Indigenous students from Mexico study policy solutions to global risks at Stanford
Belen Sánchez Hernández is from Cherán, a town of 16,000 indigenous Purépecha located in central-western Mexico, and one of the few autonomous communities recognized by the government as a self-governing indigenous community. “We govern by usos y costumbres or ‘custom and usage’ as the fight against organized crime has pushed my community to protect the rich natural resources that we depend on,” she explains, referring to her community’s decision to drive out municipal authorities complicit in the drug trade in 2011.
Hernández is one of 17 students from Mexico — eight of them from indigenous communities — to participate in a course at Stanford this summer about global risks, including drug trafficking, violence, climate change, security and human rights.
The Western hemisphere is suffering through a crisis of enormous proportions related to violence fueled by the drug trade, says Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Director of Stanford’s Center for Latin American Studies, who facilitated the course. “We wanted to have students exposed to how the scholarship is seeking to address these challenges and offer public policy solutions that are sorely needed.” Furthermore, he explains, “these challenges are most acute in the indigenous communities who have also used their social capital to respond to these issues in creative and original ways.”
The course was the idea of professors Beatriz Magaloni and Diaz-Cayeros as well as professor Vidal Romero of Mexico’s Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM), who have frequently recruited local students to help collect surveys and conduct fieldwork in Southern Mexico. “We thought we could go a step further in teaching research skills and enabling a ‘social experiment’ by getting students from such different backgrounds to take a course together at Stanford,” says Diaz-Cayeros. Now in its third year, and with support from the U.S. Embassy to Mexico, the course brings together students from eight different indigenous communities with students from ITAM, Mexico’s most prestigious university in the social sciences.
The students learn about the most cutting-edge research and analytical methods used to study violence and security in Latin America, and the program culminates in team projects, where students explain a specific problem and propose policy solutions. This year, students focused on a range of issues, from preventing the degradation of mangroves through environmental policies to the legalization of poppy to reduce violence and narco trafficking.
Hernández was part of a team that analyzed the effectiveness of community versus state policing in her hometown of Cherán. “We found that the majority of the people feel safe with others of the same community rather than with external security,” she said, explaining that she also hopes it will serve as a model for other small communities facing violence and corruption. “Everything in the course was interesting because they were issues that I had lived,” she added. “I also liked getting to know a different way of living, such as that in the United States.”
For the indigenous students, the experience of being at Stanford enables them to aspire to pursue graduate degrees in the United States. Most of them do not speak English and had never considered the possibility of studying abroad, but the experience makes them realize it is possible.
“This experience has been extraordinary,” says Anesio Domínguez Juan, who is from the Mixe culture and recently graduated from law school. “It is very productive to be able to help our communities overcome the different problems that afflict not only them, but our country.”
Alfredo Bautista Juárez, who is studying to be a bilingual lawyer and defender of his native Tutunakú community’s rights, says that this experience has motivated him to continue fighting in defense of his people.
“It has also given me an impulse to learn and establish alliances and interact directly with other indigenous people, and thus generate an intercultural dialogue. Jkamaxkiyan akgtum tlanka tapakachipit, nititalaktuwayatit, ki naku jkalipaxkatsiniyan — a big greeting on my behalf, to continue forward, from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much.”
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.
The following is a series of reflections from students who represent various Mexican indigenous communities, who participated in the course this summer. Their comments have been translated from Spanish.
