Vocation or Vacation? Perspectives on Teachers' Union Struggles in Southern Mexico¹

Abstract

For decades following the 1910 to 1917 Mexican Revolution, rural maestros (teachers) in the Mexican state of Oaxaca were respected for their “vocation” and the hardships they suffered while working in poor, remote, rural communities where they played an instrumental role in forging a national culture. Since the early 1980s, politicization of Oaxaca's Local 22 of the national educators' union and work stoppages that close schools coupled with teachers' high salaries contribute to negative attitudes toward the profession. Using ethnographic data collected in Oaxaca among teachers and other members of the public, I discuss the support and opposition for federal teachers who practice what was long considered a “noble” profession, and union members' justifications of their labor actions.

Getting Out to Get Ahead? Perspectives on Schooling and Social and Geographic Mobility in Southern Mexico

“…He also provided numerous examples of unemployed rural‐born professionals who did not find permanent employment in their chosen fields, and pursued less than desirable options such as “working in their fields, or risking their lives to work in California, [moving] to other parts of Mexico, or [taking] jobs for which they are overqualified. Just look how many engineers are working as teachers.” This latter assertion underscores the factors contributing to high rates of migration from rural Oaxacan communities to other parts of Mexico and the United States (DIGEPO ; INEGI ) by those seeking employment, as well as the importance of teaching as a job option for rural Oaxaqueños (see also Howell ).…”

Beauty, Beasts, and Burlas

“…For many tourists and non-Oaxacans, the APPO graphics stood in marked contrast to both the "high art" produced by world-renowned painters (e.g., Rodolfo Morales, Rufino Tamayo, and Francisco Toledo) and the folk art for which the region is famous. However, the form of expression that the APPO and the teachers chose was not new to Oaxacans, who had already seen graffiti in urban and rural settings and images produced in over two and a half decades of labor actions and protests by Local 22 members (Howell, 2009). Hundreds if not thousands of different images were produced during the months of protest.…”

“…Locals' interpretations of the situation were more complex in that conflicting attitudes toward Local 22 labor actions invariably shaped the nuances they read into the messages conveyed (Howell, 2009). Because most Oaxaca City residents avoided the downtown area during the protests if possible, they saw the iconography only in newspapers or on television.…”

“…In casual conversations, a number of Oaxacans who thought that the construction projects the government had undertaken were unnecessary, a waste of money, or "taking too long" nonetheless termed the drawings "silly" and "juvenile." Leticia, a grandmother in her mid-sixties, pointing to the fact that education levels in Oaxaca lagged far behind the national average (INEGI, 2010; see also Howell, 2009), 4 criticized what she called the "local's manipulation of expenses to its own advantage": "Everyone knows they are the highest-paid workers in Oaxaca, and they earn a higher salary than any other teachers in the nation. But they are here in the zócalo while my grandchildren are at home.…”