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  • The Homelands Blog

    Stalking elusive migrants from Mexico

    In a major piece for Pacific Standard magazine, Homelands’ Alan Weisman goes deep into the wilderness of northern Mexico and southern Arizona on the trail of jaguars who venture across the border. The 300-pound cats are at the …

  • Sam Eaton

    Food for 9 Billion

    Alt Staple Lunch

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    Sam Eaton

    Food for 9 Billion

    Alt Staple Lunch

    Amaranth virtually disappeared from Mexican diets after the Spanish banned it because of its use in human sacrifice rituals. Now there are efforts to bring it back for its superior nutritional qualities and its hardiness in the face of climate change.

    amaranth
    Amaranth seedlings being grown in southern Mexico’’s Tehuacan valley. The plant’s seeds are high in protein and its leaves are high in iron, vitamin C, and calcium. Photo by Sam Eaton.

    Amaranth virtually disappeared from Mexican diets after the Spanish banned it because of its use in human sacrifice rituals. Now there are efforts to bring it back for its superior nutritional qualities and its hardiness in the face of climate change.

    Date

    July 1, 2013

    Tags

    Themes: Food, Culture, Environment
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Tags: amaranth, Mexico, maize

  • The Homelands Blog

    “Food for 9 Billion” launches today!

    We at Homelands Productions have been talking about doing a series on hunger and food security since before the “WORKING” series was finished in 2009. We’re finally there, with the first two pieces scheduled to …

  • Jonathan Miller

    Food for 9 Billion

    Food for 9 Billion: The Scientific Challenge

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    Jonathan Miller

    Food for 9 Billion

    Food for 9 Billion: The Scientific Challenge

    Nearly every prescription for feeding the world says we need to invest more money in science. What’s that money going to get us?

    CIMMYT sorting
    The sorting room at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico. The center ships experimental grain to plant breeders around the world at no cost. Photo by Jonathan Miller.

    Nearly every prescription for feeding the world says we need to invest more money in science. What’s that money going to get us?

    In this story we travel to Mexico, birthplace of the Green Revolution, where international scientists are working on a wide range of interventions, from hardier crop varieties to better ways to manage the soil. And we go into the field with a Mexican scientist whose grassroots work aims to put the knowledge of millions of farmers to work on improving yields.

    Date

    November 14, 2011

    Outlets

    Marketplace

    Tags

    Themes: Technology, Food, Economy, Environment
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Jonathan Miller
    Other Tags: agroecology, CIMMYT, Mexico, plant breeding, maize, conservation agriculture, agricultural research

  • The Homelands Blog

    Migration Doc’s Timing is Sadly Apt

    A story I reported from Honduras and Virginia for BBC’s domestic service, Radio 4, is being rebroadcast today in slightly edited form on the BBC World Service program “Assignment.” “Cutting the Lifeline” looks at the …

  • The Homelands Blog

    Remembering Mexico’s Silenced Voices

    Please check out our friend and colleague Ingrid Lobet’s remembrance of two courageous men she encountered as a reporter working in Mexico, both of whom were murdered in 2009. Her piece, “Brave and Dead,” airs …

  • The Homelands Blog

    Vicki Ponce, Recycler

    For Mexican women of a certain age, finding decent work can be nearly impossible. Vicki Ponce was in her 50s, selling tamales on the street, when she and some women friends decided to try their …

  • Tatiana Schreiber

    Worlds of Difference

    Café Rebeldía

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    Tatiana Schreiber

    Worlds of Difference

    Café Rebeldía

    The Mutvitz cooperative in Chiapas, Mexico, sells a portion of its coffee on the growing global “solidarity market.” The farmers, who are part of the Zapatista rebel movement, see the coffee business as a way not just to move forward economically, but to strengthen their Mayan heritage.

    Climbing into the mountains with members of the Mutvitz coffee cooperative, one is struck by how hard these farmers work. Most coffee growers in this part of Chiapas, Mexico, live in ejidos; that is, land held in common by the entire community, and worked by individual families. Generally the village is located in the center of the ejidal land, and the coffee fields (usually 2 to 10 acres each) are spread out around it, high in the moutains. Farmers must walk two, three, or more hours over extremely steep terrain just to get to their fields.

    The members of Mutvitz (Mutvitz is a Tzotzil word that means “mountain of birds”) do not shrink from hard work. Determined to obtain a better price for their coffee, as well as to protect their own health and that of their land, they abide by all the practices required of them by CERTIMEX, the Mexican organic trade certifying agency. These practices include composting; terracing; using “living fences” of small trees and shrubs to protect their fields from neighboring farms where chemical fertilizers and pesticides may be applied; planting a variety of tree species within their coffee fields to enhance biodiversity; and draining the water used for washing the coffee beans into wells, so as to avoid sending the run-off to mountain streams.

    Once, walking to a coffee field with a farmer in central Chiapas, we lost the trail and I followed as best I could as he hacked his way through thick tropical undergrowth using his trusty machete. When we finally arrived at the field, the farmer proudly showed me his work: he’d built individual terraces around each coffee tree to prevent the torrential rains from washing precious topsoil down the mountain. He’d gathered materials for compost – leaves, coffee pulp, animal manure and beneficial weeds – and, after months of turning the huge mounds, had applied several shovelfuls to each tree. He kept the area around each tree cleared of weeds using only his machete. He’d carefully regulated the amount of light by pruning the shade trees at regular intervals. His entire family was involved in the harvest, which requires many trips to the coffee field and back, carrying the 100 pound sacks of coffee fruit (the freshly harvested fruit is about the size and shape of a cherry) on their shoulders. The women often carried a child on their backs as well.

    For coffee farmers, the work does not stop with the harvest. Newly picked coffee must be “wet processed” in the community. First, a hand cranked machine is used to depulp the beans, removing the outer fruit from the inner seed. Next, the beans must be soaked and stirred in several changes of water over several days to begin fermentation. Then the coffee is spread out on a concrete patio to dry in the sun. The beans must be raked and turned daily, and sometimes taken up and covered if rain comes. (In the Chiapas highlands it’s not uncommon to have rain ten months out of the year.) Finally the dried green coffee beans are selected, with only the best beans gathered for sale.

    The sacks of beans are again hauled on farmers’ backs, hoisted into trucks and taken to the cooperative’s warehouse for further quality checking and weighing. Then they are reloaded onto trucks to go to the beneficio , or dry-processing facility, where the outer husk of the bean will be removed and the coffee will be roasted.

    For all the work involved, Mutvitz members and other Chiapas coffee farmers I have met are always willing to take time out to notice what’s going on around them. On the way back from the field that day, I asked the farmer to identify for me all the various bird sounds we were hearing along the way. Appreciative of my interest, he named them all, and also stopped to point out to me something I’d never seen before – a tiny hummingbird nest hanging delicately from an inner branch of a tree. Chiapas is home to 39 of the 55 species of hummingbirds native to Mexico. The coffee farmers, working hard to preserve their livelihood and culture, are also protecting critical habitat for birds.

    I once asked Mutvitz farmers how much they thought their work was really worth. What would be a really “fair” price? They could only laugh. Ten dollars a pound? A hundred dollars a pound? In the end it was impossible to put a value on their coffee, and all that it means, grown below a craggy promontory called Mutvitz, mountain of birds.

    – Tatiana Schreiber

    Date

    May 15, 2005

    Outlets

    Public Radio Collaboration

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Culture
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio, Text
    Other Tags: fair trade, coffee, Mexico, markets, Zapatistas, Chiapas

  • Marianne McCune

    Worlds of Difference

    The Zapotec Bible

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    Marianne McCune

    Worlds of Difference

    The Zapotec Bible

    In the indigenous Mexican village of Yaganiza, Rebecca Long is slowly translating the New Testament into the local language. But her presence, like the group she works with, has not been without controversy. A complex story about language, religion, tradition, and trust.

    The Catholic church is more than the physical center of the pueblo of Yaganiza, high in the Sierra Norte of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Catholicism is intricately woven into the identity of this indigenous Zapotec village. Local traditions from long before Spanish conquerors arrived have been incorporated into Catholic ritual. Cemented into the church wall are stones from a pre-Hispanic building with Zapotec markings on them. For centuries, the town has required all residents to help take care of the church and take part in its ceremonies. In Yaganiza and pueblos like it, residents will tell you that the Church is the glue that holds the community together.

    So ten years ago, when one of Yaganiza’s 900 inhabitants refused to help pay for an upcoming fiesta, town officials balked. The man argued that because he was an evangelical Christian, he shouldn’t have to contribute to a celebration that includes heavy drinking, raucous dancing and Catholic ceremonies – all anathema to his religion. Soon other evangelicals joined his cause, and 40 families were saying they, too, would not pay for fiestas or do town service in the Catholic church. Town Hall responded by throwing the men in jail and depriving their families of basic services: clean water, access to collective land and use of the village mill.

    “According to the Mexican constitution, we can’t obligate anyone to believe in what we believe, but that wasn’t the situation,” says local indigenous rights activist Abel Montes. “We weren’t defending the Catholic religion. We were fighting for the harmony of the internal life of the community.”

    Rebecca Long, of the Dallas-based group SIL International (formerly the Summer Institute of Linguistics), waited until after the controversy died down to come to Yaganiza and begin translating the New Testament into the local variant of Zapoteco. SIL International aims to increase native language literacy worldwide, but evangelical Christianity is what motivates its translators: the group has completed 500 translations of the New Testament and 1,000 more are in progress. Long wanted to make the words of the Bible accessible to those in Yaganiza who don’t speak Spanish – but she says she did not want to fuel the conflict between evangelicals and Catholics. So only after Yaganiza’s evangelicals reluctantly signed a promise to comply with the pueblo’s traditional obligations did Long make her way to the community.

    Her presence has been controversial since the moment she arrived.

    “It does threaten the status quo,” Long admits. “We don’t have anything like this in our own culture, where everybody from this town has lived here for generation after generation after generation. It’s their land, it’s their town, it’s their language.”

    Seventy-year-old Elena Caballero is thrilled that Rebecca Long has come to town. Caballero is a member of Yaganiza’s Pentecostal church. She says Long’s translations of biblical texts have been invaluable to her: not only does she now understand what God is telling her, she says, but she knows what she wants to say to God. But some of Caballero’s Catholic neighbors feel differently. The local Catholic priest, who only speaks Spanish, says he wouldn’t mind his parishioners having copies of the Bible in their own language, even though Catholic doctrine discourages individuals from interpreting the Bible on their own. What he objects to, he says, is the lessons evangelicals take from the Bible.

    “Here we understand the word of God, but as a way of creating community,” he says, “to strengthen customs that they are letting disappear.”

    But the Zapoteco language has been under pressure since long before the Evangelicals arrived. Decades ago, teachers punished students who spoke the language in the classroom. In Yaganiza and in indigenous pueblos across the country, public schools aimed to drum Spanish into the minds of indigenous children in an effort to unify the country. There are pueblos not far from Yaganiza in which hardly anyone can remember the local dialect.

    Education policies have changed in recent years; now officials encourage bilingual instruction. But materials are in short supply. Rebecca Long has collected and published local folk tales, riddles and songs. Yet the schools have not taken advantage of her work. Local school director Salvador Galindo says this makes him sad. He and other officials are struggling to find the resources to write and publish children’s texts in local dialects. But most are suspicious of Rebecca Long and SIL International. They fear that the group is trying to convert residents to evangelical Christianity. And they are wary of outsiders threatening the town’s traditions.

    All kinds of people with all kinds of ideas come to Oaxaca’s mountain pueblos. One Pentecostal preacher traveled from miles away to lecture on the evils of short hair; some locals return from stints in the United States determined to transform the way the villages are run. They all force the communities to weigh which traditions are worth keeping and which they can let go. While Rebecca Long is helping to save one of Yaganiza’s most cherished traditions, her very presence endangers others. And that means more difficult choices for Yaganiza.

    – Marianne McCune

    Date

    October 23, 2004

    Outlets

    Weekend Edition

    Tags

    Themes: Culture
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio, Text
    Other Tags: Mexico, missionaries, Yaganiza, Bible, Zapotec, SIL International

  • Marianne McCune

    Worlds of Difference

    Mezcal Dreams

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    Marianne McCune

    Worlds of Difference

    Mezcal Dreams

    Mexican migrants to the U.S. send back billions of dollars to their families every year, but their absence comes at a price. Marianne McCune reports on one tiny pueblo that is brewing up plans to keep its people from leaving.

    When Americans debate how to regulate the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans crossing the border to work in the U.S. each year, they sometimes forget the toll migration takes back home. That toll is especially high in rural areas, where families are divided, villages are deserted and cherished traditions are gradually slipping away.

    But in the tiny pueblo of Zoochila, in Mexico’s southeastern sierra, a group of would-be entrepreneurs is brewing up a reason to keep their friends and neighbors from leaving.

    “The idea is to create a source of work so that people don’t have to go,” explains Francisco Siguenza, the pueblo’s volunteer treasurer. Instead of exporting workers to America, Siguenza and about 20 other Zoochilan men hope to send thousands of bottles of top-quality, hand-made mezcal – a fiery local liquor made from the spiky maguey plant.

    It may sound like a simple plan, but it is full of hubris. The forces driving the Mexican migration have been building for decades. Since World War II, tens of millions of Mexicans have been drawn to the U.S. by the promise of jobs and economic opportunity. Communities throughout Mexico have come to depend on the dollars the migrants send back. About half of Zoochila’s 300 families are now based in America, most of them in Los Angeles.

    Erasmo Luna Mateos lived in L.A. for about 20 years before returning to Zoochila. But he’s one of the few who have come home for good. “Once people get used to making money over there, it’s hard for them to come back,” he admits.

    Visit Zoochila during its annual fiesta and you’d think the town was booming. There are bull-wrangling competitions, basketball matches and native dance performances. Local bands parade up and down the dusty streets. Returnees from LA videotape everything and dance the local jarabe into the wee hours. Their cash and the local mezcal make for a festive blend.

    But when the celebration is over the picture looks very different. Sturdy new houses stand empty in their lots. The handsome town hall has been restored, but the all-volunteer government is stretched perilously thin. Residents fear that Zoochila, like other nearby mountain villages, could become a ghost town.

    Members of Zoochila’s mezcal collective know it won’t be easy to compete with more established producers for a piece of the export market. One of the few companies that sells traditional, single-pueblo mezcal in the United States has only just begun to have some success. “I’ve devoted nine years to building a market,” says Ron Coooper, owner of the export company Del Maguey. “It’s overwhelming.”

    Zoochilans are well aware of how time-consuming and expensive it is to produce a distinctive liquor of consistently high quality. And they know that they’ll need to do more than just break even if they want to lure their townsfolk back from America. But they’ve done the math and they believe they can succeed.

    Erasmo Luna’s daughter, Mercedes, has also done the math. She says she probably couldn’t have gone to high school if her father hadn’t been sending money home. But she insists that 20 years without him wasn’t worth it. “Who cares if we didn’t have money?” she says. “We wanted our Papa to take care of us, to hug us.”

    – Marianne McCune

    Date

    April 21, 2004

    Outlets

    All Things Considered

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Culture
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio, Text
    Other Tags: Mexico, migration, mezcal, Zoochila

  • Sandy Tolan

    Border Stories

    Agua en Juárez (Spanish)

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    Sandy Tolan

    Border Stories

    Agua en Juárez (Spanish)

    The explosive growth in Ciudad Juárez has put unprecedented pressure on the region’s water resources. Residents and officials search for solutions as the aquifer drains. In Spanish.

    The explosive growth in Ciudad Juárez has put unprecedented pressure on the region’s water resources. Residents and officials search for solutions as the aquifer drains.

    This Spanish-language version of “High and Dry in Juárez” was reported and written by Sandy Tolan and narrated by Marco Vinicio Gonzalez.

    Date

    December 2003

    Other Contributor(s)

    Marco Vinicio Gonzalez

    Outlets

    Radio Bilingüe

    Tags

    Themes: Environment
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Sandy Tolan
    Other Tags: Mexico, water, scarcity, agua, Ciudad Juarez

  • Victoria Mauleón

    Border Stories

    Colonia Panorama, Tejas (Spanish)

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    Victoria Mauleón

    Border Stories

    Colonia Panorama, Tejas (Spanish)

    A Mexican immigrant organizes the residents of his slum on the Texas side of the Mexican border. In Spanish.

    The misery of Mexican slum colonias has long been visible just across from many U.S. border towns. Over the past decade, however, despite the economic promise of NAFTA, the phenomenon has spread to the U.S. side.

    Today, a half-million Texans live in more than 1,500 colonias that lack running water and sewage treatment. We follow Mexican immigrant Oscar Solís of Panorama, Texas, as he organizes his community to fight for changes.

    This Spanish-language version of the piece “Panorama, Texas” was reported and written by Victoria Mauleon and narrated by Marco Vinicio Gonzalez.

    Date

    October 2003

    Other Contributor(s)

    Marco Vinicio Gonzalez

    Outlets

    Radio Bilingüe

    Tags

    Themes: Lives, Economy, Culture
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Tags: Mexico, colonia, slum, texas

  • Sam Quiñones

    World Views

    Tijuana Opera

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    Sam Quiñones

    World Views

    Tijuana Opera

    Tijuana has been known for bullfights and beer, but the Mexican border city also has a growing opera community. Recitals and lectures are frequent, Tijuana natives are studying and performing in opera’s European citadels, and the city now has its first opera.

    Tijuana has been known for bullfights and beer, but the Mexican border city also has a growing opera community. Recitals and lectures are frequent, Tijuana natives are studying and performing in opera’s European citadels, and the city now has its first opera.

    Date

    August 2003

    Outlets

    Weekend Edition

    Tags

    Themes: Culture
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Tags: Mexico, tijuana, opera

  • Cecilia Vaisman

    World Views

    The Cross of Juárez

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    Cecilia Vaisman

    World Views

    The Cross of Juárez

    A wave of assassinations of women factory workers in Ciudad Juárez shows no sign of abating, and trust between the twin cities of El Paso and Juárez has given way to a climate of fear.

    A wave of assassinations of women factory workers in Ciudad Juárez shows no sign of abating. As accusations fly back and forth across the border, trust between the twin cities of El Paso and Juárez has given way to a climate of fear.

    A Spanish version of this story is also available.

    Date

    February 2003

    Other Contributor(s)

    Mario Mercuri, Vanesa Robles

    Outlets

    Latino USA

    Tags

    Themes: Lives, Culture, Peace & Conflict
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Cecilia Vaisman
    Other Tags: Mexico, murder, women, deaths, assassination, Ciudad Juarez

  • Alan Weisman

    Border Stories

    Casas de Paja Sonorense (Spanish)

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    Alan Weisman

    Border Stories

    Casas de Paja Sonorense (Spanish)

    A story of the birth of a sustainable housing movement in Sonora, in northern Mexico. In Spanish.

    Kids and AdobesA story of the birth of a sustainable housing movement in Sonora, in northern Mexico.

    This Spanish-language version of “Straw Bale Homes in Mexico” was reported and produced by Alan Weisman and narrated by Marco Vinicio Gonzalez.

    Date

    June 2001

    Other Contributor(s)

    Marco Vinicio Gonzalez

    Outlets

    Radio Bilingüe

    Tags

    Themes: Environment
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Alan Weisman
    Other Tags: Mexico, Sonora, adobe, casa, paja

  • Katie Davis

    Vanishing Homelands

    Escaping the Tourist Trap

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    Katie Davis

    Vanishing Homelands

    Escaping the Tourist Trap

    In the Mexican state of Chiapas, Chamula Indian artisans are trying to create a tourist economy on their own terms.

    More than almost any country in the Americas, Mexico has turned to tourism to help its economy. Entertaining tourists is touted as a clean industry that creates jobs, attracts dollars, and promotes friendly international relations.

    But critics say that tourism reinforces an image of Mexicans as servile to rich Americans, and that villages and seacoasts are being defiled by developers.

    Katie Davis visits the Chamula region, where some say that colorful traditions will only survive if a way can be found to market them.

    Narration is by Edward James Olmos, who hosted a series of 13 half-hour Vanishing Homelands specials.

    Date

    1992

    Outlets

    NPR, All Things Considered

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Culture
    Regions: North America
    Media: Audio
    Other Tags: Chamula, Mexico, tourism, Mayan, ecotourism