Laura Hainey of AFT-NH

Fall Election May Hinge on Debate Over Fiscal Future

Months of State House wrangling over marriage, collective bargaining, and whether the Speaker of the House is a tyrant are about to give way to a more usual topic: New Hampshire’s archaic tax structure.  In addition to a gubernatorial election which could pit a status quo candidate against a reformer, voters could face as many as three proposed Constitutional Amendments with profound fiscal implications. 

The one getting the most attention so far is CACR 12. (CACR stands for “Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution.”) It seeks to undo the Supreme Court’s Claremont decisions,which declared education to be a fundamental right and ordered the Legislature to provide adequate funding for the state’s public schools.   House and Senate negotiators will meet this week to try to iron out the wording. 

While some amendment advocates say a change is needed to allow the State to target aid to poor communities, critics note that state’s failure to target aid is due to lack of political will, not Constitutional restrictions.  Moreover, the amendment could make it possible for the State to withdraw from education funding completely.  “Freed of constitutional restraint, the Legislature would retreat to the bad old days of patchy and inadequate support of public education,” Laura Hainey, New Hampshire President of the American Federation of Teachers, told participants at the May 19 NH Progressive Summit held in Henniker.

If a proposed amendment gets support from 3/5 of the members of the House and Senate it will be placed on the ballot for the November election.  Then, if 2/3 of voters vote “yes,” it would be added to the State Constitution.

The House and Senate are also likely to approve CACR 13, which would prohibit “new” taxes on personal income.  The point of this one is to install the state’s aversion to an income tax into the Constitution and create a higher hurdle to ever creating a system in which taxes would be related to the ability to pay.  CACR 13 is held up so far only by a need to figure out how to make it clear that this amendment is not meant to restrict taxes on “corporate persons,” only “natural persons.” 

Clifton Below, a former legislator who attended the Progressive Summit, says “what they are proposing is the very antithesis of what the founders and adopters of our state Constitution understood to be the foundation that is fair, proportional and reasonable.”  Most of us now earn our income from wages, but that wasn’t the case when the constitution was written in 1784.  At that time, most income derived from productive land, livestock, and commercial property.  18th century lawmakers specified that “every person may be compelled to pay in proportion to his income.” 

In that sense, the state’s property tax began it’s life as an income tax.  Now, reliance on the property tax maintains regressivity in the system and makes it hard for property-poor communities to raise the funds they need for schools and other public services.

Then there’s CACR 6.  The House version would require a super-majority of the House and Senate to raise any taxes or fees.  The Senate version would freeze state spending at current levels adjusted by the rate of inflation.  The “compromise” under consideration might adopt both bad ideas.  According to Jeff McLynch of the NH Fiscal Policy Institute, this would “lock in

the effects of the current recession,” including the drastic spending cuts made in the current biennial budget.

Arnie Arnesen used most of her time as opening speaker at the Progressive Summit outlining the threats posed by the 3 amendments.   She also criticized another bill which would provide business tax credits for contributions to scholarship funds for private schools. 

The state’s tax structure is already regressive, meaning it demands proportionally higher taxes from low income taxpayers than it does from affluent ones. Using figures from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, McLynch said the wealthiest 1% of Granite Staters (income over $480,000 a year) pay only 2.0% of their income in state and local taxes.  For the poorest 20% (income less than $25,000),  on the other hand, state and local taxes captured 8.3% of their income.  In other words, the poorest households are paying taxes at a rate four times higher than the richest. 

While New Hampshire falls in the middle of states ranked by overall tax burden, we are 4th lowest in net state and local tax burden on the wealthiest 1%.  The fabled New Hampshire Advantage?  “New Hampshire is an especially great place to live and (not) pay taxes if you are in the top 1%,” says Below.

The 1% NH Advantage is held in place by “The Pledge,” a vow of fealty to the demands of William Loeb, former publisher of the Manchester Union Leader.  In the 1970s Loeb made opposition to “broad based taxes” the major criterion for avoiding his editorial attacks.  Since then most candidates for Governor – and all the winning ones – have given Loeb their pledges even though he’s been dead for thirty years.

Speaking to a lunchtime forum at the Progressive Summit, two of three candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor made it clear they think the state’s status quo tax policy is no longer viable.  “I will not take the Pledge,” declared former Senator Jackie Cilley. 

Cilley is not calling for an income tax, but she is not shying away from the issue either.  She understands “the Pledge” keeps the State reliant on business and  property taxes. “I know full well what the property tax does to people,” she told a house party audience Friday evening in Canterbury. 

Bill Kennedy, another candidate who spoke at the Progressive Summit, advocates an income tax. 

Maggie Hassan began her campaign for governor by taking “the Pledge.”  But she does oppose CACR 12. 

The Progressive Summit diverted 100 people from a beautiful early summer day to class and conference rooms at New England College in Henniker.  In addition to tax and budget matters, conferees also attended workshops on topics such as affordable housing, immigration, proposed voter suppression laws, health care, and the attack on workers’ rights.  The “Summit” was sponsored by NH Citizens Alliance for Action, Granite State Progress, and the Department of Sociology and Social Work at New England College.

 

It was billed as a “solemn vigil” to protest the implementation of the federal “Secure Communities” program in New Hampshire.  But for more than 70 people who gathered in the rain outside Manchester’s Norris Cotton Federal Building it was hard to remain solemn when the Sisters of Mercy started chanting, “Stop Deportations Now.”

On the other hand, everyone paid close attention to Paloma Sylvestr e, who described her husband Juan’s arrest.  “He was just driving, going to work,” she  said, and was stopped “just for his features.”  Paloma was hospitalized during the months Juan was in jail, forcing the couple’s three boys to be separated from both their parents.  The family still feels the trauma.

“I don’t want this to happen to another family,” she said.

S-Comm represents an escalation of immigration enforcement through data sharing between local police, FBI, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  It makes immigrants less secure and by fostering increased fear of police makes our whole communities less secure. 

This evening’s vigil was organized when ICE announced last week that S-Comm was in effect in New Hampshire.  The event included prayers, comments from Eva Castillo, Maggie Fogarty, and me, and several songs.  Newsmedia coverage included WMUR-TV and the NH Union Leader.

 “Don’t trust your employer to say everything’s all right,” says Al Bouchard, a member of NH COSH and an advocate for workers injured by chemical exposure.

Re-Awakening the Spirit of 1912

NASHUA — Keeping their fingers crossed that the biggest legislative battles of the year are behind us, union members and labor allies rallied in Nashua on May 5 to raise spirits for whatever struggles lie ahead.  The “Solid as Granite” rally drew about 75 people to the Greeley Park band shell. 

The mood was defensive and defiant sixteen months into an intense State House battle that isn’t over yet.  “We will not be intimidated.  We will not go away,” shouted Mark MacKenzie, president of the NH AFL-CIO.  

With two right-to-work-for-LESS bills tabled in the State Senate, prospects are good that Speaker of the House Bill O’Brien’s anti-labor onslaught has been stopped.  But the Speaker, who recently took other proposals sidelined by the Senate and re-attached them as amendments to other measures, may have more tricks up his sleeves. 

“Do not let up on any of us,” said Rep. Mary Gorman, one of ten local Representatives recognized for their “dedication to the middle class.”

The role of unions in creating and defending the middle class is by now well established.  Labor would be making a mistake, however, if it fails to connect with the issues facing people who aspire to the middle class.  Diana Lacey, president of the state’s largest union, was the only labor speaker who explicitly linked labor’s agenda to the needs of the poor. 

Lacey, whose mom migrated from Mexico, also linked labor’s agenda to the importance of stopping the Arizonification of America.  She was also the one who mostly clearly identified labor with “the 99%.” 

MacKenzie also understands that labor’s fortunes are tied to other sectors, including “the religious community who care about the labor movement.” 

“That’s how we gonna take back the state of New Hampshire,” MacKenzie said.  I’m not sure we ever really had it, but his point is well taken.  With O’Brien already running again for Speaker, the 2012 election is looming large for labor. 

Other speakers included Robert Sherman of the Nashua Federation of Teachers;  Paul O’Connor from the Metal Trades Council at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard; Magnus Pardoe of the Nashua chapter of SEIU 1984; Ed Foley of the Sheet Metal Workers; Ed Barnes of the Mail Handlers; Craig Lange of the new union of Community College adjunct faculty; and Laura Hainey of the AFT.   Matt Murray, editor of NH Labor News, served as emcee.  Gerry O’Connor spoke about growing up in Lowell and made reference to the “Bread and Roses” strike of 1912.

If the New Hampshire unions are working hard to stand their ground and defend the status quo, labor activists and scholars a few miles south are looking back to 1912 in order to look forward.  The 100th anniversary of the landmark “Bread and Roses” strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts has occasioned a variety of cultural programs, including last week’s  Academic Symposium.  300 people ranged between several buildings in the city’s historic mill district for workshops on topics as diverse as “Music and Culture and Labor History,” “The Strike and Immigration in the Classroom,” The Importance of Strike Activity in Building New Unions,” and “The Legacies of Labor’s Response to Racism.” 

One hundred years ago thousands of workers, mostly immigrants and about half women, walked out of Lawrence’s mills when employers cut their pay.  According to the Bread and Roses Centennial Committee,

What started as a wage protest quickly became a fight for better conditions both on and off the job. The strikers angrily complained about mistreatment by overseers and a job pace that made them work “like horses.” They also objected to a premium system that held part of their expected earnings hostage to month-long production and attendance standards.

After eight weeks of strike activity led by the Industrial Workers of the World, the bosses gave in and granted a 15% pay hike, with the biggest raises going to  the lowest paid workers.

The Centennial is “an incredible event for my family being able to reclaim our own history,” said Donna San Antonio, whose grandparents participated in the 1912 strike and who now teaches educators.   

While there were plenty of professors at the symposium, everyone present seemed eager to apply scholarship to current struggles for workers and immigrants.  That group includes the last unionized textile workers in the city, 500 UNITE HERE Local 311 members working at Polartec.  “We continue to fight for bread and roses in our community,” said Juan Williams, who spoke at a lunchtime plenary that also featured AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. 

At an afternoon workshop other Polartec workers explained that they have better benefits than non-union workers in the city and that the union helps them solve workplace problems.  “If you have no union and someone doesn’t like you, there’s no way to defend yourself,” said a worker named Tony.   Another worker, Anya, said she has developed leadership skills through her union activity. “Thanks to the union I have the opportunity to go anywhere to express myself,” she said. 

Formerly known as Malden Mills, the company where the Local 311 members work had a massive fire in 1995.  In the aftermath, the company shrunk from 2500 workers to 1000 and got bought out by Versa, a private equity firm which tried to cut benefits.  But the union is hanging on.

Labor’s resurgence is an essential ingredient of halting the drift toward plutocracy and lifting up the spirit of 1912.

In the words of James Oppenheim’s now famous poem,

No more the drudge and idler,

Ten that toil where one reposes,

But a sharing of life’s glories:

Bread and roses, bread and roses.

A crowd of about a hundred people combined pro-immigrant and pro-worker messages at a May Day rally outside the Dover, New Hampshire City Hall today.  Despite an on-again off-again drizzle, spirits stayed strong during speeches by immigrant and religious leaders, songs led by Rev. Mary Westfall, and music performed by the Leftist Marching Band.

The rally was organized by the NH Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, and emceed by its organizer, Eva Castillo.  Support also came from the American Friends Service Committee and Occupy Dover.

Speakers included Dr. Sara Alier, President of the South Sudanese Association; Suraj Budathoki, a member of the Bhutanese Community of NH; the Rev. Sandra Pontoh of the  Maranatha Indonesian UCC Church in Madbury; Attorney Larry Vogelman; Maggie Fogarty of the AFSC; State Rep. David Watters of Dover; and the Rev. Kendra Ford of the Exeter UU Church.

The connections between workers and immigrants were evident, for example in remarks of several speakers concerning a February incident in which reports of wage theft at a nearby construction site prompted community protests which helped the workers collect pay they were owed.  Lindsey Wettleland of Occupy Dover also noted that Dover was the site of the first industrial strike by women in the USA.  Judy Elliott, an ESOL teach and NH COSH safety trainer spoke about the common on-the-job injuries experienced by immigrant workers and the rights that all workers have to a safe workplace. 

Danny Provencal Fogarty, a Dover 8th grader, was probably the most effective speaker with his reading of the Emma Lazarus poem from the Statue of Liberty and impromptu remarks – in Spanish and English – about his own experience living in a Bolivian village and the importance of having a welcoming attitude to immigrants.  Danny has a future as a public speaker!

A small counter-protest by the Granite State Patriots, a tea party group led by a one-time head of the State Republican Party, drew only 5 people.  They complied with requests to be a non-disruptive presence and left halfway through the rally.

The rally featured spirited renditions of “This Land is Your Land,” “We Shall Not  Be Moved,” and “We Shall Overcome.”  “Solidarity Forever” was sung with choruses in Spanish and Indonesian as well as English. 

Here’s my new verse for “This Land is Your Land”

“We are dissenters from the one per centers,

For human rights, we are defenders,

For social justice, we are extenders,

This land was made for you and me.”

May 1 rallies for immigrants’ rights in recent years had been held in Manchester and Nashua.   The decision to hold this year’s rally in Dover followed a February incident in which Dover police called federal immigration authorities when a small group of immigrants showed up at the police station to report an incident of wage theft and request assistance.

Earlier in the day immigrants rights activists attended a State House hearing on a resolution of  support for Arizona’s repressive immigration law, known as SB 1070.  Not a single supporter, not even the resolution’s sponsor, showed up to speak for the non-binding expression of intolerance.  But opponents included Eva Castillo, Judy Elliott from NH AIR, Clair Ebel of the NH Civil Liberties Union, Cathy Chesley from Catholic Charities, Attorney Enrique Mesa, Louise Hannan of NH COSH, and me.  Following the hearing, the Senate Internal Affairs Committee voted 2-1 to recommend killing the resolution, which had already passed the NH House.  

Here’s more photos:

This was not the defeat we would have preferred, but as NH AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie said at an impromptu rally on the State House steps, it’s a “step in the right direction.”

HB 1677 was the third bill on the Senate agenda this morning.  As soon as it came up, Senator Jim Forsythe moved to table it.  The non-debatable motion was quickly approved on a voice vote, with no apparent dissent.  Dozens of labor activists in the Senate Gallery seemed a little stunned by how quickly it had happened.  

HB 1677 can be removed from “the table” and put back on the Senate agenda any time by a majority vote, but this bad idea seems to be dead for the year.  Unlike their House colleagues, Senate Republicans apparently decided there was not point in waging a losing battle since their prospects for over-riding a promised veto were slim.

“Hopefully, we won’t see 1677 again,” MacKenzie said .

The message of today’s vote is that the attack on the rights of workers “will not stand in the state of New Hampshire,” said the Rev. Gail Kinney.

Still alive in the Senate is HB 383, a version of “right to work” that applies only to state employees.  This one should meet a similar fate.

Come all of you good people,

And listen up to me

Of how the ancient Hebrews

Won their liberty.

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

It was down on old Mitzraim

When Moses gave a cry:

“It’s time for an uprising.

We will live free or die.”

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

My mother was a baker,

And I’m a baker’s son,

And I’ll be with the Hebrews

“Til liberation’s won.

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

My father was a brick-maker,

I’m a brick-maker’s daughter,

And I will march for freedom

Right through the Red Sea water.

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

They say in old Mitzraim,

There are no neutrals there-o,

You either work for freedom

Or else you slave for Pharaoh.

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

We all live in Mitzraim

‘Til everyone is free,

We’ll fight against the Pharaohs

And win our liberty.

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

If you don’t know the tune, you can listen to Pete Seeger sing it or find an album of labor songs.  

And by the way, borrowing and adapting are part of the folk tradition, the Passover tradition, and the IWW tradition.  So write your own.  And let me know if you sing this at your Passover Seder.

MORE JUSTICE, MORE PEACE

About a hundred people gathered in Veterans Park today to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin and call for racial justice.  After opening comments from  Woullard Lett, a couple dozen people took turns denouncing  the climate of racism that makes life dangerous for young black men.  Speakers, including Ray Ealy, Alan MacKillop, Carol Backus, Sarah Alier, Mark Provost, and Mary Georges called for local actions to overcome fear and suspicion. 

After the speak-out, the group marched up Elm Street through downtown Manchester.  Chants of “No Justice, No Peace” alternated with chants of “More Justice, More Peace.”  Following the march, participants met in Veterans Park to plan additional actions.

Robert Borosage has a good column on Huffington Post today with useful facts about CEO pay and middle class wage stagnation (tied to declining union density) as the major causes of widening inequality. He makes reference to another piece by Harold Meyerson, who quotes recent studies by Emmual Saez (on how the richest Americans are recovering from the Great Recession) and the Center for American Progress (on the link between union membership and middle class status).

Here’s a few excerpts and the links:

Robert Borosage, “The 1% Stike Back”

“In 2010, as the economy began its slow recovery from the Great Recession, a new study shows the richest 1% of Americans captured a staggering 93% of all income growth, while the incomes of most Americans stagnated. 93%. Occupy that. The 1% are back.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/the-1-strike-back_b_1387846.html

Harold Meyerson, “The Rich are Different, the Get Richer”

“While never putting a premium on economic equality, America has always prided itself on being the preeminent land of economic opportunity. If all of this nation’s wealth is captured by a narrow stratum of the very rich, however, that claim is relegated to history’s dustbin.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/concentrated-wealth-is-a-long-term-threat-to-america/2012/03/27/gIQAMJt1eS_story.html

Emmanual Saez, “Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States”

“[B]ased on the US historical record, falls in income concentration due to economic downturns are temporary unless drastic regulation and tax policy changes are implemented and prevent income concentration from bouncing back. Such policy changes took place after the Great Depression during the New Deal and permanently reduced income concentration until the 1970s. In contrast, recent downturns, such as the 2001 recession, lead to only very temporary drops in income concentration.”

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2010.pdf

David Madland and Nick Bunker, Center for American Progress, “Unions Make Democracy Work for the Middle Class”

“As our research and a number of academic studies find,2 unions strengthen the middle class and significantly reduce economic inequality. In fact studies indicate that the decline in union density explains as much of today’s record level of inequality as does the increasing economic return of a college education.
Most research on the importance of unions to the middle class tends to focus on how unions improve market wages for both union and nonunion workers.4 This research is no doubt vital, but it gives short shrift to the critical role unions play in making democracy work for the middle class.
Unions help boost political participation among ordinary citizens—especially among members, but also among nonunion members.”

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2012/01/pdf/unions_middleclass.pdf

And by the way, the “neo-plutocracy” quote comes from Harold Meyerson.  

Hundreds arrested at Entergy offices in VT, LA, NY

One difference between a person and a corporation is that a corporate person can be in many places at once.  To occupy space in, say, three states, it takes at least three natural persons.  There were many times that protesting today outside the offices of Entergy Corporation, the rogue corporation that operates the Vermont Yankee nuclear station in Vernon, Vermont.

Had the plant’s operators been obeying state law, the plant would have ceased operation today.

Upwards of 1000 people took that message to the company’s Brattleboro office this afternoon.  More than 100 of them were arrested and charged with unlawful trespass for attempting to deliver their message directly to the company.

Meanwhile, seven activists with roots in the New England anti-nuclear movement were arrested for criminal trespass inside Entergy’s corporate headquarters in New Orleans.  They were Renny Cushing, Lynn Chong, Ben Chichester, Kendra Ulrich, Jeff Brummer, Nelia Sargent, and Paul Gunter.  They were released after six hours.

Five others were arrested at Energy’s office in White Plains, NY, near the aging Indian Point reactor.

The demonstration outside the Entergy Brattleboro office, organized by the SAGE Alliance, followed a rally on the Brattleboro Common and a 3.5 mile march up Putney Road and Old Ferry Road .  Organizers made a deliberate decision to demonstrate there, rather than at the reactor, to keep the attention on the Entergy Corporation.

“We come peacefully to Entergy Headquarters today with this message: your time is up,” began the SAGE Alliance’s statement about the demonstration. 

Those who participated in civil disobedience were organized into affinity groups.  SAGE also asked everyone to abide by a “nonviolent code of conduct” that articulated the discipline they intended for the action, for example, “we will not harm anyone, and we will not retaliate in reaction to violence.”

Spirits were high throughout the Brattleboro action, and the potential of solar energy was much in evidence.  

New Phase of Resistance

Entergy’s 40-year license expired yesterday.  Although it received a 20-year extension (the day after the Fukushima meltdown began) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the State of Vermont insists the New Orleans corporation also needs a Certificate of Public Good from the state and permission of the legislature in order to keep operating.  The dispute is ongoing in federal court.

No Nukes activists, who call attention to VT Yankee’s history of radiation leaks and t echnical failures, aren’t waiting for the court.  Frances Crowe, a 93-year old activist who was among the first arrested (and the first to be released) told a reporter, “As I was walking down, all I could think of was Fukushima and the suffering of all the people, and I don’t want that to happen to New England.”

Vermont’s Governor, Peter Shumlin, was quoted saying, “I am very supportive of the peaceful protesters gathered today in Brattleboro to express their — and my — frustration that this aging plant remains open after its agreed-upon license has expired.”

The day’s actions represent the beginning of a new phase of resistance to VT Yankee and defense of democracy.  Visit the SAGE Alliance web page for information about upcoming actions.

In the city, you only eat if you have money

It was market day in the village of San Miguel Huautla, where Doña Anastasia Velasco Lopez greeted us when we got off the bus. She handed us bags of bananas and mangos to carry back to her house a few hundred yards away. Her friend, Doña Maria Lopez Espinosa, with three colorful sombreros stacked on her head, joined us for the walk.

Our 15-member delegation, accompanied by two members of the Witness for Peace Mexico staff, was glad to off the bus and out in the fresh air. San Miguel Huautla is a two-hour ride on bumpy dirt roads from Noxchixtlan, a small city on the southern side of the highland region of Oaxaca known as the Mixteca.

Oaxaca is Mexico’s second southernmost state, second most indigenous, and second poorest. According to the state government, a third of Oaxacans are now living in the United States. Many more have left for northern Mexico.

The Mixteca occupies much of the Oaxaca’s center. It is known for the deforested, eroded hillsides which have made farming a challenge for generations. Of the state’s eight regions, the Mixteca is the one which has sent the most émigrés out of Oaxaca.

Doña Anastasia and Doña Maria aren’t going anywhere. The two women are “promotoras,” grassroots educators, with CEDICAM, the Center for Integral Development of Campesinos of the Mixteca, an organization dedicated to restoration of food sovereignty for the region. Through a grassroots process that encourages reforestation, water conservation, and organic farming based on ancient indigenous practices, CEDICAM is helping communities produce food and livelihood for themselves. Phil Dahl-Bredine, a former Maryknoll Missioner who now lives in a small Mixtec village and volunteers with CEDICAM, says the methods practiced by indigenous Oaxacans represent a “foundation for an agriculture of the future.”

Speaking of resource depletion associated with the over-consuming North, Phil said we need “a whole change of mindset” based on indigenous knowledge. “We can’t feed the world with industrial agriculture,” he told our group at the organization’s headquarters on the outskirts of Nochixtlan.

Doña Anastasia and Doña Maria aren’t feeding the world, either, but they are immensely proud of the vegetables and livestock they grow to feed themselves and members of their community. Doña Anastasia showed us her new cistern, which will collect water during the rainy season and enable her to irrigate during the dry months. She showed us the peach trees she had planted, her worm farm, and the beds where she plants radishes, tomatoes, “everything.”

Like other CEDICAM members, Doña Anastasia is devoted to organic methods. “If I buy cilantro in the market, I don’t know how it was grown,” she said.

Doña Maria returned, by then wearing only one sombrero. Reminding me of anyone showing off her garden in New Hampshire, she showed us around the plots of land where she raises radishes, greens, amaranth, cilantro, squash, green beans, peas, garbanzos, fava beans, mint, chamomile, barley, wheat, and cajete, an ancient variety of corn well suited to dry climates. She also raises sheep, but said sometimes the price of wool drops as low as one peso (less than eight cents) a kilogram and it’s not worth the trouble. “The way of life here is very difficult,” she told us.

So that her kids could go to school, she washed clothes and left home to work in Nochixtlan. Later she was able to buy livestock, and started selling tomatoes and candies. But hard as it is, she told us “I always say you can make a life here.”

Doña Maria’s idea of “a life,” though, might not be enough to keep the kids at home. Sometimes she sells food to construction workers, like the men who rebuilt a bridge near her fields. She also weaves hats in her home and sells them in the market. Doña Anastasia explained that while they can grow enough to feed themselves, young people leave because they want more: clothes, shoes, school supplies, and cash to help their families.

The village has only a few phones and there’s no regular TV reception, but some homes do have satellite dishes. (Doña Anastasia says she only watches DVDs.) The outside world may be a couple hours or more away by bus, but its shoes, clothes, and other attractions can lure the youth away.

Tomasa Velasco Sanchez lives up the slope from Doña Anastasia. Her mama,  Florencia Sanchez, said they only plant a little because they have so little water. But Tomasa told us they plan to plant beans, corn, and wheat. The CEDICAM promotoras invited them to join a study group and attend workshops. That’s when they started working their fields and raising their own food. They have to haul water from a ditch, and in the hot season the ditch is empty.

Tomasa tells us that if she ever has kids, she wants to raise them in San Miguel Huautla. “In the city, you only eat if you have money,” she explained.

Thanks to Martha Yager for the photos of Doña Maria and of Tomasa and Florencia.