The police officer got out of her patrol car and walked over to where the protesters stood in front of the Mexican consulate on Leetsdale Drive in Glendale.
“O-AX-a-ca?” she asked, mispronouncing the word.
Around here, many people have never heard of Oaxaca (pronounced wah-HA-ca), an enchanting city in southern Mexico known for its Spanish colonial architecture, black-earth pottery and amazing seafood dishes.
And even fewer know about the civil unrest that has been going on there for six months, resulting in the deaths of at least nine protesters, including a freelance journalist from New York.
Daniel Salcido, a student at Metropolitan State College of Denver, took the officer’s stop as an opportunity to educate: “We’re protesting the government abuse of people who want a more equitable society.”
It doesn’t matter that they are more than 750 miles away from the uprising in Oaxaca. Salcido and a dozen others who have been marching outside of the consulate office each Saturday say they need to do what they can to raise awareness and let the Mexican government know that people like them are aware of the atrocities.
“Hopefully it will draw attention to what is going on there,” he told me.
The protests in Oaxaca have become quieter as Mexican authorities have arrested many of the leaders. Life is slowly going back to what many call abnormal. The uprising, they say, has been quashed.
Along the way, coverage by the U.S. media has been spotty and superficial. The New York Times and other national newspapers have written a few stories. NPR has done several. And smaller papers like this one have run short wire stories because we only have so much space for international news.
Interestingly, though, letters on the subject have been pouring into my e-mail box, a sign that locals know to circumvent the mainstream media to get the word out.
If people in Colorado had a better understanding of the repression of poor and working-class people in Mexico, they might not view undocumented people in such a harsh light.
Oaxaqueños are calling for the governor of the state of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruíz, to resign. They say he is a corrupt leader who rigged his own election. Sound familiar?
The protests began innocently enough back in May when teachers demanding higher wages and better funding for schools walked off the job. When Ruíz tried to remove them by force from the city’s zócalo (center), others joined in, and it became a movement.
Calling themselves the Oaxaca People’s Popular Assembly (APPO), they are seeking the ouster of Ruíz, an authoritarian figure who allegedly hired paramilitary troops to gun down demonstrators.
They also want a more democratic form of state government, one that gives voice to poor people and offers a solution to the inequitable economic system.
Fernando Lozano, a spokesman for the Mexican consulate in Denver, said he respects the right of the people who demonstrate each Saturday afternoon but said they are misinformed about what is happening in Oaxaca.
He said the demonstrators who have been jailed are radicals. He said leftist media have exaggerated news accounts of repression and intimidation.
Federal law enforcement has been brought in to establish public order, he said. Those who have been shot to death were killed by outside agitators, he said, not gunmen hired by Ruíz.
Those standing out on Leetsdale Drive – several college students, a few teachers, a veteran Denver attorney, and other professionals – aren’t buying it.
“The (Mexican) government controls the media so tightly,” said Ricardo Romero of Greeley. “They spin it to try to make it seem like it’s a bunch of crazy people out of control.”
In reality, Romero said, the protesters are mostly workers who see the ruling elite becoming richer through political accords such as the North American Free Trade Agreement while they become poorer and are forced to leave their homeland to seek work abroad.
The demonstrators say if Americans educate themselves about how these agreements affect their country they would speak out against NAFTA rather than vilify the Mexicans who sneak across our border.
And perhaps finally we’d get closer to figuring out a humane and workable solution to illegal immigration.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Read Cindy’s blog at denverpostbloghouse.com/rodriguez.
