Every year around the 23rd of June, Mixtec people from the municipality of San Juan Mixtepec gather to celebrate their patron saint. The music echoes between their respective gathering places in Oaxaca and Lamont, California.

The $20 billion Maya Train project in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico has sparked division among locals, who, while eager for the promised economic benefits and increased tourism revenue, are also deeply concerned about the environmental destruction that will come with the railroad’s construction. The four-year megaproject has eschewed Environmental Impact Assessments and ignored scientists who say the railroad and the trainline will have harmful environmental consequences.

El 20 de febrero de 2019 fue asesinado Samir Flores Soberanes, fundador de la radio comunitaria Amiltizinko donde era comunicador, miembro del Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala (FPDTA), defensor del territorio en contra del Proyecto Integral Morelos y promotor de la educación comunitaria y de la autonomía de los Pueblos Indígenas. 

San Manuel es una pequeña comunidad Indígena del pueblo hablante tseltal y ch’ol, ubicada en la primera cañada que provoca las primeras dos cadenas montañosas, al frente de las planicies del golfo de México y a la altura de la ciudad de Palenque, Chiapas, México. Según los datos estadísticos del censo de población y vivienda 20201, la comunidad cuenta con una población de unas 390 personas, pero en realidad supera las 700 habitantes, debido a que muchos habitantes no se tomaron en cuenta en dicho conteo.

This is a reflection on the shared history between Na Ñuu Savi (Peoples of the Region of the Rain) and Chumash since the origin of their respective homelands in what are now Mexico and the United States. Santa Maria is an agricultural city located in northern Santa Barbara County on the Central Coast of California. It is the second home of Na Ñuu Savi migrants from Yucha Nchaa (Santa Cruz Mixtepec) in the municipality of Ñuu Xnuviko (San Juan Mixtepec), Oaxaca.

Between the Santa Marian earth and sky is a backstrap loom on which the history of people in this space is woven. The first shapes formed on this loom are Chumash, people who came from islands and established varying groups on the now Californian coast.

A quien corresponda,

YIMOM es una red de mujeres sanadoras mayas tsotsiles que viven en la comunidad de Nuevo Corral Chꞌen el Ángel, Chiapas, México, y trabajan para garantizar la seguridad alimentaria y la soberanía alimentaria de sus comunidades cuidando sus suelos.

I am a Na Ñuu Savi (Person of the Place of Rain, Mixtec) born in Santa Maria, California, United States, to Nivi Ñuu Savi (People of the Place of Rain) who migrated there to work as farmers in the California agricultural economy. Ñuu Savi (the Place of Rain) is in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Guerrero, Mexico, where many pueblos are known by names that describe our history.

Cultural Survival Youth Fellow, Fermín Morales Hilario (Nahuatl), 22, is from Kalman Nimos in the mountains of Mexico, where his family grows corn, beans, and squash. His family is Náhuatl but his mother tongue was not passed down to him as his grandparents did not teach his father and mother to speak it. Fermin has five siblings and is the only one in his family to attend university. He aspires to finish his studies.