Photo essay: Mexican indigenous front agitates for rights of migrants in the US

Text and photos by David Bacon

SANTIAGO DE JUXTLAHUACA, OAXACA, MEXICO

MAY 31, 2008 -- The assembly of the Indigenous Front of Binational Organisations in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, one of the poorest areas in Mexico. A large percentage of the indigenous population of Oaxaca and other states has left to work in northern Mexico and in the United States. The FIOB is a political organisation of indigenous communities and migrants, with chapters in Mexico and the US. It advocates for the rights of migrants, and for the right not to migrate -- for economic development which would enable people to stay home.

Delegates discuss FIOB's by-laws and political positions, vote to adopt them, and then elect new binational leadership in a democratic and open process. Julio Sandoval, a delegate from Baja California, recounts his experience as a political prisoner in the penitentiary of Ensenaada, where he was held for three years after leading a fight for housing for indigenous migrants. At the end of the assembly, Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, newly elected as FIOB's binational coordinator, addresses the delegates, and a group of Triqui women rise to their feet with a clenched-fist salute.

For more articles and images on immigration, see http://dbacon.igc.org/Imgrants/imgrants.htm

Coming in September 2008, from Beacon Press: Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants, http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002

See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006), http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575

See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004), http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html

David Bacon, photographs and stories, http://dbacon.igc.org

Comments

Tue, 08/05/2008 - 11:19 — normd

Photos: California workers condemn Schwarzenegger wage cut

SAN FRANCISCO, California, July 30, 2008 - Union members protest the decision by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to cut the wages of over two hundred thousand state workers to the Federal minimum wage of $6.55/hour, alleging he must do so because the state legislature has not passed a budget. Workers accuse the governor of using their jobs and wages as a means of pressuring the Democratic legislature into agreeing to deep Republican budget cuts.

Democratic State Controller John Chiang has said that he will refuse to obey the governor's order, and that the state has the money to continue to pay workers their full salaries through September. According to the California Budget Project, tax cuts enacted since 1993 will cost the state $12 billion this year. "It's time to take another look at who gets tax breaks and whether the state can really afford them."

The workers, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, left their national convention and marched through downtown San Francisco to protest the wage-cutting order. Bill Lucy, AFSCME Secretary Treasurer and founder of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, condemns Schwarzenegger's action.