| Tapalpa: A city of esperanza and change |
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Ramón Del Castillo
Tapalpa, Guadalajara, Jalisco. México calls it a city with magic. It is designed to replace the old pueblitos that have characterized México’s landscape since at least the Méxican Revolution. It lies in the Occidental mountains where there are no fingernail clip joints, humongous malls, rappers on the hustle, old fashioned barber shops or ATM’s. There are only rusted tools dampened by rainstorms, broken down farm implements and tired and wary souls scattered in rural debris in campos where natural beauty abounds untainted by a chemical revolution called progress.
As in any other utopian dream, there is also the “Other Tapalpa,” a contradiction where there is no magic just destitution imbedded into a social structure that is yearning for change.
La gente are caught in the shadows of obscurity, hidden in cracks and crevices in mountains that tell stories of advanced civilizations destroyed by a conquest, leaving immense spiritual devastation. The magic of the city is not about advanced technology and its magnificence, it is about marginalized people using innovation transcending mechanistic creations and aberrations we are used to in Western society; something offering hope to los pobres de Tapalpa.
La gente have a vision where hopes and dreams can be realized. Organizaciones Populares de la Sierera through, “Otro mundo es possible,” as its motto and guided in conjunction with a Jesuit University, ITESO, are using “Formar para Transformar” as a necessary social invention to move forward.
Women in this lonely desolate mountain community like other progressive rural agrarian communities in México have formed small collectives and organized community leaders ready to “formar para transformer.” They refuse to accept the status of the downtrodden, abused by centuries of patron/peon relationships whipped into submission by fatalistic attitudes that have lost their sabor.
Women like Doña’s Cuca, Natcha and Chayo are building una nueva consciencia or what education liberationist Paulo Freire calls, “conscientizacao, learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions and taking action against the oppressive forces of reality.”
Social life is being seen through a new set of lenses uncontaminated by the powerful whose control over reality has become inauspicious. The new lenses are being constructed with social technology such as dialogue, participative democracy and the creation of a voice for the voiceless that can be heard rumbling in the countryside in small enclaves.
This new breath of fresh air is replacing the stench left by broken covenants between the Catholic Church and comunidades de base. This revolutionary coffin buried underneath mother earth since the 15th century has been excavated, the lodo has been cleaned off, and its essence has been brought it back to life with new hope. Repressive legislation and historical oppressive church dogma has been transformed into a platform for future development of the community’s collective voice. The church is once again critiquing itself in relationship to its responsibility to the poor. The almighty dollar has not been able to provide balance for these opposing forces. A dose of healthy skepticism as an antidote seems to be unshakable as the two groups collaborate.
Customs like spiritual limpias are being revived as part of the rituals of México’s patriarchal society is also under glass, being re-examined through Freiren lenses where alliances between what were once macho men and mujeres de abajo are working to reconstruct reality with a more balanced, humanistic and transformative look.
Keeping a suspicious eye towards the government, unafraid to be perceived as seditious villains accused of seeking out socialism as an economic alternative to the current socio/political structure, las mujeres continue to carve out new social roles in a society traditionally governed by political personalismo, machismo and patriarchy. This holy trinity is also under scrutiny as civil society organizations attempt to resolve the
contradiction between what is and what could be. Inherent tensions are discussed openly, driven by the values of honestidad y respeto.
While many of the male youth of México’s society are in mass exodus, traveling into the United States of America to work, women are being forced to redefine their relationships to la tierra. They lack adequate materials to communalize production, with torn hands and dedos torcidos that are bien rompidos by antiquated production machines.
The dehumanization process of production may paradoxically become salvation for the survival of their communities. At times, it is within contradiction that we find new meaning.
The fear of permanent exile by the young men of the community driven by oppressive forces of the economy has become a hardened reality. Immigration has become a double edged sword driving its pointed edge towards a cultural institution that could easily disintegrate la familia.
Then Doña Cuca enters; a picture of una abuela shattering the stereotypes of discarded viejitas. She walks with self confidence, consoles others with la mágica de una curandera and offers political advice generally discussed in graduate political science classes. In platicas with other community leaders, I watched her negotiate with an uncanny ability to break down intellectual concepts into taxi driver terms. She does so without usurping the dignity of others. She does so with charisma of an experienced orator and the sensitivity of a chaman.
She is la nueva mujer, an inspiration bringing new hope to an old society, struggling to find balance between anachronism and modernity.
Stay tuned and meet Doña Cuca.
This is the first article in a series of four articles regarding civil society organizations in Jalisco, Guadalajara, México. Civil society organizations are similar to nonprofit organizations in American society.
Ramón Del Castillo, Ph.D. is an independent journalist.
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