Mixtec Activism in Oaxacalifornia: Transborder Grassroots Political Strategies
Author: Rivera-Salgado, Gaspar
Date Published: 1999
In the context of the globalization of capital and the increased mobilityof labor across international borders, this article analyzes the experience of indigenous migrant workers from the state of Oaxaca who have formed permanent communitites in northern Mexico and in California. It focuses specifically on the experience of the Mixtec transnational community whose participation in the Frente Indigena Oaxaqueno Binacional has strengthened and changed the ethnic identities that hold together these communities across a fractured geography of different borders (at local, state and international levels) and has served as one of the bases to organize across these transnational borders. This analysis contributes to an understanding of how the activism of transnational political organizations promotes the construction of new political alliances along ethnic lines in a post-melting-pot California and the consolidation of indigenous migrant organizations within the context of increasing U.S.-Mexican economic integration.
Date Published: 1999
In the context of the globalization of capital and the increased mobilityof labor across international borders, this article analyzes the experience of indigenous migrant workers from the state of Oaxaca who have formed permanent communitites in northern Mexico and in California. It focuses specifically on the experience of the Mixtec transnational community whose participation in the Frente Indigena Oaxaqueno Binacional has strengthened and changed the ethnic identities that hold together these communities across a fractured geography of different borders (at local, state and international levels) and has served as one of the bases to organize across these transnational borders. This analysis contributes to an understanding of how the activism of transnational political organizations promotes the construction of new political alliances along ethnic lines in a post-melting-pot California and the consolidation of indigenous migrant organizations within the context of increasing U.S.-Mexican economic integration.
