By Kent Paterson

Author's note: The following story is an update of a piece run by Frontera NorteSur last September that covered the struggles of an El Paso group representing displaced factory workers, La Mujer Obrera, to chart a new economic future for low-income women workers. The story was made possible in part by a grant from the McCune Charitable Foundation of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

From a corner of a converted garment industry plant, poetry and prose pierced walls long sealed with sweat and struggle as the cool, late fall borderland evening set in. In an eclectic performance, cosmic artwork exhibited by Gabriel Gaytan, Veracruz-style tunes strummed by musician Francisco Rodriguez, and readings by local writers Nancy Lechuga and Griselda Rodriguez helped inaugurate Cafe Mayachen, the latest project of El Paso's La Mujer Obrera (LMO) and the El Puente Development Corporation.

Housed in the sprawling quarters of Mercado Mayapan in the Texas border city's old garment district, the cafe is planned as a showcase for grassroots literary, artistic and musical talent. Between events, visitors can browse books and check out videos on topics like Mexico's Zapatista National Liberation Army, while sipping Chiapas-grown coffee also available by the pound.

"We decided to open this space to have it close to this community that has been abandoned for years, after NAFTA," said Maria Lopez, director of the Mayachen Museum which sits next to the new cafe. For Lopez, the cafe and other facilities tucked into Mercado Mayapan represent the stirrings of an economic and cultural revival in a city that suffered tens of thousands of manufacturing job losses during the years surrounding the negotiation and implementation of NAFTA and other free trade agreements.

In a unique display, the history of El Paso's garment workers, who at one time sewed together the threads which festooned the latest fashion rages sweeping the US and the world, is detailed in the Mayachen Museum. Rounding out the tribute to border working-class history, an exhibition outside the museum's doors is dedicated to the Mexican farm and rail workers who came to the US during the 1942-64 Bracero Program.

"We thought that it was important to show the community how the Mexican community has contributed not only to the economy but to the culture and to the values of the American society," Lopez said.

Besides regular multi-media cultural events, Lopez and other organizers of the museum/cafe intend to involve local youths in mural and oral history projects. In between events, community members may even pass the time away with domino games.

Cafe Mayachen's opening is a noteworthy development in light of local controversies over the viability of La Mujer Obrera's alternative economic development initiative which, if successful, could be a model for other low-income communities in the US/Mexico borderlands and far beyond.

In a briefing paper to the Obama White House this fall, LMO contended that its project means not only jobs, but also education and empowerment for Latina women workers. El Paso's Latina workers, who average about half the income of Anglo women's median income, are in particularly dire straits and largely left out of the loop of federal stimulus spending, according to LMO.

Much of the stimulus funding has been directed at construction and other industries primarily dominated by men, the group said.

According to LMO: "Mercado Mayapan is a path out of this endemic structural poverty for women, not only workers who lost their jobs when factories closed, but also for the younger women whose only option for their families has been public assistance or the underground economy."

The struggle to emancipate and empower border working women has been far from easy.

Earlier this fall, a funding crisis prompted members of LMO to stage a noisy occupation of El Paso Mayor John Cook's office. In justifying the action, LMO charged that start-up monies for its projects pledged by a variety of government agencies were slow in coming.

Rankled by the protest, and noting that La Mujer Obrera was in default of an earlier city loan, Mayor Cook told Frontera NorteSur he would nevertheless recommend the El Paso City Council approve an additional $400,000 in Empowerment Zone monies for the worker/community group. By a 4-3 vote margin on September 22, however, the City Council turned down the funding until LMO's finances were "in order" and "not running a deficit."

Sponsored by City Representative Eddie Holguin Jr., the City Council action also stipulated that the Empowerment Zone Advisory Committee give the City Council a recommendation as to where to allocate business development funds in the zone.

Denial of the Empowerment Zone money, LMO Executive Director Irma Montoya said, set back plans by some community members to launch new businesses that could tap into Mercado Mayapan's emerging nexus. "More than affecting us in the organization," Montoya said, "it affected the community itself."

Yet LMO has since preserved and expanded its project, partly through the volunteerism of more than 100 workers who agreed to work without pay for a period of time until new monies began flowing. Most recently, a $25,000 grant from Bank of America has helped plug the budget hole, according to a statement from LMO. Another $250,000 in stimulus funds and a pending $1,000,000 grant from the North American Development Bank will help the Mercado survive, Montoya added in an interview with Frontera NorteSur.

On other fronts, LMO and its 40,000 square-foot center have fared well in the public spotlight. For the second year in a row, large crowds flocked to Mercado Mayapan to celebrate the annual Days of the Dead festivities in early November. In 2009 LMO has been the recipient of an award from Texas State Senator Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso), and has been invited to participate in projects sponsored by the Smithsonian Latino Center and Leveraging Investments in Creativity's Artography Project.

Each month, a new theme permeates the walls and halls of Mercado Mayapan. In October, for example, photos and treaties informed visitors of the struggle surrounding a cultural staple and symbol of Mexico and indigenous America — corn.

Distributed to the public, the recent Corn Declaration issued by a coalition of rural Mexican organizations and allies criticized the impact of free trade on small growers, the loss of food self-sufficiency, and the epidemic of malnutrition afflicting Mexican society.

"Today, now more than ever, the demand for independence, land and freedom vibrates in our hearts and in our stomachs," the statement read. "We convoke the people of Mexico to join efforts to defend what our peoples have created, reproduced and defended for centuries."

Like the younger Maria Lopez, El Paso writer Joe Olvera considers the Mercado and its satellite institutions as essential for the future of south-central El Paso. The museum/cafe, he said, are vital linkages between previous generations of El Pasoans and newer ones, especially recent Mexican immigrants who might be unaware of the long history of working-class and community struggles in El Chucho, as El Paso is colloquially known.

The first Chicano television news reporter in El Paso back in 1971, Olvera is from an older generation that struggled for cultural recognition and equality in the media, academia and other institutions. Although Olvera has lost both legs from "that devil diabetes," the former staff writer for the now-defunct El Paso Herald-Post and El Paso Times was on hand for Café Mayachen's opening to read from his book Chicano Sin Fin.

"It's just a start, eventually we'll fill it up," Olvera said, adding that he and his wife had long collaborated with LMO's project. "We need something literary, because we have some real giant Chicano writers like Ricardo Sanchez, Abelardo Delgado, Rudy Anaya, of course."

In today's challenging times, both older and newer voices must be heard, Olvera insisted.

"We need to promote them, push their works, let people know about those types of works so they can begin to understand who they are," he said. "Many of our people haven't been given that opportunity to say 'I am a Chicano and proud of it.' They don't know who they are, and we need to remedy it."

While Cafe Mayachen gears up, the staff at Mercado Mayapan plans for a busy holiday season. Besides a wide assortment of gifts such as traditional Mexican handicrafts and attire, visitors to the complex can dine on holiday tamales and other seasonal foods. According to Montoya, upcoming December activities include piñata-busting, Christmas plays and more.

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Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Kent Paterson is the editor of Frontera NorteSur.  Reprinted with authorization from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source.