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Daisy Miguel

Academic Year: 2010-2011

Empowering the Mixtecos in Linda Vista

Area of Concentration

  • Community and Economic Development

Key Terms:

Empowerment,migration,mixteco, Indigenous migrants,

Significance/Broader Impact:

The journey to this topic began as a very broad idea on community centers and then it finally focused on one program that the community center offered. The Spanish/English/Mixteco classes that are offered at the comunity center then led me to find organization that hosted the classes, the intercambio cultural mixteco program. Afterword a conversation with the director of the program, the mission statement of the Bayside Community center to empower marginilized communities, and a converasation with professor Pezzoli led me to my main research question. Are the Bayside Community Center and the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco program meeting their objective to empower the Mixteco community in Linda Vista?The intercambio cultural mixteco program feels it is important see whether or not they are meeting their objective of helping the Mixtecos in the community because it is a self evaluation of what they are doing well and where they can improve in. I care about the research question because my family and myself are from indigenous mixteco background and I think it is important to retain your cultural heritage and use it as a way to create social ties and a gain voice in the public sphere.

References

Courville, Sasha, and Nicola Piper. “Harnessing Hope through NGO Activism.” Science 592 (2010): 39-61.

Eds. Eversole, Roby, McNeish John-Andrew, And Cimadamore, Alberto D. Indigenous Peoples and Poverty:An International Perspective. London: Zed Books, 2005.

Ed.Fox, Jonathan, and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado. Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States. San Diego: Center for the US-Mexican Studies and the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, 2004.

Kresge, Lisa. Indigenous Oaxacan Communities ic California:An Overview. North, 2007. http://www.cirsinc.org/Documents/Pub1107.1.pdf.

Nagengast, Carole, and Michael Kearney. “MIXTEC ETHNICITY : Social Identity , Political Consciousness , and Political Activism *” 25, no. 2 (2010): 61-91.

Small, Mario Luis. “Neighborhood Institutions as Resource Brokers: Childcare Centers, Interorganizational Ties, and Resource Access among the Poor.” Social Problems 53, no. 2 (May 2006): 274-292. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/sp.2006.53.2.274.

Stephen, L. “The Creation and Re-creation of Ethnicity: Lessons From the Zapotec and Mixtec of Oaxaca.” Latin American Perspectives 23, no. 2 (April 1996): 17-37. http://lap.sagepub.com/cgi/doi/10.1177/0094582X9602300202.

William, Fulton, and Paul Shigley. Guide to California California. 3rd ed. Solano Press Books, 2005.

Fall SRP Proposal Abstract

The Intercambio cultural mixteco program along with the Bayside community center have been working together to create programs to help the existing mixteco community in Linda Vista. Are the Bayside Community Center and the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco program meeting their objective to empower the Mixteco community in Linda Vista? This study will focus on the challenges this program faces in empowering the Mixteco community and whether the community feels that the program has helped them be and feel empowered. The research is significant because it will help the organization address whether they are meeting their objectives or not and indicate the role that these organizations play in an indigenous community. The findings for this research will be based on personal interviews with staff and volunteers as well as comparisons to other cases studies that deal with empowering indigenous groups. Surveys and personal interviews will also be conducted on community members that participate in the activities and programs that are held by the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco. This research will add to the existing indigenous migrant literature that speaks on indigenous group formation and the unique challenges that indigenous migrants face.

Winter Senior Research Project (SRP) Abstract

This research project is specifically trying to analyze how the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco along with the Bayside Community Center tries to empower the Mixtecos in Linda Vista. The purpose of conducting this research is to help the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco improve their organization by seeing how effective their programs are being in the Mixteco community. This research project has used in depth interviews and surveys among the community members and the volunteers who make up the organization as evidence of whether the Intercambio Culutral Mixteco and the Bayside Community Center have indeed being able to empower the Mixtec community. An ethnographic approach to the Mixteco community has also guided the rest of this research. Field notes from my own participation in the organization have also provided evidence on the organization, its board, its events and the participants in the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco. The overall findings from this research project suggest that while the Mixtecos have not been empowered the organization has been very helpful in the community and that with time the Mixtecos will gain empowerment.

Study's Major Findings and Contributions

Familia Indigena Unida (FIU) is an indigenous organization that was founded in 2006, and serves the Mixteco population in Linda Vista. The organization holds different cultural workshops and events throughout the year but the main program they host is the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco. This research project specifically identified whether the Familia Indigena Unida program was helping to empower the Mixtecos in Linda Vista. The findings for this research project rely on interviews with the volunteers, the Familia Indigena board, as well as surveys with community members. The findings suggest that while the Familia Indigena Unida organization has been able to empower the Mixtecos in Linda Vista, changes to the organization and the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco need to be made to boost the number of participants and to increase the opportunities that are available to the Mixtecos.

Evidence

Most of the research for this research project will be based on field notes, interviews, and surveys. Volunteers will be emailed a survey to complete in order to get more volunteer responses. Also in order to measure who is attending the classes I will also go through the participant sign up sheets and document the ratio of men to women that are attending the classes. Notes from direct observation will be included as a narrative that will explain how the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco is actually run and some of the trends that I have seen occurred over the last three months. An in class survey will be integrated in the Intercambio Cultural Mixteco classes in order to get some responses from the participants who attend the program. Interviews with Valentina Torres who was one of the founders of the Familia Indigena Unida and with Jorge Riquelme who runs the Bayside community will provide some history of the program and why it has been sponsored by the Bayside community center.

Spatial Dimension

Familia Indigena Unida is situated in Linda Vista because of the large number of Mixtecos from the same town. Most of the community members who attend the Familia Indigena Unida programs are of Oxacan descent and hold indigenous cultural history. This study is documenting a transnational journey since most of the participants come from a rural town, migrate to the United States and hold indigenous heritage which pushes them to create their own community by promoting their ethnic background. This research will show how migration has caused for the emergence of this organization and how it plays a vital role in helping the Mixtecos adapt to some of the cultural differences of being in the Untied States.

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