My grandmother grew up in the Otomí Mezquital Valley in Nicolás Flores, Hidalgo. Growing up in her rural mountainous community, the closest primary school was nearly a two-hour walk from home. The closest secondary school was even further. Faced with poverty, the decision about whether to continue her education became simple: there was more to gain from spending her hours in the workforce, contributing to her family’s livelihood, than from traveling to and from school. In the end, my grandmother only completed elementary school before she made the difficult decision to find work in the city of Ixmiquilpan at a canning factory, alongside a few of her older cousins, returning home only on the weekends. This was a cycle that would only continue. My father, being the oldest of his ten siblings and driven by a desire to do whatever he could to lift his family out of poverty, migrated to Mexico City at the age of 12, forgoing his education to work in road construction, sending money back to his family in Santo Domingo, not knowing he would never return to his home. It wasn’t that my father or my grandmother didn’t have access to education; rather, the issue was that it wasn't enough
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Although the majority of my extended family lives in Mexico, my own history and experiences with the nation have been brief and bittersweet. The country has existed within my mind as an entity; through its own negligence of its indigenous and rural communities, it systematically forced my parents to leave behind their own parents, their culture, their way of being and living for the foreign land of the United States. Thus, my own contextual relationship with the country, along with my own mindset of a Public Policy student (in which I am unfortunately, or maybe rather fortunately, always hyperconscious of the faults of institutions, entities, and laws I interact with), caused me to be incredibly weary heading into my Leadership in Action project this summer. However, on the flip side, the other part of me, the part that has long hoped for any sliver of opportunity to further understand the obstacles my parents, my grandmother, and all indigenous people have faced, was filled with anticipation.
Growing up in a household heavily influenced by Mexican culture (and I mean heavily, to give context, the first time I ate meatloaf was when I was 13 at a close friend's house, and to this day I am always confused when my friends discuss movies of the early 2010’s because we simply just did not watch those in my house), I expected to find myself quickly adapting to day-to-day life in Mexico. What had slipped my mind in between my anticipation and weariness was that although the facts of my upbringing were true, they were undeniably influenced by the fact that I (1) was raised in rural, White-American Maryland and (2) I had never “not” been with my family in some way for an extended period of time.
I did not spend my time in Mexico in CDMX; instead, I spent roughly 2 months in the remote, mountainous region of Tenango de Doria in Hidalgo, Mexico (roughly 4 hours North of the city, for those who don’t wish to pretend they know what I'm talking about). And it was spent largely alone. While the organization I worked with had a large, extensive, and most importantly, wildly dedicated field team and volunteer network in the region, most of them did not live full-time in the region due to its remote and rural nature, and instead opted to commute in and, when necessary, stay overnight in the organization's field office in Tenango’s municipal center. Thus, while there were often sporadic spans of days in which the field office, where I was staying for the summer, was crowded with the high energy of multiple volunteers and field work coordinators, for the most part, I spent most of my day-to-day life alone, working on remote work for PSYDEH alongside projects that could only be conducted out of the onsite office. I know I say this, and some are concerned that they would go crazy, but I assure you it was not as bad as it sounds. The municipality of Tenango is small, but it was doubly welcoming; I often ate dinner with the Dona of the office, paying her back for the delicious food by watching her young son while she washed dishes, and was often greeted with smiles and a cheek-kiss when I was unavoidably identified as an American due to my accent in Spanish.
Nevertheless, phone calls back home to my parents often revealed that my new experiences were norms that they desperately remembered and missed from their childhood in Northern Hidalgo. It was odd, and melancholic, to hear my parents ask if the live music played in the town square each Sunday still featured the lilting staccatos of violins, if the summer dinners still featured salsa de hormiga as the star, if people still greeted each other following the traditions of the Otomi, of their family, if Mexico was still the Mexico they left behind. I took these experiences with as much stride and false confidence as I could. Hey, fake it ‘til you make it? My tongue welcomed the unfamiliar flavors of the region, my body adapted to the high altitude and steep, steep hills of Tenango, my Spanish quickly got leagues better (as my Mom can attest to from my phone calls over the Summer), and my understanding changed.
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I am aware that I have yet to fully describe and explain the organization I worked with this past summer (Sorry!); while this is partly unintentional due to the somewhat poor planning of my writing, this was largely intentional, to have the space to focus on the good work and good people I worked with.
Spanning eight weeks, from early June to August, I spent my time as an on-site volunteer for Psicología y Derechos Humanos (PSYDEH). PSYDEH is a grassroots nonprofit organization based out of the Otomi-Tepehua Sierra region of central Mexico that works to support rural and Indigenous women in the region to become and remain equitable and resilient community leaders. When I arrived in Tenango in early June, PSYDEH had been working on delivering digital narratives workshops to rural and Indigenous women across the Sierra Otomi-Tepehua. For many of the participants, it was the first time they had intentionally recorded their own voices or filmed themselves to share stories with those outside of their immediate community. In a way, the digital narratives workshop series was more than just learning how to use the technology; it was about strengthening women's confidence in their ability to preserve and share their memories and cultural heritage. As a volunteer with PSYDEH, I provided supplemental support to the main workshop facilitator. Although I had helped organize similar digital literacy workshops in my rural hometown in the U.S., I quickly faced the reality that leading workshops in the Sierra required an entirely different skill set. Workshops in the Sierra require constant adaptation: internet connectivity is unreliable (along with electricity in general), the summer heat and humidity can be relentless, and, notably, each participant arrives with widely differing educational backgrounds.
To understand the landscape in which PSYDEH works, it's important to understand the historical context of education and indigeneity in Mexico. Like many nations, Mexico guarantees in writing the right to education for all people. The right is enshrined in the national constitution. Article 3 states that “all shall have access to early childhood, preschool, primary, secondary, upper secondary, and higher education”. Despite this, only around 44% of Indigenous-language-speaking youth receive a high school-level equivalent education in Mexico. The average years of schooling among Indigenous language speakers has remained stagnant at just 6.3 years. This restricted access to education is reflected in the nation's illiteracy rates. Although the national illiteracy average remains low at 8.4%, the average among Indigenous communities is more than quadruple the national average at 44%, and the rate is even lower for Indigenous women.
The driver of this issue is not the lack of legal protections; rather, it is the lack of response to preexisting structural issues that continue to persist in Indigenous communities across Hidalgo and Mexico. Many of Mexico’s Indigenous populations are concentrated in mountainous rural regions where infrastructure for education and transportation can be difficult to construct. Around two-thirds of Indigenous communities remain unconnected to the public road system, and thousands remain connected only by mountain trails. Thus, on the occasions when schools do exist nearby, an easy, accessible path for children to travel along may not be available. Language presents as another barrier. Although Mexico recognizes over 60 Indigenous languages and dialects, Spanish typically remains the primary language of instruction in most primary and secondary schools across the country.
Although many women in the Sierra have lacked access to formal education, that doesn't mean they lack knowledge. Intelligences take many forms. When rural communities, like those in the Sierra or even those back home in the U.S., face adversity, they find ways to persist and prosper. My parents, my grandmother, and the women I have met through volunteering with PSYDEH possess a unique body of knowledge that cannot be measured solely by the number of years spent in a classroom; they hold deep technical understanding of many place-based topics ranging from animal husbandry to medicinal plants, and beyond. This knowledge they have gained through hands-on practice and lived experience is often described as community-based education (CBE). This form of “informal” education is often more prominent and valuable in rural and Indigenous communities within the Sierra and across the world when institutions of formal education fail to show up.
In the work that PSYDEH conducts, the pre-existing knowledge that Indigenous and rural communities hold is built upon through Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s popular education model, in which he argues that there should not be just one “teacher”; rather, all are learners. Through this reciprocal process of learning, we are collectively called to examine the institutions that have impacted our lives critically, and to recognize our capacity to transform them and work towards eliminating oppressive institutions. In practice, Freire’s philosophy can be seen in PSYDEH’s initiatives, such as the digital narratives workshops, which had a broader goal of creating spaces where Indigenous and rural women can build confidence in themselves and in one another, working towards collective agency. However, PSYDEH alone cannot solve the structural barriers Indigenous communities and women face. The fight for educational reform is one that requires sustained investment from policymakers and the broader public. We all have a role to play, including PSYDEH.
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The volunteer work I did with PSYDEH this past summer had been deeply personal for me. The women I have met and the obstacles they face deeply remind me of my own grandmothers, my parents, and the countless family members I still have in Hidalgo. However, while their experiences are familiar, I am reminded that each of them carries her own story, a story shaped by her own community, family, and aspirations. I am reminded that as I return to Cornell, to the United States, to my family, it would be a great fault of mine to just forgo everything I learned while in Tenango.
I will never truly understand the barriers that my grandmother, father, or the women of the Sierra have faced. I will never fully know the thoughts that were racing through my grandmother's head when she was younger than I am now, and education was deemed nothing more than a pipedream, or my father's when he decided that the whispered promises of education were worth leaving everything he had ever known for the States. I grew up in the suburbs of Maryland. The worst thing I had faced by the time I was 16 was the embarrassment of still having to ride the school bus because I didn’t yet have a license. Regardless, I call my parents every night, and I learn. I sit with women across the Sierra and in the rural US, and I remind myself that I am not the expert here. I think of my grandmother, and I continue in the fight.
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A major thanks to the team at PSYDEH, Margaret and Sarah at the Einaudi Center at Cornell, and to my parents, who have led me to where I am today.