Indigenous Communities in México
Thesis Week 3: Literary Review
I will never forget what happened at one of the stoplights on the very last day of my visit to Mexico this summer.
On my way to the airport to return to California, the car stopped at a red-light and a woman approached the car asking for money. My mom simply nodded no, as this is seen everyday and is not uncommon in Mexico. We tried to ignore her, but seconds later a feeling of sympathy hit my mom and asked her to approach the car again, asking her what was wrong. As soon as she started talking I could see she was holding back tears in her eyes.
The woman recently got dismissed from her job cleaning houses earning the $3.54 Mexican minimum wage a day, her husband recently contacted a chronic disease disabling him from working, and was expecting to have her baby soon.
No money, no support, no visibility from others.
I kept this memory along the whole plane ride, until now. Experiencing this right before I was about to enter my bubble of privilege in California again made me sensitive of the reality half of the people in Mexico are living, more than it had ever made me in my entire life of living in Mexico.
Like I said in my last post, I want to help those in need, and this experience helped me reinforce that desire.
I said I was considering focusing on corruption, access to education, and poverty. I believe that in order to tackle these large political and systematic issues it is best to take a step back, and start from the bottom — the invisible root of the cause that is often overlooked. Once a change from the very root of the problem is tackled, and potentially resolved, change will consecutively follow up to the larger systematic issue with a great potential for change.
Indigenous peoples comprise 20% percent of the population of Mexico, and are the most overlooked and underrepresented group in the country. 79.3% of them live in poverty with no access to resources, education, and a plethora of other issues preventing them from improving their quality of life, and properly contributing to society.
Through more ideation thinking and taking some time to start on my research, I arrived to these potential areas of focus on helping indigenous communities in Mexico:
• Poverty
• Discrimination
• [lack of] Representation
• [lack of] Infrastructure
• Violence
• Education
As I continue on my research, and continue to iterate on my focus, I will narrow down to a specific problem, and identify an opportunity my skills as an interaction designer can offer to the indigenous communities in Mexico.
¡Manténganse al tanto!
Current Bibliography [MLA Format]
Aupetit, Sylvie Didou. Pathways to Higher Education: una oportunidad de educación superior para jóvenes indígenas en México. Anuies, 2006.
Bárcenas, Francisco López. Autonomía y derechos indígenas en México. Vol. 10. Unam, 2005.
Busquets, María Bertely, Gonzalo Andrés Saraví, and Pedro Abrantes. Adolescentes indígenas en México: derechos e identidades emergentes. CIESAS, 2013.
Carlsen, L. (1999). Autonomía indígena y usos y costumbres: la innovación de la tradición. Revista Chiapas, 7, 2–17.
Castillo, R. Aída Hernández. “Entre el etnocentrismo feminista y el esencialismo étnico. Las mujeres indígenas y sus demandas de género.” Debate feminista 24 (2001): 206–229.
Cordera, Rolando, and Carlos Tello. “La desigualdad en México.” México, Siglo XXI, 1984.
González Montes, Soledad. “Violencia contra las mujeres, derechos y ciudadanía en contextos rurales e indígenas de México.” Convergencia 16.50 (2009): 165–1185.
Hall, Gillette, and Harry Anthony Patrinos. Pueblos indígenas, pobreza y desarrollo humano en América Latina: 1994–2004. Washington DC: Banco Mundial, 2005.
Horbath, J. (2008). La discriminación laboral de los indígenas en los mercados urbanos de trabajo en México: revisión y balance de un fenómeno persistente. Pobreza, exclusión social y discriminación étnico-racial en América Latina y el Caribe, 25.
López Bárcenas, Francisco. “Los movimientos indígenas en México: rostros y caminos.” El Cotidiano 200 (2016).
Robles, José Narro, and David Moctezuma Navarro. “Analfabetismo en México: una deuda social.” Realidad, Datos, y Espacio: Revista Internacional de Estadistica y Geografia 3 (2013): 5–17.
Schmelkes, Sylvia. “Educación superior intercultural: el caso de México.” conferencia presentada en el Encuentro Internacional Intercambio de Experiencias Educativas, Guadalajara, Jalisco: udeg-uaci/anuies. 2003.
Schmelkes, Sylvia. “Educación y pueblos indígenas: problemas de medición.” Revista internacional de estadística y geografía 1 (2013): 5–13.
Torres, José Luis, et al. “La salud de la población indígena en México.” Caleidoscopio de la Salud México FUNSALUD (2003): 41–54.
Zolla, Carlos, and Emiliano Zolla Márquez. Los pueblos indígenas de México: 100 preguntas. Vol. 1. UNAM, 2004.
