>From Lynn Stephen book "Zapotec Women" (Austin; Univ of Texas Press, 1991)
Blurb:
"What happens when Indigenous culture is packaged
for sale in the US? How does capital accumulation
affect relations between men and women, local politics,
kinship, and reciprocal exchanges of goods and labor?
In this innovative study of several Zapotec communities
in and around Oaxaca, Mexico, Stephen explores these
questions, looking at how commercial weaving for export
has altered the lives of women since the Mexican
Revolution... She demonstrates how class and ethnicity
as well as gender determine women's roles and standing
in the community..."
Video Title: "A Skirt Full of Butterflies".
This video is about Zapotec women. Throughout the video,
they explain who they are, and how as women they have been
able to retain economic importance within their communities.
Not only that, they talk about power and the importance of
being women with power.
For further information write the filmmakers:
Ellen Osborne and Maureen Gosling
2417 Ravenwood Lane
Oakland CA 94602
fax 510-531-5897.
I saw part of the video-in-progress with my students of Latin American
and Latino Studies, here at UCSC. At the time, we suggested ways to
improve the program, and now finally we hear the video is ready.
Since I am a Board member of SAIIC, the South & Mesoamerican Indian
Information Center, we, as SAIIC, endorse the filmmakers work and
perspective. Ellen and Maureen, are now raising the money to make
this video available to the Zapotec women themselves (in Spanish), and
they also are planning a wider Spanish-Zapotec Women videos to other
Indigenous women's organizations in Latin America.
Regards,
Guillermo Delgado-P. (guiller@cats.ucsc.edu)