My project, how it came to be, and some historical context

At the urging of friends, I´ve decided to start a blog about my Fulbright experiences in Chihuahua City, Mexico. I have been living in Chihuahua for just over three months now, and I feel like I have so many events to catch everyone up on. So I'm going to do my best to describe all the aspects of my Fulbright research goals, the rarámuri culture I am learning about, and my personal thoughts and experiences on the field.

First, to describe what I´m actually doing in Chihuahua. Well, my project is focusing on the rarámuri, an indigenous group native to Chihuahua, a northern Mexican state that borders my hometown of El Paso, Texas. My interest in the rarámuri has been many years in the making. For those of you who have grown up crossing the border (El Paso to Cd. Juarez), you surely noticed rarámuri women and children walking up and down the rows of waiting cars, asking for money or selling crafts and gum. It is such a customary sight to see rarámuri women on the bridge that most people from the area don´t really think twice about it. But the rarámuri always struck me as so strangely out of place in a city context, and even more so when I considered that they were working for pennies while El Paso´s skyscrapers and mansions on the hills loomed in the backdrop. Thousands of people cross the border to and from El Paso and Juarez every day, and for years now the rarámuri have been capitalizing on the bored and impatient border crossers stuck in bridge traffic sometimes for up to three hours.

The idea of rarámuri capitalists is such a paradox, really--a little internet research will explain why. For the last 400 or so years, the rarámuri have made the Sierra Madre mountains in the southwestern portion of the state their home. They have lived in what most people would describe as ´´primitive´´ conditions, constructing small wooden homes or sometimes even living in caves. They have relied on subsistence farming and have had virtually no use for money or store-bought goods. They traditionally produced almost everything they needed, from blankets to baskets, food to shelter.

In the last thirty or so years, a variety of circumstances (which I will go into in a later post) have pushed the rarámuri out of their mountain homes and forced them to travel to nearby cities, where they are obligated to earn money in order to survive. Obviously, life in the Sierra does not equip the rarámuri with skills that are considered valuable for most city jobs, so most (the women mainly) have to resort to making their living in the ´´informal market,´´ usually selling crafts or seeking alms. Adding to this, a shamelessly discriminatory Chihuahuan society makes it difficult for most rarámuri to find decent-paying jobs.

So, my research is focusing on the city-dwelling rarámuri. Whenever I would see rarámri women on the bridge as I waited to cross to El Paso, I always wondered where they lived. I was pretty sure that the money they earned from their work on the bridge was not enough to pay even the cheapest rent. It turns out the state government builds ´´asentamientos,´´ or settlements for the rarámuri to live in. Most charge a very low monthly rent, and many don´t charge rent at all. I am working in the oldest of these settlements in Chihuahua City, called Oasis. I spend my days conducting formal interviews, conversing informally, observing, and sometimes even participating in the rarámuri daily living tasks. There are so many unique rarámuri traditions and customs that I hope to share with you in this blog, and I absolutely welcome all of your reactions and comments to the stories that I plan to share. One other thing: the goal of my project is to write a creative non-fiction narrative based on my work in Oasis. So any input on what aspects of rarámuri culture you think are most fascinating, what ´´characters´´ I mention strike you as interesting, and what stories you think should definitely go into a formal narrative will be very welcome!

Arioshi-ba! (Goodbye!)