Researches the antiglobalization movement, and participates.
Going into Cancun, it was kind of an unknown, it was my first international one, leaving the United States for it, and I was kind of looking forward to seeing what it might look like, what the anti-globalization movement might look like outside of the United States. As you know, it is much more difficult for people to get into the United States, particularly after September 11th, and before that. It is very difficult for people to both afford to get to the United States, and to get visas to come into the United States. So a lot of certain movements can’t come here, it is prohibited; particularly indigenous movements. So, going to Cancun, I was particularly interested in seeing what those movements might look like, and particularly bumping up against the indigenous movements, and seeing, because they could be there, because of the location. So I was expecting that, and I wanted to see what that might look like, and I waned to see how many Europeans might be coming, and, then, I was also interested in seeing what the interactions between those groups, right, you are seeing a first-world movement of anarchists that come from a whole different material reality, and then you have this indigenous movement, and coming together to negotiate space and activities, and all that kind of stuff.
I thought that the police were a big unknown. I was very worried because I knew the history of police in Mexico was kind of sketchy. You know in 1968 they killed like 160 students, maybe more than that, there was a big protest in ****Plaza los tres culturas****, in the plaza, where students were protesting, and the army opened fire, and just killed, massacred these students. So you have all of this in the past, and then Cancun is near Chiapas, so, all of a sudden, that puts the Zapatista movement near there, and that, again, is a very serious revolutionary movement that has a whole different tone to it than protest up here. And then you have Mexico, which has been doing a lot of repression in that area. So, knowing all that, I was a little nervous as to what it might look like, and as to what the police might do. However, before I left, I had read and been told that there were very high orders, there were orders from very high up that the police needed to be hands off the protestors. So there was talk about that, and my father went to school in Mexico and he has got some friends in Mexico City, that are very political type of people, so when he knew I was going, he called them and asked what was going on. And, the word was, ‘Oh, don’t worry, the police aren’t going to do anything, because Vicente Fox himself has said ‘Do not touch these protestors,’ because we need to present a view of Mexico as a democracy, and we cannot be looking like we are beating people up, or else, it sends them the wrong message.’ So that set the tone for what we experienced in Cancun.
I am fluent [in Spanish], so that meant that I could get into spaces that other people could not. I was able to go to the indigenous Foro Campesino, and understand absolutely everything that was going on, and come in and out of meetings that other people could not do, or could do but could not understand. It allowed me a little bit more access to things. One of the things that I thought was the most amazing thing… I have been reading a lot about eco-feminism recently, in the past few years, and I was first kind of skeptical about it, and I started reading it and I started to be more and more influenced by it, particularly Vandava Shiva’s work on biopiracy, and all of that stuff, yeah, you know all of that stuff. And I understood some of those things about the earth and the seed, and natural cycles and all of this other stuff that I kind of understood intellectually, you know, the notion of certain people being connected and disconnected from the earth and from certain relationships, and understanding that we, here, because of the way we live, and because of the way our food is produced, and the way that this society so structured, we are disconnected with certain processes, particularly the big process of food-making. So, I understood that intellectually, and I knew that I was somewhat disconnected, because of the way that we produce food here, and all of that stuff. Well, going to Mexico, and watching, going to the Foro Campesino, and listening to some of the stuff they were talking about, and the way that they were talking about corn, and the images that they use of corn, the way that, I saw this huge thing, I don’t know if you saw it, that said, ‘Corn, we are your daughters and your sons.’ All of a sudden, it sparked my imagination, and I began to realize how deeply real this ecofeminist stuff was. Again, I understood it very intellectually, but going into these places and listening to these people talk ,the way that they talked about the earth, and the way that they talked about food, made me realize that there is a whole different emotional level of understanding and connection to the earth, that blew me away. Again, I knew it intellectually, and then running up against it emotionally just changed me, I mean, just made me completely have to re-evaluate certain things.
I am Latino, like Heather identifies herself. However, I have come to identify myself as Latino I think very differently than Heather has. For me, it’s… I came to this country, didn’t speak a word of English, I had to learn English, I was treated like shit all through high school, always feeling completely different., always understanding that I was Latino through the core, never questioned, it was just part of who I was growing up as a teenager. I had a thick accent, and it was California. And then, coming out of Nicaragua, and growing up, firs of all, the first ten years, speaking Spanish in that setting, and then moving here, it is different than being born here all your life. And then, at the age of 22-23, going back to Nicaragua, feeling very Latino, having this whole identity, and then realizing that I didn’t fit there, that I was not Nicaraguan anymore, that when I went to Nicaragua, they thought that I was American. So I am sitting there, thinking that I am Nicaraguan, going to Nicaragua, and they look at me and go, ‘You’re American.’ So, all of a sudden, finding myself in the middle, in the middle of this what is called the **lyman***, or in between cultures. And so I began to read about that, there are some books about those kinds of experiences. I began to understand that IO didn’t quite fit, and that my sense of alienation came to me because I didn’t quite fit, I came to California in a location where Mexican-American culture was predominant, but I wasn’t Mexican-American; I was Nicaraguan. So I have always felt separate from that. Well, I wasn’t American, definitely, if anything else, I was more of a Mexican than I was an American. So I didn’t fit there, but, when I went to Nicaragua, and all of a sudden I ‘m not Nicaraguan, so all of a sudden, it was like I didn’t fit. So what I did intellectually, instead of... I realized that there is power in that. And that is that I can flux in between things, never quite fully fitting in in any location, but being able to perhaps pass in certain locations. So that meant that my experience in Mexico… I think that what happened to Heather was her going to Mexico, in that particular location, for the first time, and running up against that. To realize that she has got this Latino personality, persona, or identity, and then running in there and realizing, ‘You know what? In reality, you are a little bit more like an American, or Latinos in America than you are like to the people in Latin America, because it is just a whole different situation.’ So, for me, those identity issues never came up, because I had dealt with them years before, so that I understood exactly who I was. I am Luis, I am in the middle. I can speak to them, like, when I was in Mexico, whenever I spoke Spanish, everybody said to me, ‘Where did you learn to speak so well?’ ‘Well, I was born in Nicaragua,’ ‘Oh, ok,’ because they thought I was completely American. But then, when I got on the plane, I don’t know if I told you this I am sitting on the plane, getting ready to just start reading or something, and this American guy next to me starts talking to me in Spanish. And I am thinking, ‘Ok, so this makes no sense; in Mexico, they think I am American, and as soon as I get on the plane, you think I am Mexican!’ Again it was that thing where you don’t fit here or there. I am in between these locations, and depending on my location, my racial background is going to come up differently. So I have come to realize that this racial background has got nothing to do with me, it has got to do with the people imposing this racial background on me. So what I have done is liberated myself from it.
[talks about names and ethnicity]
In terms of the pagans, they are an interesting bunch. I kind of hung around with them, and I kind of didn’t. I kind of was doing a little jumping around. So, be cause I spoke Spanish, I could actually sit in certain meetings and certain things that Sue couldn’t. So, a lot of the time I would go, ‘See you later! I want to see these indigenous women,’ or, ‘A room full of indigenous women talking about their indigenous movement; I’ve gotta watch this! I’ll never see this again!’ So I was able to leave. So, I hung around them some. A lot, you know, a lot. I kind of warmed up to the pagans. At first, I was a little, like, not sure, I knew that they were pretty cool, I kind of liked them, I knew what they did during protests, but I was a little skeptical. I’m not sure why. What I found in the pagans, first of all, is that it is a lot of women. It is mostly women. Not only is it women, and it is mostly white women, it is mostly older white women. So it is, like, 40, 50 year old, sometimes 60 year old women who are a part of this group. And, not only are they white women, and older, but they are really experienced women, that have an enormous amount of street experience and knowledge of how to act in protest. And, the best part of it of all, as well, is that they are freaking radical. They are at the forefront. Wherever the Black Bloc is, they are right next to that. Wherever the civil disobedience is, the radical thing is, they are going to be right at the very front. So it is always very interesting to watch. And I think that, over the years, now, I have a few years now in movement knowledge, over the years, I think that the pagan cluster has gotten some respect. Within the movement, people know. I remember, at another protest, where I was doing some communications, and I am sitting there, kind of watching the pagans do their thing where they are kind of lathering themselves up with dirt and all this other stuff, and the legal team, there are these two young people in the legal team, and they turn over and go, ‘Oh, I hope they do something interesting, because this chanting and singing at a park is just not particularly interesting, and all they are doing is just tying themselves up with string, and this and the other, and the guy next to her goes, ‘Hey, hold on, because these people are pretty radical. I have seen them do some pretty radical things, so just hold on.’ And I am thinking, ‘What a strange interaction.’ It was just a young [kid] going, ‘Oh, these older people don’t really know… What are they going to do…’ And the other guy going, ‘Hold your judgments! They are not done yet!’ And, sure enough, they lathered themselves up, they did this whole big web, with string, this was in DC, actually, so it was not in Cancun, and they began to chant and sing, and they began to move this big old web made of yarn, which of course represents the women knitting, it is woman thing. So they make this whole web. And they are in the park, and, all of a sudden, without the police paying attention, because they have been chanting, and doing everything, they kind of move into the middle of the street and tie the yarn to every single pole, and block the entire intersection with this huge giant web. And that is when the other guy goes, ‘See, I told you…these people!’ And then they took the street. And they walked around jumping in the street, playing bongos and dancing with mud and leaves in their hair, and grabbing string and going from one side of the street to another, and tying it and walking off. And here are these cars that would come up to the string, and wouldn’t move. And it was so funny to me because it was this string blocking traffic, and the cops would have to come over and snap the string with their hands, which is very easy to do. But these cars could have [driven] through that very easily, but they didn’t because they didn’t know what it was. So, again, you see the interaction both of age, you see this age interaction that is present in the pagan cluster, and all these women that are pretty radical, sometimes. So they have gotten a lot of respect, and I think, by the time in Cancun, they worked really closely with some of the young Mexican punks, and they had established a really strong connection. By the time we all showed up, they had been there for a couple of weeks, so they had established really strong connections with the leaders from other groups. They were working very intricately connected to other groups, and a lot of that was happening behind the scenes, very informally, so that we wouldn’t know. Many of us wouldn’t know. So things would get decided, and you would just show up, and it had been decided, which might be a critique, but this was just the way it worked.
I saw quite a few of [the meetings]. I’m not sure that I am critical of the decision-making process. I think it is an organic way of doing things. I think the only problem with it, the biggest problem with it is that there are some problems in accountability. In the long run, there are some problems with accountability. But, I think that, given the situation, people who have established connections are getting together and having discussions; I’m just not sure that’s a bad thing, I mean, just from my perspective.
I find that particular moment was really interesting, seeing what happened at that moment, and how it was maneuvered. It seemed like the Koreans pretty much shaped that situation. The whole week, starting with the death of Lee, and from then on, it was like, ‘Ok, we will follow you.’ Because I think there was this natural, like, ‘Ok, you are the leaders.’ In a very informal way. But I think that they did not want to go through that. They really, really didn’t want to go through. What did happen, though, I remember this very clearly was that they said, ‘What we are going to do is, people who don’t want to go through,’ and I remember this, because I was standing next to Starhawk as she was announcing this, ‘People that don’t want to go through this wall, are going to move aside, and meet over there, and those that want to, have at it.’ And the crowd started moving, and the energy just dispersed. And again, at that point, to me, it is like, ‘Well, you are going to have to get organized. You want to go through that fence? You are going to have to figure out a way to organize it.’
That was not a coincidence, either [to have people sitting]. No, no, that was no coincidence, That was maneuvering by the people up there. But, to me, it is like, well, you need to get organized, man, you wan tot do a different maneuvering? You got out-maneuvered. Just in the same way that those particular people got out-maneuvered the first day, when that really serious fight thing took place. That thing, I don’t think that the, [neither] the campesinos, nor the Koreans wanted that very serious fight that took place with the rock throwing, I mean, that was pretty…So that day was like, yeah, that group out-maneuvered the rest of the group, who did not want to do that. I think what happened was, it that the rest of the people that didn’t want to do that, figured out ways to stop that, just kind of went, ‘Ok, we are going to have some meetings, and talk about some of this, and we are going to do some things that are maybe different.’ So, to me, I just don’t see it as a problem. It is kind of like, ‘You want to do something else? You are going to have to coordinate it, you know, so. I don’t know. Maybe that’s a little too shallow.
I think that is what happened, when the Koreans said, ‘Everybody sit down.’ Everybody sat down! Exactly! Particularly after they just put these ropes and tore down that fence, because of how they organized. Again, that was not spontaneous. That was carefully thought through.
They just bought [all the supplies there]. Lisa Fithian, Starhawk’s friend, Lisa, she was in the New York Times, recently. She is the other big name, another big name, we are having superstars now, as you know. I spent time running with her, and, boy did it feel like I was in the center of the whole thing. I mean, she was hooked in with telephones with five or six blocks of different people that were doing all sorts of different things. Everything that happened was very carefully orchestrated. I mean, not everything, a lot of the things that happened were very carefully orchestrated. So I spent one day trying to put up tarps, and she gave me money, and we went to buy the tarps, and then we put them up, and there was all of this stuff that, again, it was organization. It is work. Things don’t just happen, you have to…