Zapotec
Zapotec Contribute to Coffee Collective
Some Zapotec and other indigenous people in Mexico’s Oaxaca State are successfully selling their coffee to buyers in Canada and five European countries with the aid of a farmer’s collective. A news story last week described the work of the coffee farmers, their collective, and the losses caused by a leaf fungus that is devastating […]
Energy Development versus the Zapotec
Bettina Cruz Velázquez, a fearless leader of the Zapotec land rights movement in Oaxaca State, spoke in Seattle in early October about the struggle against giant energy companies. Her description of the campaign to protect indigenous people from exploitation by the developers of huge wind plants on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec was described last week […]
A Famous Chef Preserves Zapotec Cuisine
Abigail Mendoza Ruiz, a well-known chef, is trying to preserve and enrich traditional Zapotec cuisine through the foods she serves in her restaurant, Tlamanalli. Her insistence on celebrating Zapotec customs impels her to serve only traditional foods in the restaurant she runs in Teotitlán del Valle, a town in Oaxaca that is also renowned for […]
Respecting the Value of Respect [journal article review]
The famous maxim “respect for the rights of others is peace” is an essential value for the Zapotec in Oaxaca’s Sierra Juárez region, as well as a defining concept for peaceful living everywhere. In a recent journal article, Estonian anthropologist Toomas Gross explores the impact the belief has on the region where Mexican President Benito […]
The People’s Guelaguetza
Guelaguetza festivals, held in late July every year in Oaxaca City and other nearby towns of southern Mexico, celebrate the acts of giving and receiving in traditional Zapotec culture. The participants are famous for their extremely colorful costumes and dances. Unfortunately, according to a recent report from Public Radio International, the festivals have become highly […]
A Third Gender in Zapotec Society
The New York Times last week put a new twist on the “bathroom debate” currently roiling conservative circles in the U.S. by examining the practices of some Zapotec people who identify as a third gender. The belief in some U.S. states—that transgendered people must use public restrooms matching their apparent gender identity at birth—is at […]
Wind Plants in Zapotec Communities
Wind development firms have erected many large turbines in Mexico’s Oaxaca state, arousing a lot of opposition among Zapotec communities impacted by them. The news website AlterNet.org last week published a report critiquing the growing development of wind energy in southern Mexico and updating news stories from 2012 about Zapotec protests against them. The journalist […]
The Zapotec Treasure their Birds [journal article review]
The authors of a recent journal article found that what they call the “folk ornithological taxonomies” in two Zapotec mountain villages of Oaxaca demonstrate that the people in both communities are intimately familiar with their local birdlife. The three authors, G. Alcantara-Salinas, E.S. Hunn, and J. E. Rivera-Hernandez, catalog the birds they have seen and […]
Traditional Corn Varieties and the Zapotec
Last Thursday, the New York Times featured the decline, and more recently the resurgence, of the traditional varieties of corn grown by Zapotec farmers in Mexico’s Oaxaca state. The article focused on the farmers in the Zapotec community of Santa Ana Zegache. The piece in the Times made the facts clear: the white, yellow, and […]
Microfinance Tourism in Oaxaca
A non-profit organization in Oaxaca called Fundacion en Vía seeks to promote businesses run by women through microfinance loans and education programs. A story in the Huffington Post last week by Carly Schwartz described the program run by En Via that organizes visits by tourists, including the journalist, to tapestry studios and other businesses of […]
