Walking Together: Notes from MCC LACA’s 2022 Indigenous Peoples Encounter

This post is also available in: Spanish

In 1491, the territory that we now call the Americas was full of communities of many colours and sounds, of flourishing art, with sophisticated and diverse food production and complex political systems and alliances, with exchange routes crossing the mountain ranges of the continent. After European colonizers arrived in 1492, illness, violence, and the white men’s intentions to loot and enslave eliminated between 50-95% of the original population, depending on the context. The colonizers had no interest in learning from the people that lived in this land, only in colonizing and taking ownership of common resources.

Five hundred years after the imposition of Europeans in this territory, I had my first encounter with the original peoples of the Americas. In July of 1992, I lived in an Embera community in the Panamanian tropical rainforest, near the border with Colombia. Only there did I begin to have eyes and ears to consider another vision of God’s creation, of Mother Earth, and another way of being community. As a young urban Mennonite, the second generation of Canadian family from Europe, I had never heard the voices in these territories before, nor even considered their existence. I saw the beauty of this remote community, and I also felt the fear of imminent destruction upon the arrival of external actors. I knew, albeit without much clarity as an 18-year-old, that I had found voices that could help recuperate something lost, heal something damaged.

I have now been living and working in Latin America for 25 years, walking with the processes that Mennonite Central Committee accompanies in the region. We work with churches, NGOs, and Afro-descendent and Indigenous communities, with the intention of sharing resources, ideas, and dreams with diverse groups to strengthen dignity.

(l-r) Carmen Lourdes Petzey, Susana López, and Santiago Iquí, all from Guatemala, participate in a context analysis activity

At the same time, we recognize that, in the Americas, there is a long history and current reality of oppression towards Indigenous peoples. Out of our commitment to dismantle all forms of oppression, MCC LACA decided to facilitate a space for collective learning between diverse people from Indigenous communities in the region. Although they make up more than half of the population of Bolivia, Guatemala, and southern Mexico, Indigenous voices have been overshadowed, despised, or even eliminated due to racism and the pressures to assimilate to the dominant political-economic-cultural systems. Listening is a first, albeit insufficient, step towards healing some of this damage.

With this objective, 24 people from Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, Honduras, and Colombia—almost all Indigenous— met in March in Guatemala City. Participants came from 11 different local communities and organizations.

When I remember the encounter, I hear in my mind the voices of Claudia and Anabel, two young Indigenous women who accompany communities in resistance in Mexico. During the encounter, they were inspired by Irene, a mother of 10 children from the Bolivian highlands, who described participating in protests in traditional Indigenous dress—a voluminous pollera skirt and bowler hat. Irene was invited by Vicky, an agricultural technician and teacher with MCC partner Fundación Comunidad y Axion, to participate in a process of urban gardens that helps participants grow dozens of vegetables and medicinal plants growing in the harsh conditions above 4000 meters of altitude. Vicky and Irene live out a commitment to share life.

I also think of Susana, a Mayan woman with greying hair, who leads actions and community consultations pressuring companies to respect Indigenous territories in Guatemala. People like Susana have mentored many young people, youth like Valeriano, Gabriel and Petúl, who are encouraging their peers to find their roots in ancestral knowledge in Guatemala, Bolivia, and Mexico. I hear Marcos’s call to create “Good Living.” I will not forget Carmen Lourdes, who has fought to validate her right as am Indigenous woman to dream, learn and educate. I think about the words of Iván, who recuperates another worldview through his knowledge as a linguist. My spirit was touched by the inclusive way in which Manuel and his colleagues guided us around the Mayan altar that we built together as a tool to strengthen hearts. I walk with Santiago, Juan, Patrocinio and Eduardo as they look for ways to bring together their Christian faith with the ancestral knowledge of their peoples.

Claudia Binisa Perez Alcazar from Mexico participates in a context analysis activity

Throughout the encounter, many people invited Mennonite Central Committee to listen and recognize the wisdom and agency of the original peoples of Latin America. Although I took careful notes, the voices mingled together, weaving one common voice. I share their words here, exactly as I wrote them down, but not necessarily remembering who said what. These are collective words of beauty, pain, gratitude, and change. I want you to listen to them in their own words:

“We need to be clear about what our rights are as original peoples, because these rights are not a concession. No one has given them to us. We have spent more than 500 years fighting for our rights. The state will never say ‘take this, it’s yours, it belongs to you.’ Unfortunately, this has been our reality for the last 500 years; we have been struggling every day. My grandfather told me ‘you will have to go to the city to obtain your right to education.’ We have to go to plant our own rights. What we are enjoying now is what others have planted before us; these rights haven’t been received, they have been taken. So we have to design and create our own ways of organizing ourselves, knowing what our inheritance is, so that those who come after us are not uprooted, so they don’t lose their traditions and their language; so they too can bury their umbilical cord in the center of their house.”

They shared very clear words about the tensions between their relationship with the Mother Earth or the Pacha Mama, and the impositions of the current context. I reaffirm that, at this point in history, salvation will not come through technical changes, but by rethinking the way we live, love, and show gratitude:

“They say that we are poor and that we need these businesses [extractive industry], convincing us that that way we will have money. But we have to turn around and say ‘enough.’”
“As original peoples, we are used to living with trees and mountains, and to showing gratitude to God. They tell us we need highways – but if we plant and eat in our own communities, the highways are for others…”
“We have to take love for the Mother Earth down into our heart.”

Eduardo Segundo, Leidy Muñoz, and the other participants from Bolivia participate in a context analysis activity

They shared much about their ancestral knowledge, which is knowledge for life and resistance:

“There is dialogue, normally starting with the mothers. This dialogue took place in the Temazcal – that place where we would enter with heat and plants, where we would heal. There are dialogues with grandfathers and grandmothers, who are wise. They give us rules. They protect us from harm. They do Mayan ceremonies to clean us. There are two spiritual guides – the bitter and the sweet. And we have healthy food. Our grandparents didn’t eat junk food. We now work for companies because we buy their products instead of eating healthily. In our territories, we produce organically. We don’t purchase what kills us.”

But undoubtedly this knowledge has not been given the necessary weight in general society:

“I am also Mother Earth. We don’t have a university degree. We have ideas, but they don’t listen to us. I want some institution to recognize what we know.”
“The current education system is a system of loss. The system (modern, European) shapes us to be specialists, but in the community we learn about everything: planting, harvesting, music, everything. What happens now creates generational breakdowns because we only have to be good in one thing and that’s all we’re taught.”

Carmen Lourdes participates in a context analysis activity

The ruptures have come as a result of violence from the outside towards Indigenous communities, and these ruptures have become catalysts of violence within the communities. We know that Indigenous communities are not perfect. One form for oppression mixes with other forms of oppression:

“The violence from companies, just like the violence towards women, has become normalized. It’s no longer considered violence to divert a river.”
“It would be lovely if the government would take care of the poor in all senses. We have to just endure. As mothers, we have to simply get up and keep going. But emotional and mental care is also part of justice. Enduring is not the solution, it’s just one violence on top of another.”

But amidst the violence, the strength and life to transform are also being found:

“Our mothers told us ‘you’re a woman, you’re not made to study, you’re good for cleaning, cooking, washing clothes.’ I lived this out, working in the home and waiting with food ready for the man. Things have changed, for men and for women. But the struggle for change has been tremendous. We’ve fought to have schools so women can learn to read and write. We couldn’t sign our names before. If we didn’t know how to sign, we didn’t have access to any legally recognized process. If we didn’t know Spanish, we couldn’t do almost anything in society. But we have put our daughters in school. Now they know. Now women are more valued. We have learned to lead marches; we have learned to express ourselves, even with fear we still do these things. We have to raise our voice. Enough. We are women working and we are stepping ahead. We have gotten to know ourselves first so can explain our value to our brothers.”
“In many communities, women lead the struggle, but when the time comes to step up to a public platform, men go in front to talk and women are left on the side. But women also put their bodies on the line in this struggle. In the process of struggles, we have to heal. We are healers and caregivers. This has to be vindicated.”

Gabriel Acapari Chupa wears a traditional jacket emblazoned with the name of MCC partner PRODII, where he works

And we see that there is hope in what is emerging from the healing lives. As Indigenous communities return to their ancestral knowledge, detoxifying the land from its addiction to the chemicals that it suffers from as a result of agro-industrial companies, people are once again starting to see the condor, the majestic Andean bird that had not been seen for years. In the cities, they are organizing gardens; bees and hummingbirds are arriving to pollinate in places where before, pollination had to be done artificially. Nature is recreating itself.

“Collectively we have spaces for healing…. we listen to each other and we heal each other in a horizontal way. We take down barriers and what brings us together is what is in our hearts. These are spaces to share ancestral knowledge. We have space for celebration. Gratitude is therapeutic. We are healing ourselves with Mother Earth.”

In the end, they told MCC: “Please, we want you to see us as allies, not as a topic or objects of a project.” Yes, dear people of wisdom, we want to learn to listen and walk towards mutual transformation.