Student Reflections: Margarita Tirado Bautista
The following is a Q&A with Margarita Tirado Bautista, who participated in the course ‘Global Risks: Biodiversity, Security and Governance in Latin America’ at Stanford’s Center for Latin American Studies during the summer of 2017. Her comments have been translated from Spanish.
From: Limonco, Cuetzalan, Pubela, México
School: Universidad Intercultural del Estado de Puebla (“Intercultural University of Puebla”)
Ethnicity: Náhuatl
In my community, there are very few people who study and the majority of the people only finish middle school or even elementary school. I feel proud of myself because I will be the second person in my community to have finished her bachelor’s degree. I am a student of the Intercultural University of Puebla (UIEP), and am going into the seventh semester of my Bachelors in Alternative Tourism. I am a proud member of my indigenous community and Náhuatl speaker.
I am currently completing my community service in the community, encouraging tourism to promote economic development. Within the model of the UIEP, we manage the community engagement where we as students implement our knowledge acquired during the semester and due to this I have worked with indigenous communities related to my field of study. In my free time I like to dance as I am a member of ballet folklórico.
How/why did you became involved in the Global Risk course?
My municipality is called pueblo mágico or “magic town,” which promotes a lot alternative tourism. However, insecurity is growing and affecting my community’s tourism. For this reason, I am became interested in the “Global Risks” course; taken that if there is no tourism, there is no economic growth and the artisans and service providers will not have work. This will affect families’ economic state and I am concerned about the people in my community and for this reason I was interested in obtaining the scholarship to look for strategies to implement in my own community.
What was your final presentation about?
Final presentation topic: “Mangroves in Danger of Extinction: Issues with Biodiversity in the State of Quintana Roo.”
There is a lot of tourism in Quintana Roo due to its diverse tourist attractions; among one of its biggest attractions are the manglares (“mangroves”). The issue is that they are in risk of extinction and if they go extinct, this will dramatically affect the economic growth and because of this we are focusing on what to do to limit affecting the mangroves. Within the solution of the issue, we are going to implement a policy requiring hotel owners who want to construct a hotel to join an association to work on creating a reserve, which would help the biodiversity taken that the reserves are also attractions for tourists and it would also increase economic spillover.
What were some of your favorite parts of this experience?
There remains to say that among my favorite experiences of this course was enjoying sharing new ideas with different people, and above all, the fact that everyone studies a major different than mine, and that inspires me to move forward and learn new things. Everyone who is part of the Embassy is from an indigenous community and this has helped me get to know different cultures.
How has this course deepened your understanding of these issues?
Taking this course has helped me see the different issues that are present in other countries, since there are also other countries that suffer from poverty, insecurity, and governance, and I have been able to relate them to my own country.
How has this experience impacted you personally, or academically?
Taking this course at Stanford will help me enrich my understandings to be able to implement them in my community, as allows me to see things from a different perspective.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I will tell my classmates back home about my experience in this course so that they, too, apply for the scholarship next year for the wellbeing of their communities.
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The ‘Global Risks’ course is a joint effort between Stanford’s Center for Latin American Studies, Mexico’s Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM), Mexico’s National Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions (ANUIES), and the U.S. Embassy to Mexico.
