7
Mixtec Diaspora?

Introduction

The word diaspora has been used in so many contexts that it is rapidly becoming too broad to be useful (Kleist 2008:1130; Brubaker 2005). The most common meaning, prior to the 1990s, was the spread of the Jewish people throughout the world after the destruction of Jerusalem (Brubaker 2005:2). Since social scientists began studying transnational networks, diaspora has come to mean almost any group of people who have moved. Hence the question mark in the title of this chapter. Do Mixtecs constitute a diaspora? They are certainly more than a group of people who have moved. They are maintaining their identity with their home villages in very specific ways, regardless of where the villagers are.

Nauja Kleist (2008:1129) offers the following definition of diaspora: “[T]he spatial dispersal of a people from an existing or imaginary homeland, maintaining a sense of collectivity over an extended period of time.” Given this definition, we can perhaps consider Mixtecs a diaspora: they are a population that is spread over a very large area, outside their homeland. They are maintaining their cultural traditions through ties with their homeland, which they continue to recognize as an important geographic and spiritual place. However, questions must arise over the definition of “an extended period of time.” Does this mean one person’s lifetime? Two generations? Ten?

Whether or not the children of Mixtec migrants continue to identify as Mixtecs, members of the first generation are extraordinarily connected to their villages. The Mixtecs tend to separate themselves from other Mexicans through their language and their connections to their transnational communities. Each village is represented by one of these. They are found wherever Mixtecs migrate. Most Mixtec adults and many teenagers have cell phones. These help create a kind of long-distance face-to-face relationship unknown to earlier anthropological generations, not to mention earlier Mixtec generations. The cell phones are a major means of maintaining the transnational communities. These tie the migrants together through commitments to contribute to the well-being of the village. The transnational communities are seriously important in the lives of everyone, from the tiniest village to the most remote outpost of Mixtec migrants in the United States. This is a major mechanism that reinforces Mixtec ethnic identity across space and time.

In addition to the ethnic boundary maintained by the Mixtecs themselves, the Mestizo population in Mexico, as well as Latinos in the United States, enforces a boundary defined by discrimination and prejudice. Mixtecs are universally disdained and dismissed. They are seen as dirty, stupid, lazy, useless for anything except brute labor.

The Mixtec ethnic group exists within a much larger Mexican diaspora in the United States.¹ But Mixtecs are a distinct group scattered throughout Mexico as well. Although most Mixtecs now migrate to the United States, there are communities of settled Mixtecs all along the migratory routes. Though some may never have left Mexico, they are members of the transnational communities associated with their villages.

In all of these communities, there are non-Catholic Mixtecs who converted while they were migrating.

Mixtec Migrants in Mexico

The great waves of migration began in the 1980s, but the way was made clear by earlier generations of Mixtecs seeking a better livelihood than that afforded by their homeland. Moisés T. de la Peña notes that there were migrants from the Mixteca in Valle Nacional, Veracruz, at the end of the nineteenth century. This early migration stemmed from the collapse of the market for cochineal produced in the Mixteca and the development of coffee and tobacco farms in Veracruz (De la Peña 1950:153; Atilano Flores 2000:44, 49). These, in addition to the already existing sugarcane plantations, drew Mixtecs from their hometowns. Mixtecs had established a pattern of circular migration between the Mixteca and Veracruz by the 1920s (Edinger 1985:132).

During this period, they encountered non-Catholic churches in Veracruz. One such church, the Salvador del Mundo, in Córdoba, had Mixtec members in the 1950s and probably earlier. Those converts returned to their villages and converted others there. Eventually, Mixtec members of this church founded a congregation in the Culiacán Valley in Sinaloa. There are also Mixtec members of this church in Baja California.

Between 1942 and 1964, about 7,000 Mixtecs participated in the Bracero Program. This was based on an agreement between the US and Mexican governments, as a way to replace the soldiers who had gone to World War II. Mexican farmworkers were recruited and moved to specific farms, where they were required to stay. They were given room and board and were paid very small wages. Many never saw any part of the United States beyond the farms where they worked. Although the Bracero Program inspired the migration of many Mexicans outside the program, it does not seem to have had a lasting effect on Mixtecs. The small number of participants may be the reason.

In the 1940s, Mixtecs also began to migrate to Mexico City. This was the period of the “Mexican Miracle” (1940–1970), when the government was pouring money into the development of industries in the cities. In Mexico City, Mixtecs got jobs as stable hands, in construction, in leather work, and in metallurgy (De la Peña 1950:156). Some also converted to non-Catholic religions.

While migrants to Veracruz were largely seasonal, the move to Mexico City was for the most part permanent. In one study, Douglas Butterworth (1977) notes that there was a division between migrants who went to Veracruz and those who went to Mexico City: those who went to Veracruz tended to be poorer, less literate, and monolingual, while those who went to Mexico City were wealthier, literate, and bilingual. Those who went to Mexico City tended to stay, marry, and raise their families there (De la Peña 1950:156). These migrants still returned to their villages every year for the fiestas and, like today’s migrants, contributed funds for the community to develop schools, roads, and other projects (De la Peña 1950:157). But this migration slowed perceptibly beginning in 1970. Data from the period (Alcalá and Couturier 1994:80) demonstrate that the number of migrants to Veracruz and Mexico City grew every decade from 1950 to 1970, and then decreased.

One reason for this decrease is that in the 1960s, Mixtecs began to migrate to the valley of Culiacán, Sinaloa, to pick tomatoes (Atilano Flores 2000:50). Some also migrated to Sonora and Baja California to pick cotton (Besserer 1999:65). This was in response to the demand for labor on new, large farms growing crops for export to the United States.

Figure 7.1. Advertisement in Sinaloa for seeds for growing products that are exportable to the US.

The World Bank, along with US banks, provided credit to the growers of these crops, and the Mixtecs provided the labor (Astorga Lira and Commander 1989:777; Mares 1991:266–68). Table 7.1 documents the increase in indigenous people in Sinaloa from 1980 to 2000. Interviews with representatives of the government agency Jornaleros Agrícolas in Culiacán established that the vast majority of these were Mixtecs.² They migrated to the fields during the production season, and returned to their villages for the rest of the year. This situation was more than satisfactory for the growers, who “are attracted by a low-wage, non-organized labour force, whose reproduction costs are borne to a large extent by the migrants themselves” (Astorga Lira and Commander 1989:777).

Conversion in Culiacán

It was in Sinaloa that large numbers of Mixtecs began to learn about non-Catholic religions. While missionaries were not allowed in the villages of the Mixteca, they easily gained permission to proselytize in the valley of Culiacán. There, Evangelical missionaries set up camps where they played religious music, showed religious films, gave testimony, and generally appealed to everyone to convert. They held services on the edges of the migrant labor camps. The missionaries gave away cassette tapes with sermons and music. They also gave away used clothes and Bibles. In the Mixtec world of the Mixtecs, this was an experience almost without precedent. Far from their villages and the pull of tradition, and without a similar presence by representatives of the Catholic Church, some Mixtecs began paying attention to the missionaries. Some converted. However, the numbers of converts at the beginning was small. There were enough so that when they returned to the Mixteca they began to try to convert their fellow -villagers. The rejection of other religions by the villages in general, and the punishments for not participating in the fiesta system, were enough to persuade the great majority of migrants to remain folk-Catholics, or to return to the migrant stream. They had begun to learn of the existence of other religions. They also realized that conversion is much easier outside of the Mixteca.

Migration to Sinaloa, mostly seasonal, increased over the years (Atilano Flores 2000:51). The number of non-Catholics also increased (see table 7.2). It is not possible to establish what percentage of the converts were indigenous people, but interviews with individuals in Oaxaca and in Sinaloa have established that there were many. Eventually, two Pentecostal churches were founded by Mixtecs who had settled permanently in Villa Juárez, a town near Culiacán where farm workers who have decided to stay make their homes. One church, the Salvador del Mundo, was founded in 1990 by a man whose mother was converted in the 1950s by a man who had migrated to Córdoba, Veracruz, and returned to the village, Santiago Naranjas. The Salvador del Mundo pastor had heard about the Bible from his mother in 1959, but ignored the information. He traveled to Mexico City by himself when he was twelve years old. There, he became a drunk (his word: “borracho”). He lived in Mexico City for about ten years. He met his wife there. After he married, he returned to the village in Oaxaca. He began to live by the rules of the non-Catholic church; he gave up drinking. He says, “The doctrine caused a radical change in my life.” In 1979 he and his wife began migrating to Sinaloa. There were no non-Catholic churches in the labor camps. He went back to drinking. During their years as circular migrants, he would stop drinking and attend church services when he was in the village, but he began drinking again in Sinaloa. In 1982 he had a true conversion experience that changed his life forever. He was baptized in the village, and soon began proselytizing in the fields of Sinaloa. In 1990 he and the people he converted created a congregation that is tied to the church in Veracruz. The trajectory of Hermano Pedro and his family helps to portray the interplay of migration, religious change, and the continuous connections to the village.

There are other non-Catholic churches in the Culiacán Valley, but the only churches with Mixtec members are the Salvador del Mundo and the Iglesia de Jesucristo de las Américas. The IJA in Culiacán was founded in the 1990s by Mixtecs from Juxtlahuaca. The pastor in 2005 had begun going to Sinaloa in 1984. He worked in the tomato fields along with his brother and sister, then returned to their village, San Andrés, in the municipio of Tezoatlán. They were circular migrants for several years. Then, in 1989 he met his wife in Villa Juárez. She is from San Miguel Cuevas, Juxtlahuaca. They were married in 1990 and settled in Colonia Amapas, a small village near Villa Juárez. They were invited to attend the Salvador del Mundo church in Villa Juárez. They attended that church for several months, then stopped going. Around 1992 or 1993, members of the Iglesia de Jesucristo de las Américas visited from Juxtlahuaca. These were very animated speakers who gained their attention and eventually their allegiance to the church.

The current congregation was established in 1994. The largest Mexican congregation of the IJA, in Juxtlahuaca, helped them buy some land for the church building. Many families converted and the congregation grew. Members then began to migrate to other parts of Mexico, primarily Baja California. Now, there are few Mixtecs left to convert. Members from Oaxaca stop in Colonia Amapas to attend services and bring news of other communities before continuing their migrations to the north or south. Today, the resident congregation has fifteen adult members, twelve of them Mixtecs. These are the founding members of the church who have settled in Sinaloa.

Figure 7.2. The Sinaloa congregation of the Iglesia de Jesucristo de las Américas, in front of the church.

Thus, what started as the work of missionaries in Sinaloa became the project of Mixtec converts. Their churches grew as the numbers of migrants grew. Then the Mixtecs began to leave the area. Table 7.1 demonstrates this change: the number of indigenous people in Sinaloa decreased by almost half between 2000 and 2010.

As with Mexico City and Veracruz, the population of Mixtecs in Sinaloa grew for some years and then declined (INEGI 1990, 2000, 2010). By 2005 there were only thirteen families of Mixtecs in the migrant stream in Sinaloa.³ This contrasts with many hundreds during the peak of migration to Sinaloa. Today, the majority of Mixtecs in Sinaloa have settled there. While they no longer migrate for work, they continue to participate as nodes in the transnational networks of their communities.

One of the places that some moved to was northern Sonora. While Sinaloa’s Mixtec population decreased, it grew in Sonora.⁴

Miguel Alemán, Sonora

Miguel Alemán (population: 30,000) lies at the end of a long, potholed highway between Hermosillo and the Sea of Cortez. Here in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, among the irrigated fields of grapes, pecans, vegetables, and other crops, is a community with a large population of indigenous people. These include primarily Mixtecs, but also Triquis from Oaxaca, Mayos and Yaquis from Sonora, and members of other indigenous groups.

The history of Miguel Alemán coincides with the agricultural history of the region. Until 1980 the main crops were wheat and cotton, produced for domestic consumption. While cotton requires labor for picking, both cotton and wheat are largely capital-intensive crops. With the introduction of neoliberal policies in the 1980s, the United States became a major importer of products from the region. The area began to produce vegetables, grapes, pecans, and oranges for export. This resulted in a drastic change in the economics of the region. In 1980 wheat and cotton constituted 58.6 percent of the crops, while grapes and vegetables made up 9.4 percent. In 2000 wheat and cotton had declined to 21 percent while grapes and vegetables had increased to 36.7 percent (Calvario Parra 2007:50). The increase in labor-intensive crops led to a new demand for labor. The growth of Miguel Alemán demonstrates this process: in 1980 the population was 3,274, but by 2000 it was 22,505 (Calvario Parra 2007:49).

This demand for labor evidently attracted workers from Culiacán as well as from further south and from Sonora itself. Beyond the opportunities in Miguel Alemán, however, is its proximity to the US border. Now, many Mixtec families have settled in the town, but the men migrate to the United States and back, depending on the demand for labor there. This arrangement clearly benefits growers in both countries. When there is demand for labor in the United States, it is readily available. When the demand decreases, the workers return to Mexico, where they work on farms that produce crops for the US market. Or they have no work. As the cost of living in Mexico is lower than in the United States, the unemployed return to Miguel Alemán.

The indigenous population of Miguel Alemán is large enough to justify an office of the Comité para el Desarrollo de las Comunidades Indígenas (CDI), the successor to the Instituto Nacional Indigenista. The CDI in Miguel Alemán supports this population in many small ways, helping people who have problems with the growers, providing access to health services, and cooperating with the indigenous groups that have been established in the community. The Mixtecs, most of whom come from the village of Santos Reyes Tepejillo, in the municipio of San Juan Mixtepec, have formed the Mixteco Yosonuvicu (plain of clouds) de Sonora.⁵ This group fosters the maintenance of the Mixteco language, the celebration of Mixtec customs such as the Day of the Dead and the Guelaguetza, and Mixtec culture generally. The group works with the CDI to help Mixtecs in need of services. Tellingly, the group does not support the celebration of saints’ day fiestas. As an alternative, the various indigenous groups of Miguel Alemán have established a (fairly recent) tradition of celebrating indigenous identity, with people dressing in traditional garb and producing foods traditional to their group to share with all. This celebration is held on October 12, Columbus Day in the United States but El Día de la Raza in Mexico. This is an effort to maintain indigenous ethnicity in the face of Mestizo discrimination. Mixteco Yosonuvicu also coordinates with members of the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales, an umbrella group established by Mixtecs but open to all indigenous workers in the United States and Mexico. These are organizations that may lead to a true Mixtec diaspora beyond the first and second migrant generations.

Non-Catholics in Miguel Alemán

The history of Mixtec non-Catholics in Miguel Alemán is essentially part of the history of the Iglesia de Jesucristo de las Américas; it also recapitulates the history of Mixtecs in the area in general. There are many non-Catholic churches in the town, but as far as I could determine, there are no Mixtec members of any church besides the IJA. One of the first Mixtecs to arrive in Miguel Alemán was Raúl Rojas Villavicencio, who is from Santos Reyes Tepejillo. He had been to Baja California, where he attended non-Catholic services in 1982. He returned to his village, where he was baptized by one of the original converts to the church, who was himself a migrant in California when he converted. Here is a good example of the complexly interwoven life of migration and conversion.

Hermano Raúl arrived in Miguel Alemán in 1983, one of the first of the great waves of emigrants from the Mixteca to the outside world. There was no IJA in the town, and he attended services in Hermosillo. The congregation there was Mestizo. Hermano Raúl had met the pastor of this congregation in Oaxaca, so he felt comfortable asking him for help to establish a church in Miguel Alemán. With his help, the congregation was formally constituted in 1985. Now there are two congregations, both with majorities of Mixtec members, although the number of Triqui converts is increasing. Thus does the church expand and grow.

Miguel Alemán is an important destination for Mixtecs, especially those from Santos Reyes Tepejillo. And it has a sizeable number of Mixtec non-Catholics. But it pales before the immensity of the valley of San Quintín, Baja California.

Baja California

Mixtecs migrated to Baja California beginning in the 1950s. The first migrations were to the Mexicali Valley, which had been producing cotton. As in Miguel Alemán, the proximity of the valley to the markets of the United States led to a change from cotton to vegetables, which the Mixtecs were hired to work and harvest. But it was to the valley of San Quintín that Mixtecs would be drawn in their thousands, beginning in the 1980s. Like Mexicali, San Quintín had primarily produced cotton and wheat for domestic consumption. Ejidos and small farms made up the bulk of the land tenure. In the 1980s, San Quintín began to be transformed into an economic system that combined dependence on foreign capital, a rapid transformation of infrastructure, and the importation of labor from the impoverished south (Camargo Martínez 2004:39). These changes were part of the structural adjustments mandated by the International Monetary Fund as a part of the agreements to restructure Mexico’s debt after its 1982 default.

San Quintín

The valley of San Quintín is situated about 190 miles to the south of Tijuana along the Pacific coast of Baja California. Although there is not enough rainfall to support much agriculture, agribusinesses began digging wells in the 1980s. They were provided capital by US investors, who also helped with technical information, seeds and other inputs (Quinones 2001:101–3). Drilling for water has continued despite the fact that commercial agriculture extracts six times more groundwater than the recharge rate of the watersheds (Zlolniski 2011:571). The introduction of drip irrigation and greenhouses, along with desalination technology, financed by US agribusiness companies, has benefited only the growers. At the same time, the population of the valley has grown from 38,000 in 1990 to 93,000 in 2010 (Zlolniski 2011:571). This increase has put even more stress on water resources. While the growers have access to wells subsidized by the government, the workers have little to no water from wells. Instead, they must buy water from pipas at exorbitant rates (Zlolniski 2011:575). Thus, the wealthy producers pay less than the impoverished farmworkers for water. And competition for water continues.

Across the valley extend vast fields and enormous greenhouses where high-tech agriculture is practiced with drip irrigation, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. The ground is prepared with machines, but the need for hand labor has led to the importation of thousands of indigenous people from southern Mexico. Their work is hardly high-tech. It is backbreaking, long hours of careful tending of plants and careful picking of the products. These are, for the most part, exported directly to the United States.

Beyond the greenhouses and the agribusiness fields, the valley is an arid desert. The towns, whose existence is mainly supported by the commerce associated with the agricultural activities, are situated along the only paved road, the highway from Tijuana to La Paz. There is no form of entertainment such as movie theaters; there are no Catholic churches. The laborers are confined to camps controlled by the growers, or live in colonias, rural slums divided by ethnic identity. The largest ethnic group is the Mixtecs. They were the first migrants from the south, and many of the earliest to arrive have built houses in the valley. These people migrate to the United States, Sinaloa, and their villages as work is available or as they feel the need to return to Oaxaca (see figure 7.3). They maintain houses in the villages as well as in San Quintín. In 2001 there were about 20,000 Mixtecs in the valley; they comprised about 65 percent of the indigenous population there, according to Jornaleros Agrícolas.⁶

Although Mixtecs migrate to wherever they find work, there is a close economic and calendrical relationship between San Quintín and Culiacán. With production in Culiacán extending from December to May, the farms of San Quintín can employ workers from June to December. In this way, migration that had been circular between Oaxaca and Sinaloa was transformed into a complex system of migration from Oaxaca to Culiacán, Baja California, and Oaxaca (see figure 7.3). In many cases, migrants have remained in the Sinaloa-Baja California circuit semipermanently, acquiring houses in San Quintín or in Culiacán and only returning to Oaxaca intermittently.

Figure 7.3. Some patterns of migration by Mixtecs.

The isolation of the valley, and the lack of anything to do in the meager time available beyond work and the struggle to get food, clothing, and the other necessities of life provide a perfect opportunity for evangelization by US missionaries. Add to this isolation the fact that the workers are far from their homes and families, away from their churches and saints, and essentially abandoned by the Catholic Church, and the possibility for conversion increases. The proximity of San Quintín to the border is a further impetus for the missionaries, who can go on a weekend or for a week and return to their regular jobs in the United States. This is not generally possible in Culiacán, much farther from the international line.

Many US missionaries are doctors, dentists, nurses, and teachers. Volunteers from different US churches have established a tradition of going to the valley every year. They offer their services for free as part of the evangelization process. Others have experience in construction and help to build houses for the migrants. Large numbers of young people go to the valley during the summer to help with various activities. These offers of help make an impression on poor migrants who have no other access to such resources.

There are also great campaigns to reach out to the unconverted, with missionary groups arriving in large numbers to give sermons, show videos, hand out food, Bibles, and used clothes, and in general make themselves available to explain the doctrine to anyone who will listen. They build enormous revival tents where services go on for days at a time. The pressure to convert is great. The reality is that the valley of San Quintín is a kind of hothouse for religious conversion as well as for the production of vegetables. There are few places in Mexico with such a concentration, variety, and number of non-Catholic churches and, consequently, of non-Catholics. The effects of this immersion in Evangelical doctrine are felt in the Mixteca region as well, because people who convert in San Quintín return to their villages filled with the desire to spread the gospel to their friends and relatives. Of course, their acceptance, as seen in chapters 3 through 6, is not always complete.

Once established in San Quintín, Mixtecs began to hear of the United States and the work available there. This information led to a large migration to the north. However, San Quintín remains an important place for Mixtecs who migrate to and from the United States. Those who have houses in the valley return to them from the US. Those who migrate from the Mixteca to the United States sometimes go to San Quintín for a time, waiting to return when there is work across the border. Some migrate seasonally among San Quintín, California, Oregon, Washington, and back to San Quintín. Others stop in San Quintín on their way back from the United States to Oaxaca (see figure 7.3). With the growth of the Mixtec migrant population, the variety of possibilities for migration has also expanded. One important factor that determines who migrates where is the village of origin. People migrate to places where fellow-villagers are to be found. In the United States, migrant communities tend to consist of people from one or two villages. Thus, while in San Quintín there are Mixtecs from many different villages, these tend to sort themselves out upon migrating north. Even in San Quintín, people from the same village have their houses close to each other.

Tijuana

For decades, Tijuana, on the border with Southern California, was the gathering place for people who wanted to cross into the United States without authorization. Some millions of Mexicans, including thousands of Mixtecs, did cross the largely unmarked border until 1994. In that year, the US Border Patrol instituted Operation Gatekeeper, intended to deter the flow. While the number of undocumented immigrants apprehended increased, there were still many—the majority—who entered undeterred. It was not until after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that the border began to be seriously fortified. Today, there are three steel fences in succession at the Tijuana border and Border Patrol officials are dispersed thickly on the US side. It has become very difficult to cross on foot, although many immigrants continue to enter hidden in vehicles. The number of people hoping to cross at Tijuana is still fairly large, but they tend to become discouraged and stay, looking for work on the Mexican side of the border. Alternatively, they cross farther east, where the Border Patrol is less densely distributed. So Tijuana is less of a gateway now than it was before 1994.

Mixtecs began arriving in Tijuana in the 1950s (Clark Alfaro 1989:12), but it was not until the 1980s that they became really visible. The most obvious are the so-called Marías, a pejorative name for the Mixteca women who are everywhere in the tourist districts of the city. Some spread themselves out on the sidewalks, along with their children, and beg for money. Others gather at the exit gates that lead to the United States, where hundreds of vehicles wait for hours in line. The Mixtecas, along with other merchants, offer fresh flowers, gum, and other cheap merchandise for sale to the captive audience of potential shoppers.

There are some thousands of Mixtecs in distinct neighborhoods in the poorest parts of Tijuana. One of the first colonias (squatter settlements) to be settled was the Colonia Obrera (Clark Alfaro 1989:12–13) on the city’s edge. People who came later settled in colonias farther out from the original shantytowns. With names like El Florido (flowering place) and Valle Verde (green valley), which in no way describe these dusty agglomerations of shacks, such communities appear regularly on the outskirts of the city, sometimes almost overnight. The Mixtecs who live in these places have generally settled in Tijuana. Many migrated to the United States before 1987, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) went into effect. This law legalized some 2 million unauthorized immigrants, among them all the Mixtecs who had ever entered the United States up until that time. Those with permits to work in the United States cross legally when there is work and spend the time between jobs in Tijuana. Their families stay behind. Thus, Tijuana is to some extent a much larger version of Miguel Alemán to the east. However, many more villages are represented in Tijuana. In 1989, Victor Clark Alfaro (1989:13) identified thirty-one different villages as represented in Tijuana. Without a doubt, there are more today. Mixtecs from the same villages cluster in the same neighborhoods. Their children grow up together, and to the extent possible the village life is re-created in the new communities on the edge of the city.

The number of non-Catholic churches in Tijuana is unknown, in part because it grows daily. There are many—this much is known. The church with the largest concentration of Mixtecs is the IJA. People from the same villages congregate in the same church groups. The largest congregation is situated in Valle Verde. The majority of the members are from San Juan Piñas, in the district of Juxtlahuaca. The pastor, like many of the members, spent years working on farms in the US before becoming legal under IRCA and eventually settling in Tijuana. Now they have the luxury of living cheaply in Mexico and going to the fields of the United States when there is work.

The church helps to maintain village identity by re-creating village life among the members. Members who are in transit visit, bringing news of people along the migrant stream. Most members of this congregation do not return to Oaxaca because they fear being expelled again from their village. This rejection by San Juan Piñas has led to a situation where the children, born outside the village, do not speak Mixteco and do not identify with the community. They do identify with the church, however.

The case of San Juan Piñas may be exceptional. There has been a great deal of animosity between the Catholics and non-Catholics there, and many non-Catholics, in the United States as well as in Baja California, express exasperation with their fellow villagers. As in the cases of San Juan Diquiyú, San Lucas, and Yososcuá, there are members of other villages who belong to the IJA and other non-Catholic congregations, and who continue to participate in the life of the villages, taking on secular cargos. They maintain homes in the villages and their children tend to identify somewhat with the community in Oaxaca and to speak some Mixteco. This pattern seems to be more common than that of San Juan Piñas.

Mixtecs in the United States

Today there are hundreds of thousands of Mixtecs throughout the United States. This vast migration is outside the realm of my study. There are also many non-Catholic churches to which Mixtecs convert, but the largest concentration of Mixtec non-Catholics is in the Iglesia de Jesucristo de las Américas. In an attempt to limit the project to a manageable size and scope, I have focused on the communities on the West Coast of the United States where Mixtecs migrate and where there are congregations of the IJA.

For the most part, Mixtecs in the United States are farmworkers. Some have been able to get jobs in construction, but many of those disappeared as a result of the economic crash of 2008. The lowest paid and most difficult jobs are those that seem to belong to Mixtecs. This is partly because many speak little or no Spanish and even less English. In addition, most have only a few years of schooling. However, it is also because of the discrimination against them by Mexicans and Mexican Americans. This has resulted, over generations, in the belief on the part of some Mixtecs that they are not worthy of better jobs. They would rather live and work together at difficult jobs than to suffer by themselves the slurs of non-Mixtecs. In the United States, they suffer a double discrimination: the Anglos look down on the Latinos and the Latinos look down on the Mixtecs.

Major differences between farm work in Mexico and the United States are that US growers do not provide housing or transportation to the fields and the government does not regulate the treatment of the workers. In Mexico, the housing provided by the growers is terrible, but it is usually free. The growers transport the laborers to and from the fields at no cost. The government agency Jornaleros Agrícolas monitors the conditions of the farmworkers, and negotiates with growers for better standards for the workers. There is no such agency in the United States, and most workers must find housing and a way to the fields without help from the growers or the government.

California

In California, where rents are very high, often several families live crammed into a single apartment, one family to each bedroom and one in the living room. While there are at least running water and functioning bathrooms, the living conditions are only marginally better than in Baja California and Sinaloa. And raiteros, people who have vehicles and transport those who do not, charge as much as $5 per ride in each direction. While the pay is much higher than in Mexico, expenses also mount up. It is still more profitable to work in the United States, however. This is why so many prefer to work there.

Northern San Diego County

A little to the north of the sprawling city of San Diego lie farms where vegetables and fruits are grown. This is where the first Mixtecs to arrive in California found work. Most had already come through Sinaloa and San Quintín and had experience with the kinds of crops found in San Diego: tomatoes, onions, and strawberries. They also were used to terrible housing, but in this case the situation was much worse, as growers did not even make an effort to house them. They lived in the canyons interspersed among the fields, under plastic sheeting, with no access to fresh water or sanitary facilities (Hernández and O’Connor 2013; Velasco Ortiz 2005:78; Chavez 1992:63–69). The fields were far from any grocery stores, and the undocumented status of the workers kept them from straying far from the workplace. Men sold food and drink from trucks and the migrants made do with whatever they could buy from them.

Eventually, Mixtecs found more permanent housing and settled in the communities of Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos, Escondido, and Poway. In each of these towns are to be found congregations of the IJA. Each congregation is made up mostly of Mixtecs from one or two villages. San Marcos and Escondido vary somewhat from the pattern, but the majority of Mixtecs there are from the same area of Juxtlahuaca.

It was in Vista, in 1978, that the first Mixtecs were baptized into the church. Carlos and Herminio Cruz, from San Jerónimo Progreso, and Lorenzo Mendoza, from Tecomaxtlahuaca, were all baptized in that year. They immediately spread out to the villages of the Mixteca, relaying the news of the gospel. The possibilities for converting villagers in the villages were almost nil at that time, however, and so the converts chose to move to the places where their fellow villagers had migrated in order to make converts. They traveled separately, but in coordination, to San Quintín and Sinaloa as well. They baptized a sizeable number of current members of the church. Lorenzo Mendoza in particular became famous as an evangelist who converted hundreds of Mixtecs. These, in turn, became missionaries to people from their own villages in the migrant stream.

Central California

On the US west coast, Mixtecs make up the largest indigenous population. In California, largest populations of Mixtecs are found in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Monterey Counties, although there are sizeable numbers in the Central Valley towns of Madera, Exeter, Farmersville, and Bakersfield (Mines, Nichols, and Runsten 2010:18). Mixtecs work on farms that produce fruits and vegetables. In Oxnard, in Ventura County, and Santa Maria, in Santa Barbara County, the Mixtecs pick strawberries. Of all the horticultural jobs, strawberries are the most labor-intensive and the lowest-paying crop. In the Central Valley, Mixtecs work on farms that produce peaches and grapes, also among the most difficult crops to produce.

There are IJA congregations in many of the communities in central California, where Mixtecs live. The largest is in Santa Maria, in Santa Barbara County. The Mixtec population of the city is largely from San Juan Piñas, and it was in Santa Maria that some of the first converts settled, in the 1980s. There are now four congregations of the church.

Oregon and Washington

Oregon and Washington both have Mixtec populations concentrated in agricultural areas. The growing season there is short—three months—so the farm population must migrate or find other work. The Mixtec population in Oregon is concentrated in the Willamette Valley, in the towns of Woodburn and Salem (Stephen 2007:86–88). Lynn Stephen (2001:192–93) estimated that in 2001 there were 10,000 Mixtecs permanently settled in Oregon, with between 20,000 and 30,000 circular migrants. Salem, Oregon (pop. 156,000) has a few thousand Mixtecs who work in the fields, some of whom now also work as gardeners or, in a few cases, in factories. A few have established their own businesses such as restaurants (Stephen 2007:88). Some find work in food packing plants or in canneries (Stephen 2001:204); this allows them to live in Salem year-round. Regardless of their jobs, they are still very poor. They live in the Latino neighborhood, and some are members of the IJA there. The Mixtec congregation began in 1990 with one family. It now has about sixty members.

Mount Vernon, Washington, like other places where Mixtecs live, is surrounded by fields of vegetables and fruits. Mixtecs live there and in the nearby communities of Burlington, Lyndon, and Conway. There are several migrant camps as well. The migrants are from San Miguel Cuevas and Juxtlahuaca. They work the berry crops and then move to warmer climates where there is year-round employment. Mixtecs who live in the area permanently are from Putla de Guerrero, to the south of Juxtlahuaca. The IJA in Conway has about 300 members, most from Putla. The pastor was the first Mixtec to arrive in the area from Putla. He let fellow villagers know that there was work in Washington, and many moved there. There is also a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses with Mixtec members.

It is difficult to estimate how many Mixtecs live in this area because government officials tend to lump them with non-indigenous Mexicans. The officials are not interested in the number of people who speak indigenous languages because they believe that these languages are not “real.” One estimate of the number of permanently settled Mixtecs is 2,000.⁷ Despite the somewhat cavalier attitude of state employees, the fact is that immigrants in general and farmworkers in particular have better lives in Oregon and Washington than in California. In those states, growers provide housing for migrants and even some permanent workers. Washington State allows people without permanent resident status to get drivers’ licenses; these are not available in Oregon, and have only recently been allowed in California. In general, workers report that their lives are better in Oregon and Washington than in other places they have worked.

Discussion

Even taking into account only the migrants on the west coast of Mexico and the United States, it is clear that the trajectories of Mixtecs have been complex and convoluted. Some migrated as young men to Culiacán, then to Baja California, and on to California and Washington. Some migrated directly to the United States, where they moved from one place to another according to which crops were in season. While the original migrants tended to be young men, today entire families migrate. Some move back and forth from Oaxaca to different communities depending on a variety of factors. In Culiacan, San Quintín, and Tijuana there is a conglomeration of people from different villages. Members of the same villages tend to live near each other, but the variety and number of communities makes this rather difficult. In the United States, where migrants go depends largely on where they are from. For example, the people in Oceanside are predominantly from San Martín del Estado, in the district of Silacayoapam. The people in Poway are from San Juan Piñas, Juxtlahuaca, as are the people in Santa Maria. The people in Oxnard are from San Martín Peras and San Miguel Cuevas, Silacayoapam. The people in Mount Vernon, Washington are primarily from Putla de Guerrero, Putla District, and San Miguel Cuevas.

The reason for the difference in settlement patterns between Baja California and the United States is, I believe, that the people in Baja California were recruited from many different villages by contractors who went to the Mixteca to find people who were willing to work for very low wages. They found them wherever they looked. This is why there is a variety of villages represented there. The populations of Mixtecs in California, Oregon, and Washington developed from word of mouth. One person went to Vista, and people from his village followed. Another went to Oceanside and was followed by his fellow villagers. At the same time, people from one village have a great preference for each other over people from another village. This reinforces the pattern of one or two villages being represented in each community where Mixtecs are found. Once a group has been established, people from that village go there. In this way, the villages are re-created in the migrant stream. It is easy to find the migrants from any village, as they tend to stay together and move together. Also, they all have cell phones. Thus, the transnational communities are solidified geographically as well as economically and socially.

This pattern is replicated to some extent in the congregations of the Iglesia de Jesucristo de las Américas. While there is some variation, the predominant pattern is for one village to be represented in a single congregation. The IJA helps to reinforce village identity by re-creating the life of the village within the congregation. During services, members ask for help and prayers. They share their happy moments and their moments of sorrow. Sometimes fellow villagers arrive from other migrant communities or from the village itself. They bring news and greetings from other members of the village as well as other members of the congregation. Importantly, the church provides a space where Mixtecs can be themselves without suffering discrimination from others. They can speak Mixtec without being laughed at. The members of the congregation know details about village life and the life of migration that they can share in a protected environment. There is a sense of belonging unavailable in any other social context. An important question is: will the children of the people who migrated continue to belong to the IJA?

Generations, Present and Future

The Mixtec population is still largely in its first generation of migration. Certainly the people who migrated are still attached to their villages. However, the question is whether or not this connection will continue into the second generation. What about the third generation? At the moment, the second generation is quite young. Most are still children. The third generation barely exists. Thus, that part of the question cannot be answered today. If the second and third generations of Mixtecs continue to identify solidly with the home communities of their parents and grandparents, they will defy the history of immigration to the United States. In this history, the second generation begins to acculturate quickly and the third generation is, for the most part, culturally assimilated. The case of immigrants from Mexico is somewhat different because many do not experience the upward mobility of other immigrant groups. This segmented assimilation stems from the fact that Mexicans are seen as nonwhite and are relegated to a status similar to that of African Americans (López and Stanton-Salazar 2001:59–61; Portes and Rumbaut 2001:280).

If racism is the cause of this stalled progress for Mexican migrants generally, then the effects will be stronger for Mixtecs, who suffer racist discrimination from their own compatriots. This situation makes for “reactive ethnicity,” the development of a new identity in the second generation as a reaction to rejection by the larger society (Portes and Rumbaut 2001:284–85). While this process involves maintaining ethnic distinctions, it is also accompanied by downward mobility. It is difficult to imagine what downward mobility would be for most Mixtecs, but one might see a lack of upward mobility as the more realistic pattern. In any event, acculturation—the loss of the culture of the migrant population—occurs regardless of upward mobility or the lack of it. This is true of Mixtec populations in Mexico as well as the United States.

Some characteristics of the Mixtec migrant community indicate that perhaps the second generation, at least, will be more strongly tied to the home villages than the second generations of other migrant groups. Most Mixtecs migrate with relatives who are from the same village. They tend to go where there are other members of their village. The fact that the villages are very small, cohesive social units transfers to the migrant communities. The families live near each other. The face-to-face quality of village life is reproduced, to some extent, in the transnational networks. So, children of migrants from the same village go to the same schools, live near each other, play together, and grow up together, even in the context of geographical mobility. Many are related to each other. They grow up knowing everything about each other and each other’s families, and so the life of the village continues. Given this unusual cohesion in the second generation, it seems likely that some will continue to honor the village identity of their parents. On the other hand, migrant children who spend even a short time in the United States begin to learn English. They watch television and become accustomed to the kind of consumer goods seen there. They make at least a few friends who are not Mixtec. All of these factors can contribute to a rejection of village life, if not necessarily village identity. It is possible to continue to be Mixtec and not identify with a particular village, but the first generation is not likely to do this. Perhaps entities with broader appeal are the future of Mixtecs in the United States.

Ethnic Organizations

There are movements toward a pan-indigenous identity by several organizations formed by migrants over the years. The strongest of these is the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales (Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations) (FIOB), an umbrella group that includes Mixtecs, Zapotecs, some Purépechas and some Triquis. Founded in 1994, FIOB now has offices in Fresno, Santa Maria, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, and San Diego, California, as well as Tijuana, San Quintín, and Juxtlahuaca. In 1995 the group established the magazine Tequio, was established, as well as a website with an electronic version of the magazine containing information on FIOB and other migrant organizations. A program of interpreters has been developed to assist indigenous monolingual speakers to deal with legal and health problems (Velasco Ortiz 2005:88–89).

Another important organization is the Unidad Popular Benito Juárez (Benito Juárez Popular Union) (UPBJ), centered in Bakersfield. This, too, incorporates several smaller organizations and has a program of interpreters.⁸ The UPBJ hosts an annual Guelaguetza—a traditional Oaxacan festival that includes representatives of all the indigenous groups of the state—in Bakersfield.

The Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño (Binational Center for Indigenous Oaxacan Development) was founded in 1993 in Fresno. This is a non-profit that focuses on helping Oaxacan immigrants with day-to-day problems such as seeking help from the government, understanding the school system, participating in the health care system, and translating and filling out forms. The organization is also developing a group of trilingual youth leaders who visit households and help with the problems of the residents. It sponsors cultural events such as Guelaguetzas, a Oaxacan tradition, and the maintenance of traditions such as indigenous languages and fiestas. Unlike FIOB, it is not political in orientation. Today the Centro has offices in Fresno, Santa Maria, Greenfield, and Los Angeles. Its members include Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Triquis, all indigenous groups from Oaxaca.

In general, FIOB is seen as a defender of workers’ and renters’ rights, as well as a coordinator between migrant communities in the United States and Mexico, while UPBJ and the Centro are seen as cultural organizations dedicated to community service, education, and the continuation of indigenous traditions. All three began as Mixtec organizations but now include members of other indigenous migrant groups as well. These organizations are like Yosonuvicu, the group established in Miguel Alemán. There is a push toward recognizing and reinforcing indigenous identity rather than allegiance to any village or even any indigenous group. However, in the case of the Mixtecs, village identity remains predominant. It is reinforced by ongoing participation in village transnational networks.

The Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project (MICOP), was founded in Ventura County in 2000 by Sandy Young, a nurse practitioner in Oxnard. The group’s original goal was to find interpreters for the Mixtec patients at the clinic where Young works. Today, the organization engages in many different activities. It organizes meetings of Mixtec families to provide them with information as well as food and such items as diapers and school supplies. MICOP also supports youth groups and is sponsoring an anti-bullying campaign in the schools to educate students about the negative effects of pejorative terms like Oaxaquita and indio on Mixtecs. MICOP staff assist with navigating the bureaucracy by helping to fill out forms, giving information on benefits such as food stamps and health care, and translating documents in English or Spanish into Mixteco. Unlike FIOB, the Centro Binacional, and the UPBJ, MICOP does not have activities beyond Ventura County. Like them, it welcomes members of other indigenous groups, who have begun moving to Oxnard in very small numbers.

Velasco Ortiz (2005:127–60) indicates that the leaders of organizations such as these represent an emerging intellectual elite. It is probable that such elites are a necessary development for the continuation of Mixtecs as Mixtecs in the migrant streams and communities. These organizations reinforce Mixtec identity. Without them it seems more likely that Mixtecs will acculturate to Latino culture. They may be at the bottom of the economic ladder, but they will be culturally similar to other Hispanics. They will lose their language, their culture, and most importantly, their links to the home villages. Unless the second generation continues to honor the ties with the transnational communities, the Mixtec ethnic organizations are the last barrier to such losses.

Formal organizations like FIOB, the Centro, and MICOP contrast with the transnational communities. They depend on formal relationships built on ethnic identity and class rather than the informal ties of kinship and community. The fact that all the migrant organizations generated by Mixtecs have experienced significant disputes over money and organizational matters (Velasco Ortiz 2005:116–26) demonstrates that these groups are more similar to political organizations than to the transnational communities. The deep distrust of people from one community for another makes for difficulties in forming and maintaining pan-Mixtec organizations. Nevertheless, the existence of these organizations indicates a desire to keep ethnic identity and cooperation alive among Mixtecs, including the second generation. The more enduring ties of the transnational communities will probably determine whether or not an ethnic tradition develops beyond the first generation, however. The fact that most migrants settle with members of their own villages makes this possibility more realistic than one might expect.

The IJA: An Alternative to Ethnic Organizations?

The Mixtec wing of the IJA contrasts with the ethnic organizations. It cannot claim the membership of these larger groups; however, the growth of the church is closely linked to the development of the transnational communities. Most congregations are made up of participants from only one or two of these. This recapitulates the process of migration in general. While there are conflicts within congregations of the IJA, there are mechanisms for dealing with these without endangering the organization as a whole. The process of creating new congregations is, in part, a way to downplay conflicts as well as convert newcomers. The fact that church members mainly proselytize their fellow villagers helps continue the process of growth along village lines.

Members of the IJA generally do not participate in FIOB or other ethnically based organizations. They know about these groups and their activities, but they stay away from them. They do not see themselves as in conflict with them; rather, the IJA solves for its members many of the problems addressed by the Centro and MICOP, among other organizations. The IJA, like most Evangelical churches, does not get involved in politics. Its position is that it is best to obey and support existing political authorities, because the time will soon be here when Jesus returns and replaces all political entities. Thus, the IJA will never become the kind of political organization that might bring together people of different villages into one solidary group. The closest they come to this are the frequent confraternidades, where people from one congregation invite those from surrounding communities to share in several days of prayer, testimonials, sermons, and large amounts of food. Visitors are urged to accept Jesus as their savior, and many convert in the emotionally charged atmosphere. In my view, these occasions are similar to the fiestas of the Mixteca region: certain groups gain prestige within the church by hosting successful confraternidades. But there is no way that the confraternidades will ever evolve into a pan-Mixtec organization.

Mixtec Diaspora?

To return to the matter first broached at the beginning of this chapter: Do the Mixtecs constitute a diaspora? The short answer is no, because they have not been migrating long enough to produce a large second generation. But the possibilities for the development of a diaspora are there. They include the dispersal of members of a group with a specific homeland that they revere and hope to return to. There is also the emergence of elites who identify with the group’s ethnicity and are striving to maintain it. There is some anecdotal evidence in the second generation, as it comes of age, that its members wish to remain Mixtecs rather than casting off this despised identity. Part of the reason for this may be the persistence of poverty among the Mixtec populations both in Mexico and the United States. Segmented assimilation, along with downward mobility and the failure to join the majority culture in both countries, implies a somewhat more negative take on the situation. But whether the Mixtecs become a true diaspora remains the domain of generations as yet unborn.