A Time to Change

The situation with the indigenous people is as complicated here as it is in Canada. I think they are better off than our natives though. The majority of the population here in San Cristobel are of indigenous origin, many of them living in what is called, "The Ring of Misery" around the outskirts of the city -- each community with it's own dialect and specific dress. Before the 1994 Zapatista uprising, native people were abused and killed by the government for all sorts of insignificant reasons such as cutting down trees. Their language was repressed.

After the uprising, though, their plight gained international attention and the government now supports the native peoples monetarily and builds bilingual schools in their communities. But the legacy of discrimination and abuse lives on in the peoples' habits. Parents have many children because more kids mean more sellers and beggars. Kids often don't attend school. If their fathers are still around, they beat their kids if they won't work the streets. Kids sell and beg from perhaps age five on up.

The grandfather of one of my instructors had 26 children that he knew of. One of her uncles at 89 fathered two children with a women of 30. Hard to believe -- but my instructor doesn't seem to be a weaver of tales.

Most native men don't stick around to raise their kids and mothers take their kids to the street with them to women selling stuff. Birth control is available to women but mostly they don't use it. Children aren't as emotionally close to their parents as ours.

Every May, the government, in its wisdom, gives money to families. Soon it disappears for drink and partying. The difference as I see it between here and at home is that the native people are close to cities, so food prices aren't exorbitant and the industrious ones work at semi good jobs in town and send their kids to school. Although the schools teach both Spanish and the communities dialect, the kids don't want to learn Spanish.

The little girl in the photo looked about six. She was carrying a baby in a blanket on her back while she begged for money. One of my instructors said that the beggars and sellers often put on an act of impoverishment that is not the reality.