On November 6 of 2014, Haverford and Bryn Mawr students organized a Teach In. It was not possible to study a course on political violence during the Dirty War in the Southern Cone and in Mexico without paying attention to and manifesting our deep concern about this current event. The more we learned about past violence in Guerrero, the more angry we became about the repetitive nature of the events. It was time to do something, at least in our community.
It was a very cold and rainy night, however, students, staff and professors from the Trico (Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore) community joined us and listened to our brief account of the events of Sept. 26th, reflections on them, and the reading of a letter we wrote supporting parents, peers and relatives of disappeared students. One of the speakers accidentally quoted Genaro Velázquez instead of Genaro Vázquez, so we apologize for this mistake.
When organizing the Teach In, we thought it was very important to get in touch with our peers in Mexico, with students who were affected by the events, and had started to mobilize in Guerrero. We wanted to know how it is that a student is considered a criminal by Mexican authorities, and how Ayotzinapa students had organized and gotten support from other students. First, We contacted some students of Universidad Autónoma of Guerrero and after a couple of emails, chats by skype, we were able to coordinate a simultaneous event. Ours at Stokes Auditorium in Haverford College and theirs at the Museum of Chilpancingo. Facilities of the University of Guerrero were closed as part of a national students’ strike supporting Ayotzinapa’s disappeared students. There were some technical difficulties and time constraints, and so, for these reasons we were not able to listen to interventions made by Professor Judith Solis Tellez and Professor Claudia Rangel Lozano (who visited our campus on October 2013 with Professor Evangelina Sánchez). We deeply apologize for this inconvenience.
We were able also to connect by skype with Siena Mann’ 14. Graduated from the Spanish Department, Siena is currently volunteering for La Casa de los Amigos in Mexico City under the Post baccalaureate Fellowship (sponsored by CPGC). Siena brought us some reflections about the race issue related to Ayoztinapa’s state violence. She invited Arturo Moreno, who also is working at Casa de los Amigos, to share with us his experience. We experienced some technical difficulties and we apologize for it.
Letter written by Haverford and Bryn Mawr students in support of parents, family, and friends of Ayotzinapa’s missing 43 students. This letter was sent to the Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan, or the Human Rights Commission in Tlachinollan Mountain.
