Intro
Recently, I got the opportunity to go to Mexico for an experiential learning class through my university called Interdisciplinary Studies 200: Food Sovereignty in Mexico. After a few preparation classes, me and ten other students flew to Mexico City for a hands-on experience I will never forget. While I had a very basic understanding of a few of the issues going on in Mexico, I really had no idea of the complexity of it all, and how interconnected something as basic as food could be to nearly every other world issue we know.
The people of Mexico, as well as many other countries across the world, have suffered many injustices that we look at from our kitchen tables and breath a sigh of relief that we're not involved in. But the reality is that we are involved. In fact, the bowl of cereal you're eating and the coffee you're drinking as you read the stories here about peasants in Mexico being beaten and imprisoned for protesting against unfair wages may have come from the very fields that they've been working. Our sustenance is directly dependent on those farmers and workers in many ways.
Going to Mexico to learn directly from these men and women was an experience that was so packed with ideas and concepts and truths that were completely new to me. I learned a lot about not only Mexico and Food Sovereignty, but also about my own country, and even about myself. While there is no way that I could possibly do justice in fully explaining my first hand experiences, I hope that this space will provide at least a glimpse into the lives and the hearts of the people in Mexico that I had the opportunity to learn and hear from. I also hope that it will convey the truth that our lives are deeply entwined with theirs. What is contained here is not just a lot of interesting information; it is a lot of responsibility. Food Sovereignty is not just a question of whether a country has control over their own food resources; it is a question of whether a country, a people, has health, freedom, equality, safety, speech, faith, and every other basic right we believe people should have.
The people of Mexico, as well as many other countries across the world, have suffered many injustices that we look at from our kitchen tables and breath a sigh of relief that we're not involved in. But the reality is that we are involved. In fact, the bowl of cereal you're eating and the coffee you're drinking as you read the stories here about peasants in Mexico being beaten and imprisoned for protesting against unfair wages may have come from the very fields that they've been working. Our sustenance is directly dependent on those farmers and workers in many ways.
Going to Mexico to learn directly from these men and women was an experience that was so packed with ideas and concepts and truths that were completely new to me. I learned a lot about not only Mexico and Food Sovereignty, but also about my own country, and even about myself. While there is no way that I could possibly do justice in fully explaining my first hand experiences, I hope that this space will provide at least a glimpse into the lives and the hearts of the people in Mexico that I had the opportunity to learn and hear from. I also hope that it will convey the truth that our lives are deeply entwined with theirs. What is contained here is not just a lot of interesting information; it is a lot of responsibility. Food Sovereignty is not just a question of whether a country has control over their own food resources; it is a question of whether a country, a people, has health, freedom, equality, safety, speech, faith, and every other basic right we believe people should have.
While staying in Mexico, I read this poem, hung in a lounge area of the center we were staying at. I think that it expresses the passion and cry of the people who are most deeply effected by the ignorance and carelessness of the world in which we live:
When my daughter met at nightwith those who speak of unions
I stopped talking to my neighbors.
Six workers were found murdered,
their tongues, their hands cut from them
the priest said a mass
I pretended not to hear it--
I begged her to stay home with me,
Not to speak the names of the dead.
But when the soldiers took her,
and would not give me even
the name of a prison
the place of a grave
I heard a roaring in my head
that swelled up into my tongue, my fingers,
now I hold up her picture in the plaza.
I call out her name
While men with mirrors on their eyes
watch me.
I see my face reflected in their dark glass.
I do not look away.
-Naomi Thiers
