Balancing motherhood and service

bALAnCIng moThERhood And sERvICE mARICELA zURITA CRUz

Maricela zurita cruz holding her son, et Yu, while working. Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez lópez

(CS STAFF) (Ayuuk/Binnizá)

maricela Zurita Cruz (ChatNya) hails from San Juan Quiahije, Oaxaca, Mexico. She graduated high school with a scholarship for Indigenous women granted by the Guadalupe Musalem Fund. At the end of her studies, she began to collaborate with Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer Rosario Castellanos (GES Mujer), one of Mexico’s oldest women’s rights organizations, which works to improve gender equity and women’s well being through outreach, research, communications, and training in Oaxaca. During this time, Cruz worked to develop training plans and programs focused on Indigenous women’s rights and health. As a professional, she provided a gender diversity focus to the projects of Ojo de Agua Comunicación, an organization working on community communication mainly in radio and documentaries. In 2019, she collaborated with Cultural Survival as a trainer at our workshops for Indigenous women communicators held in Oaxaca.

Cruz was awarded the Mexican National Youth Award in the Social Commitment category for her work with women in her community and with GES Mujer, which nominated her. This was a great personal achievement and helped her to secure the funds needed to obtain a bachelor’s degree in education. Because she received the award as an individual, people in her community were suspicious of her “real” intentions. Over time, though, she was able to regain their trust by showing them her genuine passion for working in the community. Cruz used part of her scholarship to fund a local children’s library, which is still operating today. She has held workshops about being a new parent and made a donation to the Guadalupe Musalem Fund so that other Indigenous women would have the opportunity to continue their studies as she did.

Cruz maintained ties to her community in Quiahije throughout the 16 years she lived afar. She always knew she wanted to return, but had no idea that when the time came, it would happen so suddenly. Then, in 2020 she was unexpectedly elected by the Assembly of her community as the Regidora de Ecología (director of ecology) for a newly created municipal department. For Cruz, “having a position is not up for consideration; you have to serve.” So, when she was notified of her new appointment, she and her partner left their jobs in Oaxaca City and moved back to San Juan Quiahije.

Cruz’s appointment is a significant event in a context where power and land ownership are collective. The Assembly is the highest authority in her community; leadership roles rotate and are collectively elected. Cruz is the youngest person in the department and only the second woman to hold such a position. All positions are in service to the community, unpaid for three years, and are an acknowledgment of trust from the community in the person chosen to carry out their responsibilities.

Cruz has worked to establish her role as the first director of ecology in her community. “In the beginning, I did not know where to start, so I decided to start with the reasons why this position was created by the Assembly members: to address pollution, excessive refuse, clearing of the forest, and hunting of endangered animals as priorities,” she says. In her first year, she worked on solid waste management. The use of plastic bags in shops was banned after agreements were reached with merchants and business owners. The sale of prepackaged fried foods was prohibited. The sale of soft drinks has been regulated, and they can now only be sold in aluminum cans or family size bottles. The community also reforested some land. Currently in its second year, the department is focusing on recruiting community volunteers to implement an environmental education and awareness campaign. Much work is also being done to promote the purchase of local products and reduce garbage.

In addition to being a department head, an educator, and a specialist in gender issues, Cruz has taken on another challenging role: motherhood. Since her son was born, she has had to adjust her work and family schedules. She has had to make difficult personal decisions, such as not breastfeeding her son for all meals in order to meet her work schedules, and to cede other responsibilities to her child’s father. Cruz says that living in her community has had advantages and disadvantages for motherhood. For one, “there are always other women who help to take care of the children and practice ‘collective motherhood.’” Even at work, she says, male members of the council help her with childcare sometimes. However, she knows that the community and her family do not fully accept her parenting style, and she believes that “they would not have named me [as the director] if they had known I was pregnant.”

Cruz has also had to balance her community work and motherhood in a context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which

has generated great reflections and lessons for her. She has noticed that midwifery is an important area that needs to be revitalized; in Quiahije there are only three midwives, and they do not identify themselves as such due to the disregard for their work by the state health policies. On the positive side, many people who lived outside the community have returned, and are growing their own food and eating healthier. In addition, some parents reclaimed their children’s education through homeschooling, and students now have the opportunity to connect with the community and its needs, including the environment.

In 2019, 10 articles of the Mexican Constitution were reformed to ensure that women occupy 50 percent of political positions at all levels of government. This reform generated several internal conflicts in communities such as Cruz’s, where political positions are held mainly by men. Although many communities had made slow progress in terms of achieving gender diversity, the amendments forced a confrontation within the collective forms of government because it did not consider the different realities of gender roles in local communities. “The representative and leadership positions are comprehensive and not isolated,” Cruz says. “Gender parity has come to break this, and that is why men have rejected us. We women have to use our minds, hearts, and souls to listen to why our colleagues think a certain way. We need to understand very well the territory we are treading. We do not want to reach out to our community with the logic that we learned in the city. There is [another] way of understanding life that is important to respect.”

Like many Indigenous women, Cruz illustrates the delicate balance of maintaining all of her roles caring for her family, community, and Mother Earth, while promoting women’s participation in community governance. After working for a long time on gender issues outside of her community, Cruz believes that it is up to women like her, who begin their participation in positions of community power, to educate and make changes internally and to open the way for others. Cruz is leading by example, showing her community “that women have character, that you can be a mother and a director at the same time; that we can have a dialogue with men and women about gender problems, and take advantage of every moment to educate and make visible what we are capable of and what we can do.”

Cruz has come to believe that being a mother is a personal decision, one that should not depend on other people. “We need to put aside blame and accept that women can do many things and many others not. There are times when we need to be with our children more and we must take advantage of those moments. We must value everything that is around us and let ourselves be helped,” she says. As for other women who likewise hold community positions, “[we should] open our minds, have clear positions, and know what we are going to allow and what not, so that in moments of disagreement we do not allow things that harm us and that go against our own happiness.”

Maricela zurita cruz in the field working on environmental education in her community of san Juan Quiahije, oaxaca, Mexico.

Maricela zurita cruz raising awareness on international Day of the elimination of violence against women on november 25.

OMIECH

Traditional Maya Midwives Protecting Women’s Health

OMIECH midwives exchange medicinal plant knowledge.

Photo by Filiberto Sebastián Luna Icó.

Micaela Icó Bautista (Tzotzil)

and Susannah Daniels

The Organization of Indigenous Doctors of Chiapas (OMIECH) was formed in 1985 by Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Ch’ol Maya health promoters and traditional doctors. Our objective is to revive, develop, systematize, and defend traditional Maya medicine. The Women and Midwives Section of OMIECH is made up of 51 traditional midwives from 4 municipalities and 8 communities of the Highlands and Northern regions of Chiapas, Mexico. We implement workshops that reinforce the intergenerational transmission of our traditional midwifery within each family and community. In these workshops and the Women and Midwives Section regional meetings, we discuss topics including maternal mortality; care during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum; and the conservation and defense of medicinal plants and animals. In recent years, our work has focused on developing strategies to stop the public policies that threaten the survival of traditional Indigenous midwifery in Mexico. The following is a portrait of a Tzotzil midwife narrated by the Women and Midwives Section’s coordinator, Micaela Icó Bautista. As young girls, jtamoletik (traditional midwives) dream that they will be midwives. God (in Tzotzil, Kajvaltik, Jtotik, Ch’ul totik ta Vinajel, Ch’ulme’tik ta Ch’ul Balumil) gives us a sign through our dreams. He/ She gives us the materials we will use. We learn from our dreams and by attending the births of our own children. We also learn from more experienced midwives, our grandmothers, mothers, and others. When a woman seeks us out, it is our duty to give her and her husband advice. Depending on the patient, whether she is ill, tired, or malnourished, we will see what she needs. We tell the husband how he can help his wife.

Some midwives are also j’iloletik (healers, “she/he who sees beyond”). Healers are able to communicate directly with their patient’s spirit. They diagnose their patients by feeling their pulse. This diagnosis is important, because some women do not want to tell us when they have problems.

During a pregnancy, we have to ask for the protection of our patient three times. The healer knows how to prevent and treat illness that is the result of envy or an encounter with an evil spirit. In her prayer, the healer speaks to both the woman and the baby, and she speaks to God. Midwives who are not healers also know how to pray and ask for protection for their patient. The woman also has to speak with God so that all may go well in her pregnancy. She has to speak to Him/Her, deliver herself to Him/Her, every day. One cannot forget to do this.

By the fourth month of pregnancy we can tell whether the baby is well positioned. We give the mother an abdominal massage whenever she needs it. In this way we monitor her until her pregnancy is full term. Sometimes the mother or the baby is rebellious. We correct the baby’s position and within no time it has moved again. This has meaning for us campesina women. When a baby is malpositioned it is because we set down our firewood without untying the tumpline, or because we left the batten in a crooked position on our loom. The baby copies what we do in our day to day tasks. This is why midwife-healers perform both “the secret” and prayer. They have different ways of performing the secret so that the baby will remain in the right position.

What we want is for women to come see us at the beginning of their pregnancy. This is for the benefit of both them and their family. Some midwives go from village to village to see the mothers who are going to give birth. This is why our work is important for women, our communities, and ourselves: we prevent maternal deaths. There are medicinal plants not only for treating and managing complications, but also for preventing them.

When some women go into labor, they suffer a lot of pain because coldness has entered their body. We lay them down on a petate (straw mat), check their abdomen, warm it and massage it, and the pain goes away. When the baby is almost crowning, the mother squats down and we put a faja (wide woven belt) around her waist. If the baby is a little malpositioned, you have to get a

firm hold on his shoulder and hand, and then from the outside, turn his body in a circular motion and get him into a good position. In some cases we put vegetable oil on the birth canal so that the baby will slide out more easily. When the child is born we sit with it next to the fire and bathe it in lukewarm water. We lay the umbilical cord on a corn cob and cut it with a small piece of reed. If the placenta does not come out, the mother should be given a tea made from the tail of a tlacuache.

After the birth, we boil a tea of pepper, cloves, and ginger. This tea is very good for decreasing postpartum bleeding and for cleaning and warming the uterus. If a midwife knows how to use the pus (sweat lodge), this is good for women. It warms their uterus and returns it almost to its original size. The mother should take care of herself for two or three months and she should not drink cold water because the medicine is hot.

We midwives know about plant medicine. The sacred plants are very powerful. They did not grow on their own. Rather, they have a guardian/provider: the sacred earth. They have spirits, just as the healer, ac’vomoletik (herbalist), and the midwife have spirits. When a person does not know the plant, it’s because she has not been introduced to it in her dreams. In dreams, we learn about where it grows and its uses. If you do not dream about how to talk to the plant, then there is no communication. For this reason, not just anyone can use the plants.

Midwives sow and harvest plants and they store them in their home pharmacies. But they do not harvest them at just anytime. There’s a secret to this. The healers say that if you have faith, you can use plant medicine. But if you deny the plant’s power, if you do not trust in the plant, it will not heal you. Likewise, it is important that a woman trust her midwife so that there are no complications during her pregnancy and birth.

In OMIECH, we exchange knowledge with other midwives. These meetings are very important because we learn about how other midwives care for their patients and what plants they use. We support each other. Despite the Secretary of Health’s attempts to force us to attend training courses in which we are prohibited from using our traditional practices, we continue to attend the majority of births in our communities. When we do not attend these courses our social welfare benefits are withheld and our patients are denied access to birth certificates.

This attempt to suppress the practice of traditional midwives has resulted in high rates of cesarean sections in Mexico. These surgeries only benefit the pharmaceutical companies that supply hospitals with the medicine and equipment used for obstetric care. The more women who seek care in hospitals, the richer these companies become, while our own traditional Indigenous midwifery dies out. And if this happens, who will attend our granddaughters’ pregnancies and births?

In Mexico, there are some groups of traditional midwives who demand government recognition and aid. We do not want the government’s aid or interference. We simply want the attacks on our knowledge and customs to stop, and we will fight tirelessly to ensure that our own form of midwifery continues to be valued and practiced in our communities. Organization of Indigenous Doctors of Chiapas (OMIECH) is a Cultural Survival Keepers of the Earth Fund (KOEF) grant partner. KOEF is an Indigenous-led fund designed to support Indigenous Peoples’ community development and advocacy projects. Since 2017, through small grants and technical assistance, KOEF has supported 119 projects in 31 countries totaling $488,475.

— Micaela Icó Bautista (Tzotzil) is from San Andrés Puerto Rico, Huixtan, and is co-founder of OMIECH, where she has worked since 1985 as the coordinator of the Women and Midwives’ Section. Susannah Daniels has a PhD in Mesoamerican Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She has worked with the Women and Midwives’ Section of OMIECH since 2017.

consuelo lópez Díaz (tzeltal), traditional midwife. photo by filiberto sebastián luna Icó.

Ipiak slendy montanhuano Ushigua

nati garcia (CS STAFF) (Maya Mam)

Ipiak Slendy Montanhuano Ushigua is a 15-year-old Sapara youth leader from the Llanachamaococha, Amazon community in the province of Pastaza, Ecuador, and a Cultural Survival youth fellow. She is a student at the Tsitsanu School, home to a group of fellows from the Cultural Survival Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship program. Their group fellowship project, “The Sapara Dream,” is focused on strengthening the Sapara culture, language, and competency in communication through workshops for youth in audiovisual production. A community media center was built at the culmination of the fellowship, and now youth from the Llanchamacocha community have a space to produce, edit, and hold future workshops in continuing audiovisual skills and furthering the Sapara dream. Ushigua received training in creation of storyboards, audiovisual techniques, digital camera use, editing, and the importance of media as a platform for defending Sapara territory. “I am a youth who fights against natural resource extraction. I want to share with you the traditional medicine of my people. Our ancestors left us this medicine so that we can cure our children and other people who visit us,” she said. Traditional knowledge transfer is vital for strengthening future generations of Sapara Peoples, and Ushigua is a role model for young Indigenous women in promoting the culture and wisdom of her people, particularly in traditional medicine. “When I participated in the workshops, I learned a lot. I was able to share with my peers what I learned. It helped us a lot. It made me happy to be able to participate in video production; ipiak slendy I really enjoy learning Montanhuano that kind of stuff. It ushigua was a memorable experience,” Ushigua said.

ipiak slendy Montanhuano ushigua in action taking photos of a tsitsanu student.

The Sapara Nation of Ecuador has been gravely impacted by oil extraction on its territory, and Llanchamacocha community members have been resisting the construction of a highway that would harm the ecosystem of the Amazon. Ushigua helped produce a series of short audiovisuals highlighting the importance of Indigenous identity, Sapara dreams, defense of territory, and ancestral medicine. The project helped create alliances with Cultural Survival and Tawna Films, which provided support during the project term with the defense of the Sapara territory. The fellows involved in the project are active leaders like Ushigua, who are working hard to strengthen and revitalize their cultural values, systems, and knowledge.

“The project caught my attention because communication is very important. Here, Sapara youth transmit messages to the world through community media. We have been fighting for many years; right now we are fighting against oil companies. We do not want our language, culture, identity, cosmovision, and stories to be lost. For this reason, I want to share with the world our way of living, our way of thinking. This has been an important goal for us through community media which has helped us,” Ushigua said. Storytelling through media has been a key element in the transmission of Indigenous cosmologies. The Fellowship has elevated this process by engaging youth to relate to their cultures, land, languages, and traditions through the use of technology.

Other fellows added, “We are very pleased to work with you and consider you allies of the Sapara Nation, of our territory where we are working to contextualize education to cultural reality. Continuing to work with you gives us the hope of advancing in communication from communities eager to show the processes of social transformation, the defense of the Amazon, and the Sapara culture that was declared an oral and intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO in 2002.”

There is a saying, “En medio del mar verde se abre un camino de esperanza para este pueblo” (in the middle of the green sea there is a path of hope for the people). This path of hope motivates and strengthens the power youth have to make a difference, and Ushigua is a ripple in the middle of the green sea.

Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship supports individuals and groups of youth ages 17 to 25 in their efforts to build their radio journalism and radio broadcasting skills through trainings, community radio visits and exchanges, radio production, and conference attendance. Since 2018, we have supported 33 Indigenous youth fellows in 10 countries.

eva vasquez clemente at the cultural survival Bazaar at cambridge

rindge and latin high school, December 2019. photo by danae laura.

eva vasquez clemente selecting corn husk for her dolls from her milpa

Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez lopez (CS STAFF) (Ayuuk/Binnizá)

Eva Vasquez Clemente is a single mother of two daughters, an artist, and an auxiliary police officer in the Oaxaca State Public Security Secretariat in Mexico. She comes from the Zapotec-Mixtec coast of Oaxaca. Vasquez makes exquisitely detailed corn husk dolls that represent traditional women dancers of the renowned annual Guelaguetza Festival, where the 16 Indigenous Peoples of the 8 regions of the State of Oaxaca meet. She creates her pieces entirely by hand with organic products and natural colors.

Vasquez uses the dry leaves that cover the ear of corn, known in Mexico as totomoxtle, normally used to prepare tamales. Corn is the most important element in her community’s diet and an integral part of their identity. The leaves are selected from the family and community corn harvest, with various shades of red, brown, cream, and purple. To make her creations, Vasquez removes the blades carefully to cut large pieces. Then, immediately before use, she wets them with water to make them malleable again, cuts the pieces that she needs, and sews them together in knots using the threads of the corn husk.

During festivities in Vasquez’s town, women use baskets to dance. “When my mother said that they were going to decorate the baskets for the holidays, since we had no money, we used to make them from totomoxtle. My mom always liked the way we did it and people admired it,” Vasquez recalls. “On one occasion in the church, they told us not to pollute, so once at a party in my town, I decorated the streets with totomoxtle figures without using plastic or paper and everyone liked it.”

Vasquez started taking part in competitions when she moved to Oaxaca City. “I was improving my technique and I invented the embroidery on the sheet, because I saw that none of the participants did it. My imagination taught me and the challenge of overcoming the work of others and doing something different. In the contest they don’t let you use industrialized things, it all has to be natural,” she says.

Life as an artist is not easy, in part, as Vasquez observes, because “people do not appreciate art...[they] go to large stores to buy things that are not art, but copies made in factories.” While at first she was only creating for competition, Vasquez received a commission from the Textile Museum of Oaxaca. “[They] called me and told me that they wanted to sell my pieces. Before that, I gave them away. I realized that I, myself, did not recognize the value of my pieces, and so I adjusted my prices to make it fairer and the market improved a lot.”

Vasquez shares her experience participating in the Cultural Survival Bazaars, “The Bazaars were an opportunity to feel that I am free, that I can travel and see places and people. I have only participated once in person, but the simple fact of being there brought a lot of profit. Disseminating the work and making ourselves known is a satisfaction, knowing that you make people feel something when they see your pieces. When you have found something that you do well and uniquely, it is something that fills you as a person. You no longer ask for anything from life, because this gives you satisfaction, motivation, a way to heal, a way to forget the pain or the sadness through making art. It helps you to grow emotionally and as a person, because you know that what you do is something that people admire and you make them feel beautiful.”

She continues to say, “I would like to be an inspiration to women who are sometimes alone, or like me, have lived through a situation of domestic violence. I put up with many things, but I decided to leave and find my way. I tell women not to despair and to know that it is possible. I want to inspire more women to do it and get ahead, because you can be a mother, a worker, a police officer, and an artist.”

Bazaar artist spotlight Eva vasquez Clemente

USING ART TO INSPIRE

(corn plot) after the harvest. photo courtesy of eva Vasquez clemente.

all in-person cultural survival Bazaars in 2021 are postponed due to the coviD-19 pandemic. to support and buy directly from our Bazaar artists, visit our directory of artists at bazaar.cs.org.

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Radio naköj Council, Santo Domingo Xenacoj, Sacatepéquez, Guatemala, Indigenous Community Media Fund grant partner ”This project helped many people to remember words in Mixe, some no longer spoken. It was a program of interest and it helped people in the community to learn to value their culture.”

Estrella Jhonaí gutiérrez vásquez (Mixe), Mexico. Her Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship project focused on revitalizing the Ayuujk/Mixe language. “People were unaware of the

Forest Rights Act completely.

Through Cultural Survival’s support, we could reach the ground level community to provoke them to think and become awakened to their land rights.”

sobha madhan, secretary, Gudalur Block NPVTG Federation, India. With a Keepers of the Earth Fund grant, NPVTG Federation is conducting an awareness raising campaign about the Forest Rights Act to secure community forest rights of 10 Adivasi villages.

“The support provided by

Cultural Survival has been very important to continue our work of gathering knowledge within my territory.

I am also grateful to meet youth from different places and learn about how they are defending and protecting their knowledge.”

Carolina Trayen Rain Ancan (Mapuche), Chile, Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellow

“I would like to thank Cultural Survival.

I have been working on interviewing the elders. It is important to learn from them and record their knowledge.”

manuel silvano guzmán (Tseltal), Mexico, Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellow