Written by:
Ariane Conrad
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 17#8
Imagine awakening to the realization that your government is so out of touch with the needs of your community that it’s become a farce of the democratic process. Imagine deciding this renders your government illegitimate, and in response, you disengage from further sham political processes and create a zone for your community that is more or less autonomous, where the rights and needs of your community members are heard, protected and served.
That’s the reality of the Zapatistas, who have formed one of the most vibrant movements for autonomy in the wider world, begun among the indigenous people of Chiapas and expanded to specifically include lesbians and transfolk, as well as others not acknowledged or served by the official government of Mexico. Patria Jimenez, openly-lesbian member of Mexico’s parliament (Latin America’s first!), is among the movement’s prominent supporters, emphasizing “No one will be free until all of us are free.”
In early 2006, activists launched La Otra Campaña (which means “The Other Campaign”) in counterpoint to the concurrent presidential campaign. For nearly a year, the Other Campaign traveled through every state in Mexico on what was basically a listening tour, inviting those who felt unheard to speak their truths and their minds at unrestricted town-hall-style meetings.
The campaign title refers also to the kinds of people the campaign made sure to include: indigenous people, factory workers, sex workers, queer folk, grandmothers, women and children.
Maité Valladolid and Vanessa Garcia traveled with the tour, collecting testimonials from women who spoke (some of which they shared with us, below) and are currently working on a book about the women of the Other Campaign.
“I’d been volunteering in Chiapas when the Campaign began there,” Valladolid says. “I was entranced by the dynamics of these meetings in which people voiced their struggles and passions, people who just needed to be heard. The book is our promise to the women who spoke, to share their stories with the world.”
“Even in the U.S., lesbians, sex workers and other women are still marginalized, so I believe we need to build bridges to support these marginalized women across the border,” Garcia adds.
“The most devastating announcement of the Campaign came from women of the Kiliwa tribe. Fewer than 60 members remain in this indigenous group, which lives near the U.S. border in Baja. After decades of struggling to survive and watching their numbers dwindle, the Kiliwa women have decided that they will no longer bear children. Rather than bringing children into a world where they can’t live with their own language and culture, they have chosen to disappear as a people,” Valladolid says.
In Monterrey, a lesbian named Vicki came forward and told a story of police arresting a group of about 40 women in a bar late one night: “The women kept demanding an explanation as to why they were being detained. They were told: ‘this is a raid against prostitution.’ Basically they were arrested because they were out at three in the morning and having a good time. I feel compelled to point out, without intending to offend my friends who were arrested, that the majority of them looked like John Wayne: pure butch. The notion that they would be prostitutes is laughable.
Another raged: “I started working when I was very young and always paid taxes to social security. Yet if I were to die, my partner would not get a pension as my widow. She would receive nothing because I’m a woman. Simply because I love a woman, and chose to live my whole life with her. She won’t be able to receive any support.”
And, in a rousing finale, one lesbian concluded: “The authorities would like to see us as we have been in the past, with our heads low, embarrassed about our orientation, with rights to nothing, happy with crumbs that they throw at us… But I have news for (them): we don’t need your permission! We already exist, and there are a lot of us. We are not going to change to fit into your society and your Mexico. We’re going to change the society and Mexico so that we all fit.”
The Other Campaign reminds us that all of us have a responsibility: both to listen and to speak up, to demand a world in which all of us can fit.
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