Members of the Mixteco community get health care information and receive other assistance during a community meeting presented in 2012 by the Mixteco / Indigena Community Organizing Project. Amigos805 file photo ©2014
‘Night in Oaxaca’ fundraiser on Aug. 9, Backpack Drive ending Aug. 10 help fill needs in the community
By Frank X. Moraga / Amigos805
Just suppose you were dropped into a country where you couldn’t speak the language, couldn’t read the local newspaper, read signs at local supermarket or even read the public bus transportation schedule.
And just suppose that those offering you and your family members some help speak yet another language, one that you will have to learn before transition to the language of your new home.
That is the challenge facing many in the indigenous Mixteco community who now live in the 805 region. Many previously came from the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Guerrero.
As a result of soil erosion, along with economic hardships, much of which was brought on by the unintended consequences of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which made subsistence farming virtually untenable in Mexico, many were forced to leave their homeland of centuries and venture to El Norte to seek a better economic life.
Many became a vital part of the local agricultural workforce starting in the 1970s.
As with many immigrant families in the 805 region, there is often a family member already living in the region who serves as a point of contact for newer generations of immigrants, much in the way that Ventura County is the home to a large population of multi-generational immigrants from Jalisco, Michoacan and Zacatecas.
There are an estimated 20,000 Mixteco immigrants living in Ventura County alone, many who only speak Mixtec, the native indigenous language.
After arriving in the region, many first begin learning the language they are most familiar with in Mexico — Spanish, with others soon progressing to English. However, that transition in language and culture can be a challenge.
For many of those immigrants in Ventura County, help is available through the Oxnard-based Mixteco / Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP).
Many of the first Mixteco immigrants to the region have established firm roots in the local community, have become U.S. citizens and have children who are now attending college, the organization reported.
However, many of the recent Mixteco immigrants are very culturally and linguistically isolated, MICOP reported. Many are illiterate, speaking neither Spanish nor English, and often face exploitation in the workplace, in housing and in everyday life.
As a result, MICOP provides a valuable link to the community, helping them with a number of culturally sensitive educational, community service and cultural programs designed to promote health and increase language proficiency and self-reliance.
MICOP presents regular community meetings where families get much-needed household and baby care supplies, works with local school districts to improve culturally and linguistically appropriate educational services.
MICOP also conducts annual back-to-school backpack drives, with the deadline for the next event scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 10.
The organization is seeking to outfit 500 indigenous Mixteco youth with backpacks to kick off the 2014 school year. Items needed this year include backpacks, notebooks, lined paper, pencils and pens, crayons, scissors and folders.
The organization has a goal this year to raise $9,000 in school supplies or monetary donations. Those seeking to donate can go to http://www.mixteco.org/Backpacks.php, call 805-483-1166 or send an email to micop@mixteco.org. Checks can also be mailed to MICOP, P.O. Box 20543, Oxnard, CA 93034.
The backpacks will be distributed at MICOP’s monthly community meeting from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 16 at Driffill Elementary School, 910 S. E St., Oxnard.
The Mixteco communal tradition of “tequio,” or community mutual assistance or obligation, is alive and well in Ventura County with MICOP helping to build a “comité del pueblo” to advocate for community needs in collaboration with other stakeholders in the El Rio neighborhood of Oxnard.
Part of that self-determination was realized when Arcenio J. López became executive director of MICOP on July 1, taking over for Margaret Sawyer, who is becoming development director for the organization.
López, originally from San Francisco Higos, Oaxaca, began work with MICOP in 2003 as a volunteer at monthly community meetings and was hired as MICOP’s first community organizer in 2006. He founded MICOP’s Tequio Youth Group and adult literacy program, launched the group’s Indigenous Interpreter Services and was named associate director in 2010.
Staff of Mixteco / Indigena Community Organizing Project. Courtesy photo
Health care for the Mixteco community is also an important issue, with MICOP reporting that it is actively promoting the training and employment of Mixteco outreach workers who serve as promotores / promotoras within their communities. Those workers have put in thousands of hours helping families access medical care, sign up their children for schools and take part in a variety of other activities.
MICOP also offers Bebe Sano (well baby) classes that teach family members the basics of well-baby care.
Because of the language barrier, MICOP-trained interpreters work in local clinics and hospitals, and in the local court system to help community members.
MICOP also worked with UCLA’s Center for Cancer Prevention and Control in 2013 to conduct a survey of 1,000 indigenous immigrant women living in Ventura County. The survey found that 52 percent participated in MICOP’s community meetings; 41 percent participated in such MICOP-presented cultural events as Día de los Niños and Fiesta Navideña; 40 percent participted in MICOP’S Bebe Sano classes; and 55 percent receive food and diaper assistance from MICOP.
Immigration status and housing quality (both tied for 99 percent) were the most important issues impacting the community according to those surveyed, followed by cost of medical care, quality of medical care, availability of interpreters and housing costs (all tied at 98 percent) of respondents.
More results from that survey can be found at http://www.mixteco.org/uploads/MICOP_Needs_Assessment_with_Results_final_rev.pdf
Besides social and health programs, a growing number of cultural programs are being held in the region to reconnect the Mixteco community with its traditions and pass on that tradition to the younger generation, many who were born in the United States.
During the Spring, a Día de los Niños event is held that promotes reading and includes a children’s book fair and a free book distribution.
The Organizacion Cultural Oaxaqueña Ñuu Savi held its “Guelaguetza Oxnard 2014” celebration in downtown Oxnard in late June, which featured a variety of Oaxacan traditional musical and dance programs, with such scheduled performers as Los Diablos de la Mixteca, Danza de los rubios de Agua Azul, and Baile Cultural Traqui by Movimiento Cultural de la Union Indigena. The free event, sponsored by MICOP and Clinicas del Camino Real Inc., also included arts and crafts, free health screenings and Oaxacan food.
MICOP is currently preparing for is upcoming fundraiser “Night in Oaxaca,” to be held on Saturday, Aug. 9.
It also takes part in Día de los Muertos celebrations, to be held this year at its Oxnard and El Rio community meetings on Oct. 25, with members of the Mixteco community erecting altars to celebrate their ancestors.
Groups such as Los Diablos de la Mixteca have also performed at the annual Día de los Muertos celebration held in early November in Camarillo.
The community closes out the year with its annual Fiesta Navideña to be held at both the Oxnard and El Rio community meetings on Dec. 13. A toy drive is held prior to the event, with gifts given to children during the community meetings.
“Our fiesta is a year-end cultural event for the Mixtec community. Santa will be giving out candy canes to the children, we will have lots of different crafts tables, a DJ and our first ever community-wide potluck in Oxnard. We have various opportunities for our supporters to help make this a wonderful event,” Donna Foster, operations manager, said about the 2013 celebration.
MICOP is also seeking community volunteers to help with a variety of special community events and monthly community meetings throughout the year. For more information about voluntering, contact Vanessa Terán at vanessa.teran@mixteco.org
For general information about MICOP, call 805-483-1166, visit www.mixteco.org or send an email to micop@mixteco.com.