May 2006

Interview by Amalia Córdova of FVC, NMAI

AC: Can you tell us where you're from?

ME: I am from the southern part of Mexico. My native language is Tzeltal, one of 57 native languages in the country. Well, this is what the statistics say, but we don't know if 57 is the right number; some say 62 languages exist.

AC: But you also speak or understand other languages besides Tzeltal?

ME: I was fortunate to grow up living alongside another culture, another people, in my village. I got to practice their language a lot, so now I speak Chol just as well as Tzeltal. We value that, mastering a language other than the one you were born into.

Of course Spanish is also another language we had to learn. So I'm fluent in three languages, and there are a few others I can't speak well but understand. And since my region has this make-up, it's become necessary for me, in my work, to take full advantage of my closeness to both communities. It's become easier with time. Naturally, since these two peoples have been able to settle together and maintain their Chol and Tzeltal identites, it's easy for me to live with them, we understand each other, and that makes my job as an indigenous communicator easier.

AC: How did your work as a Native communicator begin?

ME: Well, it's a bit of a long story. I've worked as a communicator making and producing videos for a long time. It was almost fourteen years ago when I started working with this type of equipment. But, actually, my work with the communities had started much earlier, and was exactly about communication; that is, we would communicate through writing. Our purpose was to demand, for instance, that local and state officials address our most urgent needs.

If you want to communicate, or have a connection with the city, with the outside, it becomes harder the further removed you are from the center. That made us more determined to see that our government, our officials, attend fairly to their commitment to serve their communities. Because we live in a country where we pay taxes, our taxes should be directed at projects that further the common good, the good of society. And we weren't seeing that happen. As soon as a county president was elected, it would become clear he wasn't really interested in meeting the community's needs. It was more about finding a way to get as much as you could into your own pocket, and getting richer.

So that's what people started complaining about. They would say, "How is it that this man comes into power supposedly to serve the community, does his term and leaves, and nothing changes for us?" This went on year after year after year, and representative after representative. Finally we decided we had to organize, to demand of the next man who came into office that he do his job. Serving the people is not, after all, foreign to the constitution. What we are asking is that you follow your own law, because your mandate is to look after the needs of the people.

We used to send representatives. They would go with their petition, their writing, and when they got there they weren't treated as people, they were treated like dirty animals. So one of our brothers said, "What should we do? If today they won't listen to us this way, we have to do something."

So they began to organize, because this wasn't just happening to one community, it happened to everyone who came there. All these people who weren't happy got together. Full of indignation with the way they were being treated, they organized a march. I think this was the first march of its kind, the first social movement to come out of the region, and they brought down the county president at the time. Of course there was tear gas, and some were wounded and arrested, but that made the people stronger in their will to continue: "If this is the way they want to treat us we have to go on, and it doesn't matter if our lives are lost demanding what is ours by right."

What finally happened is that one of our indigenous brothers, José Daniel López, way back in 1986, left his village along with others to sell corn in the city. The village and city police were following them and our poor brother was killed. They beat him up, they took his money, and then they left him there dying. And nothing happened, no one said anything. Everyone saw it but the officials did nothing. They didn't punish this crime because it was committed by their own people, because it was the police. That's what made people most angry.

In those years I was starting to take flight; I was fourteen years old. I was interested in everything that was happening, but I had no formal education, barely knew how to read. There really wasn't a proper school where I happened to be born. There was a small school where a teacher would come twice a week, and sometimes stop coming for months. That's probably part of the reason I started looking for other spaces, not to learn, but to understand what was happening around me.

So I started asking around, looking for an organization that dealt with social issues. That's when I met a group of colleagues who were fighting for their rights. So I joined the group and started attending their meetings and assemblies; they gradually got to know me, and I grew increasingly intimate with these communities.

That's how I started exploring this field. At that time I wasn't representing a particular community; I was just a kid, and surrounding me were these very experienced community leaders, elders, who knew exactly what they were doing. So I was taking it all in. And I'd like to make clear that I was the only kid hanging around. I figured I'd stay as long as they didn't kick me out. I started helping, sweeping the meeting room, bringing water for those in the meetings, passing on messages, writing short statements or letters between villages, between people, stuff like that.

And that's when I came of age. They were six or seven years of hard activism; the marches and demonstrations of those years were quite intense. Then, around 1992, when I was about twenty, we received an invitation from a government agency that wanted to give video equipment to indigenous organizations, supposedly for cultural preservation. When we received the invitation it was discussed by the group, and the leaders of the organization were not about to start learning how to use a camera and all that. "How are we going to benefit the community, how is this going to help us do what we have to do as leaders, or elders, it won't help us. Here's a young one, why don't we send him." And there was another youth there, so they said, "And you, too. Let's send both these kids to the workshop and see what they learn." So we went, while they stayed at a demonstration where they were demanding the same things as always. And while we were there, we found out that the demonstration had been dissolved, (this time) by federal police operatives.

Meanwhile, we were at this workshop trying to figure out how to work a camera: we didn't know what a camera was. We might have seen a still camera before, but a video camera that talks, what? We had no idea. And it was during those two months of work, while we were getting acquainted with this new equipment, that we received news that a decision had been made to abandon the regional demonstration and go directly to the government in the capital. What was happening to us was shameful, and the world had to know about it. Somebody had to listen to us, or at least feel our pain. It was risky, but it was the only choice we had left.

They decided to march. There were almost 100 miles separating the capital from where they started, so they walked for 60 days. And it was on the same day the march started that we arrived back in our homes. We had just come back with the equipment, we had no commitments except to record as much as possible, so…that's how we started our work as Native communicators.

What good is a camera to us if not to record things like this?

We had to rest at home for a couple of days before running off to catch up with the marchers. And no one in the village knew how things were going with the march. I mean, the press wasn't really telling you what was going on. So that became our role, to act as a bridge for this movement, which had left its place of origin, and was communicating through us as it marched.

Well, it's a long story, a lot happened during those days. It was then that the organization took its name: Xinich, which means "ant." It's alluding to what happens when you see a small ant-hill. It doesn't look like much, you destroy it, but then more ants start coming up from underneath, and they keep coming and coming, and you never finish killing them. The government had tried to put down the movement by arresting and locking up people, but all that did was to make our brothers come out.

That's how my journey as a communicator began, and I feel I'm still doing the same thing. I mean, I really haven't changed my approach. Maybe it's a little better now, my style. My technique has improved, my craft. But the purpose, the main objective, is fundamentally the same: that is, to contribute to the community's work, to the work of the people of the region. To do my part. That's why we always make sure that the materials we produce will be understood by people outside the community. As I said, we function as a bridge between the communities we represent and the outside. We bring out what's happening inside the communities. That's pretty much what I'm still doing.

AC: And how have you felt now, being a selector for the festival, seeing your colleagues' work.

ME: Well, we're giving it our all, because the material is of very high quality. Indigenous communication has really taken off, not just in one region of the country but in most countries in North and Latin America. Indigenous communicators are producing more and more works: self-produced, giving importance to what they're doing, striving to support community efforts, the collective work of their region, their rights as indigenous peoples, and strengthening their autonomy.

There's a great deal of work done in those terms, and then one here or there will venture out and try to imitate a Hollywood-style film, right? Well, that's alright, but if I'm not mistaken, I think 90% are doing work that involves the community…because little by little we've learned that TV shows, video clips, soap operas, and fantasies are entertaining, but they make you forget your reality, right? And we're the complete opposite, we don't try to forget, but to support this reality around us and see how we go about moving forward all together.

AC: Could you tell us a bit more about your work with the community?

ME: Besides what I've told you about materials we've produced, we also have a commitment to bring this information to the people. It's a very intense schedule of visiting the various communities. We're scheduled months in advance, we know what we have to do for at least the next two months. And we're giving more priority to disseminating the work.

Fortunately I received a grant from a foundation and we were able to get a good set-up. If we have access to some resources, no matter how small, we use it to strengthen what we are doing as a group. So I gave the money to the organization and then I asked for authorization to buy this equipment. They told me to go ahead—the group made a decision as to how to spend the resources—and we got the best equipment we could for translation and projection. Now we have what we need to disseminate our work.

We visit the villages bringing our equipment. In the past we brought 12-inch, or at most, 16-inch television sets. People would show up, but sometimes they would complain that they couldn't see or hear well. Because everyone crowded around the monitor, some people would just leave halfway. That's what made us want to be better equipped; so now we have a bigger screen, and the communities themselves ask us to visit their village and show them productions, about themselves as well as the outside world, that serve to encourage and strengthen their work. So we feel we're doing a good job, or at least I do. That's it.

Image credit: Mariano Estrada Aguilar - photograph by Tim Warner