New Haven Independent

On April 16, Yale University professor of history, Dr. Jay Winter, Ana Minian (student investigator, PhD candidate), the director of the CAFAMI, Marco Castillo, and I departed for a week-long visit to Mexico. We met up with Dr. Gustavo Verduzco of Colegio de Mexico and Nadia Nehls (student investigator) in Mexico City before heading to Tlaxcala.

Drs. Verduzco and Winter are collaborating on an investigation of human rights, specifically how they are constructed and how immigration is impacting them. The right of family to be together, the right to work, and the right to be protected from brutality are just some of the areas of the investigation.

Dr. Winter approached some of the parishioners at St. Rose of Lima about a year ago and developed some relationships with people from the town of Tetlanohcan, Tlaxcala. This relationship between the immigrants and families of Tetlanohcan will help him in his work. Dr. Winter believes that human rights develop organically among the people rather than something that is bestowed on people from governments.

Friday, April 17, we made our first stop at Centro Fray Julian Garcés in the capital of Tlaxcala, where we were welcomed by Federico Pauls, the Director of the Center of Human Rights. We received an orientation about the accelerated urbanization of Tlaxcala, the cultural and social impact of those caught in between this rapid loss of the rural character. Marco Castillo, a social anthropologist, brought his experience to the table as to the question of the rights of indigenous people and the preservation of their culture. The impact of immigration devastates families, particularly because of the separation between parents and their children, as well as the fracturing of the larger family.

In Latin America, being involved in a Human Rights Commission can be risky to one’s life. Guatemalan Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera was bludgeoned to death in 1998 shortly after he presented the report, Nunca Más, a product of the Office of Human Rights. The report contains detail testimony of victims of abuse during the country’s civil war and laid blame on the government and military. Archbishop Oscar Romero denounced the human rights abuses during the civil war, and after calling upon soldiers of the military to throw down their weapons as an act of conscience, he was felled by an assassin’s bullet in 1980.

The members of the Center for Human Rights in Tlaxcala have received death threats for their work. In the next entry, I will share some of the reasons for this.