Beauty,Beasts,and Burlas

Art and Social Movements

In recent decades, discourse on popular and social movements has shifted from an emphasis on the economic and material motivations of collective labor actions to an exploration of issues of citizenship and social justice in groups with a broader membership base. As elsewhere in Latin America, labor union actions were long the mainstay of Mexican popular urban movements (see Eckstein, 1989; Escobar and Alvarez, 1992; Edelman, 2001; Foweraker, 1993). Subsequent social movements have been characterized by calls for greater autonomy, transparency, social justice, and democratization in the wake of globalization and neoliberalism. Actors and activists in these so-called new social movements are united around broader issues including the environment, human rights, and sexual, ethnic, and religious identities (Alvarez, Dagnino, and Escobar, 1998; Doane, 2005; Hershberg and Rosen, 2006; Nash, 2005; Warren, 1998). Some of these movements have attracted a broad-based membership that strives to restructure society by “shift[ing] people’s vision of the possible” (Susser, 2006: 215). The Zapatista revolution in Chiapas was such a movement, using symbolism, art, and the media to garner international support for its vision of a more just society (see, among others, Edelman, 2001; Nash, 2005; Stahler-Sholk, 2010). Similarly, critiques of social injustice and the inequalities that accompany neoliberal policies designed to “drive the recovery and growth of collapsed economies” (Hershberg and Rosen, 2006: 7) were part of the 2006 struggle in Oaxaca.

Neoliberal reforms were enacted and monitored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the Mexican government defaulted on its international loans with the collapse of the oil boom that had driven the 1970s “economic miracle.” During the “lost decade” of the 1980s, implementation of neoliberal policies put an end to the import-substitution programs that had been the basis of industry and ushered in increased foreign investment, privatization of public services, and the implementation of austerity budgets (see Cockcroft, 1999; Escobar and Alvarez, 1992; Hellman, 1997; Hershberg and Rosen, 2006). Although research initially focused on ways in which economically marginalized populations were managing to survive the cuts in basic goods and services—including health care and schooling—that structural adjustment programs entailed, there was also an awareness that the middle and professional classes were hard-hit by the devaluation of the peso and cuts in services. In an anthropological discussion of the causes and effects of contemporary social movements, June Nash (2005: 2) identifies teachers as among the professionals who must “bear the ‘external shocks’ of a global system . . . in crisis.” Other scholars have identified Latin American teachers’ unions’ concerns that the lack of autonomy stemming from IMF and World Bank loans will be detrimental to rural and poorer children (Delgado-Ramos and Saxe-Fernández, 2005; Pinkney-Pastrana, 2007; Puiggros, 1996). It is in this context that the MMO developed and Local 22 gained a reputation as one of the most vocal and visible locals of Latin America’s largest labor union.

Culture, including the street art produced by social movements, as a “realm where subordinate groups can nurture moral dissent,” is a critical component of analyses of social unrest (Eckstein, 1989:35; see also Escobar, 1992; Rubin, 2004; Scott, 1990). Scholarly attention to art as a form of resistance has received increasing attention since James Jasper’s (1997) The Art of Moral Protest (see Barajas, 2000; Peteet, 1996). Visuals that appropriate or invert popular images to contest the “public transcripts” that maintain and are maintained by the state is a powerful and long-standing vehicle of expression in social movements (see Adams, 2002; Barajas, 2000; Beezley and Curcio-Nagy, 2000; Chaffee, 1993; Scott, 1990; Sluka, 1996).

Scholars have proposed a number of frameworks for deciphering the multiple meanings of this type of imagery. I view Local 22’s use of art that ridicules as a form of street art in its broadest sense. According to Lyman Chaffee (1993: 8–9), street art includes any medium (including posters, murals, smaller paintings on walls, graffiti, as well as placards, banners, and billboards) produced by the state, individuals, and collectives to “inform and persuade.” He considers it a form of “direct expressive thought, using an economy of words and ideas, and rhetorically simple discourse. Seldom are the messages ambiguous or obscure, as political cartoons tend to be. Street art is structured to simplify the message, synthesize thoughts and ideas, and project concise messages and clichés.” He contends that street art is particularly effective in Latin American nations with a “vibrant street culture” that entails socializing in public places including plazas and parks. Street art enables the expression of “silent” opposition to the government while simultaneously exerting “control” of the street. Its “implied, collective grass-roots appeal” makes it ideal for communicating with the masses for left-leaning movements that “stress a collective consciousness and claim to speak for and represent the people” (15–17). As a result, street art, which is itself a performative action (Peteet, 1996: 144), serves a number of crucial functions for social movements, including disseminating information, recognizing martyrdom, commemorating dates, building solidarity, letting voices be heard, and maintaining the “collective archives of memory” that advance the goal of social transformation (Adams, 2002: 151–153; see also Chaffee, 1993; Susser, 2006).

This discussion follows Julie Peteet’s analysis of graffiti produced during the Intifada, which draws upon the questions Edward Said (1983: 7, cited by Peteet, 1996: 150) raised regarding the interpretations of texts, including “Who writes? For whom is the writing done? In what circumstances?” Although Local 22’s images were not technically graffiti, being neither anonymous nor produced surreptitiously, their presence as hastily drawn public art evolving in response to changing circumstances is consistent with descriptions of graffiti produced elsewhere to express resistance. This point is evident in Jeffrey Sluka’s (1996: 382) analysis of the vital role that street images play in Northern Ireland, where they “serve both offensive and defensive functions, mark territory, educate, elicit support, and keep the struggle in both the public and individual mind’s eye. They are a powerful visual medium . . . for conveying political propaganda and expressing political views, values and aspirations, and criticizing those of their opponents.”

Finally, this discussion is also informed by Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins’s (1991) analysis of the multiple perspectives from which National Geographic photographs are viewed to explore the different interpretations of Local 22 imagery dependent on viewers’ relationships to the community and to teachers and their political views.

The Historical and Social Context

Until the 2000 election of Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party—PAN) presidential candidate Vicente Fox Quesada, the Mexican government, through the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party—PRI), had maintained strong control over labor unions. Though labor law includes the right to strike, it also allows employers—in this case, the federal government—to designate the negotiators. Teachers pay 1 percent of their salary to the SNTE, and the union oversees the distribution of all benefits and approves transfers and promotions and the implementation of agreements that negotiators reach with federal and state governments over compensation and other personnel matters (Rincones, 2008).

Influenced by the massacre of the peaceful demonstrators of the Mexico City student movement in Tlatelolco in 1968 (Cook, 1996; Foweraker, 1993; Martínez Vásquez, 2005), in 1981 Oaxacan teachers joined with those in six other underdeveloped states also characterized by a large number of rural schools (Chiapas, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Mexico, Michoacán, and Morelos) to form the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (National Network of Education Workers—CNTE). The early movement received support from large sectors of the population, including parents who were dissatisfied with the condition of public schools and limited access to schooling (Cook, 1996; Foweraker, 1993; Yescas Martínez and Zafra, 2005). Conventional wisdom deemed the CNTE a left-leaning, dissident wing of the SNTE, with members working for democratization from within the union. The movement’s goals were to put an end to union cronyism, patronage manifested in irregularities in requests for transfers and applications for employment in which teachers with personal connections got ahead faster than teachers with seniority, and the sexual harassment of women teachers who sought promotions or transfers (Cook, 1996; Foweraker, 1993; Rincones, 2008; Yescas Martínez and Zafra, 2005). As Local 22 became vocal and visible, the Isthmus was identified as one of the more active regions within the CNTE (Yescas Martínez and Zafra, 2005).

Tensions in Oaxaca had been growing prior to the summer of 2006 because of political unrest and economic hardship. Regarded as one of Mexico’s most economically marginalized states, Oaxaca ranks at or near the bottom of national standard of living indices for nutrition, infant and maternal mortality, access to basic services including potable water and electricity, health care facilities and medical personnel, and educational attainment (DIGEPO, 2000; INEGI, 2010). Underdeveloped infrastructure means that conditions are worse in the majority of the state’s more than 10,000 rural communities, where subsistence agriculture, wage labor, and remittances from the United States are mainstays of the economy. With an economy based in commerce and tourism, Oaxaca City has the state’s highest standard of living, although a majority of urban workers earn less than twice the daily minimum wage of 55 pesos (roughly US$5). As the hub of politics, commerce, transportation, and schooling for the state, the capital was the center of the Local 22 protests.

The 2006 Strike

In the absence of large-scale industrialization (other than localized petroleum and agribusiness industries) and sufficient professional jobs, in the mid-1970s the federal government expanded and promoted tourism as a panacea for the state’s economic woes. Over 1 million tourists visited the state annually at the turn of the twenty-first century, with the major draws being the archaeological ruins and craft-producing villages that surround the state capital and the state’s folklore. Although tourism guidebooks and web sites romanticize the capital as a picturesque, quaint, and charming urban center that still retains a sense of what they call “old Mexico,” in early 2006 Oaxaca City’s economy was still recovering from the collapse of the tourism industry following the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

In what one social critic described as “the teachers’ May show,” after marches on Workers’ Day (May 1) and Teachers’ Day (May 15), 60,000 Local 22 members went on strike with just one month remaining in the academic year. Core demands included a pay reclassification that would augment salaries to the highest pay grade in Mexico to offset the high costs of living in a tourist destination. Participating union members erected hundreds of plantones (tarp shelters roughly 5–10 feet square) that spanned 50 blocks in and around Oaxaca City’s historic zócalo, the downtown plaza described for tourists as one of Mexico’s most beautiful public spaces. Streets were closed to traffic, and the plaza was filled with flyers, posters, banners, and three-dimensional figures. On June 14 state police helicopters dropped tear gas on Local 22 members and destroyed their encampments. Claiming injuries and disappearances, striking teachers demanded the immediate resignation or removal of Governor Ulises Ruíz Ortiz, who had been in Mexico City on PRI business.

To summarize the events that followed (see Esteva, 2007; Martínez Vásquez, 2007; Rénique and Poole, 2008), within days more than 300 civic groups, including thousands of Local 22 members, had united under the umbrella of the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca—APPO). ¹ Local 22 staged a series of demonstrations (megamarchas) with tens of thousands of participants expressing dissatisfaction with the government’s investigation of human rights violations during the 2006 conflict and demanding Ruiz Ortiz’s immediate removal. Over the next five months, Local 22 members and other citizens engaged in sometimes violent confrontations with police, and the APPO established barricades throughout the city. Images of the strife were broadcast (albeit with very different narratives) internationally by right-leaning and alternative international media sources and on web sites originating in Oaxaca. The coverage included photos and video of social activists and other members of the public who supported the APPO, and the images of a continuing political conflict with outbreaks of violence led to foreign governments’ issuing travel advisories and a steady decline in the numbers of tourists visiting Oaxaca. Local 22, backed by the APPO, mounted a successful boycott of the folklore festival known as the Guelaguetza, and the cancellation of the event (announced on July 17) marked the first time in over 70 years that the event was not held. Local newspapers reported millions of dollars in lost revenue.

By late October, when the federal police entered the capital, at least 26 Oaxacans (including 9 teachers) and a U.S. citizen had been killed, and hundreds of others had been reported injured or disappeared. ² Critics charge that Local 22 teachers weakened the movement by returning to the classrooms in that month, but the union leadership today supports the APPO in the type of “informal pact” that Valenzuela (1989) deems critical to the success of labor movements. In contrast, thousands of other Local 22 members distanced themselves from the 2006 strike and involvement with the APPO, and in December 2006 a new Local 59 was announced with the Istmeña Erika Rapp Soto as president. Local 22 members branded the teachers who joined it traitors and PRI-supporters and suggested that the majority of them lacked credentials. ³

Producing and Interpreting Imagery of Resistance

Although a number of images bore both Local 22 and APPO signatures, the public art, stencils, and graffiti produced by the APPO attracted far more international attention (Denham, 2009; Nevaer and Sendyk, 2008). For many tourists and non-Oaxacans, the APPO graphics stood in marked contrast to both the “high art” produced by world-renowned painters (e.g., Rodolfo Morales, Rufino Tamayo, and Francisco Toledo) and the folk art for which the region is famous. However, the form of expression that the APPO and the teachers chose was not new to Oaxacans, who had already seen graffiti in urban and rural settings and images produced in over two and a half decades of labor actions and protests by Local 22 members (Howell, 2009).

Hundreds if not thousands of different images were produced during the months of protest. Certain images were widespread and remained visible throughout the strike; others popped up or disappeared literally overnight. This spontaneity was, according to participants, a “tradition” in the MMO and resulted in changing graphics on banners, placards, and walls, as well as songs and poems that expressed feelings about the situation. Visuals included black-and-white sketches, full-color paintings on walls, sheets, and paper, photos, and small handmade figures; a large papier-maché helicopter with a figure of the governor on it was suspended in the plaza (see Esteva, 2007), and smaller figures were carried in marches and occasionally hung in the areas where teachers from certain districts or regions were staying.

Federico, who at that time held a leadership position in Local 22, explained the production of images as part of a decades-long tradition of teachers’ using their training in art and music to ridicule (burlar) government officials and educate the public. He stressed that these satirical portrayals of political figures and icons were part and parcel of Mexican popular culture (see also Barajas, 2000; McCaughan, 2002). In the case of Local 22, this form of resistance honored local traditions while striving to transform local conditions. Speaking of the variety of images, he added, “What you see is a spontaneous form of expression that comes from within the membership. We don’t try to censor it. Any teacher can circulate his drawing.” Not all images were accompanied by text, and even when text was used it varied across flyers with the same image because, he said, “the wording changes when another teacher says [the idea] another way.” Exceptions were the images used to announce specific organized actions such as the Guelaguetza Popular, which were produced under the direction of those teachers responsible for coordinating the event. He stressed that overall, the images aimed to “educate the public about the situation in Oaxaca” because “we are teachers. This is our job, our mission.”

These images lent themselves to a range of interpretations by tourists, locals, and government officials. To get a sense of the gaze of visitors who, although inconvenienced by the protests, were those least directly impacted by the long-term consequences of the strike, I spoke informally with dozens of English-speaking tourists (aged roughly from their late teens to their late fifties) in the plaza and throughout the downtown area whom I had observed viewing the images. Excluding visiting academics, those with Spanish skills had read the text on some of the banners and posters or read local newspapers, and a number had asked teachers what was going on; others had spoken about the situation with waiters in the plaza, hotel employees, or members of the families with whom they were staying. Notably, although there were tourists with some background knowledge of Mexican politics and labor issues, none of those I spoke with realized that this was the twenty-fifth Local 22 strike or mentioned the complexity of public attitudes toward the union as a result of ongoing labor actions.

The images that most attracted their attention were those with soldiers and police. A number of college students from the United States who were in their late teens and early twenties and were taking language classes or passing through to Chiapas appeared to be caught up in the excitement of being present during what a few described as a “major antigovernment protest” or as “being part of the first revolution of the twenty-first century.” A number of tourists confirmed what teachers said about encouraging them to take photos so that they “could show the reality of the situation, the suffering” (Miguel, teacher, mid-sixties). Miguel added, “I can’t take these images to Los Angeles. But you could.”

Flor, who had been participating in Local 22 labor actions for 30 years, spoke of the tourists’ interest as evidence that the images “speak to diverse sectors of the community, who respond to them differently. Teachers, government officials, parents and other members of the public wouldn’t see these the same way. And then there are those tourists who are visiting Oaxaca. If they speak Spanish, they could understand the words. But they might not understand the meaning.”

Locals’ interpretations of the situation were more complex in that conflicting attitudes toward Local 22 labor actions invariably shaped the nuances they read into the messages conveyed (Howell, 2009). Because most Oaxaca City residents avoided the downtown area during the protests if possible, they saw the iconography only in newspapers or on television. Thus, while I would have preferred to walk with Oaxacans and discuss the images as we came upon them, it was often necessary to use photos I had taken or images that the media had portrayed. One university student recently recalled that these images were “unforgettable, because you couldn’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the television without seeing them.”

My discussions with dozens of citizens about the images produced by Local 22 typically elicited comments about the teachers themselves rather than commentaries on the iconography. Among Oaxacans who had an opinion about the images, a number who did not support the teachers (roughly half of those I spoke with) described them as “foolish” and “ridiculous” or, from a less charitable perspective, “ugly” and “disgraceful.” In one case, Carmelita—a Oaxaca City resident in her mid-sixties and a former hotel employee—criticized the low quality of schooling in the state and observed dryly as we came upon an image portraying the governor as a raccoon, “The skills of the teacher who has the talent to draw this clever image would be put to better use in the classroom.”

Friendships forged since the late 1980s with Oaxacans from across the political spectrum enabled me to talk with dozens of individuals about their perspectives on the strike and the imagery. All personal names used here are pseudonyms. Some representative images and interpretations are presented below. ⁴

Local 22’s Images: A Window on Oaxacan Politics and Culture

The iconography produced by Local 22 members fell into three overlapping categories that reflected and shaped public sentiment in favor of or in opposition to the teachers’ actions: animals (including rats, raccoons, and burros) representing perceptions of Ruíz Ortiz’s personality flaws (such as dishonesty or stupidity), often in a humorous manner; warfare (tanks, soldiers, and even Nazis), a striking reminder that violence was a very real part of Local 22’s struggle, and cultural and geographic landmarks and individuals and the traditional dress that is part of local identity.

Animals

One flyer that depicted the governor as a burro, showing his face (denoted by his trademark glasses and mustache) topped by long ears (Figure 2), appeared on walls, posts, doors, and other public spaces in Oaxaca City and some surrounding communities. This flyer criticized government spending by contrasting the 60 million pesos (approximately US$6 million) required for the pay reclassification with the millions of pesos spent on the “reconstruction” of historically and culturally significant landmarks. It also identified as “unnecessary” the use of taxes to pay for five days of newspaper, television, and radio ads criticizing union actions and money spent on Ruíz Ortiz’s personal expenses. Finally, it also accused the governor of using state resources to finance the presidential campaign of the PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo.

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Figure 2.

Ruíz Ortiz as a burro.

Teachers participating in the strike who interpreted this caricature consistently responded that the burro ears represented the governor’s unwillingness to listen as negotiations between the union and the state and federal governments broke down. Pablo, a teacher for more than a decade, explained that local use of the term burro to refer to someone stupid or incompetent can be read into this image: “You see how big his ears are? That’s the irony here. Because he doesn’t listen.” Flor, another teacher, expressed a similar sentiment, adding, “Like a burro, he’s stubborn and stupid.” Their impressions that this poster was a literal portrayal of Ruíz Ortiz as a “dumb jackass” coincided with those of nonteachers, who read it to mean that the governor was “worthless.” Oaxacans who were not teachers also interpreted the drawing of the burro literally, saying that Ruíz Ortiz was stubborn or did not listen, though they were more likely to add “to the needs of the people” than to speak of his not negotiating with teachers. However, not all citizens who offered this interpretation necessarily agreed with it. Rather, numerous citizens I spoke with who were affiliated with the local (either as members or family of members) and even a few Local 22 members criticized the teachers when they saw this sign. In one case, a successful business owner in his fifties who stressed that he supported neither the governor nor the PRI opined: “The teachers camped outside my shop for months on end. They’ve ruined my business. No one comes downtown just to hang out any more. And tourists? Some days, not a one. I’m not impressed with their ‘art.’ It reflects much more negatively on the person who created it than it does on URO.”

In casual conversations, a number of Oaxacans who thought that the construction projects the government had undertaken were unnecessary, a waste of money, or “taking too long” nonetheless termed the drawings “silly” and “juvenile.” Leticia, a grandmother in her mid-sixties, pointing to the fact that education levels in Oaxaca lagged far behind the national average (INEGI, 2010; see also Howell, 2009), ⁴ criticized what she called the “local’s manipulation of expenses to its own advantage”: “Everyone knows they are the highest-paid workers in Oaxaca, and they earn a higher salary than any other teachers in the nation. But they are here in the zócalo while my grandchildren are at home.”

Other animal images alluded to popular perceptions of corruption in Ruíz Ortiz’s government. On flyers and in 3-D designs, the governor and his aides were portrayed as rats and raccoons, both local symbols for thieves. Many teachers also constructed figures of rats (again, with Ruíz Ortiz’s eyeglasses and mustache) that they carried with them in marches or displayed in the encampments. Occasionally posters featured dinosaurs, which teachers and others explained as symbols of the aging PRI politicians in the Isthmus who had controlled state politics for decades. Additionally, a few caricatures of the governor as a tarantula or a snake appeared in protest art in and around the plaza. Citizens who commented on them described the images as self-evident. María, a normal-school student in her second year, said simply of the tarantula, “It means’s he’s toxic, poisonous.” A woman in her mid-thirties said pointedly that the image of a snake drawn with Ruíz Ortiz’s glasses and mustache conveyed to her that “he’s contemptible, abominable.”

Conflict

In contrast to the comical bent of some of the animal imagery, the content and tone of propaganda reflecting the deaths of participants in marches sponsored by the APPO and Local 22 were much darker. Invocations (both verbal and visual) of violence and warfare became a fixture in the downtown area. Tomasa (age 22) described these as a reminder: “People died. Our colleagues were injured, others were killed. You can’t easily forget that.” One poster that bore the “signatures” of both the APPO and Local 22 read “Ulises the killer” and “Don’t forgive or forget June 14” (translation mine) overlying images of security forces (Figure 3). Use of the phrase “June 14” parallels the ongoing use of “October 2” to commemorate the 1968 government shooting of peaceful protesters at the Plaza of Tlatelolco in Mexico City, which is widely considered to have permanently changed the relationship between citizens and the state (see, among others, Foweraker, 1993; Martínez Vásquez, 2007; Zolov, 2004). This usage of commemorative dates and martyrdom also coincides with broader usage in political art in other zones of conflict (Adams, 2002; Peteet, 1996).

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Figure 3.

“Ulises the Assassin.”

In late June, striking Local 22 members also posted images of the governor dressed as a soldier, complete with Nazi insignia (Figure 4). The aunt of the normal-school student I am calling María, who lived outside the city, had a more extreme reaction to this image, saying that this represented the “genocide” against impoverished Oaxacans. María’s father added a sardonic joke that I heard from others: “[Former President Vicente] Fox announced in his press conference today that there are fewer poor people in Mexico today than when he took office. One of the reporters replied, ‘That’s because they have all died of hunger.’” Another rural woman asserted that this image was clearly a parody of Ruíz Ortiz: “People will never forget that he should have been fighting for his people, not killing them.”

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Figure 4.

Ruíz Ortiz as a soldier.

Ubiquitous images of helicopters were reminders of those that had dropped tear gas on the plaza on June 14. Local 22 members and their supporters sold T-shirts with images of a police helicopter, along with videos of the destruction of the encampments and the marches, in the plaza. This imagery of the “apparatus of oppression,” as one teacher called it, is comparable to the graphics produced during the 1968 Mexico City student movement, when activists created images of police and tanks to criticize government repression and the “tools of the oppressors became the language of the protesters” (Zolov, 2004). Viewers often linked the helicopter to the state’s “authoritarianism” and “abuse of power.”

Tehuanas and Other Cultural Icons

A few poignant posters showed drawings or photos of historic landmarks in Oaxaca City —including the plaza, Llano Park, and the Fuente de la Siete Regiones—in different stages of construction, and some contrasted these with views of the landmarks prior to the construction. A number of these that contained no text allowed the images to “speak” for themselves. Although a few asked why or how these projects were undertaken, others addressed the governor directly, as in one that read, “If this is your idea of reconstruction, please leave my house alone.”

All of the strikers with whom I spoke said that they understood these images and graphics as representing the destruction of cultural patrimony. Many other citizens, including two who did not support the teachers’ actions, echoed these comments. In one case, Arturo (a lawyer in his mid-forties) opined that the “renovation” projects around the city were

destined for failure. Look at Tuxtla de Gutierrez [the state capital of Chiapas]. It’s all concrete and steel. It’s modern. But tourists prefer San Cristobal [a highland city that retains a colonial presence] because it has more life. It has an essence that comes from its history and from the Maya who live there. It’s the same in Oaxaca. Tourists visit for that ambience, that flavor.

Additionally, paintings and drawings of Mexican historical figures associated with social justice, including Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (who led the charge for Mexican independence from Spain in 1810) and Oaxacan-born President Benito Juárez (1806–1872) appeared in the downtown, and individuals dressed as Juárez walked at the front of marches while others carried banners with his image. References to both men were seen as a link between the Local 22 struggle for social justice and reformers who had brought about dramatic political transformations. Juárez’s origin as a Zapotec-speaking orphan who became the first law school graduate of the Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca (named in his honor in the 1970s) made him a role model. His presence is evident throughout Oaxaca: his visage appears in newspapers, murals, and tourism propaganda. Communities, streets, and schools are named after him, and statues of him are local landmarks. Moreover, his oft-repeated phrase “El respecto al derecho ajeno es la paz” (Peace is respect for others’ rights) appears in a number of venues and is spelled out in white masonry on the Cerro Fortin, overlooking Oaxaca City. His legacy was felt even more keenly in 2006 because of the celebrations throughout the year commemorating the bicentennial of his birth. As part of these celebrations, images of Juárez and his wife, Margarita Maza de Juárez, appeared in promotional materials for the official Guelaguetza. One social activist explained the proliferation of Juárez images with the words, “Everyone wants to use Juárez’s image to symbolize the application of civil liberties.” Local 22 also created imagery with Marx, Lenin, and other historical figures.

In the month between the destruction of the encampments and the scheduled start of the Guelaguetza, a series of Local 22 posters that included Tehuana imagery appeared around Oaxaca City. These black-and-white sketches included the image of Ruíz Ortiz shown in Figure 1. I heard four interpretations of this imagery: (1) Ruíz Ortiz’s personal ties to the Isthmus; (2) the use of the Tehuana traditional dress in tourist materials, including ads for the Guelaguetza; (3) Tehuanas’ active participation in political protests; and (4) the visibility of the Tehuana dress in paintings by some of Mexico’s great post-Revolutionary artists.

Local 22 members (like other many Oaxacans) consistently remarked on both the visibility of the Tehuana dress in Guelaguetza posters and the governor’s ties to the Isthmus. On the one hand, Ruíz Ortiz was born in the Mixteca (in western Oaxaca) but spent his youth in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The dual significance of dressing Ruíz Ortiz as a Tehuana in the caricature was evident to Ana, an active supporter of the MMO for the 20 years she has been teaching: “Maybe tourists don’t get it. They recognize the dress because they see it in tourist events like the parade [held the Saturday before the Guelaguetza]). But I think that people here understand why Local 22 put URO in the Tehuana dress. Who doesn’t know that URO grew up in the Isthmus? His whole support network is there.”

In another case, Nayeli—a Tehuana with more than 30 years in the teaching force—also interpreted the image in terms of her knowledge of the governor’s connections to the Isthmus:

It’s because people say that Ulises is from the Isthmus. True, he was born in the Mixteca, but he grew up in Juchitán [the largest city in the Isthmus]. He studied primary and lower secondary school and spent his youth there. So he’s one of those people about whom you say, “They buried his umbilical cord in the Mixteca, but his heart is in the Isthmus.”.’ And Local 59 is based in the Isthmus. Because that’s where he’s always had his support. Look at all the important people in his government—all Istmeños. Just like [former governor José] Murat—they have the Isthmus PRI machine behind them.

Local 22 activist Enrique explained what he considered the obvious choice to portray the governor as a Tehuana by saying, “This dress is the most visible symbol of Oaxaca, of Mexico even, throughout the world.” Although this may seem an exaggeration, it is true that the Tehuana party dress has long been highly visible in the international media. The mid-nineteenth-century French priest and amateur archaeologist/historian/ethnographer Charles Brasseur de Bourbourg marveled at its beauty, and in the early twentieth century La Tehuana became a national icon.

Deborah Poole (2004: 45–53) tells us that the production of postcards showing elite, nonindigenous Mexico City women in Tehuana dress with gold jewelry helped to cement Tehuanas’ unique status. Interest in Tehuanas and their dress intensified during the Mexican centennial celebrations, when the government displayed regional costumes as part of a plan for national integration that recognized the diversity of Mexico’s patrias chicas (little nations). The iconic status of the Tehuana dress is also linked to the tastes of the first director of the Ministry of Public Education, Oaxaca-born José Vasconcelos, who commissioned Diego Rivera to paint murals for the new Ministry building in Mexico City and encouraged him to look to the Isthmus’s “exotic appeal unequaled anywhere in the world” for inspiration (Cockcroft, 1999: 116). James Cockcroft writes that these murals, which reflected Rivera’s respect for Isthmus Zapotecs’ reputation for rebellion and a community-wide esprit de corps and for Tehuanas’ economic independence, political assertiveness, and femininity, “helped legitimize the new state and its nationalist, pro-Indian rhetoric.” Even today, when many indigenous residents of Oaxaca are ashamed of their indigenous origins, Istmeños of both sexes assert that the Tehuana party dress is a source of local pride in the region. It is also a staple of formal state events in which traditional dress is worn both by invited representatives of indigenous communities and by professional and elite women in attendance as representatives of public or private agencies (de Avila, 1997).

As a fixture of popular culture, the Tehuana dress is featured in plays, paintings, television shows, and cartoons reflecting the construction of Tehuana women as representing cosmopolitanism and tradition, femininity and strength, obesity and beauty, and modernity and tradition. Tehuanas wear their embroidered black velvet dresses and gold jewelry in local festivals sponsored by women, in the Guelaguetza, and at political demonstrations and rallies (Campbell, 1994; Rubin, 2004). Public and private appropriation of the dress from Oaxaca’s rich cultural fabric is all the more fascinating in light of the complex status that Isthmus Zapotec women hold relative to other Mexican indigenous populations as merchants who use their earnings to sponsor festivals (Royce, 1975). They also have a historical reputation as political agents in which the dress itself became a political symbol (Howard Campbell, 1994). According to Campbell (1993: 93), Tehuanas’ reputation as “repositories of moral righteousness and militancy” led activists of the Coalición de Obreros, Campesinos y Estudiantes del Istmo (Isthmus Coalition of Workers, Peasants, and Students—COCEI) to “seize on Zapotec women’s powerful image in photographs and posters that show them protesting against the government dressed in colorful huipiles [tunics] and long, flowing skirts.” Middle-class women in Mexico City used the Tehuana dress as a political symbol in the early 1990s while protesting ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Schaefer, 1992). This connotation of the dress was not lost on residents, who made remarks such as “You can’t have a protest in Oaxaca without at least one Tehuana” or “Even women who aren’t Tehuanas wear their dresses in marches.”

A number of Istmeños who were not involved in the strike reacted negatively to the depiction of Ruíz Ortiz in Tehuana dress in the image shown earlier. For example, Nancy—a Tehuana who currently lives in Oaxaca City—found it offensive: “When I first saw it, I thought, ‘What idiot painted this? It couldn’t be an Istmeño.’ The teachers want to insult URO. But because the dress represents our customs and the beauty of our traditions, it’s a greater insult to us. We’re not killers.”

In contrast, while a few tourists with whom I spoke recognized the Tehuana dress because Frida Kahlo had adopted it as her signature style, more often they remarked that they had seen it in tourism advertisements. No one mentioned the region of Tehuantepec, and no one wondered why the governor was wearing it in the image.

As the teachers’ strike continued, Local 22 members appropriated another image of Ruíz Ortiz dressed as a Tehuana in materials that urged would-be visitors to join them in a boycott of the upcoming Guelaguetza. Unlike the other posters, which were created spontaneously, all of these posters were created by the same artist, and the teachers in charge of coordinating this event were responsible for the text that appeared on them.

The Tehuana on this flyer was never intended to be a symbol of Local 22 and was in fact seen as a parody of the type of advertisements the state has produced, which routinely feature women wearing the the party dress and other styles of traditional clothing. One widely posted flyer of the governor as a Tehuana said, “Say no to the commercial and touristic Guelaguetza! Say yes to the popular and free Guelaguetza!” and gave a list of reasons to attend, including “dance and autochthonous ceremonies, traditional music, exchange of artistic and food products, bridging of knowledge, interactions between indigenous cultures and towns, the benefit of being part of it” (Figure 5). Teachers told me that this poster underscored the fact that, although the official event is promoted as an authentic folklore festival, it was an invented tradition “born of political power” (Lizama, 2006: 242) that appropriated indigenous customs. Even the name “Guelaguetza,” adopted in the 1970s, was taken from a Zapotec term for “mutual aid.” In line with Eric Hobsbawm’s (1983: 264–265) analysis of elite classes’ forging new traditions to maintain their dominant position in Europe, the modern Guelaguetza began in 1932 as the brainchild of Oaxaca City officials and business leaders. Jesús Lizama Quijana’s (2006) compilation of archival sources supports conventional wisdom that the festival grew out local customs, including the outings known as “Lunes del Cerro” (Monday on the Hill). For decades after Mexican independence in 1821, Oaxaca City residents (mainly of the middle and upper classes) enjoyed Monday afternoon outings on Cerro Fortin. To commemorate the quadricentennial of the founding of Oaxaca City, politicians staged a “tribute to the races” that included dances associated with indigenous villages but in fact performed by urban students. The timing coincided with celebrations for the Virgen del Carmen in mid-July and was a response to a desire to build cultural tourism capitalizing on Alfonso Caso’s excavations at the mountaintop ruin of Monte Albán just outside Oaxaca City. The festival grew in subsequent decades as it was promoted to national and international tourists, and in 1974 an 11,000-seat Guelaguetza Auditorium was constructed on Cerro Fortin. It is held on the two Mondays that follow July 16 unless that first Monday falls on July 18 (the anniversary of Benito Juárez’s death).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 5.

“No to the Commercial and Touristic Guelaguetza!”

The authenticity of the event has been of increasing concern since at least the mid-twentieth century. Originally, dances unique to Oaxaca were performed by students from Oaxacan schools who had learned them from their teachers. In the late 1940s, the Comité Pro Fiestas Tradicionales de Oaxaca pushed for inviting indigenous groups to the festival as distinguished guests (Lizama, 2006: 233). Dancers were required to wear “clothing that corresponded to their origins,” and those who did not were criticized. Throughout the 1950s, representatives of more regions and “ethnic groups” were invited to attend, and by the mid-1950s delegations from invited communities rather than Oaxaca City students performed in the festival to provide the tourists who would be drawn to it with a greater sense of its “authenticity.” Dancers from Tehuantepec represented the Isthmus, and their sones became a staple of the festival. By the 1980s, representatives of all regions of the state were being invited to dance, and a committee approved the authenticity of their clothing, hairstyles, and shoes. The selection of the dancers and the verification of authenticity by a committee in Oaxaca City remain controversial.

Text written by teachers that appeared to be geared toward Oaxacans who disapproved of the commercialization of the Guelaguetza hinted at what Renato Rosaldo (1989) has termed “imperialist nostalgia” for “what has been destroyed” as they spoke of the popular origins of the festival as a free event where citizens sat on the ground. One text read, “[The official Guelaguetza] showcases Oaxacan ethnic groups as a spectacle for national and foreign tourists” with performances that do not include “authentic dances used in local pueblos,” speaking to public debates about the authenticity of the festival and concerns about its elitism. A marketing strategy highlights the traditional clothing worn in the state’s eight geographic regions. Throughout the decades, critics have raised concerns about the authenticity of a festival that is based on essentialist notions of ethnicity or what Lizama calls a “festival of stereotypes.” Among other concerns are that populations perceived as “poor, decadent, and backward” were initially excluded from performing; only Zapotecs wearing the traditional dress participated in the festival to represent the Isthmus, while the Huaves and Zoques who were the original inhabitants of the region were excluded (Lizama, 2006: 246). The Oaxacan sociologist Isidoro Yescas Martínez (2010) recently observed that local perceptions of the Guelaguetza Popular are that this free event differs from the government-sponsored festival in that dancers are invited to participate because of their artist talent rather than, “as sometimes happens, because of friendship or ties between politicians and municipal authorities.”

Objections to the commercialization of the Guelaguetza were reflected in a Spanish-language flyer that featured an image of the governor (evidenced by his glasses and mustache) as a Tehuana that included the statement, “Only the rich and foreigners can afford tickets for the best seats.” This was a direct criticism of the sale of tickets on Ticketmaster for US$45 (nearly 10 times the daily minimum wage), which precluded attendance by the majority of Oaxacans. During a January 2008 interview, Enrique elaborated on the importance of recapturing the past: ”The Guelaguetza Popular was born in the movement that began in May [2006], from our desire to stage a more authentic event distinct from the government’s festival.” He added that the teachers wanted to underscore that this commercial venture appropriated “authentic” indigenous cultures and to show the federal government that the official Guelaguetza had “lost its essence”: “The basic idea was that we could give Oaxacans an opportunity to appreciate the Guelaguetza as it was done in the past, before it became commercialized. Moreover, it gave us a chance to show the government that there are other ways of doing things besides its way.”

The Aftermath

Since 2006, teachers active in the MMO have engaged in protests against neoliberal economic policies with new iconography that includes globes, SNTE “president for life” Elba Ester Gordillo Morales, and oil wells that reference President Lázaro Cárdenas’s expropriation of the oil industry in the late 1930s. They have joined with other federal workers’ unions in Oaxaca and SNTE locals in other states to contest planned reforms to the retirement benefits provided by the Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado. Moreover, they have claimed that the proposed requirement that public school teachers take standardized tests would disadvantage the poorer Mexicans for whom teaching has provided social mobility. Rumor had it that these tests were designed to measure content taught in private universities rather than that in the normal schools that the majority of poorer students attend (often on scholarships). The concern was that this would not only pose a threat to the constitution’s guarantee of free public education but also widen the gulf between richer and poorer citizens. More recently, Local 22 teachers have been actively engaged in developing an “alternative” schooling program that would complement the standard curriculum by introducing local elements. Already, lower secondary schools in the Isthmus have incorporated a course in local history.

On another level, the efforts to stage a noncommercial Guelaguetza were intended to refocus attention on the “traditional” elements that make Oaxacan culture so rich. The alternative, free Guelaguetza has in five years become an institution in its own right, held as an all-day event (versus four hours for the state-sponsored festival) on the first Monday of the official Guelaguetza. While a few Oaxacans saw no need for this festival, its popularity cannot be denied. The advertising of subsequent festivals has included images of male and female dancers and the slogan “Guelaguetza del pueblo para el pueblo” (Guelaguetza by the people for the people). A number of teachers have said that it is appropriate that teachers are organizing this because they were the ones who taught the dances when the festival began.

Although Ulises Ruíz Ortiz served out his term, in the 2010 gubernatorial election for the first time a non-PRI candidate won. Gabino Cué Monteagudo, who many believed had actually defeated Ruíz Ortiz in the 2004 election, defeated the PRI candidate Eviel Magaña. Representing a coalition of parties including the PAN and the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution, Cué had the backing of the Local 22 leadership and a majority of its members and supporters.

Concluding Comments

The myriad images produced in the 2006 strike were an important visual component of a labor action and call for government reform that involved the reclaiming of “authentic” Oaxacan traditions and the disruption of the economic life of a major Mexican city. While the strike was “successful” in that the requested salary reclassification was ratified, the broader objectives of government transparency and an educational system that meets the needs of Oaxaca’s children and respects local traditions remain to be accomplished.

It is impossible to assess the role of the images used in the changes that occurred in Oaxaca, but there is little question that they stirred up emotions in viewers. For a large sector of the population, the teachers’ actions and the imagery were a reminder of public frustration with a governor whose actions were contrary to the public will. At the same time, there were those who opposed the teachers’ movement, pointing to the declining quality of education in the state, and the boycott of the Guelaguetza.

Certainly, with support from a cross section of the public, Local 22 members used imagery, irony, and performance to refashion public space à la García Canclini (1992) and “make the walls talk.” In doing so, they split local public opinion between those who supported the movement and those who criticized the teachers for hurting both Oaxacan children and the state’s economy. Oaxacans who supported the movement praised the imagery for its “honesty” and for reflecting the “hypocrisy” of rhetoric that glorified indigenous identity in festivals like the Guelaguetza while the majority of rural communities were impoverished (INEGI, 2010). Still others who welcomed political and social change praised the teachers for having “the huevos and the clout” to take on the government (Marcus, 62-year-old shopkeeper) or “to show the real face of Oaxaca” (Carina, 23-year-old university student). In this respect, the graphics that inverted the government’s tourist promotion imagery can be seen as in the same vein as Eric Zolov’s (2004) reading of the 1968 Mexico City student graphics, which he says were designed to represent to national and international audiences that “beneath the psychedelic, Op Art twists [used to promote the Olympic Games] lurked a grittier reality of economic inequalities and political authoritarianism which discourse and spectacle alone could not make disappear.”

Local 22’s motives for boycotting the official Guelaguetza included many of the same objectives, with striking teachers presenting to an international audience their position that the commercial production put on for tourists both misrepresented authentic local customs and contributed to the inequality that underlies Oaxacan society. The Guelaguetza Popular began as and remains a critical everyday “art of resistance” intended to restore authenticity to a beloved but controversial event. Today the free event attracts at least as many visitors as the official performance.

The choice of Tehuana imagery from the rich tapestry of Oaxacan culture to ridicule (burlar) the governor and promote the Guelaguetza Popular is a fascinating reminder of the multiple levels of interpretation possible in art produced as a form of resistance. Images of the governor as a Tehuana used to promote the Guelaguetza Popular could be seen as representing the large numbers of Istmeño teachers force who have been active in the MMO, the government policies that helped to make Tehuanas international icons, or the militancy of Tehuana women. However, in the end, the representations were more straightforward—they spoke both to the governor’s personal roots in the Isthmus and the high visibility of the Tehuana in tourism materials that promote state-sponsored events and private businesses. These images were neither fixed nor intended to be linked to Local 22. They are in the historical record and social memory, but new imagery that reflects current conditions has replaced them.

Many locals see the summer of 2006 as having ushered in a regime change in the state and raising hopes for a government that prioritizes transparency, social justice, and public education. In this respect, labor actions that involve imagery are part of teachers’ unions’ worldwide efforts to resist the negative affects of neoliberalism on public schooling and, by extension, to ensure greater autonomy for their societies (see, for example, Compton and Weiner, 2008).