Fredonia’s International Studies Honor Society, Sigma Iota Rho, will host a visit from Luz Rivera Martinez, featured speaker of the Mexico Solidarity Network (MSN) and creator of the Consejo National Urbano Campesino (CNUC) for a talk, "Maiz y el Pais: Political Violence in Mexico and Corn's Lessons for Justice."
The talk is slated for Friday, Feb. 27 at noon in Williams Center Room 204. It is free and open to the public.
Co-sponsors for the event include the Department of Politics and International Affairs, the Department of World Languages and Cultures, the Political Science Association, Latinos Unidos, Women's Student Union and the International Club.
Ms. Martinez has 20 years of experience constructing autonomy, organizing outside the electoral system, and resisting genetically modified corn while protecting millennia-old varieties, making her talk beneficial for anyone interested in human rights, women's rights and peasant and labor movements.
Martinez incorporates into her speech that corn is a gift of sustenance and rejuvenation Mexicans have given to all of humanity. She works with peasant families in Tlaxcala, Mexico, a state where corn originated, whose name means "place of the corn tortilla," and where 52 natural varieties of corn are planted. This bountiful grain was created over thousands of years, primarily by women, and has now come to feed the world.
Martinez established CNUC in the early 1990’s to coordinate resistance to the impending North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), specifically regarding its dismemberment of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, which enshrined the Mexican Revolution's battle cry that "the land belongs to those who work it." Martinez and the members of CNUC knew that NAFTA would decimate the small-scale agricultural sector that the revolution had established at such a great cost.
As CNUC's lead organizer, Martinez has worked tirelessly to demand government accountability, defend family farms, resist the use of GMO seeds, and build inspiring, community-based autonomous projects. CNUC has a long history of disposing corrupt leaders, democratizing the budget, coordinating community-driven infrastructure projects, including peoples' history in education, and expanding access to healthcare.
CNUC also joins voices with organizations around Mexico and around the world denouncing State-sponsored violence and rebuilding the social fabric. As an adherent to the Zapatistas' Sixth Declaration, an international network of organizations struggling against neoliberalism and for autonomy from the grassroots, Martinez and CNUC fight tirelessly to build "a world where many worlds fit," a world for the people of all the colors of corn.
The Mexico Solidarity Network is an organization dedicated to popular education and autonomous community organizing. In addition to community work in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood and speaking tours, MSN also administers a unique, social justice-oriented study abroad program that allows students to learn about grassroots movements in Mexico by living with the families that comprise them, including members of CNUC.
