By Janet Martinez
My grandmother would carry seeds from back home. She’d roll them up in socks to cross them in her luggage into the United States. She, and many other Zapotecs, brought the Yegr rush, popularly known as the cocolmecac, chichicazle, and guayabas that grew back home to grow, so when you enter a Zapotec home in the U.S, our gardens are filled with the plants native to our town. Each of them played an important role spiritually and culturally.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that during their economic displacement from the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, many Zapotecs brought their language, dreams, culture, and organizational structure, just like they brought their seeds. Each of these seeds planted in the imaginary territory that many Zapotecs live in today in Los Angeles. Many can’t go back home due to their irregular legal status that they live in, which has fomented and created an imaginary Zapotec territory. One of the organizational structures that traveled to the U.S is the Hometown Associations (HTA). These are organizations that are made up of members of a particular town that come together to do their guzune, the reciprocal giving in the community. The community from Zoogocho comes together in a yearly meeting to elect a new board that is made up of 6 people from the community, their primary role is to organize the patron saint celebration for San Bartolome Apostol and collect donations in emergencies. The HTA’s are a prominent fixture in the lives of Zapotecs in Los Angeles, when there is death in the community you will hear the familiar knock on the gate to collect the donation for the family.
Even during the pandemic, community members risk their lives to collect donations for the families of the deceased. I am incredibly grateful and in awe of their commitment during these trying times. Everyone is there because they are committed to the people that form their communities. Although we are not necessarily in Zoogocho, the place, we are Bene Xogshos (the people from Zoogocho), people that create community. The people who make up the community have out of sheer commitment created a structure that has a community tethered onto land that is far and sometimes inaccessible because of imposed borders. Yet, here they are, the Union social Zoogochense (USZ), during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, collecting donations from every Bene Xogshos, to help families who have experienced death. It’s important to note that the president of the USZ at the time, Chucho Ramos, as he was called affectionately by the community, was the president during the pandemic. He collected the donations even though he was afflicted with an illness that shortened his life. His commitment to his community was unfaltering. Today, he is no longer with us and his body is currently making its journey back home.
Why would people do a job for free miles away for a community they no longer live in? Because we’re a community. Maybe not particularly in the land where my father, my mother, and my grandparents were born, but it doesn’t change the fact that we continue to be part of a community out here so far from our land of origin. When my grandfather migrated from the San Bartolome Zoogocho in 1970 our HTA, the USZ, was in its early stages. Its purpose was to provide their guzune to the community living in Los Angeles and their families left back home. He would reminisce about how he would pay his yearly quota of more than a hundred dollars home to help Zoogocho in a time where rent was 80 dollars in the U.S. These quotas were collected from the Bene Xogsho migrants in Los Angeles to send money back collectively through the USZ to fund infrastructure projects. These dollars created a lasting impact that to this day reverberates in Zoogocho. When he left, only 1% of households had access to water. By 2010 it had increased to 98%. The increase in access to water in Zoogocho mirrored the exodus and financial displacement many Bene Xogsho’s experienced finding homes in L.A. In 1987 my grandfather was called back to Zoogocho to serve as the rejidor as part of the municipal board back home. He had to go because although he had been active in the USZ, in the community back home it was taken into consideration, but it did not grant him full access to his rights or substitute his da ja la guno (duty) back home. The donations you make and the roles you serve as part of the USZ are most important to the migrant community in Los Angeles. The de ja la guno you fulfill allows you to go home if you can travel. But it does not assure you full rights, or acceptance in your community origin.
When my grandfather passed away in 2010, I learned the significance and importance of community during the mourning period and the important role that the USZ and the individuals in the community played. I can’t express the important role that everyone played from bringing food, to donating money, to praying the rosary with us for 9 days, to staying up with us during his viewing to literally carrying him to his last resting place. It’s hard to convey the significance of such a strong community network and how important it is to reciprocate that love and support. Since he passed his parting lesson was the importance of being there for the community like it was there for me. He left his community of Zoogocho in 1970 yet the people who were at the rosaries and ultimately laid him into the earth in his final resting place in Los Angeles were Bene Xogsho. 2,190 miles away from the land that saw him born. But between those 2,190 miles from the land he was born to, to the place he was ultimately laid to rest, lies an imaginary Zapotec territory, a place where guzune and da ja la guno still exists, where death is mourned in community, and jarabes are still being danced at community events. Life and belonging to each other is what unites us in the metropolis of Los Angeles. The collective memory of a community that existed and grounded us in a Zoogocho continues to unite us 2,190 miles.
Janet Martinez is the co-founder/ Vice executive director of Comunidades Indigenas en Liderazgo (CIELO). She is a Bene Xogsho (Zapotec) born in Los Angeles. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Gender and Women’s Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, with a thesis on Indigenous migrants in the U.S. court system. Aside from her direct activism, Janet has engaged issues facing indigenous migrant communities through her writing; she has published articles on topics including new approaches to gendered leadership in Indigenous communities, and the challenges facing youths in Indigenous migrant communities. She collaborated on UCLA’s mapping Indigenous L.A. Ms. Martinez organized the Indigenous Literature conference and Weaving Words and Rhymes for the past four consecutive years. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Ozy, Vogue, and Telesur. Currently, she is a host on the podcast Tu’un Dali, a podcast for and by Indigenous people.