The sky is gray, rain threatens, and the furnace is on… ugh! No, not Oaxaca, the San Francisco Bay Area. Yesterday, I headed north for a month-long visit with family and friends. A timely departure, to say the least. My solidarity with the teachers and their demands isn’t being challenged by the daily inconveniences of growing piles of garbage; attempting to navigate around the barricades, tarps, and tents; trying to buy groceries and go to the bank that fellow blogger, Chris, chronicled yesterday.
Adding some much-needed perspective and understanding (especially for gringos) of the issues involved, a well-timed report by Bay Area writer, photographer and former union organizer, David Bacon, was released a few days ago by UCLA’s, Institute for Transnational Social Change. This 28-page document, Building a Culture of Cross-Border Solidarity, provides historical context and an informed analysis of the complex interrelationships between Mexican/U.S. labor and immigration policies — Oaxaca and her teachers are prominently mentioned. The report’s conclusion explains that,
Raquel Medina, a Oaxacan teacher, spoke at the 2007 convention of the California Federation of Teachers. She did more than appeal for support for Section 22. She helped teachers from Fresno and Santa Maria understand why they hear so many children in their classrooms speaking Mixteco. She helped them see that the poverty in her home state, the repression of her union, the growing number of Oaxacan families in California, and the activity of those migrants in California’s union battles, are all related. She connected the dots of solidarity. Educators should go back to their schools and union meetings, she said, and show people the way the global economy functions today – how it affects ordinary people, and what they can do to change it.
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