The San Francisco Bay Area in California, United States, is well known for being home to technology companies like Google and Facebook. However, just a few miles away, in the city of Oakland, is the Zapatista education and information center known as the Chiapas Support Committee, standing up to them.
One of the heads of the committee, Arnoldo García, told Península 360 Press about the work they do throughout the state, along with Vanessa Nava, who was part of the delegation they sent to Mexico to participate in the most recent El Sur Resiste caravan in Mexico.
The Committee is an organization made up of members who adhere to the principles of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and international solidarity with the Zapatista movement, supported by indigenous peoples in Chiapas, Mexico. They have supported and accompanied the construction of autonomy in the territory they control since 1994.
Today, García, a poet, musician and community activist, heads the committee.
"I am not the president of anything, only due to state requirements we have a board of directors and that's where I stayed, for more than 10 years now," said García.
The committee provides education and information to the California public about the Zapatistas, the situation in Chiapas and the community struggles in Mexico through public events, the newsletter Chiapas Update, email lists, page Facebook and his blog. Currently, the greatest support they provide is to autonomous education system: construction of schools, provision of teachers and students.
Every time some of the Committee They go to Chiapas, buy from Zapatista cooperatives at prices set by the producers, sell these same products in the San Francisco Bay Area and return all profits to the Zapatista communities.
García grew up in a family of Mexican-P'urhépecha farm workers who migrated between Mexico and the U.S. His experiences organizing with other youth and farmworkers throughout his life led him to actively participate in protecting the rights of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
"In the US, African Americans and migrants are put in the same corner. In the end, it is the same state and the same police that oppress minorities," García said.
Her work addresses struggles for immigration and racial justice, restorative justice against capitalist borders, landless Chicano Mexicanness in the United States, and solidarity with indigenous movements. Since 1994, García has followed the Zapatista movement.
"The Zapatistas," García continues, "have placed great emphasis on recognizing Chicanos and Mexicans in the U.S. as part of their struggles, as well as the peoples of North America."
García commented that the Zapatistas opened spaces where they confirmed that, in effect, Another world is possible.
«In 1994, when the Zapatistas came out into the public eye, they had the same values and principles as several groups in the U.S., but that courage to say, “let's do our thing and organize ourselves,” was the straw that broke the camel's back.»
When the first international meeting was held, García was not part of the Committee. However, he attended, and went again in 1996. Whether with or without García, the organization sends a delegation to Chiapas for each International Meeting.
"We try to make them aware of the reality of the indigenous and Zapatista peoples who live in Mexico without romanticizing anything. On the contrary, so that they learn other forms of struggle, and not only those that have been carried out in the U.S.," García commented.
The committee is looking for ways to organize binationally to create dialogues of struggle between Mexico and its northern neighbor. At the International Meeting of Women Who Struggle, held in 2019, the Committee sent Ohlone women, one of the native peoples of the northern coast of California, and in this way connect the different groups that resist the different forms of state dispossession, since the Zapatistas advocate for another possible world.
They also organize annual and monthly events in San Francisco and Oakland, for example, they have a vigil every December 22nd where they commemorate the Acteal massacre, in which 45 families and people from the Tzotzil community lost their lives in Chiapas in 1997. Likewise, on the 26th of each month, the committee goes to the Mexican Consulate on Folsom Street to show solidarity and demand justice for the 43 missing people from Ayotzinapa and the paramilitary violence in Mexico.
Recently, the committee sent a delegation to the El Sur Resiste caravan in Mexico and to the caravan's culminating event, the International Meeting.
"I'm not going, but the delegation of Vanessa Nava and Caitlin Manning is "The mandate we send will help us learn directly from the experiences of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Zapatistas in order to strengthen our solidarity," said García.
Delegation in the South Resists
Nava joined the caravan in Puente Madera, in the state of Oaxaca, on April 26.
The caravan The South Resists summoned by the CNI He toured the Mexican southeast with the purpose of making visible the territories that will be affected by the implementation of extractive megaprojects, which are the Mayan Train and the Corridor Transisthmian. Likewise, andshe was looking foreither boost the organization of communities, collectives, peoples, and organizations to create concrete strategies and connect the different struggles they experience.
Nava was born in Chicago, Illinois, and spent her childhood in Guerrero, Mexico, where her family is from. Attending the caravan was a personal matter with the land and Mexico, as she became deeply connected to the land when her parents worked in the fields planting corn.
She returned to her hometown to attend high school, where she began organizing to help undocumented students. She then studied Communications, Sociology, and Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago. There, she continued to participate in organizations with other students to lobby for the passage of the DREAM Act. She later applied for a master's degree in digital art in San Francisco, where she now resides.
Nava startedeither to get involved in the Chiapas Support Committee in 2019. Although she already knew about the Zapatista movement, it was not until California that she began to go to events and become an active member.
In the caravan, Nava sought to learn the ways in which the various collectives, organizations, activists, and community leaders who resist the imposition of the Trans-Isthmus Corridor and the Mayan Train in Mexico fight and resist, in order to continue resisting the megaprojects in California and other states in the U.S.
In the United States, the “Maya Train” began in the 1800s with the construction of the transcontinental rails. Not so long ago, in 2016, the construction of the bullet train in California called the California High Speed Rail Authority was approved, whose magnitude is similar to the Trans-Isthmus corridor in Mexico.
California's high-speed rail project has pledged to do better than past megaprojects by lessening the impact it will have on the communities it will traverse from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area.
However, what they have built in the Central Valley of California is already impacting communities in farmers. Like the Mayan Train, communities have not only been displaced but also the water, flora and fauna of the region are being affected.
While construction of the bullet train in California is on hold due to lack of funding, other megaprojects remain on track, such as the Kestone XL pipeline, which the Lakota people of South Dakota have resisted.
Nava explains that activism in the United States could learn a lot from the Zapatistas, and that binational solidarity is critical to fighting for life in both territories.
"Putting heart into the fight, that is what is sometimes lacking here and being consistent with the land, the water and living beings," said Nava.
She also seeks to spread the word to the new generations in California and share how they can defend the territory where they live, learning from the compass.
«It is crucial not to forget deither"where we are, remember our memories and share our skills with the new generations to face injustices, create autonomy and different ways of walking to build a better world with love for life," he said.either.
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