MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – Employment prospects drew Juana Gutiérrez, 49, to Mexico City, Mexico’s capital, when she was a teenager. But life in the capital has been a struggle.
Gutiérrez migrated to the capital from San Juan Copala, a village in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, in order to work as an artisan because there was no work in her community, she says. She is a Triqui, an indigenous group that is native to Oaxaca.
Gutiérrez’s inability to speak Spanish was the first barrier that she encountered in Mexico City, she says. She could not understand what people were telling her, and some people made fun of her because she spoke Triqui.
After 35 years of living in the city, Gutiérrez still speaks Spanish with difficulty.
“There is much [of the] language that you do not understand, but my sons all speak Spanish,” she says proudly in a labored Spanish.
Gutiérrez is part of the Triqui indigenous community that settled on a piece of land in an impoverished area of Mexico City’s Centro neighborhood more than 25 years ago. There, they lived in laminate houses until they persuaded the Institute of Housing, an organ of the city government that serves low-income residents, to build apartments for them on the land, says Rosario Méndez de la Cruz, another Triqui resident.
While this construction is happening, the delegation has allowed the Triquis to settle in the street, where they have lived for the past three years, Méndez says. The approximately 65 families live in cramped rooms as small as 9 square meters (96 square feet). They have erected dwellings from laminate sheets, wood and cardboard, and they live without a drainage system or running water.
The government is supposed to finish the apartments and let the community move in this year, Méndez says. The families will own the apartments, which they will pay off monthly.
The Triquis are one of 62 indigenous groups in Mexico and one of 57 groups in Mexico City, according to data from the city government’s Ministry of Rural Development and Equity for Communities.
Mexico City is the principal destination for indigenous people who migrate from their communities within Mexico in search of better living conditions, according to a 2010 report by the Center of Social Studies and Public Opinion of the Chamber of Deputies.
But the reality for indigenous communities living in the city is not encouraging. Almost half the population has a maximum income equivalent to twice the daily minimum wage of 65.58 pesos ($5), and one-third live in cramped living conditions, according to the report. Although 93.3 percent of indigenous people living in the capital have running water and 99.2 percent have electricity – unlike in the rural communities they left behind – their living conditions in the capital continue to lag behind those of the rest of the urban population.
Triquis in this community in Mexico City also lack viable job opportunities, which makes it hard for them to improve their standards of living.
The majority of Triquis are artisans who sell handmade crafts. But the arrival of similar products made in China has devalued their products, says Venancio Martínez Flores, a 32-year-old Triqui man in this community. The ban on street trade in the part of the city’s Centro Histórico, or historical center, where the Triquis used to sell their goods also hurt their earning potential.
The city government banned street sales in 2007 in this zone in order to preserve the historical area, according to a government document. It created commercial zones where vendors could sell their goods instead.
But the stalls in the commercial plazas are too expensive, says Yolanda Martínez Flores, 30, a Triqui resident who is not related to Venancio Martínez Flores. A 3-meter (10-foot) stall costs 5,000 pesos ($385) per month.
Another challenge the Triquis confront in the capital is discrimination from the local population, which contributes to the erosion of their culture.
As a result, young members do not want to learn the language nor wear the traditional clothing, Yolanda Martínez Flores says.
The youth have stopped wearing the traditional clothing and speaking the native language because people make fun of them, Méndez says.
“It is already being lost,” she says, “[because] there are many people who make fun of us, who look at us strangely, who begin to criticize us, to say hurtful things when we speak the language or wear the clothing. Because of that, we no longer use it in the same way.”
The community members ask the government for permission to sell in the streets or to receive fixed posts to sell in the Centro Histórico at an affordable price. In the meantime, they try to preserve their traditions as they await their new homes.
GPJ translated this article from Spanish.