Democratic Renewal and the Mutual Aid Legacy of US Mexicans by Pycior Julie Leininger;

Author:Pycior, Julie Leininger; [Pycior, Julie Leininger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 23. From the PBS program on the Tierra Wools project, 2009. (Courtesy New Mexico Public Broadcasting Service)

At the same time, Varela cautions against rigidly applying any model. “I’m not saying this is foolproof at all. . . . It can buy you 20–25 years that makes some kind of difference in people’s lives. . . .” Organizing for social change is especially challenging in rural areas, she points out, given the small pool of people from which to draw the leadership, and that it takes generations to “reverse the patterns of colonialism; you can’t reverse colonialism in, like, three-year ‘funding cycles.’” Thus, the cooperative enterprises in Chama Valley have fallen on hard times in recent years, even as they have established models that provide important templates for organizing efforts far and wide. Ganados del Valle, the vibrant economic cooperative on the mutualista model that was operated by shepherds in the region, “is right now dormant, but I find so often . . . that it inspires,” says Varela. People come and seek them out, wanting to apply the Ganados principles in other projects. “So your hope,” says Varela, “is that while it may light the fire in one community for maybe a generation and a half, it has the potential to light the fire in other communities for longer than that.” Meanwhile, the women’s weaving cooperative, Tierra Wools, lives on. Moreover, the organizational half-life of the women in the valley is akin to the legacy left by the women organizing a century ago for mutual aid and protection.

María Varela also reminds us that many crucial historical events were never written down and can only be recovered—if at all—through oral traditions.18 To the extent that women have been the bones and men the flesh of community organizing, it would seem that women have constituted the “bones” that undergird much of the historical record itself.

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