been rising rapidly in Matamoros, according to the Tamaulipas office of Mexico's Federal Consumer Affairs Prosecutor. A pound of serrano chiles now costs 55 pesos, more than half a day's wage at 88 pesos.

Delfina Martínez, a worker at Trico Componentes, which makes auto parts for AutoZone and other U.S. retailers, told reporter Julia Le Duc of the Mexico City daily La Jornada that she was overjoyed when she heard about López Obrador's promised wage increase. But "then the union delegate told us that we didn't qualify." Instead, she discovered in her paycheck that the company had raised her wages by just five pesos a day. Then she found out it wasn't going to pay the 3,000-peso annual bonus either. Instead of helping her, the Federal decree raising the minimum wage "gave a pretext to the factory to not pay us what we'd normally get every January ... We went to the union, and on Saturday we put up the red and black strike flags."

Matamoros workers organized wildcat walkouts to pressure factories into raising wages and the aguinaldo, an additional month's pay companies are obligated by law to give workers at the end of the year. Soon, work stopped in many plants, especially those producing auto parts for U.S. assembly plants. According to the Matamoros Maquiladora Association, companies lost $100 million in the first ten days.

Thousands of workers marched through the streets of Matamoros in January and February, and angrily accused Villafuerte of caving in to company demands. Many organized an independent network, called the Workers Movement of Matamoros. The groundswell forced Villafuerte to announce an official strike for a 20 percent increase in pay, and an increase in the productivity bonus from 3,500 pesos (about $175) yearly to 32,000 pesos (about $1600). On January 24, the union's members walked out of the 45 factories covered by its contract with the maquiladora owners.

Rolando González Barron, a leader of the employers' association, called the workers "ignorant" and threatened to fire them if they participated in strikes. Recalcitrant employers blamed the conflict on Susana Prieto Terrazas, an attorney from Juarez helping the strikers, calling her an outside agitator. Employers also accused the miners' union of supporting the strikers. Nevertheless, within days almost all gave in, to get their workers to return to the assembly lines. Another CTM union also declared a strike and won increases.

It wasn't total victory for workers, however. There were violent attacks on workers in at least three factories in March. Coca-Cola fired many workers, and then reopened its bottling plant after being struck for 50 days.

The new labor law reform, therefore, may therefore face some of its first tests in Matamoros, in elections for office in the CTM unions. Indeed, maquiladora elections have a violent history. Twenty-five years ago, when Martha Ojeda ran for president of the CTM local in the huge Sony plant in Nuevo Laredo, CTM officials rigged the process. Workers walked out of the plant in protest, and were beaten and driven from the gates with fire hoses. Workers smuggled Ojeda herself across the border to Texas to escape arrest. She later became the director of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, which has since assisted workers in many subsequent organizing efforts.

In 2015, thousands of farm workers went on strike against U.S. companies in Baja California. In response, police fired on crowds and terrorized worker neighborhoods where workers lived. Instead of recognizing workers' new independent union, however, growers signed "protection" contracts with the CTM, certified by the local labor board. Strikers were blacklisted. Later that year workers tried to register an independent union in four factories in Ciudad Juarez. Some 120 workers making ink cartridges for Lexmark were fired, as were another 170 at ADC Commscope, and many more at Foxconn and Eaton.

Last November, workers were preparing to vote on the miners' union as their representative at the giant PKC wire harness plant in Ciudad Acuña, just two days before López Obrador took office. CTM rioters marched into the facility, shouting "¡Mineros Afuera!" [Miners' Union Out!] They overturned ballot boxes, had the election canceled, and had minero representatives beaten. The mineros did win an election at the Teksid factory in Monclova, but the company refused to negotiate and in April fired 176 union members.

"There is a lot of resistance to the new reform," says de la Cueva. "At one recent struggle at a tire factory in Monterrey pistoleros came to scare the workers. There are still the bands of golpeadores [paid rioters that beat people] that show up during labor conflicts. It's unclear that the government will be able to stop these mafiosos."

The situation everywhere on the border is changing rapidly, in part because of rising expectations. The López Obrador administration and Labor Secretary Alcalde now have to ensure that the law keeps those abuses from being repeated. Quiñones feels the López Obrador administration was slow to support workers in the streets of Matamoros. "I expected more," she said. "Workers are tired of abuse and exploitation, and if they can see some hope for change, they will act."

Reforming Education

Alongside the new labor law and reforms to the minimum wage, López Obrador has also moved to shift another reform enacted by his predecessors-the education reform that mandated standardized testing for students, and testing and firing of teachers as well. That reform was fought by teachers for many years in massive teacher strikes. Government repression eventually culminated in a massacre in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca, in June 2016, in which nine people were gunned down by federal and state police.

The disappearance and murder of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training school in September 2014 was also related to the corporate education reform program. Their school had a reputation for turning out radical teachers, as do many rural training schools like it, which were established in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. Their students often came from some of the poorest families in the countryside. Claudio X. González Guajardo, cofounder of the Televisa Foundation and the Mexicanos Primeros corporate education reform lobby called the training schools "a swarm of politics and shouting" and demanded the government replace them with private institutions. Following López Obrador's inaugural speech, González tweeted, "AMLO - Against the free market, against the energy reform, a retrograde, statist, interventionist, stagnant vision. The markets will react negatively. It will go very badly with us, very badly. A shame."



Teachers march to oppose the corporate education reform.


In his address, López Obrador had promised, "The so-called education reform will be canceled, the right to free education in Article 3 of the Constitution will be guaranteed at all levels of schooling, and the government will never again offend teachers. The disappearance of Ayotzinapa's youth will be thoroughly investigated; the truth will be known and those responsible will be punished." In meetings with the national democratic teachers 'caucus, he also promised free elections in their union, the largest in Latin America. Eliminating the authoritarian group that has held power in the union for decades could shift the balance between the left and right in Mexico's institutional politics.

But while the MORENA labor reform swept through the Mexican Congress, the repeal of the neoliberal education reform was derailed in the Senate. López Obrador then issued a memorandum saying that the education reform would no longer be in effect, a move immediately challenged by the conservative parties who passed it under the administration of former pPresident Peña Nieto.

Teachers unions from Oaxaca and other states withdrew from their encampment outside the Chamber of Deputies, but then organized large May Day marches demanding that López Obrador live up to his commitment to nullify the education reform. Pedro Gómez Bamaca of the Chiapas teachers' union called for "unity that will defend us from the continuation of the neoliberal model." He charged that the MORENA senators who failed to repeal the reform had actually voted to pass it, back when they'd been members of Peña Nieto's party. "Now they paint themselves like MORENA, but they're the same people," Gómez said bitterly. This is going to be a long hard battle, but in Chiapas we're ready for it."


López Obrador condemned in his inauguration speech the way the living standards of workers plummeted over three decades, as the government used low wages to attract investment, and deliberately set increases in the minimum wage below the inflation rate. "In this [neoliberal] period, the purchasing power of the minimum wage deteriorated by 60 percent, and the salary of Mexicans is now among the lowest on the planet," he charged.

While rising expectations create enormous pressure for change, reversing the deterioration of workers' rights in Mexico trend will not be easy, as events in Matamoros demonstrated. "It is very doubtful if workers will be able to make up for the salary losses they've experienced, or the changes in their conditions of work," de la Cueva predicts. And despite the official pronouncements of its supporters, "there's no guarantee that T-Mex [the new NAFTA] will have any impact on this at all."

In addition to delivering on promises to workers, López Obrador believes that reversing the neoliberal direction also requires rescuing national enterprises. The Federal Electricity Commission, for instance, now provides power to all of Mexico after ex-President Calderon dissolved the Power and Light Company of Central Mexico in order to destroy its union, the Mexican Electrical Workers. But the CFE is close to bankruptcy, under the weight of unfavorable and corrupt contracts signed with foreign companies.

PEMEX, the national oil monopoly that contributes to a large part of Mexico's budget, is also in deep financial trouble. Production is declining. López Obrador promised to build another refinery to make Mexico once again self-sufficient in gasoline-it now imports gas from the United States-and to boost oil production.

Both enterprises were victims of decades of private deals and rake offs. "The hallmark of neoliberalism is corruption," López Obrador charged. " In the last three decades the highest authorities have dedicated themselves to giving concessions to the territory and transferring companies and public goods, even functions of the state, to national and foreign individuals ... The government will no longer facilitate looting, and will no longer be a committee in the service of a rapacious minority."

The leaders of the oil union, one of the pillars of Mexico's old ruling PRI, themselves ran businesses that siphoned money from the parent company. In the political space opened by the last election and the labor reform, opposition groups are appearing in the union.  "But it still has a very real control over the workers," de la Cueva warns. "The democratic currents are not strong, and some think that linking their groups to MORENA will defeat the 'charros', but it's not that easy."



Humberto Montes de Oca, a leader of the Mexican Electrical Workers, wears the insignia of the union's new cooperative.


As López Obrador looks for the money needed to accomplish his goals, his administration is vulnerable to pressure from the investors he needs. De la Cueva calls the administration's policy an "equilibrium" between big capital and the unions. And since production for export is now the base of the economy, Mexico depends on a continual flow of goods moving north. When U.S. President Trump threatens to close the border, or even to slow down the traffic, the threat to the Mexican economy is real.

Some of the biggest labor battles the administration inherited from its predecessors, therefore, may not be settled quickly. In Cananea, for instance, where a worker uprising heralded the coming Mexican Revolution in 1906, the miner's union has been locked in a strike against Grupo Mexico for a decade. Workers clearly hoped that with López Obrador in the presidency, and Gómez Urrutia a senator from their home state, the company would be forced into a resolution. The communities on the Sonora River, who were poisoned by the toxic spill seven years ago-one of the worst environmental disasters in Mexico's history-also hoped the government would finally weigh in against Grupo Mexico.

"But the government doesn't want a big conflict with powerful corporations right now," de la Cueva says. "It's doing a balancing act. Napoleon [Gómez Urrutia] is in the Senate, but that doesn't mean that the government will support the mineros. Events there will happen very slowly."

Miners aren't willing to simply wait for these changes. In recent months, the union organized a new labor federation, the International Confederation of Workers (CIT), with 150 member unions. Gómez Urrutia says the new federation isn't directed at the CTM, but some CTM leaders, he charges, run their unions like their personal property, in complicity with the employers. He points to the those who sent the hired men in to disrupt the union election at PKC, or who furnished the strikebreakers in Cananea.

The CIT joints two other federations of independent unions. The National Union of Workers (UNT) was organized in the 1990s by the telephone workers, the FAT, and other unions breaking away from the old labor structure. It began proposing labor law reforms like that recently passed by the Congress over two decades ago. The Mexican Electrical Workers (SME) organized the New Workers' Center in 2014, along with the progressive caucus of the teachers' union and the union now on strike at the National Autonomous University (SITUAM). It also includes the National Confederation of Retirees, the most left-wing of the three, and one of Mexico's oldest and largest cooperatives at the Pascual soda bottling plant.

The UNT National Union of Workers recently proposed a convention of all three federations, not in order to merge, but to find ways of working together. All three supported López Obrador's election, although often through the work of their members rather than the kind of formal endorsement familiar in the United States. Yet to one degree or another, they all feel that the administration has a cool attitude toward them.  In part, this reflects a history in which the "charro" unions were organizationally tied to the government and the PRI, and workers had to belong to the PRI in order to work. Progressive unions don't want to return to those days any more than does López Obrador.

"The government isn't putting much attention on social organizations like unions," de la Cueva explains. "López Obrador's intention is to be the 'president of the people' directly, rather than through intermediary organizations."

Despite the challenges, however, Deputy Labor Secretary Alfredo Domínguez Marrufo believes that the administration and independent unions share the same goals. "Today many workers live in poverty, on one or two dollars a day," he says. "This is the fundamental problem. But we're not just fighting for an economic goal, not just for decent wages, but for the revitalization of the democratic life of workers, of our unions and the organizations we belong to."



Deputy Labor Secretary Alfredo Domínguez Marrufo


David Bacon is a California writer and photographer, and former union organizer. He has written about Mexican labor and politics for 30 years. He is the author of The Children of NAFTA (UC Press, 2004), The Right to Stay Home (Beacon Press, 2013), and most recently In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte (Colegio de la Frontera Norte and UC Press, 2017).


Thursday, August 22, 2019

THE PEOPLE WENT WALKING: How Rufino Dominguez Revolutionized the Way We Think About Migration Part III

THE PEOPLE WENT WALKING:
How Rufino Dominguez Revolutionized the Way We Think About Migration Part III
By David Bacon
Edited by Luis Escala Rabadan
Food First | 08.22.2019
https://foodfirst.org/publication/the-people-went-walking-how-rufino-dominguez-revolutionized-the-way-we-think-about-migration-part-iii/


Español sigue abajo

This publication is the final part of a three part Issue Brief on the life of the radical organizer, Rufino Dominguez. This Issue Brief is part of Food First's Dismantling Racism in the Food System Series. This Issue Brief has also been translated into Spanish.

Download the PDF version of this Issue Brief.
https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Rufino-and-FIOB_Part3_english_July11.pdf



Part III

The FIOB, especially those leaders like Sergio Mendez who were veterans of the strikes and social movements of San Quintin, built chapters in Tijuana, Ensenada and the San Quintin Valley. After Pimentel's expulsion, however, his supporters left, taking many members from the Baja chapters. Then in 2001 Julio Sandoval, a Triqui migrant from Yosoyuxi, Oaxaca, was imprisoned for leading a land occupation in Cañon Buenavista, an hour south of the U.S. border. He spent two years in the Federal prison in Ensenada. His supporters came to the FIOB binational assembly that year for help. After his release he was an active participant in the assemblies in 2005 and 2008.

Beatriz Chavez and Julio Cesar Alonzo were the two organizers for CIOAC in San Quintin at the end of the 1990s. Chavez led land occupations also, among Triqui and Mixteco farm workers. Like Sandoval, she was sent to the Ensenada prison. Her health was destroyed by her incarceration, however, and she died not long after her release. Despite the repression, however, the FIOB chapters were reorganized, and when farm workers in San Quintin again went on strike in 2015 the FIOB members were active participants.

When the FIOB began to organize in Oaxaca itself, "we began with various productive projects such as the planting of the Chinese pomegranate, the forajero cactus, and strawberries," Rufino explained, "so that families of migrants in the U.S. would have an income to survive." Those efforts grew into five separate offices in the state, and a membership base larger than that in the U.S. in more than 70 towns. In 1999, the Frente entered into an alliance with the PRD and elected Gutierrez Cortez to the state Chamber of Deputies in District 21. "For the first time we beat the caciques," Rufino declared proudly.

Following his term in the state Chamber of Deputies, Gutierrez was imprisoned by then-Governor Jose Murat, until a binational campaign, with demonstrations organized by the FIOB at Mexican consulates throughout California, won his release. While the spurious charges against him were quickly dropped, his real crime was insisting on a new path of economic development that would raise rural living standards, and on the political right to organize independently for that goal. "Before my arrest I thought we had a decent justice system," he said. "Then I saw that the people in jail weren't the rich or well educated, but the poor and those who work hard for a living."

The Right to Stay Home

Gutierrez was a teacher in Tecomaxtlahuaca, a town in the FIOB's main base region in the Mixteca. He and other teachers in the FIOB have been leaders in the state teachers union, Section 22 of the CNTE. In June 2006 a strike by Section 22 led to a months-long uprising, led by the Popular Alliance of People's Organizations (APPO). FIOB leaders, along with other teachers, helped organize the protests. The APPO sought to remove the state's governor, Ulises Ruiz, and make a basic change in development and economic policy. Ezequiel Rosales, who led the union during the strike and insurrection of 2006, later became the FIOB's Oaxaca state coordinator. The uprising was crushed by Federal armed intervention, and dozens of activists were arrested. FIOB leaders were named in arrest warrants as well. According to Leoncio Vasquez, who heads the FIOB office in Fresno, "the lack of human rights itself is a factor contributing to migration from Oaxaca and Mexico, since it closes off our ability to call for any change."



Romualdo Juan Gutierrez Cortez teaching a class in Tecomaxtlahuaca. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.
 

Participating in the APPO reflected the growing demand in the FIOB and other organizations in Oaxaca itself for alternatives to forced migration. The experience of Oaxaca-based activists led to discussions of a new way to look at it.

"Migration is a necessity, not a choice," explained Gutierrez. "There is no work here. You can't tell a child to study to be a doctor if there is no work for doctors in Mexico. It is a very daunting task for a Mexican teacher to convince students to get an education and stay in the country. It is disheartening to see a student go through many hardships to get an education here and become a professional, and then later in the United States do manual labor. Sometimes those with an education are working side by side with others who do not even know how to read." He described the bitter feeling of talking to students whose family members were making more money at a blue collar job in the U.S. than he made as the teacher trying to convince them of the value of education.

As the FIOB organized its June 2008 binational assembly, dozens of farmers left their fields, and women weavers their looms, to debate the right to stay home instead of being forced to leave Oaxaca to survive. In the community center of Santiago Juxtlahuaca, two hundred Mixtec, Zapotec and Triqui farmers, and a delegation of their relatives working in the U.S., made impassioned speeches, their hot arguments echoing from the cinderblock walls of the cavernous hall. People repeated one phrase over and over: el derecho de no migrar - the right to not migrate.

Asserting this right challenges not just the inequality and exploitation facing migrants, but the reasons why people have to migrate to begin with. Indigenous communities were pointing to the need for social change to deal with displacement and the root causes of migration. It was this need that drove the uprising in Oaxaca in 2006.



Rufino talks with former braceros in the palacio del gobierno. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


"We need development that makes migration a choice rather than a necessity - the right to not migrate," said Gaspar Rivera Salgado. "We will find the answer to migration in our communities of origin. To make the right to not migrate concrete, we need to organize the forces in our communities, and combine them with the resources and experiences we've accumulated in 16 years of cross-border organizing. Migration is part of globalization, an aspect of state policies that expel people. Creating an alternative to that requires political power. There's no way to avoid that."

Repression of the 2006 uprising by Oaxaca's state government led teachers in Section 22, as well as the FIOB, the PRD and many civil society organizations in Oaxaca, to organize to get rid of the PRI. In the election of 2010, Gabino Cue Monteagudo, the former mayor of Oaxaca city, was elected governor by an unwieldy alliance between the PRD on the left, and the National Action Party on the right.

Following the election, Governor Cue held a meeting with FIOB leaders from both Oaxaca and California, in which they proposed measures to implement the right to not migrate. "We are going to create a Oaxaca in which migration isn't the fated destiny of our rural and urban population," he promised. FIOB's binational coordinator at the time, Gaspar Rivera Salgado, responded that "FIOB has struggled for twenty years for the rights of migrants, and now we want to fight for the right to not migrate, to change people's actual living conditions so that migration isn't their only alternative."

Cue appointed Rufino Dominguez to head an office charged with defending the interests of migrants, the Instituto Oaxaqueño de Atencion al Migrante (the Oaxacan Institute for Attention to Migrants, IOAM). And when FIOB held its next binational assembly in 2011 in Oaxaca city, the gathering was opened by speeches from Rufino and other officials in the new state administration.

"Rufino was always more skeptical of electoral party politics than many of us, and thought that the political process corrupts people," Rivera Salgado remembers. "We really had to twist his arm to get him to agree to accept Cue's offer. We chose him because we knew he wouldn't get corrupted. It was part of the policy he'd agreed to, and he had to walk the walk. In the end he embraced the challenge, and said he wouldn't run away from it. But he always regretted the decision, and it turned into a very bitter experience for him."

At Oaxaca's 2011 celebration of the International Day of the Migrant on December 16, Rufino honored the first of Oaxaca's migrant workers to travel to the United States as braceros, from 1942 to 1964, and the women who cared for the families they left behind. Around the balconies of the interior courtyard of the Palacio del Gobierno, the ornate colonial state capitol building, he'd hung photographs showing the lives of current migrants from Oaxaca, working as farm laborers in California. Later he exhibited the photographs in many of the main towns sending migrants into the U.S.

"We want to show young people the reality of work in the north, so that they won't have illusions that life is easy there. While migration is their right, and we'll fight for their rights as migrants, we want them to think of having a future here. Our starting point is to understand the need for economic development," Rufino told the former braceros and other community leaders, "because the reason for migration is the lack of work and opportunity in people's communities of origin. If we don't attack the roots of migration, it will continue to grow. We have to have economic development, and respect for the human rights of migrants as they come and go."

Featuring former braceros in the celebration illustrated one element of IOAM's list of its accomplishments in its first year. Some 4,470 Oaxacans worked in the U.S. during the bracero period, and were very old. The Cue administration gave 10,000 pesos (about $800) to each worker, or to their surviving family members. The gesture sought to compensate to a small degree for the fact that braceros had money deducted from their wages while working in the U.S., which then disappeared once they returned to Mexico.



Rufino stands with FIOB leaders and members of its weaving cooperative in Santiago Juxtlahuaca. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


Rufino headed a state agency in a government in which the left was weak, and as a result the IOAM was always starved for funds. Nevertheless it invested 1.6 million pesos in a program to help women to get more training in developing new styles for artisan products, and worked on a program for housing improvement in communities with high rates of emigration. IOAM and teachers in Section 22 cooperated with activist teachers from California's Sacramento State University and the Davis campus of the University of California; together they trained teachers of migrant education to work in New York, California and Michigan among Oaxacan students.

Rufino and Romualdo Juan Gutierrez Cortez, appointed as his deputy, worked on the problems faced by migrants crossing into the U.S., as well as Central American migrants passing through Oaxaca itself. In Ciudad Ixtepec it helped create a Grupo Beta police team responsible for investigating and halting the widespread robberies and rapes suffered by Central American migrants. And facing the high rate of deportations from the U.S. (about 1 million during the first 2.5 years of the Obama administration), IOAM helped to repatriate 22,454 Oaxacan deportees during its first six months of operation.

Rufino signed an agreement in January 2012 with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, to cooperate in protecting the labor rights of Oaxacans working in Canada as guest workers. "We have to make sure they understand their rights and how to enforce them," he declared. The agreement promised friction, however, with the consulates appointed by Mexico's federal government. They were, and are, notorious for discouraging guest workers in Canada and the U.S. from making complaints about violations of labor rights, or demanding wages and unions that would make them less attractive to employers.

"Rufino came from the left," said Bernardo Ramirez, former binational coordinator of the FIOB. "He came from the community. That produced his ideology. He believed in giving attention to those who have the least. The idea of the right to not migrate, which he elaborated first with Gaspar Rivera and Centolia Maldonado, was to attack poverty by organizing productive projects, and by trying to produce what we consume. It included the right to housing, to a decent standard of living and to jobs - to an alternative to going to the U.S. At IOAM he proposed alaw for migration and presented it to the state Chamber of Deputies. It recognized the human rights of migants, and treated migrants as political actors with the right to political participation. As it was finally passed, the law wasn't all that it could have been, but it was still an important achievement."

At the same time, however, Cue began to pressure Rufino and the IOAM to support the recruitment of guest workers in Oaxaca. Cue believed that encouraging recruitment would be politically popular, and that the remittances sent home by those workers would help economic development. While the FIOB had historically opposed those programs, Rufino had to support the government's policy if he intended to keep his appointment. "I think he was also tired of documenting the deaths on the border," Velasco recalled. "He began accepting the argument that guest worker programs would provide a safer way for people to do what they were going to do anyway - cross the border. And he was feeling more and more that he had no power to change the basic situation. In his tours through Oaxaca he saw clearly that migration was beating down communities. When he fought against guest worker programs in the FIOB he was fighting for the long term rights and sustainability of those communities. But later, in the IOAM, he was just trying to deal with the immediate crisis."

Rufino endured harsh criticism and attacks during his period as IOAM director, which undermined any feelings of accomplishment he otherwise might have had. "When a militant activist becomes part of the government there's a kind of isolation from the base and a lot of criticism." Velasco says. "It's very different from what happens when the left takes power. Somehow he was able to navigate alone, with few resources." In the end, though, his position became untenable.

At the beginning of Cue's administration, the teachers had negotiated the governor's support for their progressive education reform program. The Program for the Transformation of Education in Oaxaca concentrated on respecting indigenous culture and forging alliances between teachers, students, parents, and their communities. Teachers also wanted better conditions. "A typical teacher earns about 2200 pesos every two weeks [about $220]," according to Jaime Medina, a reporter for Oaxaca's daily Noticias. "From that they have to purchase chalk, pencils and other school supplies for the children."

Cue also promised not to implement the draconian corporate education reform demanded by the PAN, and then the PRI administrations in Mexico City. Those reforms included mandatory testing of teachers and students, and terminations of teachers. It sought to eliminate the power of teacher unions in states like Oaxaca, and to eventually abolish the normales - the radical teacher training schools. Still fresh in people's memory was the disappearance, and probable murder, of 43 students at the "normal" training school in Ayotzinapa two years earlier.

As the Federal pressure mounted, Cue caved in and agreed to implement the Federal reforms. In the spring of 2016 teachers struck across Mexico to try to stop them. On Sunday, June 19, 2016, demonstrators blocked a highway in Nochixtlan, not far from Oaxaca's capital, after the Federal government arrested leaders of Section 22. Heavily armed police then fired on teachers, students, parents and supporters. Nine people were killed, and many more were wounded. Nochixtlan became a symbol throughout Mexico of the teachers' resistance to corporate education reform, and in Oaxaca, of the Cue administration's betrayal of teachers and the movement that put him in office. Three days after the massacre, Rufino resigned and went back to California.

Romualdo Juan Gutierrez Cortez was FIOB's binational coordinator from 2015 to 2018, and worked with Rufino at the IOAM. "FIOB forced Gabino Cue to take on the issue of migration," he recalled, "especially implementing the right to not migrate. But after he was apponted director of the IOAM Cue never gave him enough financial support for the projects he wanted to develop, especially helping the families of migrants working in the U.S. and protecting the migrants from other countries travelling through Oaxaca. Cue really had no commitment to the people. That became clear, first in his blow against the teachers, and finally at Nochixtlan, where we saw his true face. The three defenders of indigenous communities - David Juarez, Adelfo Regino and Rufino - all resigned."

Returning was a heavy blow personally. In the late 1990s Rufino and his first wife, who had four children together, were divorced. "I got divorced because I was away from them too much," he said later. "I dedicated more of my time to the community, to meetings, than to my family. After 15 years of being married, we had to separate. My wife and family thought that because I preferred this work it was obvious that I didn't love them, that it was irresponsible for me not to give them the time that they deserved or needed. But it was hard for me to see so many problems and not do anything about them. I wanted to make a difference. So it was very difficult for me to say no. Divorce is still not too common in our community, but more people get divorced now. With time it will be something more normal, I think."



Rufino opens the FIOB office in Greenfield. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


Oralia Maceda fell in love with Rufino as they worked together in Fresno, and eventually they were married and had two children. When Rufino was appointed the director of the IOAM, Maceda had to sacrifice her work and the chance to use her considerable organizing skills to move to Oaxaca. Nevertheless, they bought a house near the airport, where they lived during his work for IOAM. After leaving Oaxaca, they returned to Fresno. Rufino went to work for the FIOB's fundraising arm, the Binational Center for Indigenous Oaxacan Development, trying to reorganize its office in Greenfield, in the Salinas Valley. He soon discovered that he had a brain tumor, and after struggling with doctors and hospitals for a year, he died on November 11, 2017.

In bringing his body back for burial in her hometown of Paxtlahuaca, an hour from Juxtlahuaca, Maceda completed an odyssey that had begun for her two decades earlier, when her brother asked her to go to a FIOB workshop on human rights. "They talked about the Agreement of San Andres, the autonomy of indigenous people and why we needed to support the Zapatistas," she remembered. "I wondered why in school no one had told me about this. So I started to think. I am still upset that no one told me before that I was an indigenous person, or taught me the language. As a child, when I would say a word in Mixteco, my grandpa would get mad and say that word is only used by Indians. My mom was not allowed to speak in Mixteco. When I got involved with FIOB I realized that I was indigenous too."

Rufino's Contribution

Migrant scholar Jorge Hernandez, at the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca, traces the evolution of Rufino's ideas in a 2005 article for the Oaxacan magazine, En Marcha. "His ideological journey can be seen in a curious detail of his family life - the names of his children," Hernandez writes. "The oldest is Lenin, and the next is Ivan, born at a time when Rufino was beginning his political life. Although he doesn't call himself a Marxist-Leninist, it was in organizations with those ideas that he began his political development. The third is named Ruben, in honor of Ruben Jaramillo [a leader of the Mexican Revolution and movements for land reform, who organized a guerilla struggle against the government of the 1950s], born when Rufino was part of the popular struggles. His daughter, Tonyndeye, has a Mixtec name, which speaks to Rufino's concern for the defense of migrants and indigenous identity. Only his fourth son, Esteban, was named as a result of a family decision to use Rufino's own middle name." Rufino's youngest child, born after Hernandez' interview, is a boy, Numa Yi. - another Mixtec name. Rufino also had a daughter, Yusi.

In his oral history for Communities Without Borders, Rufino notes that his worldview evolved. "Well, my ideas have changed, especially in this country," he explained. "In Mexico things are very different. The movements there are much bigger. Here, when there are demonstrations or marches, there are fewer people because we depend on cars, and if there are no cars, then nobody moves."

Nevertheless, in the transnational perspective that is the thread running through his life, the fight of indigenous communities is the same on both sides of the border, although the context is different. "Mexicans in the United States should have political rights," he asserted. "It's not enough to fight for changes and politically pressure authorities through marches and demonstrations. We need to start political projects, laws that help migrants, the indigenous, and Mexicans in general. Laws should better represent our experiences, because most are made by people that have never experienced the problems we have. We have to be autonomous from political parties, and at the same time have alliances with them, without losing our identity or being dependent on politicians."

According to Gaspar Rivera Salgado, "Rufino integrated his ideas into a single organizing strategy that was his contribution to the politics of resistance. He believed in fighting for the rights of immigrants, but he saw this in a larger context - that it was necessary to transform society. He never abandoned that left idea of organizing popular resistance on a grass roots level to confront power. His goal, in part, was to kick the PRI out of power, but he believed that this could happen through the political process, rather than outside of it through armed confrontation.

"He applied the ideas he grew up with to the migrant experience, and that's what you see in the FIOB today. Now his ideas are being transformed yet again, by a new generation that never lived in Oaxaca, with new ideas."

Laura Velasco describes Rufino as someone with a soft-spoken style, much in the same way people talk about Cesar Chavez. "His idea was to listen, and then transform people's thinking," she says.

"Rufino was a man from a poor family, a comunero from an indigenous community who knew the daily life of migrants. He showed that migrants can organize, and together with the Zapatistas, he helped change the consciousness of Mexicans about the role of indigenous communities. The FIOB has made a very important contribution to Mexican politics, to the left especially. The Frente is organized from the base up. It's an activist, militant organization, in which its members, and not some political party, make the decisions. Today you can see Rufino's legacy in the pages of La Jornada [Mexico's leftwing daily newspaper], in which the FIOB is treated as an interlocutor, interpreting indigenous reality for a broader audience."



Rufino with members of FIOB.  Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


Download the PDF version here.
https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Rufino-and-FIOB_Part3_english_July11.pdf


Notes on Names and Sources:

I follow the normal convention with all the names, referring to people by their last name, except in the case of Rufino himself. In part this is to separate him from his father at the beginning, but also because it gives a feeling of familiarity rather than distance, which seems appropriate to me.

The sources for almost all the quotes are from my own interviews with the people quoted, conducted over the last 17 years. A few are from other, written sources, which are noted in the text itself. I note that one of the main interviews with Rufino took place when I did a first attempt at an oral history, in the summer of 2002. In that case I note in the text that it was for a book, Communities Without Borders, published in 2006. Other interviews, like that of Irma Luna and Oralia Maceda, were made in the same period. There are many others that would add detail new perspectives to this history, some of which were published in that book and in The Right to Stay Home.



LA GENTE SE IBA ANDANDO:
Cómo Rufino Domínguez transformó nuestra manera de pensar acerca de la migración Parte III
Por David Bacon
Traducción por Rosalí Jurado y Alan Llanos Velázquez
Edición: Nancy Utley García y Luis Escala Rabadán
Food FirsT | 08.22.2019
https://foodfirst.org/publication/la-gente-se-iba-andando-como-rufino-dominguez-transformo-nuestra-manera-de-pensar-acerca-de-la-migracion-parte-iii/


 Esta publicación es la última de tres Partes sobre Rufino Domínguez, organizador laboral radical de Oaxaca. Pertenece a la serie Desmantelando el Racismo del Sistema Alimentario de Food First. Este artículo originalmente fue escrito en inglés.

Puedes descagar la versión en PDF aquí.
https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Rufino-and-FIOB_Part3_spanish_July12.pdf

 

Parte III

El FIOB, y especialmente aquellos líderes como Sergio Méndez, que eran veteranos de las huelgas y movimientos sociales de San Quintín, crearon secciones en Tijuana, Ensenada y el Valle de San Quintín. Sin embargo, después de la expulsión de Pimentel, sus partidarios se fueron, llevándose a muchos miembros de las secciones de Baja California. Luego, en 2001, Julio Sandoval, un migrante triqui de Yosoyuxi, Oaxaca, fue encarcelado por liderar una ocupación de tierras en Cañón Buenavista, a una hora al sur de la frontera con Estados Unidos. Pasó dos años en la prisión federal en Ensenada. Sus seguidores asistieron ese año a la asamblea binacional del FIOB en busca de ayuda. Después de su liberación, participó activamente en las asambleas en 2005 y 2008.

Beatriz Chávez y Julio César Alonzo fueron los dos organizadores de la Central Independiente de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos (CIOAC) en San Quintín a fines de la década de 1990. Chávez también lideró las ocupaciones de tierras entre los campesinos triquis y mixtecos. Al igual que Sandoval, fue enviada a la prisión de Ensenada. Sin embargo, su salud se deterioró por el encarcelamiento, y murió poco después de su liberación. Sin embargo, a pesar de la represión, las secciones del FIOB se reorganizaron, y cuando los trabajadores agrícolas en San Quintín volvieron a la huelga en 2015, los miembros del FIOB fueron participantes activos.

Cuando el FIOB comenzó a organizarse en Oaxaca, "comenzamos con varios proyectos productivos, como la siembra de la granada china, el cactus forrajero y las fresas", explicó Rufino, "para que las familias de los migrantes en Estados Unidos tuvieran un ingreso para sobrevivir". Esos esfuerzos se convirtieron en cinco oficinas separadas en el estado y una base de afiliados más grande que la de Estados Unidos en más de 70 ciudades. En 1999, el Frente se alió con el Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) y eligió a Gutiérrez Cortez para la Cámara de Diputados por el Distrito 21. "Por primera vez derrotamos a los caciques", declaró orgullosamente Rufino.

Después de su mandato en la Cámara de Diputados del estado, Gutiérrez fue encarcelado por el entonces gobernador José Murat, hasta que una campaña binacional, con protestas organizadas por el FIOB en los consulados mexicanos en todo California, obtuvo su liberación. Si bien los cargos espurios en su contra se abandonaron rápidamente, su verdadero delito fue insistir en una nueva vía para el desarrollo económico que permitiera incrementar el nivel de vida rural, y en el derecho político a organizarse de manera independiente para el logro de ese objetivo. "Antes de mi arresto, pensé que teníamos un sistema de justicia decoroso", dijo. "Entonces vi que las personas en la cárcel no eran ricos ni tenían buena educación, sino que eran pobres que trabajaban duro para ganarse la vida".

El derecho a quedarse en casa

Gutiérrez fue maestro en Tecomaxtlahuaca, una ciudad en la principal región de influencia del FIOB en la Mixteca. Él y otros en el FIOB han sido líderes en el sindicato de maestros del estado, dentro de la Sección 22 de la Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE). En junio de 2006, una huelga de la Sección 22 provocó una protesta que duró varios meses, liderada por la Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO). Los líderes del FIOB, junto con otros profesores, ayudaron a organizar las protestas. La APPO buscó deponer al gobernador del estado, Ulises Ruiz, y establecer un cambio importante en las políticas para el desarrollo y la economía. Ezequiel Rosales, quien dirigió el sindicato durante la huelga y la insurrección de 2006, se convirtió posteriormente en el coordinador del estado de Oaxaca dentro del FIOB. El levantamiento fue aplastado por la intervención armada federal, y docenas de activistas fueron arrestados. También se les giraron órdenes de arresto a los líderes del FIOB. Según Leoncio Vásquez, quien encabeza la oficina del FIOB en Fresno, "la falta de derechos humanos es en sí misma un factor que contribuye a la migración desde Oaxaca y México, ya que nos cierra la posibilidad de demandar cualquier cambio."



Romualdo Juan Gutiérrez Cortez facilitando una clase en Tecomaxtlahuaca. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.
 

La participación en la APPO reflejó la creciente demanda en el FIOB y en otras organizaciones en Oaxaca de alternativas frente a la migración forzada. La experiencia de activistas basados en Oaxaca condujo a discusiones con una nueva perspectiva.

"La migración es una necesidad, no una elección", explicó Gutiérrez. "Aquí no hay trabajo. No puede decirle a un niño que estudie para ser médico si no hay trabajo para médicos en México. Es una tarea muy desalentadora para un maestro mexicano convencer a los estudiantes para que reciban una educación y permanezcan en el país. Es desalentador ver a un estudiante pasando por muchas dificultades para obtener una educación aquí, convertirse en un profesional, y luego terminar en Estados Unidos haciendo trabajo manual. A veces, quienes tienen una educación trabajan al lado de otros que ni siquiera saben leer". Describió la amarga sensación de hablar con estudiantes cuyos familiares estaban ganando más dinero en un trabajo como obreros en Estados Unidos que el que ganaba el mismo maestro tratando de convencerlos del valor de la educación.

Cuando el FIOB organizó su asamblea binacional en junio de 2008, decenas de campesinos abandonaron sus campos y las mujeres sus telares para debatir sobre el derecho a quedarse en casa, en lugar de verse obligados a abandonar Oaxaca para sobrevivir. En el centro comunitario de Santiago Juxtlahuaca, 200 campesinos mixtecos, zapotecos y triquis, junto con una delegación de sus parientes que trabajaban en Estados Unidos, pronunciaron discursos apasionados, y sus enfáticos argumentos resonaban en las paredes de tabique de la sala cavernosa. La gente repetía la misma frase una y otra vez: el derecho a no migrar.

Afirmar este derecho no sólo desafía la desigualdad y la explotación que enfrentan los migrantes, sino también las razones por las cuales la gente tiene que migrar para empezar. Las comunidades indígenas señalaban la necesidad de un cambio social para enfrentar el desplazamiento y las causas de la migración. Fue esta necesidad la que impulsó el levantamiento en Oaxaca en 2006.

"Necesitamos un desarrollo que haga de la migración una opción más que una necesidad: el derecho a no migrar", dijo Gaspar Rivera-Salgado. "Encontraremos la respuesta a la migración en nuestras comunidades de origen. Para hacer que el derecho a no migrar sea algo concreto, debemos organizar las fuerzas en nuestras comunidades y combinarlas con los recursos y las experiencias que hemos acumulado en 16 años de organización transfronteriza. La migración es parte de la globalización, un aspecto de las políticas estatales que expulsan a las personas. Crear una alternativa a eso requiere poder político. No hay forma de evitar eso."



Rufino habla con los ex braceros en el palacio de gobierno. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.
 


La represión del levantamiento de 2006 por parte del gobierno del estado de Oaxaca hizo que los maestros de la Sección 22, así como el FIOB, el PRD y muchas organizaciones de la sociedad civil en Oaxaca, se organizaran para deshacerse del PRI. En la elección de 2010, Gabino Cué Monteagudo, ex alcalde de la ciudad de Oaxaca, fue elegido gobernador por una alianza difícil de manejar entre el PRD de la izquierda y el Partido Acción Nacional de la derecha.

Luego de las elecciones, el Gobernador Cué sostuvo una reunión con los líderes del FIOB tanto de Oaxaca como de California, en la cual propusieron medidas para implementar el derecho a no migrar. "Vamos a crear un Oaxaca en el que la migración no sea el destino predestinado de nuestra población rural y urbana", prometió el gobernador. El coordinador binacional del FIOB en ese momento, Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, señaló que "el FIOB ha luchado durante 20 años por los derechos de los migrantes, y ahora queremos luchar por el derecho a no migrar, cambiar las condiciones reales de vida de las personas para que la migración no sea su única alternativa."

Cué nombró a Rufino Domínguez jefe de una oficina encargada de la defensa de los intereses de los migrantes, el Instituto Oaxaqueño de Atención al Migrante (IOAM). Y cuando el FIOB celebró su siguiente asamblea binacional en 2011, en la ciudad de Oaxaca, la reunión se abrió con los discursos de Rufino y otros funcionarios de la nueva administración estatal.

"Rufino siempre fue más escéptico de la política de los partidos electorales que muchos de nosotros, y pensaba que el proceso político corrompe a la gente", recuerda Rivera- Salgado. "Realmente tuvimos que torcerle el brazo para que aceptara la oferta de Cué. Lo elegimos porque sabíamos que no se corrompería. Era parte de la política que había aceptado, y tenía que cumplir. Al final, aceptó el reto y dijo que no lo evadiría, pero siempre lamentó la decisión, y se convirtió en una experiencia muy amarga para él."

En la celebración del Día Internacional del Migrante en Oaxaca, el 16 de diciembre, Rufino honró a los primeros trabajadores migrantes de Oaxaca que viajaron a los Estados Unidos como braceros, de 1942 a 1964, y a las mujeres que cuidaron a las familias que dejaron atrás. Alrededor de los balcones del patio interior del Palacio del Gobierno, en el ornamentado edificio colonial del capitolio estatal, Rufino hizo colgar fotografías que mostraban las vidas de los migrantes actuales de Oaxaca, trabajando como jornaleros en California. Más tarde exhibió las fotografías en muchas de las principales ciudades y pueblos emisores de migrantes a Estados Unidos.

"Queremos mostrar a los jóvenes la realidad del trabajo en el norte, para que no se hagan ilusiones de que ahí la vida es fácil. Si bien la migración es su derecho y lucharemos por sus derechos como migrantes, queremos que piensen en tener un futuro aquí. Nuestro punto de partida es comprender la necesidad del desarrollo económico", dijo Rufino a los ex braceros y otros líderes comunitarios, "porque la razón de la migración es la falta de trabajo y de oportunidades en las comunidades de origen de las personas. Si no atacamos las raíces de la migración, continuará creciendo. Necesitamos tener desarrollo económico y respeto por los derechos humanos de los migrantes a medida que van y vienen."

La presencia de ex braceros en la celebración ilustró uno de los logros del IOAM en su primer año. Unos 4,470 oaxaqueños trabajaron en Estados Unidos durante el Programa Bracero y eran muy viejos. La administración de Cué otorgó 10,000 pesos (aproximadamente 800 dólares) a cada trabajador, o a sus familiares sobrevivientes. El gesto buscaba compensar en forma mínima el hecho de que a los braceros se les hubiese retenido una proporción de sus salarios mientras trabajaban en Estados Unidos, y que luego este dinero desapareció una vez que regresaron a México.



Rufino con miembros de la cooperativa de tejedoras de FIOB en Santiago Juxtlahuaca. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.
 

Rufino encabezaba una instancia estatal en un gobierno en el que la izquierda era débil, y como resultado el IOAM siempre contó con fondos muy limitados. Sin embargo, invirtió 1.6 millones de pesos en un programa para ayudar a las mujeres a obtener más capacitación en el desarrollo de nuevos estilos para productos artesanales y trabajó en un programa para la mejora de la vivienda en comunidades con altos índices de emigración. El IOAM y los docentes de la Sección 22 cooperaron con profesores activistas de la Universidad Estatal de California en Sacramento y de la Universidad de California en Davis; juntos capacitaron a docentes de educación para migrantes para que trabajaran en Nueva York, California y Michigan con estudiantes oaxaqueños.

Rufino y Romualdo Juan Gutiérrez Cortez, designado como su delegado, trabajó en los problemas que enfrentan los migrantes que cruzan hacia Estados Unidos, así como también los migrantes centroamericanos que pasan por Oaxaca. En la ciudad de Ixtepec ayudó a crear un equipo de policía del Grupo Beta responsable de investigar y detener los robos y violaciones generalizadas que padecían los migrantes centroamericanos. Y frente al alto índice de deportaciones desde Estados Unidos (alrededor de un millón durante los primeros dos años y medio de la administración de Obama), el IOAM ayudó a repatriar a 22,454 deportados oaxaqueños durante sus primeros seis meses de operación.

Rufino firmó un acuerdo en enero de 2012 con el Sindicato Unido de Trabajadores de la Alimentación y el Comercio, para cooperar en la protección de los derechos laborales de los oaxaqueños que trabajan en Canadá como trabajadores temporales. "Tenemos que asegurarnos de que entiendan sus derechos y cómo hacerlos cumplir", declaró. Sin embargo, el acuerdo implicaba una confrontación con los consulados del gobierno federal de México, ya que han sido, y siguen siendo más propensos a desalentar a los trabajadores invitados en Canadá y en Estados Unidos de presentar quejas sobre violaciones de derechos laborales, o bien de exigir salarios y sindicatos que los hicieran menos atractivos para los empleadores.

"Rufino venía de la izquierda", decía Bernardo Ramírez, ex Coordinador Binacional del FIOB. "Venía de la comunidad. Eso fue la base de su ideología: creía en atender a aquellos que tienen menos. La idea del derecho a no migrar, que elaboró primero con Gaspar Rivera y con Centolia Maldonado, consistía en atacar la pobreza mediante la organización de proyectos productivos, tratando de producir lo que consumimos. Esto también suponía el derecho a una vivienda, a un nivel decoroso de vida y a fuentes de trabajo, con el fin de tener una alternativa a migrar a Estados Unidos. En el Instituto Oaxaqueño de Atención al Migrante (IOAM), Rufino propuso una ley para la migración y la presentó en la Cámara estatal de Diputados. Esta ley reconocía los derechos humanos de los migrantes, y los consideraba como actores políticos con derecho a la participación política. En la versión que fue finalmente aprobada, esta ley no fue todo lo que pudo haber sido, pero como sea fue un logro importante".

Al mismo tiempo, sin embargo, Cué comenzó a presionar a Rufino y al IOAM para apoyar el reclutamiento de trabajadores invitados en Oaxaca. Cué creía que alentar el reclutamiento sería políticamente popular, y que las remesas enviadas por esos trabajadores ayudarían al desarrollo económico. Si bien el FIOB se había opuesto históricamente a esos programas, Rufino tenía que apoyar la política del gobierno si tenía la intención de mantener su nombramiento. "Creo que también estaba cansado de documentar las muertes en la frontera", comentó Velasco. "Comenzó a aceptar el argumento de que los programas de trabajadores invitados proporcionarían una manera más segura para que las personas hicieran lo que iban a hacer de todos modos: cruzar la frontera. Y sentía cada vez más que no tenía poder para cambiar la situación básica. En sus giras por Oaxaca, vio claramente que la migración golpeaba a las comunidades. Cuando luchaba contra los programas de trabajadores invitados dentro del FIOB, luchaba por los derechos a largo plazo y la sostenibilidad de esas comunidades. Pero más tarde, en el IOAM, sólo intentaba lidiar con la crisis inmediata."

Rufino soportó duras críticas y ataques durante su período como director del IOAM, lo que socavó cualquier sensación de logro que pudo haber tenido de otra forma. "Cuando un activista militante se convierte en parte del gobierno, hay una especie de aislamiento de la base, y muchas críticas", dice Velasco. "Es muy diferente de lo que sucede cuando la izquierda toma el poder. De alguna manera, pudo navegar solo, con muy pocos recursos". Al final, sin embargo, su posición se volvió insostenible.

Al comienzo de la administración de Cué, los maestros habían negociado el apoyo del gobernador para su programa progresivo de reforma educativa. El Programa para la Transformación de la Educación en Oaxaca se concentró en respetar la cultura indígena y forjar alianzas entre docentes, estudiantes, padres y sus comunidades. Los maestros también querían mejores condiciones. "Un maestro ordinario gana aproximadamente 2,200 pesos cada dos semanas [alrededor de 220 dólares]", según Jaime Medina, periodista del diario Noticias de Oaxaca. "De ahí tienen que comprar gises, lápices y otros útiles escolares para los niños".

Cué también prometió no implementar la draconiana reforma educativa corporativa exigida por el PAN, y luego por las administraciones del PRI desde la Ciudad de México. Esas reformas incluyeron exámenes obligatorios a maestros y estudiantes, y despidos de maestros. Buscó eliminar el poder de los sindicatos docentes en estados como Oaxaca, y eventualmente abolir las Normales, que son las escuelas radicales de capacitación docente. Todavía estaba fresco en la memoria de la gente la desaparición, y probable asesinato, de 43 estudiantes en la Escuela Normal de Ayotzinapa dos años antes.

A medida que la presión federal aumentó, Cué se dio por vencido y acordó implementar las reformas federales. En la primavera de 2016, los maestros protestaron por todo México para tratar de detenerlas. El domingo 19 de junio de 2016, manifestantes bloquearon una carretera en Nochixtlán, cerca de la capital de Oaxaca, después de que el gobierno federal detuviera a los líderes de la Sección 22, y luego la policía fuertemente armada disparó contra maestros, estudiantes, padres y simpatizantes. Nueve personas fueron asesinadas, y muchas más resultaron heridas. Nochixtlán se convirtió en un símbolo en todo México de la resistencia de los docentes a la reforma educativa corporativa, y en Oaxaca, de la traición a los docentes por parte del gobierno de Cué y del movimiento que lo llevó a la gubernatura. Tres días después de la masacre, Rufino renunció y regresó a California.

Romualdo Juan Gutiérrez Cortéz fue el Coordinador Binacional del FIOB de 2015 al 2018, y trabajó con Rufino en el IOAM. "El FIOB obligó a Gabino Cué a retomar el tema de la migración", señalaba, "especialmente a implementar el derecho a no migrar. Pero después de que Rufino fue nombrado director del IOAM, Cué nunca le brindó suficiente apoyo financiero para los proyectos que quería desarrollar, especialmente aquellos que buscaban ayudar a las familias de migrantes que trabajaban en Estados Unidos, así como a la protección de migrantes que venían de otros países y que viajaban a través de Oaxaca. La verdad es que Cué no tenía compromiso con la gente. Eso se vio claro la primera vez con la represión contra los maestros, y después en Nochixtlán, donde mostró su verdadera cara. Los tres defensores de las comunidades indígenas - David Juárez, Adelfo Regino y Rufino -, todos renunciaron".

Regresar fue un duro golpe a nivel personal. A fines de la década de 1990, Rufino y su primera esposa, que tenían cuatro hijos juntos, se divorciaron. "Me divorcié porque estaba demasiado lejos de ellos", dijo más tarde. "Dediqué más tiempo a la comunidad, a las reuniones que a mi familia. Después de 15 años de estar casado, tuvimos que separarnos. Mi esposa y mi familia pensaron que, como prefería este trabajo, era obvio que no los amaba, que fue irresponsable de mi parte no darles el tiempo que merecían o necesitaban. Pero me resultaba difícil ver tantos problemas y no hacer nada al respecto. Quería hacer la diferencia. Así que fue muy difícil para mí decir que no. El divorcio aún no es muy común en nuestra comunidad, pero ahora hay más personas que se divorcian. Con el tiempo, será algo más normal, creo.

Oralia Maceda se enamoró de Rufino cuando trabajaban juntos en Fresno, y finalmente se casaron y tuvieron dos hijos. Cuando Rufino fue nombrado director del IOAM, Maceda tuvo que sacrificar su trabajo y la oportunidad de usar sus considerables habilidades de organización para mudarse a Oaxaca. Sin embargo, compraron una casa cerca del aeropuerto, donde vivieron durante su trabajo para el IOAM. Después de dejar Oaxaca, regresaron a Fresno. Rufino fue a trabajar para la instancia de recaudación de fondos del FIOB, el Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño (CBDIO), tratando de reorganizar su oficina en la ciudad de Greenfield, en el Valle de Salinas. Pronto descubrió que tenía un tumor cerebral, y después de luchar con médicos y hospitales durante un año, falleció el 11 de noviembre de 2017.



Rufino inaugura la oficina de FIOB en Greenfield. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.
 

Al regresar con el cuerpo para su entierro en su ciudad natal de Paxtlahuaca, a una hora de Juxtlahuaca, Maceda completó una odisea que había comenzado dos décadas antes, cuando su hermano le pidió ir a un taller del FIOB sobre derechos humanos. "Hablaron de los Acuerdos de San Andrés, la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas y por qué necesitábamos apoyar a los zapatistas", recordó. "Me preguntaba por qué en la escuela nadie me había contado sobre esto. Entonces comencé a pensar. Todavía estoy molesta porque nadie me dijo antes que era indígena, o me enseñó el idioma. Cuando era niña y decía una palabra en mixteco, mi abuelo se enojaba y decía que esas palabras sólo las usaban los indios. Mi madre no tenía permitido hablar en mixteco. Cuando me involucré con el FIOB, me di cuenta de que yo también era indígena".

La contribución de Rufino

El académico Jorge Hernández, especialista en migración en la Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, rastrea la evolución de las ideas de Rufino en un artículo de 2005 para la revista oaxaqueña En Marcha. "Su trayectoria ideológica se puede ver en un detalle curioso de su vida familiar: los nombres de sus hijos", escribe Hernández. "El mayor es Lenin, y el siguiente es Iván, nacido en un momento en que Rufino estaba comenzando su vida política. Aunque no se reconocía como marxista-leninista, fue en organizaciones con esas ideas que comenzó su desarrollo político. El tercero se llama Rubén, en honor a Rubén Jaramillo [un líder inspirado por la Revolución Mexicana y de movimientos por la reforma agraria, que organizó una lucha guerrillera contra el gobierno en la década de 1950], nacido cuando Rufino era parte de las luchas populares. Su hija, Tonyndeye, tiene un nombre mixteco, que habla de la preocupación de Rufino por la defensa de los inmigrantes y la identidad indígena. Sólo su cuarto hijo, Esteban, fue nombrado como resultado de una decisión familiar de usar el segundo nombre de Rufino." El hijo menor de Rufino, nacido después de la entrevista de Hernández, es un niño, Numa Yi, otro nombre mixteco. Rufino también tuvo una hija, Yusi.

En su historia oral para el libro Communities Without Borders, Rufino señala que su visión del mundo evolucionó. "Bueno, mis ideas han cambiado, especialmente en este país [Estados Unidos]", explicó. "En México las cosas son muy diferentes. Los movimientos allí son mucho más grandes. Aquí, cuando hay manifestaciones o marchas, hay menos personas porque dependemos de los automóviles, y si no hay automóviles, entonces nadie se mueve".

No obstante, en la perspectiva transnacional, que es el hilo conductor de su vida, la lucha de las comunidades indígenas es la misma en ambos lados de la frontera, aunque el contexto es diferente. "Los mexicanos en Estados Unidos deberían tener derechos políticos", afirmó. "No es suficiente luchar por cambios y presionar políticamente a las autoridades a través de marchas y manifestaciones. Tenemos que iniciar proyectos políticos, leyes que ayuden a los inmigrantes, los indígenas y los mexicanos en general. Las leyes deberían representar mejor nuestras experiencias, porque la mayoría son hechas por personas que nunca han experimentado los problemas que tenemos. Tenemos que ser autónomos de los partidos políticos, y al mismo tiempo tener alianzas con ellos, sin perder nuestra identidad o ser dependientes de los políticos."

Según Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, "Rufino integró sus ideas en una estrategia de organización única que fue su contribución a la política de resistencia. Creía en la lucha por los derechos de los migrantes, pero vio esto en un contexto más amplio: que era necesario transformar la sociedad. Nunca abandonó la idea de organizar la resistencia popular a nivel de las bases para enfrentar el poder. Su objetivo, en parte, era sacar al PRI del poder, pero creía que esto podría pasar a través del proceso político, en lugar de la confrontación armada.

"Aplicó las ideas con las que creció a la experiencia de los migrantes, y eso es lo que se ve en el FIOB hoy en día. Ahora sus ideas se están transformando una vez más, por una nueva generación que nunca ha vivido en Oaxaca, con nuevas ideas".

Laura Velasco describe a Rufino como alguien con un estilo de voz suave, del mismo modo que la gente habla de Cesar Chavez. "Su idea era escuchar y luego transformar el pensamiento de las personas", señala. "Rufino era un hombre de una familia pobre, un comunero de una comunidad indígena que conocía la vida cotidiana de los migrantes. Mostró que los migrantes pueden organizarse y, junto con los zapatistas, ayudó a cambiar la conciencia de los mexicanos sobre el papel de las comunidades indígenas. El FIOB ha hecho una contribución muy importante a la política mexicana, especialmente a la izquierda. El Frente está organizado desde la base. Es una organización activista y militante, en la que sus miembros, y no un partido político, toman las decisiones. Hoy en día se puede ver el legado de Rufino en las páginas de La Jornada [el diario de izquierda en México], en el cual el FIOB es tratado como un interlocutor, interpretando la realidad indígena para un público más amplio."



Rufino con miembros de FIOB. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.


Puedes descagar la versión en PDF aquí.
https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Rufino-and-FIOB_Part3_spanish_July12.pdf


Notas sobre Nombres y Fuentes:

Seguí las normas establecidas con todos los nombres, utilizando el apellido de las personas, excepto con Rufino. En parte, al inicio, para separarlo de su padre, además porque da cierta familiaridad en lugar de establecer la distancia, por ello me pareció apropiado.

La fuente de casi todas las citas es de las entrevistas que he realizado en los últimos 17 años. Algunas citas son de otras fuentes escritas, las cuales están indicadas en el mismo texto. Una de las entrevistas principales que hice a Rufino fue en mi primer intento de hacer una historia oral en el verano de 2002. Realizada para el libro Communities Without Borders, publicado en 2006. Otras entrevistas con Irma Luna y Oralia Maceda las realicé en el mismo período. Muchas otras están porque añaden a la historia detalle de nuevas perspectivas, algunas citas fueron publicadas."

Sunday, August 18, 2019

THE PEOPLE WENT WALKING: How Rufino Dominguez Revolutionized the Way We Think About Migration - Part II

THE PEOPLE WENT WALKING:
How Rufino Dominguez Revolutionized the Way We Think About Migration - Part II
By David Bacon
Edited by Luis Escala Rabadan
Food First | 08.16.2019
https://foodfirst.org/publication/the-people-went-walking-how-rufino-dominguez-revolutionized-the-way-we-think-about-migration-part-ii/


This publication is the second part of a three part Issue Brief on the life of the radical organizer, Rufino Dominguez. This Issue Brief is part of Food First's Dismantling Racism in the Food System Series. This Issue Brief has also been translated into Spanish.

Download the PDF version of this Issue Brief.
https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Rufino-and-FIOB_Part2_english_July11.pdf



Part II

CIOAC survived in San Quintin until the early 2000s, fighting more as the years went by for land on which migrants from Oaxaca could build houses and settle permanently. Benito Garcia was eventually expelled, however, and from the PSUM as well. Rufino organized OPEO, and helped CIOAC in San Quintin, through 1984. Then he left with his wife for the other side of the border. By then his first son, Lenin, had been born in San Quintin.

"I got married in 1983, although I didn't want to," he remembered later. "I wanted to devote my life completely to organizing. We need to organize and it demands a great deal, but if you have a family you can't dedicate yourself completely to this commitment. Once I got married, I had to come to the U.S. because it wasn't fair to ask my father to keep supporting me and my wife. So I got married and decided to seek my future here."

In California, Indigenous Migrants and Farm Workers Begin to Organize

Once he arrived in Selma, California, he found that people from San Miguel living there had also heard about his fight to free the town from its cacique, and the strikes in Sinaloa and Baja California. "I felt like I was in my hometown," he remembered. "People paid off my coyote [the smuggler who helped him cross the border], and asked me to continue my work here. I didn't even know how to drive, or where the sun rises and where it sets. But we began.

"In 1985 we formed a local committee of people from San Miguel Cuevas. We worked on setting up a clinic back home, as well as playing fields and rebuilding the church. But we were also interested in building up awareness about our need to organize to defend our human and labor rights here. In 1986 I went to Livingston, because it was the center of Oaxacan migrants in Madera County. I started another committee, and began working not just with people from San Miguel Cuevas, but from other towns as well, like Teotitlan del Valle. We set up more committees of the OPEO in Madera and Fresno."



Rufino and journalist Eduardo Stanley on their bilingual program for farm workers on KFCF radio. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


In many ways, conditions in California were not so different from those in Sinaloa and San Quintin. "Everyone was a farm worker, and we did a lot about the working conditions. I know them well, because I worked in the fields picking grapes and tomatoes, and working with the hoe. I participated in various strikes in the tomatoes to demand improvements in 1986, 87 and 88. They'd fire me, and then they wouldn't want to give me any work because they were afraid I'd organize more strikes. I don't remember how many I participated in, in the tomatoes, and pruning grapes. We were able to force the labor contractors to pay more, but then we'd be blacklisted.

"I worked in the fields until 1991, and then in a turkey farm for a few more years. It was a life of slavery, with no weekends or days off. We worked seven days a week."

OPEO fought the discrimination against indigenous migrants as much as it did their exploitation at work. "We started one of our first projects in 1986 because many people went to jail because they couldn't speak Spanish or English. We started an organization of indigenous interpreters, and fought for the legal right in the United States for each person to have translation in court in their primary language. We won this in the U.S., and it's still something we don't have in our native country. In Mexico they judge you in Spanish, and they punish you in Spanish. You don't even know what you did wrong."

Language discrimination against indigenous migrants reflects a deeper structural racism. The number of migrants from Oaxaca in California, especially in rural areas, began to rise sharply in the early 1980s. By 2008 demographer Rick Mines found that 120,000 migrant farm workers in California had come from indigenous communities in Mexico - Mixtecos, Triquis, Purepechas and others. Together with family members, they accounted for slightly less than 170,000 people. The percentage of farmworkers coming from Oaxaca and southern Mexico grew by four times in less than twenty years, from 7% in 1991, to over 20% in 2008.

In new centers of indigenous population, Triquis, who'd migrated from the same region of the Mixteca that Rufino had left, founded Nuevo San Juan Copala in Baja California. They became the majority of the residents of Greenfield, in California's Salinas Valley. Purepechas from Michoacan populated huge dilapidated trailer parks in the Coachella Valley, and were packed into garages and tiny apartments in Oxnard.

A third of those workers reported to Mines they were earning below the minimum wage. The median income for a mestizo farmworker family in 2008 was $22,500 - hardly a livable wage. But the income for an indigenous farm worker family was $13,750. In part, the difference reflects the lack of legal immigration status for most indigenous migrants. While 53% of all farm workers are undocumented, according to the Department of Labor, the wave of indigenous migration came after the cutoff date (January 1, 1982) for the immigration amnesty in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. When that cutoff date was chosen, it couldn't have escaped notice by the Act's authors that Mexico had suffered the "peso shock" later in 1982. The subsequent devaluation of the peso aggravated the existing economic crisis in the countryside, and led to the migration of thousands of desperate families, who crossed the border too late for the amnesty.

Low wages in the fields have brutal consequences. In northern San Diego County, many strawberry pickers sleep out of doors on hillsides and in ravines. Each year the county sheriff clears out some of their encampments, but by next season workers have built others. As Romulo Muñoz Vasquez, living on a San Diego hillside, explained: " We're outsiders. If we were natives here, then we'd probably have a home to live in. But we don't make enough to pay rent. There isn't enough money to pay rent, food, transportation and still have money left to send to Mexico. I figured any spot under a tree would do." And San Diego is not the only California county where workers live under trees or in their cars at harvest time.

Despite their poverty, workers in the U.S. earn three of four times what they do in Mexico, Velasco points out. But the cost of living north of the border is higher too. Migrants quickly begin measuring their earnings, as Muñoz Vasquez did, not in comparison to what they earned in Mexico, but to what it takes to live in the U.S. They can see themselves on the bottom compared also to the standard of living in the U.S. world surrounding them, sometimes falling below the legal minimum.

Even after a decade of activity, "the conditions haven't changed at all," Rufino concluded in the mid-90s. "The growers don't obey the state and federal labor laws. They don't pay the minimum wage, and sometimes workers are robbed of their wages entirely. People work on piece rate, where they get paid according to what they do. If they pay a dollar a bucket, and I pick 20 buckets in eight hours, they still just pay me $20, even though the law says I'm guaranteed the minimum wage, which (in 1996) would be $34."

Rufino's activity brought him into contact with other organizations of indigenous migrants, who were produced by the same flow of displaced people and painful political turmoil that was part of the migrant experience. Some, like Arturo Pimentel, were also militants, and shared with Benito Garcia and Rufino himself a political history on the left and in the PSUM. Rufino's work organizing OPEO connected him with other indigenous organizers like Filemon Lopez in the Asociación Cívica de Benito Júarez, organized in Fresno in 1986. Sergio Mendez, Algimiro Morales, and others had organized migrants from Tlacotepec, first as the Comite Civico Popular Tlacotepense (closely tied to the PCM, according to Rivera Salgado), and then in the Comité Cívico Popular Mixteco in Vista. They had longstanding ties with the left across the border in Baja California.



Jorge and Margarita Giron pruning grapevines near Fresno. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


Rufino got to know the Organizacion Regional de Oaxaca (ORO), started in 1988 in Los Angeles, where over 70,000 Zapotec migrants were concentrated. There ORO began organizing the Guelaguetza dance festival in Normandie Park, reproducing the festival in Oaxaca that every year showcases the dances of the state's indigenous communities. By 1992 The ORO Guelaguetza featured 16 dances from all seven regions of Oaxaca, and for the first time in the U.S., the famous Danza de la Pluma. A decade later at least seven other Guelaguetza festivals had been organized in farm worker towns throughout California.

Laura Velasco argues that "the organizing traditions of these activists came together, which made it possible to mix the tactics and ideas of indigenous rural community organizing, the urban peoples' movements and the class vision of the leftwing parties of the 80s, especially the PSUM. A new organizing space opened with the experience they'd gained in the fields of California. The conditions of work and displacement created the possibility for new alliances between peoples and ethnic groups."

Velasco says that many of those organizations and their leaders participated in the first campaigns of Mexican political parties on the U.S. side of the border. In 1988 Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a former governor of Michoacan who'd broken with the PRI, became the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Front. Earlier the PSUM had merged with another leftwing party to form the Mexican Socialist Party, and initially fielded its own presidential candidate, Heberto Castillo. When it appeared that Cardenas could beat the PRI, however, Castillo's candidacy was withdrawn and they backed Cardenas instead.

Cardenas won, by all non-PRI accounts, but the government nevertheless declared the PRI's Carlos Salinas de Gortari the victor after a fraudulent vote count. Afterwards the PSUM/Mexican Socialist Party merged with Cardenas supporters who'd broken from the PRI, and formed the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). In the process, however, the original socialist ideology of the PCM and PSUM was gradually jettisoned. The PRD eventually became the governing party of Mexico City and several other Mexican states.

In Los Angeles, the four migrant organizations came together on October 5, 1991 and formed the Binational Mixteco/Zapoteco Front. "It then took off in 1992," Rufino recalled, "when the governing bodies of the world were celebrating the famous 500 years of the discovering of the Americas. They said that Christopher Columbus was welcomed as a grand hero who brought good things. They wouldn't talk about the massacres or the genocide in our villages. All the indigenous organizations on the American continent protested against this celebration.

"We wanted to tell a different story - that our people were stripped of our culture. They imposed a different God on us, and told us that nature wasn't worth anything. In reality nature gives us life. Our purpose was to dismantle the old stereotypes, to march, to protest. Afterwards we thought, why not keep organizing for human rights, labor rights, housing, and education?"

Academics began taking note of this growing wave of activism. David Runsten, Carol Zabin and Michael Kearney at the University of California made one of the first surveys of indigenous farm workers in California, showing that settlements in the U.S. were linked to hometowns in Oaxaca, and to other settlements in Baja California. In 1992 Don Villarejo and the California Institute for Rural Studies published a report criticizing California Rural Legal Assistance, the legal aid organization for the state's farm workers, for not paying attention to this demographic change.

Jose Padilla, CRLA's director, and Claudia Smith, a CRLA attorney in San Diego, organized a conference to talk about the challenge of providing legal services to farm workers in Mixteco, Triqui and other indigenous languages. Most of the activists urging CRLA to respond, including Rufino, Pimentel, Morales and others, came from the organizations that had formed the Frente Mixteco/Zapoteco. "I knew right away that we needed to hire Rufino, to ensure that we had a strong connection to the leadership of this movement," says Padilla.

Eventually other Frente members also went to work for CRLA as community outreach workers. Rufino was the first. It was his first step out of the fields, and gave him the opportunity to do political and labor rights work full time. In one of their first battles, Rufino and CRLA fought Chevron Corporation over a toxic dump beneath a trailer park inhabited by families from San Miguel Cuevas, and forced the company to pay several million dollars to resettle them.

Rufino also tried to negotiate a cooperative relationship with the United Farm Workers in the same period, but with much less success. "We recognized that the UFW is a strong union representing agricultural workers. They in turn recognized us as an organization that tries to gain rights for indigenous migrants. Even within the UFW, though, some people said that indigenous people were 'rompehuelgistas' [strikebreakers] or 'esquiroles' [scabs]. In '84 there was a strike in Merced, and we were called these names. But the people from the union only spoke to us in Spanish. They didn't understand that our people only spoke Mixteco or Zapoteco, so many times, because of the language barrier, we couldn't understand each other. This treatment doesn't live up to the political ideals of the union. They should welcome indigenous people, and be more open-minded. In reality, although we felt the union didn't take us seriously, that campaign was historic because the union finally recognized us in a formal way."

After the relationship foundered, the UFW mounted a long campaign in the late 1990s to organize strawberry workers in Watsonville, a large percentage of whom are from Oaxaca. There the union suffered from its lack of a more organic connection to indigenous communities. At the same time, Mixteco leader Jesus Estrada and a handful of others organized a strike of strawberry workers in Santa Maria. Those leaders were blacklisted, and no permanent organization emerged from that struggle. But in later years the UFW did develop a different relationship with indigenous workers. It fought immigration raids against the Triqui community in Greenfield, and hired Mixteco and Triqui community leaders there as organizers, even veterans of the teachers' movement. Rufino and other leaders of the Frente Mixteco/Zapoteco, and the organization that grew out of it, continued to support strikes by Oaxacan workers in San Quintin and Washington State, although they didn't organize them themselves.

The Birth and Growth of the Frente Indigena de Organizaciones Binacionales

In a conference in Tijuana in 1994 the Frente Mixteco/Zapoteco expanded to include people from other Oaxacan indigenous groups, such as Triquis and Chatinos, and renamed itself the Binational Indigenous Oaxacan Front (FIOB). "Three things made this possible," Velasco says, "the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Zapatista uprising with its demand for indigenous autonomy, and the imposition of Operation Guardian/Gatekeeper on the border in San Diego County."

The Zapatista uprising on January 1, 1994, had a profound impact on indigenous Mexicans in the U.S. "The rise of the Zapatista army made it easier for the rise of many indigenous organizations in Mexico and in the whole continent - I would say the world," Rufino said. "When the Zapatistas rose, the war lasted 8 days. We organized right away - here in California, in Oaxaca and Baja California - with hunger strikes, denouncing the government. When the Zapatistas were detained or their lives were threatened we picketed consulates in Fresno and Los Angeles to pressure the Mexican government. These simultaneous actions helped us realize that when there's movement in Oaxaca there's got to be movement in the U.S. also. We put that lesson to use later on, when our own leaders were attacked.

"The Zapatistas helped the mestizos to civilize themselves a little bit. They became more humane, recognizing that indigenous people are human. Afterwards we began to make advances in Mexico in rescuing our languages, and getting laws making it illegal to discriminate against indigenous people. Even outside the framework of the San Andres Accords, we have been able to propose a reform to the law protecting our right to indigenous culture. We are trying to create an institution of the indigenous languages of all of Mexico, not just Mixteco or Zapateco, but for the Purepecha, the Triqui, and the Tarahumara and Mayo people in Sonora, which would create written materials such as dictionaries, books and stories. In addition to Spanish, we want Mixteco, Zapoteco, Tarahumara and other languages taught in the schools, including to mestizos if they live in that region."



FIOB members vote to expel Arturo Pimentel. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


The Zapatistas chose to start their uprising on January 1, 1994, because it was the day the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. They warned that the treaty, and the neoliberal development model it was reinforcing, would spell disaster for indigenous communities in Mexico. In the countryside, government policy favored large landholders producing for export, over small ones producing for a national market. That especially affected indigenous communities, which often hold land in common, as well as agricultural communities based on the ejidos established by earlier agrarian reform.

Oaxaca suffered more than most. It is one of the poorest states in Mexico, where the government category of extreme poverty encompasses 75 percent of its 3.4 million residents, according to Servicios Para una Educación Alternativa A.C. (EDUCA). A 2005 study by Ana Margarita Alvarado Juarez published by the Institute for Sociological Investigation of the Autonomous University Benito Juarez of Oaxaca, called "Migration and Poverty in Oaxaca," says Oaxaca consistently falls far below the national average for every measure of poverty and lack of development.

She cites data by the National Council of Population (CONAPO), that while nationally 9.4% of Mexico's people are illiterate, in Oaxaca 21.5% are. Nationally 28.4% of students don't finish elementary school, but in Oaxaca 45.5%, almost half, never complete it. Nationally 4.8% of Mexicans live with no electricity, 11.2% live in homes with no running water, and 14.8 percent walk on dirt floors. In Oaxaca, the numbers are more than double - 12.5%, 26.9% and 41.6% respectively. Only in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state, do children get less schooling then Oaxaca's average of 6.9 years per person.

Displacement of people from Oaxacan communities tracks the growth in poverty. In 1990 the net out migration from Oaxaca was 527,272 (people leaving minus people arriving or returning). In 2000 that number grew to 662, 704. In the five years between 2000 and 2005, despite a high birthrate, Oaxaca's population only grew 0.39%. Eighteen percent of its people have left for other parts of Mexico and the U.S. Oaxacan migration was part of a much larger movement of people. In 1990 4.5 million Mexican migrants lived in the U.S. By 2008 that number had mushroomed to 12.7 million - a little less than 10% of Mexico's entire population.

"There are no jobs, and NAFTA made the price of corn so low that it's not economically possible to plant a crop anymore," Rufino charged in an interview in 2004. "We come to the U.S. to work because we can't get a price for our product at home. There's no alternative. We know the reasons we have to leave. Over 5000 of us have died trying to cross the border in the last decade."

As Velasco points out, the rising death toll on the border, and the impact of increasing immigration enforcement, including the construction of prisons ("detention centers") for deportees, had a big impact on indigenous migrants, because of their widespread lack of status. That produced a sense of urgency among the organizations that came together to form the FIOB.

While it sought to build a base of indigenous members from Oaxaca, the FIOB was not a hometown association. In fact, OPEO itself disbanded. "If we have a committee just of people from San Miguel Cuevas, we can't organize or go beyond it. In the organization of the FIOB, though, all of the communities are working together, to create consciousness, to educate, to orient, and all of the rest. That is the biggest difference," Rufino explained.

And from the beginning, the FIOB consciously saw itself as a binational organization, and its members as people belonging to binational communities that span the border. Its presence grew, and subsequently several indigenous organizations from the states of Guerrero and Michoacan joined, resulting in a change of its name to the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations in 2005. At the same time, almost as soon as it started in California, it began to organize back in Oaxaca itself, as well as in Oaxacan communities in Baja California. It set up a structure of local committees that belong to state organizations. Every three years, the FIOB chapters elect delegates to a binational assembly, who choose a binational governing committee, and a binational coordinator responsible to it.

Those triennial assemblies are held in Mexico. In part, this is a practical matter. Indigenous farmers can't easily come up with the money to travel as delegates to meetings in the U.S. Even if they could, getting visas would be virtually impossible. U.S. consulates suspect that poor Oaxacans trying to visit California are just looking for a way to cross the border to stay and work. Consequently, the FIOB's Mexican assemblies always draw far more delegates from Mexico than from the U.S. While the leaders of the FIOB in the 1990s came from the migrant organizations and movement in the U.S., its growth in Oaxaca has slowly been shifting the organization's center of gravity, and its political activity, to the south.

Being accountable to decisions by its base communities is not just rhetoric. The FIOB's first director, Juan Martinez, who'd been the coordinator of the Associacion Civica Benito Juarez, was removed because he organized a conference in Oaxaca without agreement from other leaders, and to make it worse, invited the governor of Oaxaca to participate. FIOB's second director, Arturo Pimentel, was expelled for running for office in Oaxaca while refusing to give up his position as the FIOB binational coordinator (required by the bylaws) and for misappropriating the organization's funds. Rufino was the FIOB's third binational coordinator, from 2001 to 2008, and was followed by Gaspar Rivera Salgado. All were leaders of the FIOB and its predecessor organizations in California.

In 2011 Rivera Salgado stepped down, and his successor, Bernardo Ramirez, lived in the heart of the Mixteca region of Oaxaca. Ramirez worked five seasons in the fields of the United States, an experience shared with most FIOB delegates. His election, however, signaled that the organization's center of gravity was moving more firmly into Mexico. Ramirez was followed by Romualdo Juan Gutierrez Cortez, the FIOB's current binational coordinator, a teacher and former leader of the state's teachers union.

From the beginning, one of the biggest problems the FIOB organizers faced was the participation of women. According to FIOB activist Irma Luna, "the subject of domestic violence is taboo in the Oaxaqueño community, but it happens often. "Many women are used to taking abuse. Divorce and separation are not options and they feel they have to stay in that environment," Luna charges. She comes from San Miguel Cuevas, like Rufino, although she was born when her parents were working in Sinaloa. Rufino recruited her when she and her husband moved to Fresno, and encouraged her to resist losing her ability to speak Mixteco. Luna followed Rufino in going to work for CRLA, and he asked her to organize a FIOB program to stop domestic violence.



Irma Luna tells a foreman to provide drinking water. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


"After I began to work in the domestic violence team, I noticed that when I spoke about it, people would slowly leave the room," she recalled in Communities Without Borders. "Others would ask why I was telling women to call the police on their husbands. When I would go to the radio station to talk about my project, listeners called to ask why I was giving this information to the women. It is a problem that goes back to Mexico, but there is a lot of pressure in the United States too. Immigration only adds to the domestic violence problem. But now there is more support in towns in Oaxaca for women to report their husbands, and many women send their husbands to jail after receiving a brutal beating.

"Now I am a community worker and help people working in farm labor. When they don't have portable bathrooms, or if their employer refuses to pay them their wages, I go the worksite and investigate. I knew I wasn't going to be a woman that would just stay at home and have about ten children and wait to see what life imposed on me."

Oralia Maceda showed up in California in 1998, when she was 22, planning to stay a month. She'd worked in the FIOB office in Oaxaca, but complained that she had to ask permission from its director, Arturo Pimentel, before she could do anything. Gaspar Rivera Salgado brought her into the Fresno office where she met Rufino. "Rufino asked me if I was interested in working with women, and I agreed," she recalled. "At first there were few women involved in FIOB. Rufino asked me to share my experiences in Oaxaca, and we started going to different cities - Fresno, Selma, Santa Maria, and Santa Rosa. He was always doing something and he never got tired. It motivated me to see him going."

Rufino saw that Maceda had organizing skills, and tried to help her develop them. "In Oaxaca you are not allowed to go to the agency [local government office] and sit with the presidents, because you are a woman," she charges. "Another issue was my age. I would advise older women how to care for their children and they would get upset. But thanks to Rufino's support, in California I was able to do this work. As Mixteca women we created a calendar that showed our stories, and then we created a memory book. We tried to create a youth group. We organized a meeting in a ranch, and 20 young people participated. But sometimes only 2 or 3 people would show up for meetings I organized. When things went wrong I'd ask Rufino why he didn't say anything first. He told me that if I have an idea I should go ahead with it, and if it went wrong I would learn from it, instead of him just telling me how to do things.

"Today, women sometimes participate more than men. Their biggest obstacle is the lack of time. They have to work in the fields, and take care of their families. They don't have childcare. I believe men have to be more conscious of women's needs, so they can participate. But right now there is room for women and their ideas to develop."

Odilia Romero, who anchored FIOB in Los Angeles, was elected the first woman as binational coordinator at the March 2018 assembly in Huajuapan, Oaxaca. Romero and Rufino worked closely together from the organization's first years. Brought by her parents from San Bartolome Zoogocho, she witnessed as a child the town's depopulation - the formative experience of thousands of Oaxacan migrants. "In the 80s there were about a thousand people there," she remembers. "Then we started leaving to the city of Oaxaca, and then to the U.S., until only 88 were people left. All of a sudden on a Thursday, for instance, people would leave, and us children were left behind."

Maylei Blackwell. Associate Professor of Chicana & Chicano Studies and Gender Studies at UCLA, says Romero has a "rebellious spirit that has characterized her since childhood." Blackwell recorded her oral history, in which Romero says, "my rebellion helps me to hope that a better society is possible."

Before meeting Rufino Romero read an article he'd written about the FIOB. "It talked about how it started, and that some of its leaders were fired for corruption and negative actions towards the members," she remembers. "I was very touched because I found what I was looking for. An organization that speaks of its triumphs and barriers is worthy of admiration." Rufino encouraged her to join, and then to organize.

"We are not going to have Barbie positions here," Romero declares. "The Frente is one of the few organizations that truly gives us space to talk about gender, with the intention of going from talk into action, so that women have a real role ... We have to take up some of the good things of the indigenous peoples, of an egalitarian society, and implement it as an indigenous organization, but also talk about the things we do not like. One of the things we do not like is to exclude women."



Rufino and FIOB members demonstrate at the Mexican consulate. Photo copyright (c) 2019 by David Bacon.


Laura Velasco worked with Romero and another woman in FIOB leadership, Centolia Maldonado, an activist in Oaxaca who developed the evidence that led to the expulsion of Arturo Pimentel. Maldonado herself was eventually expelled amid accusations of sexism among FIOB leaders (an accusation that Romero also made). Velasco says she's still angry about it, "but Rufino always treated women in the organization with friendship and respect. He and Gaspar were among the few in a conflict clearly about sex who were ethical and sympathetic towards Maldonado. Both she and Romero were very important in Rufino's development as a leader, and in the development of FIOB's gender policy."

The FIOB also organized its members in the U.S. to advocate for immigration reform. In its 2005 binational assembly the FIOB passed a resolution condemning guest worker programs. That set it apart from many migrant rights organizations in the U.S. at the time, many of whom were willing to accept new programs (supposedly with greater rights for migrants), in exchange for legalization for the undocumented. While Mexico's government was also calling for the negotiation of a new bracero program, Rufino charged that "migrants need the right to work, but these workers don't have labor rights or benefits. It's like slavery."

Gaspar Rivera Salgado, who guided the development of FIOB's immigration program, connected migrant rights with the right to not migrate. "Both rights are part of the same solution," he explained. "We have to change the debate from one in which immigration is presented as a problem to a debate over rights. The real problem is exploitation." The FIOB position also emphasized language rights for migrant communities and respect for their indigenous culture.

Organizing for immigrant rights was more than taking a political position; it was part of building the FIOB's membership base. In the early 2000s, Lorenzo Oropeza, a FIOB activist who also worked for CRLA, organized a chapter among a group of Triqui farm workers living out of doors in the reeds beside the Russian River in Sonoma County. Fausto Lopez, the group's leader, explained, "I joined the FIOB because Lorenzo speaks my native language. He is Mixteco and we are Triqui, but he works with all Oaxaqueños. Since we're from the same state we're all the same. Then our local group elected me to represent them. I traveled to various parts of California with Lorenzo and met with other leaders. A lot of us farm workers don't know our rights, and the FIOB teaches us. We also work for amnesty for immigrants, because so many of us cross the border illegally and so many die in the process."


Click here to download the PDF version in English.
https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Rufino-and-FIOB_Part2_english_July11.pdf

The third part of this three part Issue Brief will be released next week.




LA GENTE SE IBA ANDANDO:
Cómo Rufino Domínguez transformó nuestra manera de pensar acerca de la migración - Parte II
Por David Bacon
Traducción por Rosalí Jurado y Alan Llanos Velázquez
Edición: Nancy Utley García y Luis Escala Rabadán
Food First| 08.16.2019
https://foodfirst.org/publication/la-gente-se-iba-andando-como-rufino-dominguez-transformo-nuestra-manera-de-pensar-acerca-de-la-migracion-parte-ii/


Segunda de tres partes de la publicación sobre Rufino Domínguez, organizador laboral radical de Oaxaca. Pertenece a la serie Desmantelando el Racismo del Sistema Alimentario de Food First. Este artículo originalmente fue escrito en inglés.

Puedes descagar la versión en PDF aquí.
https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Rufino-and-FIOB_Part2_spanish_July12.pdf



Parte II

La CIOAC subsistió en San Quintín hasta los primeros años del siglo XXI. La CIOAC luchaba con más fuerza al pasar de los años, defendiendo tierras en las que los migrantes de Oaxaca pudiesen construir sus hogares y establecerse de manera permanente. Sin embargo, Benito García, fue eventualmente expulsado no sólo de la CIOAC, sino también del PSUM. Rufino organizó la OPEO y ayudó a la CIOAC en San Quintín hasta 1984. Después cruzó la frontera junto con su esposa. al Para entonces su primer hijo, Lenin, ya había nacido en San Quintín.

Rufino lo recuerda de la siguiente manera: "Yo me casé en 1983, aunque yo no quería. Yo quería dedicar mi vida a ser organizador. Necesitábamos organizarnos y eso exige muchísimo de uno mismo, y con una familia uno no se puede dedicar por completo a eso. Una vez que me casé, me tuve que venir a Estados Unidos porque no era justo pedirle a mi padre que me siguiera apoyando a mí y a mi esposa. Así que me casé y decidí buscarme un futuro ahí".

Migrantes indígenas y trabajadores agrícolas comienzan a organizarse en California

Una vez que llegó a Selma, California, se enteró que la gente de San Miguel que ahí vivía había escuchado de su lucha por liberar al pueblo del cacique, así como de las huelgas en Sinaloa y Baja California. "Me sentí como en casa", decía Rufino. "La gente le pagó a mi coyote [el traficante que lo ayudó a cruzar la frontera] y me pidieron que continuara con mi labor aquí. Yo no sabía ni siquiera cómo manejar un carro o de qué lado salía y se metía el sol. Pero así fue que comenzamos de nuevo.

"En el año 1985, formamos un comité local de los pobladores de San Miguel Cuevas. Trabajamos para que se construyera una clínica en nuestro pueblo, también algunas canchas deportivas y en la reconstrucción de la iglesia. Pero lo que más nos interesaba era crear conciencia sobre la necesidad de organizarnos para defender aquí nuestros derechos laborales y humanos. En 1986, fui a Livingston porque era el centro de los migrantes oaxaqueños en el condado de Madera. Comencé a formar otro comité allí y trabajé con gente de San Miguel Cuevas pero también con gente de otros pueblos como Teotitlán del Valle. Y creamos más comités de la OPEO en Madera y Fresno".



Rufino Domínguez y el periodista Eduardo Stanley en su programa bilingüe para trabajadores agrícolas transmitido por la radio KFCF. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.


En muchos sentidos, la situación en California no era muy diferente a la de Sinaloa y San Quintín. Rufino comenta que "todos eran jornaleros, e hicimos mucho por cambiar las condiciones de trabajo. Los conozco bien a todos porque trabajábamos juntos recogiendo uvas y tomates, usando el azadón. En 1986, 1987 y 1988, participé en varias huelgas para demandar mejores condiciones laborales en los campos del tomate. Me despidieron y ya no me querían dar más trabajo porque temían que fuese a organizar más huelgas. No recuerdo en cuántas huelgas participé, en los campos de tomates y de pasas. Pero logramos que los contratistas mejoraran los salarios, pero por esa razón, nos pusieron en la lista negra.

"Trabajé en los campos hasta 1991 y luego en una granja de pavos por unos años más. Llevaba una vida de esclavitud, sin días de descanso ni fines de semanas. Trabajábamos siete días a la semana".

La OPEO luchó contra la discriminación hacia los migrantes indígenas y contra su explotación laboral. Rufino recuerda que "en 1986, comenzamos uno de nuestros primeros proyectos, el cual surgió debido a que muchas personas terminaban en la cárcel porque no sabían hablar español o inglés. Comenzamos una organización de intérpretes indígenas, y peleamos por el derecho legal de cada persona en Estados Unidos a tener acceso a servicios de traducción en la corte. Logramos ganar esta demanda en Estados Unidos, pero eso es algo que aún no lo tienen las personas en nuestro país de origen. En México, te juzgan en español y te castigan en español, sin saber lo que hiciste mal".

La discriminación lingüística contra los migrantes indígenas refleja un racismo estructural muy arraigado. El número de migrantes de Oaxaca en el estado de California, especialmente en las áreas rurales, empezó a incrementarse considerablemente a principios de la década de 1980. En el 2008, el demógrafo Rick Mines encontró que 120,000 trabajadores migrantes agrícolas en California venían de comunidades indígenas en México -mixtecos, triquis, purépechas y de otros grupos. Ellos y sus familias sumaban poco menos de 170,000 personas. El porcentaje de campesinos que provenía de Oaxaca y del sur de México creció cuatro veces más en menos de 20 años, del 7 por ciento en al año 1991 a más del 20 por ciento en el año 2008.

En los nuevos centros de población indígena, los triquis, quienes migraron de la misma Región Mixteca de donde Rufino había emigrado, fundaron Nuevo San Juan Copala en Baja California. Ellos también conformaban la mayoría de los residentes de Greenfield, en el Valle de Salinas del estado de California. Por otro lado, los purépechas de Michoacán ocupaban los enormes campamentos de deterioradas casas móviles en el Valle de Coachella, y se amontonaban en cocheras y pequeños apartamentos en Oxnard.

De acuerdo con la información recabada por Mines, un tercio de estos trabajadores estaba ganando menos del salario mínimo. El ingreso promedio para la familia de un jornalero mestizo era de 22,500 dólares anuales en 2008, un ingreso que a duras penas alcanza para sobrevivir. Sin embargo, el ingreso para la familia de un jornalero indígena era de 13,750 dólares anuales. En parte, la diferencia refleja la falta de estatus migratorio legal entre los migrantes indígenas. De acuerdo con el Departamento del Trabajo, el 53 por ciento de todos los trabajadores agrícolas son indocumentados, ya que la oleada de migración indígena fue posterior a la fecha límite (1 de enero de 1982) para poder tener acceso a la amnistía de la Ley de Control y Reforma Migratoria (IRCA, por sus siglas en inglés) de 1986. Cuando se estableció dicha fecha límite, es poco probable que los responsables de esta iniciativa no se hubiesen dado cuenta de la "crisis del peso mexicano" posterior al año 1982. La devaluación del peso en México agravó la crisis económica en el sector rural, y trajo como consecuencia la migración de miles de familias desesperadas que cruzaron la frontera, pero demasiado tarde para tener acceso a la amnistía.

Los bajos salarios en el medio rural tuvieron consecuencias brutales. En el norte del condado de San Diego, muchos piscadores de fresas dormían en el exterior, en las laderas de los cerros y en barrancas. Cada año, el sheriff del condado desalojaba varios de los campamentos pero para la siguiente temporada agrícola, los trabajadores ya habían construído otros. Rómulo Muñoz Vásquez, quien vivía en las barrancas de San Diego, comentaba al respecto: "Somos de fuera. Si hubiésemos nacido aquí, entonces tal vez tendríamos un hogar dónde vivir. Pero no ganamos lo suficiente para pagar una renta. El dinero no alcanza para pagar renta, comida, transporte y para mandar a México. Por eso me conformo con cualquier espacio debajo de un árbol". Y San Diego no es el único condado en el que los trabajadores viven bajo los árboles o en sus autos durante el tiempo de la cosecha.

Velasco señala que a pesar de su pobreza, los trabajadores en Estados Unidos ganan tres o cuatro veces más de lo que ganarían en México. Pero el costo de vivir al norte de la frontera es también muy elevado. Así que los migrantes empezaron rápidamente a comparar sus salarios con el costo de vida en Estados Unidos, y no con lo que ganaban en México, cosa que Muñoz Vásquez hizo también. Se veían a sí mismos hasta abajo cuando se comparaban con el nivel promedio de vida que los rodeaba en Estados Unidos, incluso quedando a veces por debajo del mínimo legal.

Después de una década de actividad, a mediados de la década de 1990, Rufino concluía que "las condiciones no habían cambiado para nada. Los patrones no obedecían las leyes laborales estatales ni federales. No pagaban el salario mínimo, y a veces les robaban sus salarios a los trabajadores. A los trabajadores se les pagaba a destajo, por lo que se les paga por lo que hacen. Si pagan un dólar por una cubeta y yo recojo 20 cubetas en ocho horas, me pagan 20 dólares solamente, aun cuando la ley dice que tengo garantizado el salario mínimo, el cual (en 1996) era de 34 dólares diarios".

La actividad de Rufino lo puso en contacto con otras organizaciones de migrantes indígenas, que eran el resultado de la misma oleada de gente desplazada y de la agitación política que formaban parte de la misma experiencia migrante. Algunos, como Arturo Pimentel, eran también militantes, y compartían una historia política con Benito García y Rufino dentro de la izquierda y el PSUM. El trabajo de Rufino organizando la OPEO lo vinculó con otros organizadores indígenas como Filemón López, de la Asociación Cívica Benito Juárez, la cual se creó en Fresno en el año 1986. Sergio Méndez, Algimiro Morales y otros habían organizado a migrantes de Tlacotepec, primero como parte del Comité Cívico Popular Tlacotepense (con conexiones con el PCM, de acuerdo con Rivera-Salgado), y luego en el Comité Cívico Popular Mixteco en Vista. Ellos tenían estrechos vínculos con la izquierda de Baja California.

Rufino llegó a conocer la Organizacion Regional de Oaxaca (ORO), creada en 1988 en Los Ángeles, donde más de 70,000 migrantes zapotecos estaban concentrados.  ORO empezó a organizar el festival de la Guelaguetza en el Parque Normandie, replicando así el festival original de la ciudad de Oaxaca en el que se presentan las danzas de las comunidades indígenas del estado. En 1992, la Guelaguetza de ORO presentó 16 danzas de las siete regiones de Oaxaca, y por primera vez en Estados Unidos, la Danza de la Pluma. Una década después, al menos otros siete festivales de la Guelaguetza se organizaron en las ciudades en donde había jornaleros a lo largo de California.



Jorge y Margarito Girón podando viñales cerca de Fresno. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.


Laura Velasco comenta que "las tradiciones organizativas de estos activistas venían juntas, lo que hacía posible combinar las tácticas e ideas de la organización en las comunidades rurales indígenas, con los movimientos populares urbanos y la visión de clase de los partidos de izquierda de los años ochenta, especialmente el PSUM. Así se abrió un nuevo espacio organizativo con la experiencia que ellos habían ganado en los campos de California. Las condiciones de trabajo y de desplazamiento crearon la posibilidad para nuevas alianzas entre grupos de clase y étnicos".

Velasco señala que muchas de estas organizaciones y sus líderes participaron en las primeras campañas políticas de los partidos políticos mexicanos en Estados Unidos. En 1988, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, un ex gobernador de Michoacán quien había dejado atrás su relación con el PRI, llegó a ser candidato presidencial del Frente Nacional Democrático. Antes de ello, el PSUM se había unido con otro partido de izquierda para formar el Partido Socialista Mexicano e inicialmente presentaron a Heberto Castillo como su propio candidato presidencial. Cuando se hizo evidente la posibilidad de que Cárdenas pudiese derrotar al PRI, la candidatura de Castillo fue retirada y decidieron apoyar a Cárdenas en su lugar.

De acuerdo con fuentes ajenas al PRI, Cárdenas ganó esas elecciones, Sin embargo, el gobierno declaró a Carlos Salinas de Gortari del PRI como ganador después de un fraudulento recuento de votos. Posteriormente, el PSUM se unió con los seguidores de Cárdenas y formaron el Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). No obstante, en el proceso, la ideología socialista del PCM y del PSUM se fue diluyendo gradualmente. El PRD llegó a ser el partido gobernante de la Ciudad de México y de otros estados mexicanos.

En Los Ángeles, las cuatro organizaciones migrantes se unieron el 5 de octubre de 1991 y formaron el Frente Binacional Mixteco-Zapoteco. Rufino comentó al respecto: "Este Frente comenzó en 1992, cuando los gobiernos del mundo estaban celebrando los famosos 500 años del descubrimiento de América. Decían que Cristóbal Colón había sido recibido como un gran héroe y que había traído cosas buenas. No hablaban para nada de las masacres o los genocidios de nuestros pueblos. Todas las organizaciones indígenas del continente americano protestaron contra esta celebración.

"Queríamos contar una historia diferente, una historia en la que la gente fue despojada de su cultura. Se nos impuso un Dios diferente, y se nos dijo que la naturaleza no valía nada. La realidad es que la naturaleza es la que nos da la vida. Nuestro propósito era eliminar los viejos estereotipos, marchar y protestar. Después, nos preguntamos: '¿por qué no continuamos organizándonos para defender los derechos humanos, los derechos laborales, los derechos a una vivienda digna y a una buena educación?'"

Los académicos comenzaron a advertir esta creciente ola de activismo. David Runsten, Carol Zabin y Michael Kearney, de la Universidad de California, hicieron uno de los primeros estudios sobre jornaleros indígenas en California, mostrando que sus asentamientos en Estados Unidos estaban vinculados con sus pueblos de origen en Oaxaca y con otros asentamientos en Baja California. En 1992, Don Villarejo del Instituto de Estudios Rurales de California publicó un reporte en el que criticaba a la California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), la organización que proporcionaba asistencia legal a los jornaleros del estado, por no prestar la debida atención a este notable cambio demográfico.

José Padilla, director de CRLA y Claudia Smith, una abogada de CRLA en San Diego, organizaron un evento para exponer los retos que implicaba proporcionar servicios legales a los trabajadores del campo en mixteco, triqui y otras lenguas indígenas. Muchos de los activistas que demandaron una respuesta por parte de la CRLA, incluyendo a Rufino, Pimentel, Morales y otros, provenían de organizaciones que habían sido parte del Frente Mixteco-Zapoteco. Padilla comenta que "supe de inmediator que tenía que contratar a Rufino, para asegurarse de tener una fuerte conexión con el liderazgo de este movimiento".

Eventualmente, otros miembros de Frente también fueron parte de la CRLA como trabajadores de asistencia social. Rufino fue el primero. Este fue su primer paso fuera de los campos y su oportunidad de tener un trabajo de tiempo completo relacionado con la política de los derechos laborales. En una de sus primeras batallas, Rufino y la CRLA demandaron a la Corporación Chevron por descargar desechos tóxicos debajo de un campamento de casas móviles habitado por familias de San Miguel Cuevas, lo que obligó a la compañía a pagar varios millones de dólares para reubicar a esas familias.

En ese periodo, Rufino también trató de establecer una relación de colaboración con el sindicato agrario United Farm Workers (UFW), sin mucho éxito. Posteriormente comentaría lo siguiente: "Nosotros reconocemos que el UFW es un sindicato fuerte que representa a los trabajadores del campo. A su vez, ellos nos reconocen como una organización que intenta ganar derechos para los migrantes indígenas. No obstante, incluso dentro del UFW, algunos decían que la genteindígena eran "rompehuelgas" o "esquiroles". En el año 1984, hubo una huelga en Merced y nos decían así. Pero la gente del sindicato nos hablaba en español, y no entendían que nuestra gente sólo hablaba mixteco o zapoteco. Muchas veces, por la barrera del lenguaje, terminábamos sin entendernos. Ellos deberían darle un mejor trato a la gente indígena y tener la mente más abierta. En realidad, aunque sentimos que el sindicato no nos tomaba en serio, esa huelga fue histórica porque el sindicato finalmente nos llegó a reconocer de una manera formal".

Después de que la relación fracasara, el UFW montó una larga campaña a fines de la década de 1990 para organizar a los trabajadores agrícolas de la fresa en Watsonville, un gran porcentaje de los cuales eran de Oaxaca. Allí el sindicato padeció la falta de una conexión más orgánica con las comunidades indígenas. Al mismo tiempo, el líder mixteco Jesús Estrada y algunos otros organizaron una huelga de trabajadores de la fresa en Santa María. Esos líderes fueron incluidos en la lista negra, y no surgió ninguna organización permanente de esa lucha. Pero en años posteriores, el UFW sí desarrolló una relación diferente con los trabajadores indígenas. Combatió las redadas de las autoridades de inmigración contra la comunidad triqui en Greenfield, y contrató a los líderes de la comunidad mixteca y triqui como organizadores, incluso a veteranos del movimiento de maestros. Rufino y otros líderes del Frente Mixteco-Zapoteco, y la organización que surgió de dicho Frente, continuaron apoyando las huelgas de los trabajadores oaxaqueños en San Quintín en México y en el estado de Washington en Estados Unidos, aunque ellos mismos no las organizaron.

El nacimiento y consolidación del Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales

En una asamblea en Tijuana en 1994, el Frente Mixteco-Zapoteco se expandió para incluir a personas de otros grupos indígenas oaxaqueños, como triquis y chatinos, y se renombró como el Frente Indígena Oaxaqueño Binacional (FIOB). "Tres cosas hicieron esto posible", dice Velasco: "la implementación del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte; el levantamiento zapatista, con su demanda de autonomía indígena; y la imposición de la Operación Gatekeeper (Guardián) en la frontera en el condado de San Diego".

El levantamiento zapatista del 1 de enero de 1994 tuvo un profundo impacto entre los indígenas mexicanos en Estados Unidos. "El ascenso del Ejército Zapatista hizo más fácil el surgimiento de muchas organizaciones indígenas en México y en todo el continente, yo diría que en el mundo", dijo Rufino. "Cuando los zapatistas se levantaron, la guerra duró ocho días. Nos organizamos de inmediato -aquí en California, en Oaxaca y Baja California- con huelgas de hambre, denunciando al gobierno. Cuando los zapatistas fueron detenidos o amenazados, protestamos en los consulados en Fresno y Los Ángeles para presionar al gobierno mexicano. Estas acciones simultáneas nos ayudaron a darnos cuenta de que cuando hay movimiento en Oaxaca, también debe haber un movimiento en Estados Unidos. Nos pusimos esa lección para usarla más tarde, cuando nuestros propios líderes fueron atacados.

"Los zapatistas ayudaron a los mestizos a civilizarse un poco. Se volvieron más humanos, reconociendo que los indígenas son humanos. Luego comenzamos a avanzar en México para rescatar nuestros idiomas y obtener leyes que hacían ilegal discriminar a los pueblos indígenas. Incluso fuera del marco de los Acuerdos de San Andrés, hemos podido proponer una reforma a la ley que protege nuestro derecho a la cultura indígena. Estamos tratando de crear una institución de las lenguas indígenas de todo México, no sólo mixteco o zapoteco, sino para los purépechas, los triquis, los tarahumaras y los mayos de Sonora, que crearían materiales escritos como diccionarios, libros e historias. Además del español, queremos que se enseñe mixteco, zapoteco, tarahumara y otros idiomas en las escuelas, incluso a los mestizos si viven en esa región".



Miembros de FIOB votan para expulsar a Arturo Pimentel. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.


Los zapatistas decidieron comenzar su levantamiento el 1 de enero de 1994, porque fue el día que entró en vigencia el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte. Ellos nos advirtieron que el tratado y el modelo de desarrollo neoliberal que estaba reforzando representarían un desastre para las comunidades indígenas en México. En el campo, la política del gobierno favoreció a los grandes terratenientes que producían para la exportación, por encima de los pequeños productores que producían para un mercado nacional. Eso afectó especialmente a las comunidades indígenas, que a menudo tienen tierras en común, así como a las comunidades agrícolas basadas en los ejidos establecidos por la reforma agraria anterior.

Oaxaca sufrió más que la mayoría de los estados. Es una de las entidades más pobres de México, donde la categoría oficial de pobreza extrema abarca al 75 por ciento de sus 3.4 millones de habitantes, de acuerdo con Servicios Para una Educación Alternativa A.C. (EDUCA). Un estudio de 2005 de Ana Margarita Alvarado Juárez, publicado por el Instituto de Investigaciones Sociológicas de la Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, titulado "Migración y pobreza en Oaxaca", señalaba que Oaxaca constantemente cae muy por debajo del promedio nacional en cada una de las categorías de pobreza y falta de desarrollo.

Ella cita los datos del Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO), en los que si bien a nivel nacional el 9.4 por ciento de la población de México es analfabeta, en Oaxaca esta cifra asciende al 21.5 por ciento. A nivel nacional, el 28.4 por ciento de los estudiantes no termina la escuela primaria, pero en Oaxaca el 45.5 por ciento, casi la mitad de su población, nunca lo completa. A nivel nacional, el 4.8 por ciento de los mexicanos no tiene electricidad, el 11.2 por ciento vive en hogares sin agua corriente y el 14.8 por ciento camina sobre pisos de tierra. En Oaxaca, las cifras son más del doble: 12.5, 26.9 y 41.6 por ciento, respectivamente. Solo en Chiapas, el estado más pobre de México, los niños obtienen menos educación que el promedio de Oaxaca de 6.9 años por persona.

El desplazamiento de personas de las comunidades oaxaqueñas revela el crecimiento de la pobreza. En 1990, la migración neta desde Oaxaca fue de 527,272 (personas que emigran menos las personas que llegan o regresan). En 2000, ese número aumentó a 662,704. En los cinco años entre 2000 y 2005, a pesar de una alta tasa de natalidad, la población de Oaxaca solo creció un 0.39 por ciento. El 18 por ciento de sus habitantes se fue a otras partes de México y Estados Unidos. La migración oaxaqueña fue parte de un movimiento mucho más grande de personas. En 1990, 4.5 millones de migrantes mexicanos vivían en Estados Unidos. Para 2008, esa cifra había aumentado a 12.7 millones, poco menos del 10 por ciento de la población total de México.

"No hay trabajos, y el TLCAN hizo que el precio del maíz fuese tan bajo que ya no es económicamente posible plantar un cultivo", denunció Rufino en una entrevista en 2004. "Venimos a Estados Unidos a trabajar porque no podemos conseguir un buen precio para nuestro producto en casa. No hay alternativa. Sabemos las razones por las que tenemos que irnos. Más de 5,000 de nosotros hemos muerto tratando de cruzar la frontera en la última década."

Como señala Velasco, el creciente número de víctimas mortales en la frontera y el impacto de la creciente criminalización de la migración, incluyendo la construcción de cárceles ("centros de detención") para deportados, tuvieron un gran impacto entre los inmigrantes indígenas, debido a su falta generalizada de estatus. Eso produjo un sentido de urgencia entre las organizaciones que se unieron para formar el FIOB.

En la medida en que buscaba construir una base de miembros indígenas de todo Oaxaca, el FIOB no era una asociación local de migrantes. De hecho, la OPEO se disolvió como tal. "Si tenemos un comité solo de personas de San Miguel Cuevas, no podemos organizar o ir más allá. Sin embargo, en la organización del FIOB, todas las comunidades están trabajando juntas para crear conciencia, educar, orientar y todo lo demás. Esa es la mayor diferencia", explicó Rufino.

Y desde el comienzo, el FIOB conscientemente se vio a sí mismo como una organización binacional, y a sus miembros como personas que pertenecen a comunidades binacionales que cruzan la frontera. Su creciente presencia condujo a que posteriormente varias organizaciones indígenas migrantes originarias de los estados de Guerrero y Michoacán se incorporaran, por lo que su nombre cambió a Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales, en 2005. A su vez, casi tan pronto como comenzó a funcionar en California, comenzó a organizarse nuevamente en Oaxaca, así como en las comunidades oaxaqueñas en Baja California. Estableció una estructura de comités locales que pertenecen a organizaciones estatales. Cada tres años, las secciones de FIOB eligen delegados a una asamblea binacional, que eligen un comité binacional y un coordinador binacional.

Esas asambleas trienales se llevan a cabo en México. En parte, esta es una cuestión práctica. Los campesinos indígenas no pueden obtener fácilmente el dinero para viajar como delegados a las reuniones en Estados Unidos. Incluso si pudieran, obtener visas sería prácticamente imposible. Los consulados de Estados Unidos sospechan que los oaxaqueños pobres que intentan visitar California sólo buscan una manera de cruzar la frontera para quedarse y trabajar. En consecuencia, las asambleas mexicanas del FIOB siempre atraen a más delegados del lado mexicano que del estadounidense. Mientras que los líderes del FIOB en la década de 1990 provenían de las organizaciones y movimientos migratorios en Estados Unidos, su crecimiento en Oaxaca ha estado cambiando lentamente el centro de gravedad de la organización, así como su actividad política, hacia el sur.

Hacerse responsables ante las decisiones de sus comunidades de base no es sólo retórica. El primer director del FIOB, Juan Martínez, que había sido el coordinador de la Asociación Cívica Benito Juárez, fue removido porque organizó una conferencia en Oaxaca sin el acuerdo de otros líderes, y para empeorar las cosas, invitó al gobernador de Oaxaca a participar. El segundo director de FIOB, Arturo Pimentel, fue expulsado por postularse para un cargo en Oaxaca y negarse a renunciar a su puesto como coordinador binacional de FIOB (requerido por los estatutos), así como por malversar los fondos de la organización. Rufino fue el tercer coordinador binacional del FIOB, de 2001 a 2008, seguido por Gaspar Rivera-Salgado. Todos fueron líderes del FIOB y de sus organizaciones predecesoras en California.

En 2011, al término del periodo de Rivera-Salgado, su sucesor, Bernardo Ramírez, vivió en el corazón de la Región Mixteca de Oaxaca. Ramírez trabajó cinco temporadas en los campos de Estados Unidos, una experiencia compartida con la mayoría de los delegados del FIOB. Sin embargo, su elección hizo evidente que el centro de gravedad de la organización se estaba moviendo más firmemente hacia México. Ramírez fue seguido por Romualdo Juan Gutiérrez Cortez, el actual coordinador binacional del FIOB, un maestro y ex líder del sindicato de maestros del estado.

Desde el principio, uno de los mayores problemas a los que se enfrentaron los organizadores de FIOB fue la participación de las mujeres. Según la activista del FIOB Irma Luna, "el tema de la violencia doméstica es tabú en la comunidad oaxaqueña, pero sucede a menudo. Muchas mujeres están acostumbradas a los abusos. El divorcio y la separación no son opciones y sienten que tienen que permanecer en ese entorno", señala Luna. Ella es originaria de San Miguel Cuevas, al igual que Rufino, aunque nació cuando sus padres trabajaban en Sinaloa. Rufino la reclutó cuando ella y su esposo se mudaron a Fresno y la animó a que no dejara de hablar en mixteco. Luna se sumó a Rufino en su trabajo para CRLA y le pidió que organizara un programa en el FIOB para detener la violencia doméstica.



Irma Luna solicita a un capataz agua para beber. Foto, David Bacon, 2019


"Después de comenzar a trabajar en el equipo de violencia doméstica, noté que cuando hablaba de ello, la gente abandonaba lentamente la sala", recordó de su labor en el libro Communities Without Borders. "Otros preguntaban por qué les decía a las mujeres que acusaran a sus maridos con la policía. Cuando iba a la estación de radio para hablar sobre mi proyecto, los oyentes me llamaban para preguntar por qué les estaba dando esta información a las mujeres. Es un problema que se remonta a México, pero también hay mucha presión en Estados Unidos. La migración sólo se suma al problema de la violencia doméstica. Pero ahora hay más apoyo en los pueblos de Oaxaca para que las mujeres denuncien a sus maridos, y muchas mujeres los envían a la cárcel después de recibir una paliza brutal.

"Ahora soy una trabajadora comunitaria y ayudo a las personas que trabajan en labores agrícolas. Cuando no tienen baños portátiles, o si su empleador se niega a pagarles el sueldo, voy al lugar de trabajo e investigo. Yo sabía que no iba ser una mujer que se quedara en casa, que tendría como diez hijos y que esperaría a ver qué me traía la vida".

Oralia Maceda se presentó en California en 1998, cuando tenía 22 años y planeaba quedarse un mes. Ella había trabajado en la oficina de FIOB en Oaxaca, pero se quejó de que tenía que pedirle permiso a su director, Arturo Pimentel, antes de poder hacer nada. Gaspar Rivera-Salgado la llevó a la oficina de Fresno donde conoció a Rufino. "Rufino me preguntó si estaba interesada en trabajar con mujeres y acepté", ella recuerda. "Al principio había pocas mujeres involucradas en el FIOB. Rufino me pidió que compartiera mis experiencias en Oaxaca, y comenzamos a ir a diferentes ciudades: Fresno, Selma, Santa María y Santa Rosa. Él siempre estaba haciendo algo y nunca se cansaba. Verlo así me motivaba".

Rufino se dio cuenta que Maceda tenía habilidades organizativas y trató de ayudarla a desarrollarlas. "En Oaxaca no se te permite ir a la agencia [la oficina del gobierno local] y sentarte con los presidentes, porque eres una mujer", señala. "Otro problema era mi edad. Si les aconsejaba a las mujeres mayores cómo cuidar a sus hijos, se molestaban. Pero gracias al apoyo de Rufino, en California pude hacer este trabajo. Como mujeres mixtecas, creamos un calendario que mostraba nuestras historias, y luego creamos un libro de recuerdos. Intentamos crear un grupo de jóvenes. Organizamos una reunión en un rancho y participaron 20 jóvenes. Pero a veces solamente dos o tres personas asistían a las reuniones que organizaba. Cuando las cosas iban mal, le preguntaba a Rufino por qué no me decía nada desde el principio. Me dijo que si tenía una idea, debería seguir adelante con ella, y que si salía mal, debería aprender de ella, en lugar de sólo esperar a que él me dijera cómo hacer cosas.



Miembros de FIOB y Rufino en una manifestación frente al consulado de México. Foto, David Bacon, 2019.


"Hoy en día, las mujeres a veces participan más que los hombres. Su mayor obstáculo es la falta de tiempo. Tienen que trabajar en el campo y cuidar a sus familias. No tienen guarderías. Creo que los hombres tienen que ser más conscientes de las necesidades de las mujeres, para que ellas puedan participar. Pero ahora hay espacio para que las mujeres y sus ideas se desarrollen".

Odilia Romero, quien consolidó al FIOB en Los Ángeles, fue elegida como la primera mujer coordinadora binacional en la asamblea de marzo de 2018 en Huajuapan, Oaxaca. Romero y Rufino trabajaron en estrecha colaboración desde los primeros años de la organización. Llevada por sus padres desde San Bartolomé Zoogocho, fue testigo del despoblamiento del pueblo cuando era niña, la experiencia formativa de miles de migrantes oaxaqueños. "En los años ochenta había alrededor de mil personas allí", recuerda. "Luego comenzamos a irnos a la ciudad de Oaxaca, y luego a Estados Unidos, hasta que sólo quedaron 88 personas. De repente, un jueves, por ejemplo, la gente se iba y los niños se quedaban atrás".

Maylei Blackwell, profesora de Estudios Chicanos y de Género de la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles (UCLA), comenta que Romero tiene "un espíritu rebelde que la ha caracterizado desde la infancia". Blackwell registró su historia oral, en la cual Romero dice, "mi rebelión me ayuda a tener la esperanza de que una sociedad mejor sea posible".

Antes de conocer a Rufino, Romero leyó un artículo que él había escrito sobre el FIOB. "Hablaba de cómo comenzó, y de cómo algunos de sus líderes fueron despedidos por corrupción y acciones negativas hacia los miembros", recuerda. "Estaba muy impresionada porque encontré lo que estaba buscando, una organización que hablara de sus logros y de sus limitaciones es digna de admiración". Rufino la animó a unirse, y luego a promover la organización.

"No vamos a tener posiciones de Barbie aquí", declara Romero. "El Frente es una de las pocas organizaciones que realmente nos da espacio para hablar sobre género, con la intención de pasar de la conversación a la acción, para que las mujeres tengan un papel real... Tenemos que tomar algunas de las cosas buenas de los pueblos indígenas, de una sociedad igualitaria e implementarlo como una organización indígena, pero también hablar de las cosas que no nos gustan. Una de las cosas que no nos gustan es excluir a las mujeres".

Laura Velasco trabajó con Romero y con otra mujer en el liderazgo de FIOB, Centolia Maldonado, una activista en Oaxaca que recolectó la evidencia que condujo a la expulsión de Arturo Pimentel. La propia Maldonado finalmente fue expulsada en medio de acusaciones de sexismo entre los líderes de FIOB (una acusación que Romero también hizo). Velasco señala que todavía está molesta por eso, "pero Rufino siempre trató a las mujeres de la organización con amistad y respeto. Él y Gaspar estaban entre los pocos que eran éticos y comprensivos, en un conflicto claramente relacionado con el sexo, con respecto a Maldonado. Tanto ella como Romero fueron muy importantes en el desarrollo de Rufino como líder y en el desarrollo de la política de género del FIOB".

El FIOB también organizó a sus miembros en Estados Unidos para abogar por la reforma migratoria. En su asamblea binacional de 2005, aprobó una resolución condenando los programas de trabajadores invitados. Eso lo diferenció de muchas organizaciones de derechos de los migrantes en Estados Unidos en ese momento, las cuales estaban dispuestas a aceptar nuevos programas (supuestamente con mayores derechos para los migrantes), a cambio de la legalización para los indocumentados. Si bien el gobierno de México también pedía la negociación de un nuevo programa de braceros, Rufino alegó que "los inmigrantes necesitan el derecho al trabajo, pero estos trabajadores no tienen derechos laborales ni prestaciones. Es como la esclavitud".

Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, quien condujo el desarrollo del programa de migración del FIOB, vinculó los derechos de los migrantes con el derecho a no migrar. "Ambos derechos son parte de la misma solución", explicó. "Tenemos que cambiar el debate en el que la migración se presenta como un problema por un debate sobre derechos. El verdadero problema es la explotación". La posición del FIOB también enfatizó los derechos lingüísticos para las comunidades migrantes y el respeto por su cultura indígena.

Organizar los derechos de los migrantes fue más que tomar una posición política; fue parte de la construcción de la base de miembros del FIOB. A principios de la década de 2000, Lorenzo Oropeza, un activista del FIOB que también trabajaba para CRLA, organizó una sección entre varios campesinos triquis que vivían al aire libre en las orillas del río Russian en el condado de Sonoma. Fausto López, el líder del grupo, comentó: "Me uní al FIOB porque Lorenzo habla mi lengua. Es mixteco y nosotros somos triquis, pero él trabaja con todos los oaxaqueños. Como somos del mismo estado, todos somos iguales. Entonces, nuestro grupo local me eligió para representarlos. Viajé a varias partes de California con Lorenzo y me reuní con otros líderes. Muchos de nosotros los trabajadores agrícolas no conocemos nuestros derechos, y el FIOB nos enseña. También trabajamos para la amnistía para los migrantes, porque muchos de nosotros cruzamos la frontera ilegalmente, y muchos mueren en el proceso".


Puedes descargar la versión en PDF aquí
https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Rufino-and-FIOB_Part2_spanish_July12.pdf