Update on Chiapas and the Zapatistas’ Continuing Struggles

Bill Jungels, Tom Potts, and Christine Eber, ROCLA’s January presenters, have all spent many years in Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state, where most inhabitants are impoverished indigenous Maya.

They will discuss their in-depth knowledge of the 20-year-old Zapatista movement and the situation of the indigenous Maya of Chiapas. Our speakers are longtime members of the Latin American Solidarity Committee of the Western NY Peace Center (LASC), who have been immersed in researching and volunteering in Chiapas for many years.

As a documentary filmmaker, Bill recently co-produced “Maya Voices in a Smoking Mirror,” the culmination of his 15-year focus on Maya struggles in Chiapas.

Tom is a dentist who founded a clinic in Chenalhó, Chiapas, with the help of a Tsotsil Maya committee. Each year, he volunteers there for 2 months. Tom will share the insights he has gained through his 25 years of volunteering in Chenalhó, and in particular the situation he found there during his recent stay.

Christine Eber holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from SUNY Buffalo and is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at New Mexico State University. Since the mid 1980s she has been conducting research in Chiapas, Mexico with Tsotsil-Maya women and their families. Her publications include Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow; The Journey of a Tzotzil-Maya Woman: Pass Well Over the Earth, and a novel, When a Woman Rises, based on her research in Chiapas. Her recently completed second novel focuses on the refugee crisis in 2019 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is founding member of Weaving for Justice, a volunteer network based in Las Cruces that assists Maya weavers in cooperatives in Chiapas to stay on their ancestral lands through selling their hand-woven textiles.

March 3, 2021 7PM