Last fall, a group of 14 Guilford students from a vast array of backgrounds were picked to live in Mexico’s second largest city, Guadalajara, and to study at a Mexican university for foreigners while also managing to work with a social justice program in an underprivileged section of the metropolis. This is our story.
Sprinkle in a smackerel of that famous Guilco funk and a large dose of some stone-cold political reality, and you have our Mexico journey in a nutshell! What a combination! Put the kids to bed!
For a little background on the city of our studies, Guadalajara is an absolutely beautiful city of around 8 million people that sits high up on a plateau at almost a mile high and lies a couple of hundred miles south of the Tropic of Cancer. Absolutely beautiful year-round weather makes Tapatios (the people of Guadalajara) warm and extremely hospitable.
Guadalajara is a rapidly expanding regional and economic hub specializing in transportation, telecommunications, and agriculture. An increasing number of high tech companies are drawn to the area’s ideal climate, infrastructure, and quality of life. According the Lonely Planet Mexico guidebook, Guadalajara is famous for being the most traditional area of Mexico, and the birthplace of famous Mexican traditions like tequila, the Mexican Hat Dance, the sombrero, Mexican rodeo, and that unforgettable sound of Mariachi music.
However, it is an eclectic mix of modern influences and echoes of the past that makes Guadalajara such an intriguing place to visit, live, and study. I would also like to point out that I felt much safer walking the streets of this Mexican metropolis than in most major cities of our country.
The Guilford partnership with the University of Guadalajara goes back some 15 years, and part of that relationship sets up the home-stay aspect of the program with middle class families who have hosted Guilford students for quite some time. Because of this, they really do an excellent job of matching students with host families based on needs, interests, and personalities.
In addition to our intriguing studies at the university and our entertaining host families, the most powerful impact of the program came from our working relationship with Intercolonias, a social justice organization in the neighborhood of Lomas de Oblatos. This organization was formed in the early 80s in response to the ignorant development policies of the city government of Guadalajara towards impoverished peripheral communities, commonly called colonias.
Later, Intercolonias grew to encompass other important colonias in similar struggles like Jardines del Auditorio, Rancho Nuevo, and Barrios Unidos. During the late 80s, faculty from Guilford formed a unique bond with this group that later developed into a working agreement involving Guilford study abroad students.
Last semester, each student was paired with a member of the organization, and the pairs took part in a series of interviews on discrimination, poverty, education, and family. The Guilford students provided their knowledge of these issues in the United States or other countries of origin, and the Mexicans informed us of the policies and beliefs towards these subjects within their nation.
We also had a series of group presentations including: What is Guilford? What is InterColonias? Political Reality, and Human Rights, in which we shared our common research and results on these issues in front of the whole group. The more challenging aspect of all of this work is that it involves a great deal of paperwork, listening and speaking, and all of it takes place in the Spanish language; but the people of Intercolonias displayed amazing levels of patience, cooperation, and understanding in their work with our group.
Another unique aspects of our program was the Community Development class, in which we looked at Latin American social ills through the eyes of Paulo Freire. Freire was a Brazilian educator and a pioneering leader of liberation theology, a critical movement that focuses the resources of the Catholic Church on the liberation of the oppressed masses as opposed to emphasizing salvation only through death. Students and members of Intercolonias apply the teachings of Freire and the concepts of liberation theology into the philosophy of their everyday interaction.
Prior to my departure I came to understand that many Americans conjure up negative imagees of narco-trafficking operations, kidnapping and chaos, drunken excess of American kids fleeing the restraint of their home country, and ideas of a dirty, dangerous, poverty-stricken country when they think of Mexico.
Mexico does have severe problems, but many of these are magnified by its geography. As stated in a famous quote from a Mexican ruler at the turn of the 20th century, “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.” Not to get on my political soapbox or anything, but if it were up to me, every student in this country would be required to spend a significant amount of time in Latin America or another developing region of the world. It has the power to open your eyes like nothing else and make you really come to terms with how easy most of us have it in this country.
And I guess that is what is so special about Guilford’s program in Mexico; it is an eye-opener. It’s established connections in the city with the university, with the families, with Intercolonias and their communities. It foster a deep environment that gives students an awesome understanding of the real Mexico. A Mexico that many people never have the opportunity to see.