The Migration of Indigenous

University of California Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California Research Report, Number 1 July 2013 CCREC is a University of California multi-campus research program initiative that links university researchers, community-based organizations, and policy-makers to achieve creative solutions to the problems in our communities. CCREC seeds and incubates equity-oriented collaborative community-based projects that address the interconnected challenges in the economy, education, employment, environment, health, housing, and nutrition. CCREC also provides national leadership in the ethics of collaborative research and in the development of a new generation of engaged scholars and community leaders who make research central to democratic deliberations about social issues. Contact us Ronald David Glass CCREC Associate Professor, Director University of California, Santa Cruz p: 831-459-1991 Mail Stop: EDUC f: 831-459-1989 1156 High Street email: [email protected] Santa Cruz, CA http://ccrec.ucsc.edu 95064 Book cover, layout/ design, and ECO logo by Matt Goff Translations to English by Jonathan Fox & Mac Layne Editorial coordination by Jonathan Fox, Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, and Juan Santiago Cover photos by Juan Santiago, José E. Chávez and Autónomos Voices of Indigenous Oaxacan Youth in the Central Valley: Creating our Sense of Belonging in California by the Oaxacalifornian Reporting Team/ Equipo de Cronistas Oaxacalifornianos (ECO) University of California Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California Research Report Number 1, July 2013 1 Preface Juan Santiago 9 Introduction Jonathan Fox 29 Chapter 1: The Voices of the American Experience Club Minerva Mendoza 41 Chapter 2: Immigrant High School Students in Action José Eduardo Chávez 51 Chapter 3: Oaxacalifornian Urban Youth Space: Los Autónomos Sarait Martínez 61 Chapter 4: The Central Valley Youth Association Ana Mendoza 79 Chapter 5: Young Farmworker Activists Juan Santiago 89 Chapter 6: Gender Roles and their Influence on Civic Participation Ana Mendoza, with Sarait Martínez and Minerva Mendoza 99 Chapter 7: Grounding Civic Participation in Cultural Organizing Juan Santiago 115 Epilogue: The Civic Pathways of Young Indigenous Migrants: Identity, Language, and Gender Gaspar Rivera-Salgado Preface by Juan Santiago ECO team retreat/training session with UC researchers, Santa Cruz, July 2011. Photo: José E. Chávez The seeds for this project were than Fox, an ally of the immigrant community and planted at the July 2010 “Roundtable on Latino a professor in the Department of Latin American immigrant civic and political participation,” held at and Latino Studies at the University of California the Fresno City Hall and organized by the Pan Val- in Santa Cruz. Together with two other colleagues, ley Institute of the American Friends Service Com- he delivered a summary of the findings of a nation- mittee. During this event, key Latino civic leaders, al report he had coauthored, “Context Matters: community organizers and scholars were invited to Latino Immigrant Civic Engagement in Nine US spend a Friday afternoon together to share insights Cities.” That same project had previously spon- from their respective experiences. They all provid- sored a report on Fresno and Madera’s experience ed lessons learned about civic organizing in Cali- with Latino immigrant’s political engagement, fornia’s Central Valley. They suggested ideas and from the 1970s through 2009. Because of our recommendations on how the momentum from the presentation, which highlighted our strategy and immigrant rights mobilization could be translated personal stories as new community and cultural into long-term active political participation in the organizers, Dr. Fox was very interested to learn Valley. Recognizing the emergence of immigrant more about our experiences. youth civic participation in the region, young organizers were invited to share their experiences, on More than eight months later, Dr. Fox called me to their own panel. All three presenters later became talk about an opportunity for a possible new study members of the Oaxacalifornian Reporting Team about the trends among young indigenous Mexi- (Equipo de Cronistas Oaxacalifornianos -ECO): can organizers in the Central Valley. At that point, Ana Mendoza, José E. Chávez and myself. At that Ana, José and I had gone through more community forum, we reported from our experiences with organizing experiences, such as volunteering for a grassroots organizing for comprehensive immigra- national campaign for comprehensive immigration tion reform in Madera. We shared our strategies reform, organizing community through different and efforts to increase participation within the cultural events, interning at local non-profit groups indigenous and farm labor communities in Madera, and starting our own organizations. I knew that at particularly the Oaxacan community. some point I needed to put my experiences as a One of the scholars at that forum was Dr. Jona- cultural organizer in the San Joaquin Valley into perspective, but that opportunity arrived earlier then I expected. When I was contacted by Profes- engagement decisions and practices of Mexican sor Fox to see if I would be interested in helping indigenous migrant young adults in the central re- to lead this research project, I did not hesitate. I gion of the San Joaquin Valley,” will fill those gaps. knew the importance of documenting our community’s personal testimonies and stories, particularly Not only did we include input from a wide range the ways we organize. This is a continuation of of community actors, such as those young immi- the organizing efforts we are doing here in the grant farmworkers who rarely get contacted to Central Valley. We want to understand how this provide research interviews, this PAR-oriented new generation of organizers engage with public research also allowed some of the interviewers to affairs, especially civic and cultural organizing. be interviewees, reporting from our on-the-ground Furthermore, this research opportunity allowed experiences. Indeed, as members of the target us to be able to address important questions such community ourselves, we developed the questions as: How are indigenous Mexican youth organized in ways that would maximize the focus group’s in the valley? Is immigration the only concern for contribution. Our approach tried to avoid being the indigenous communities? Do indigenous youth either too vague or too specific, to create a con- call themselves organizers? What are some of the versation where interesting facts and perspectives factors that have strengthened or limited would emerge from the interviewees without nec- community organizing? What issues are youth-led essarily needing to ask the questions directly. We organizations addressing? followed this strategy because we knew if we were to ask people – let’s say, about their involvement I was even more interested because it would be a with civic events — perhaps they would say that participatory action research (PAR) project. I got they do not have any such experience. But if we introduced to this type of research while doing an started off by asking them to describe what a day apprenticeship at the Pan Valley Institute. They of farm work looks like, they would get deep into promote principles of Popular Education, which the conversation and we would take off from there include PAR. What I discovered is that in a to stimulate the discussion. In short, the process participatory action research project, often the we used while developing the questions was long researchers would be people from the target com- and intensive, which eventually led us to consider munity, and they would be asking questions based writing three additional chapters. on their own experiences within that community. PAR tends to be very inclusive within the target Our original plan was to organize both the focus community because it collects inputs and contribu- group interviews and the chapters for this report tions through broader participation, including those around five youth-led organizing spaces — (1) a who otherwise would refuse to be interviewed if high school club that became a community orga- the researcher was a stranger to them. nizing group, (2) a current high school extracurric- ular club, (3) an urban youth group, (4) a regional I often get contacted by national or foreign re- Dreamers’ organization, and (5) young immigrant searchers to provide them with contact informa- farmworkers. The ideas for the three additional tion for potential interviewees, but it has been my chapters emerged during our team’s conversations experience that people in my community tend to about how to discuss the arrangement of poten- decline to participate sometimes because they do tial interview questions. We concluded that three not know the person or simply because they do not crosscutting topics would be relevant to this study: grasp the intention of the research. As a result, the (1) gender roles and their influences on civic par- researcher ends up interviewing me or some other ticipation (2) cultural organizing and civic partici- community organizer. However, as you will see, this pation; and (3) how the connections between iden- participatory action research style, whose origi- tity, language and gender affect the civic pathways nal goal was to “document and analyze the civic that young indigenous migrants follow. We were Preface ECO (Oaxacalifornian Reporting Team) and allies. Photo: Jonathan Fox

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