Mexico 2017
“La Gasolinaza,” January 27, 2017 A group of protestors stood under the statue of Gertrudis Bocanegra, a heroine of the Mexican War of Independence. On this eponymous Pátzcuaro plaza - often called, simply, La Plaza Chica - I asked a campesino who looked to be about...
Between “El Chapo” and “Auto Defensas”: Mujeres Aliadas
Posted on March 14, 2014 Sensational headlines in and about Mexico draw most of the attention: the capture of “El Chapo,” photos of black-hooded men from the “auto-defensa” groups challenging the drug cartels in the tierra caliente (hot country). But in-between hover...
The Power of Listening: Profiles of Mujeres Aliadas
Posted on August 24, 2013 In our first Telling Lives class at UNLA, we watched a video from a program called “Story Swap.” Sponsored by the Aspen Institute’s Writer’s Foundation, this multimedia effort links diverse groups through storytelling, creative writing, and...
A “Pijamada” in Erongarícuaro and Profiles of Mujeres Aliadas Staff
The story of a “pijamada” – a pajama party – in tiny Erongarícuaro on Lake Pátzcuaro might not rock your world. But if you believe social change happens incrementally, through education and community empowerment, you might need an alternative to what’s in The New York...
Mujeres Aliadas: A Rural Women’s Health Care Project
Mujeres Aliadas: A Rural Women’s Health Care Project Posted on July 18, 2013 “The doctors told us that our hips were too narrow for babies, that we needed Caesarean sections,” said Margarita Ascencio de Jesús Flores, community outreach worker for Mujeres Aliadas. She...
“El Taxista”
“El Taxista” Posted on June 12, 2013 They drove trucks all night from Sacramento to Las Vegas. They picked fruit in the valley beyond San Jose. They spent eight years outside San Diego or fourteen years in Atlanta in a meatpacking plant or a decade in Chicago because...
“Telling Lives” Workshop: Writing by Miriam Lamarka Miranda and Lizbeth Eunice Altamirano Torreblanco
Posted on May 23, 2013 In class this term, we explored a variety of ways to write based on interviews. Here, Miriam profiles a co-worker at the Clavijero Cultural Center in Morelia, the practicum site where she worked as part of her degree program. Lizbeth returns to...
“Telling Lives” Workshop: Profiles by Dhilery Alejandra García Hernandez and Grecia Gonzalez Miranela
Everyone in the workshop conducted a variety of interviews, some with family members. They often discovered hidden dimensions of lives they thought they knew. Sometimes those individual stories connected to larger social histories, as in Dhilery’s story of her Uncle...
“Telling Lives” Workshop: Profile by Maribel Barcena Lopez
Posted in Uncategorized Writing from the “Telling Lives” workshop by Maribel Barcena Lopez Posted on May 10, 2013 Maribel Barcena Lopez by Talía De Niz Pérez Negrón Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Maribel is an American girl with a golden Mexican heart...
“Telling Lives” Workshop: Writing by Carlos Emilio Rodríguez Barrientos and Talía De Niz Pérez Negrón
Posted on May 5, 2013 In class, we often use poetry as inspiration. One week, we read Brian Doyle’s wonderful prose poem “What Matters,” which led to students’ epiphanies about the marvels of their daily lives. (For Doyle’s original, see...