El Tequio : Social capital,civic advocacy journalism and the construction of a transnational public sphere by Mexican indigenous migrants in the US

Immigrant transnational organization and civic advocacy journalism

When Alexis de Tocqueville praised the ability of American citizens to form civic associations, he was also lauding the early American partisan press’ close relationship to these associations and political parties. He argued that common human action would be very hard without newspapers, since members of organizations needed to express their opinions and communicate through space and time with other members (1969: 518). In the early years of the American Republic, until newspapers sought mass readerships and commercial success, partisan publications were instrumental for political parties and associations (Schudson, 2003: 75). With the advent of the commercial press, and the professionalization of journalism, the role of the market has been more important than the role of the state, political parties, or civic associations in shaping professional journalistic practices (Hallin and Mancini, 2004: 75). However, forms of partisan journalism still play an important role in the life of civic organizations, especially among ethnic minorities who may not see their experiences reflected in the mainstream media. The transnational lives of immigrants may often seem of little interest to nation-centered journalistic and media enterprises in either sending or receiving countries. For example, immigrants from Mexico in the United States, one of the largest diasporic populations of the world, have a very vibrant civic life forming transnational associations, usually to connect their places of origin and destination (Smith and Guarnizo, 1998).

With an active civic life, there is also the need for spaces of self-representation, community formation, and public dialogue. Silvio Waisbord (2009) has noted that due to dissatisfaction with news coverage by mainstream media, many organizations produce their own stories and sometimes their own media outlets to advance their causes and opinions. He calls this exercise “civic advocacy journalism” (2009: 23). There are currently many forms of advocacy journalism responding to the self-representation needs of marginalized communities, such as immigrants and other minorities. Many of these publications are part of the ethnic or immigrant press, which many scholars argue have dual roles: Helping immigrants to navigate the host society, and allowing them to maintain their culture and language (Riggins, 1992; Subervi-Vélez, 1986). Although not all ethnic media outlets engage in civic advocacy journalism, advocacy ethnic media publications are important institutions of the public sphere, the same way as coffee houses, pamphlets, and newspapers were in the past (Habermas, 1989).

This paper analyzes the content of El Tequio magazine, a trimestral publication, produced in California, and distributed in the US and Mexico by the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales or Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations (FIOB), a pan-ethnic indigenous immigrant organization with multiple chapters in both countries. El Tequio has worked as a channel for self-representation and advocacy, publishing petitions and demands, that otherwise would not be published by mainstream media in the US or Mexico, highlighting indigenous migrants’ situation as “double marginals,” as minorities in Mexico and as immigrants in the US.

Using different forms of media, FIOB members have made communication practices part of their transnational activism, something especially important in a decentralized and diverse organization, which has been able to “institutionalize practices of cultural exchange and circulation of information, giving form to a political community transcending geographical borders” (Rivera-Salgado, 1998). The norms of reciprocity that arise from immigrant associations have helped to form social capital linked to immigrant transnational networks (Putnam, 2000). Basch, Glick Schiller, and Szanton Blanc have defined transnationalism as the “process by which immigrants forge and sustain multistranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement” (cited in Levitt, 2001). These practices often require regular long-term contacts across borders to be successful (Portes et al., 1999). But are immigrant networks a transnational public sphere, or only a line of back and forth communication between sending and receiving communities? Are immigrant’s communicative practices really transnational, connected to a global landscape of ideas and publics, or are circumscribed to the sending and receiving places, forming only “bilocal” attachments?

Some of these questions are answered by studying the communicative and civic practices of organizations such as FIOB, which have facilitated pluralistic dialogue and cooperation, and circulated counter-hegemonic discourses about indigenous life. Although not many scholars have linked the formation of social capital with communicative participation in the public sphere (such as the production of civic advocacy media), the link of civic associations and periodical publications described by De Tocqueville suggests there is a strong one.

Over the years FIOB has developed a flexible and pluralistic transnational identity as a pan-ethnic and multi-sited organization, evolving from representing mainly Mixteco and Zapoteco immigrants from Oaxaca in the US to include groups such as Mayans, Purépechas, and Mestizos from other parts of México. In order to establish the nature of transnational coverage of advocacy journalism, a descriptive content analysis of El Tequio over two decades was conducted. Some of the questions explored ¹ in this content analysis include: What are the topics covered in El Tequio? How do indigenous immigrants use culture as a tool for civic involvement in transnational networks? How do their communication practices reflect on social capital, citizenship and dialogue with national and transnational publics? What is the role of immigrant networks in shaping transnational discourse of culture, place, and national identification? Are changes in the organization reflected in El Tequio stories over the years?

Transnational public sphere, civic action, and self-representation

Although the dual functions of ethnic and immigrant media have been studied in recent decades, these media have also been considered as instruments for assimilation and incorporation of immigrants into the mainstream culture (Park, 1922; Rhodes, 2010; Viswanath and Arora, 2000). Despite efforts by minorities to promote pluralism, the forces of assimilation are still relevant (Brubaker, 2001) since those are linked to nation-state projects (Shah, 2003). Often assimilation has meant the pressure immigrants and ethnic minorities face to be accepted by the dominant society, something that may involve giving up their language and culture to acquire that of the dominant group. This pressure may come indirectly from institutions such as the school and the mainstream media, which create “desirable” narratives about membership, related to “ideal” racial, ethnic, national, or linguistic features. These pressures affect marginalized minorities, who often do not fully participate in the dominant public sphere because they may lack the communicative resources to make their ideas and experiences visible.

The public sphere is the space where members of democratic societies engage in public dialogue to solve common problems (Habermas, 1989), and has been closely linked to nation-state arrangements. However, participation in dominant public spheres is not evenly distributed across social groups. Thus, some have criticized exclusions, arguing that “counterpublics,” such as women and minorities, have always struggled to make their voices heard (Fraser, 1992: 61). To explain the role of marginalized groups in public discourse, Catherine Squires (2002) has proposed multiple public spheres: enclaved spheres, or safe spaces that are hidden from the mainstream; counterpublic spheres, or places where minorities attempt to engage in dialogue with the dominant public sphere; and satellite spheres, where marginalized publics exist separately from mainstream publics. However, Squires’ classification is still confined to the territorial boundaries of the nation, and does not contemplate transnational immigrant networks as communicating with several national spheres at the time.

Movement of ideas, people, and information in migratory networks, functions as a transnational public sphere, where information, practices and other goods are exchanged across borders. Thus the existence of immigrant and ethnic media outlets responds to a clear need for self-representation, ethnic cohesion, cultural maintenance, advocacy, and pluralism (Renz, 2006; Riggins, 1992; Subervi-Vélez, 1999) in a media environment that renders minority group lives and problems invisible or irrelevant. Media produced by immigrants contribute to the enactment of transnational discourses of identity, self-awareness, and inclusive participation across national borders.

Some authors have argued that connections which immigrants make between their home and host lands are not transnational, but “bilocal” due to the high level of regionalistic attachment developed in the receiving community, and the activities centered almost exclusively in their home towns (Waldinger and Fitzgerald, 2004: 8). Under this logic, immigrants do not become more global once they leave their communities of origin, but only “bilocal.” This is a limited characterization of immigrants’ experiences, and considering working class immigrants’ restricted material resources, the fact that some of them develop and maintain transnational social networks usually lasting decades is remarkable; while some transnational activities by elites may not include dealing with class or racial diversity, as money may allow them to be more selective about the groups they interact with. Even if immigrant primary attachments are regionalistic, this does not mean their allegiances are parochial, or will remain parochial. Once immigrants organize and get involved in immigrant networks they usually connect with other publics building transnational coalitions with immigrant and non-immigrant organizations. The experience of indigenous Mexican immigrants moving through migratory networks includes many instances of “geographical, spatial, and historical multi-sitedness, and simultaneity” (Stephen, 2007). Dichotomizing migrant’s lives as attached to either “home” or “host” countries also places the analysis back in the political demarcations of the nation, and reduces the notion of transnational activity to a temporary practice.

The migratory process confronts people with different narratives of the self and others, and the need for individuals and groups to function in new sociocultural and political contexts makes them incorporate new codes into their behavioral repertoire. Migration makes cultural identity more fluid, transforming “traditional cultures” formerly attached to place. Indigenous migrants have used the language of culture strategically to “open political spaces from which they can negotiate historical and more substantial confrontations, related to redistribution of resources” (Poole, 2007: 224). Therefore, claims of cultural preservation should not be dismissed as parochial, since they are often a starting point for civic involvement.

Civic associations are spaces for learning democracy, because they are based on social trust, and norms of moral obligations among their members (Putnam, 1993). Immigrants organize in civic associations, and use advocacy journalism to advance their causes and change public policy, but also, once they have achieved what Putnam has called “bonding” social capital (2000) by forming community organizations, they reach out to other groups and this enables them to participate in the public sphere.

The Magazine

California has been one of the most popular destinations for indigenous Mexicans from Oaxaca, one of the fastest growing population in the State (Kresge, 2007); some estimate that there are close to a half million Oaxacans in California (Oaxacan Government Website). Oaxaca is also the most diverse state in Mexico, with 16 different indigenous groups. Indigenous Oaxacans have been very active in producing advocacy media, for example, La Hora Mixteca, in Radio Bilingüe, broadcasts in Mixteco and Spanish since 1995 connecting the California Central Valley with Oaxaca; or El Oaxaqueño, a bi-weekly newspaper published simultaneously in Los Angeles and Oaxaca from 1999 to 2010; and Impulso de Oaxaca (also bi-weekly) published since 2004 in Los Angeles. Indigenous migrants have an invested reason to look for self-representation venues outside the Spanish language media, since they may not feel represented by them. Media production in this community is linked to civic organizations, as in the case of El Tequio. As one of the FIOB founders, Rufino Domínguez said: “We cannot trust the mainstream media either in Mexico or the US to give us a voice. El Tequio was created so we can have our own voice, even if it is a humble one, it is still our voice,” (2010, personal communication). The testimony by Domínguez illustrates the need for outlets of self-representation for indigenous migrants, due to their double marginality. El Tequio has been published as a bulletin in the California’s Central Valley since 1991, becoming a trimestral magazine in 2006, and its stories reflect the personal lives of FIOB members, who have followed decades-old transnational migratory networks, originating from Oaxacan towns, the sugar cane harvest in Veracruz, the service jobs in the periphery of Mexico City, or the tomato harvest in Sinaloa and Baja California, and migrating to the agricultural fields of Northern San Diego and the Central Valley, or the service jobs in Los Angeles. This migratory network has often been called Oaxacalifornia, a name that Oaxacan immigrants have informally used to define “the transnationalized space in which immigrants articulate their lives in California with their communities of origin” (Rivera-Salgado, cited in Zunino, 2010: 3). In this multi-site space, civic activities have flourished, and acquired new meanings, combining politics and culture for the enactment of human action.

El Tequio is distributed through migrant networks and often read collectively in the agricultural fields in California and Baja California, in day-laborer sites of some US cities, or in organizational meetings in both countries. While the initial bulletin amounted to a few stenciled pages, the current magazine prints 5000 copies per issue, with an average of 20 pages each, including a photo essay. There are nine stories on average per issue, with a length of two pages per story. Seven people work assembling the magazine, and Odilia Romero, former Binational Coordinator of Women’s Affairs in FIOB, is the General Director, along with former journalist Bertha Rodríguez, who works as the main editor. Some of the issues include a few ads by local businesses, but ad revenue is intermittent, so FIOB members have to fund-raise every time they print. As Romero said, while organizing a fund-raising yard sale in Los Angeles in 2010: “It is always like this we struggle…sometimes we ask for donations, other times we do all kinds of work, but we always find a way to publish El Tequio” (2010, personal communication). El Tequio has also its own website and a recent Facebook page, and beginning in 2013 more stories are being published online and distributed through social media. Publishing El Tequio has been as important for FIOB as other civic activities, showing what de Tocqueville called “a necessary connection” between associations and printed publications (1969: 520).

The community work

The word Tequio also means community work and service (from the Náhuatl language tequitl), and practices of tequio prevail in Mexican indigenous communities, where all able adults participate. The service generally means donating work or money for a collective project. Practices of tequio come from pre-Hispanic and colonial systems of communal cooperation and organization, and have evolved to be adopted in different social contexts. Communal work is associated with social status (Cohen, 1999: 114; Rivera-Salgado and Escala-Rabadán, 2004: 155), since it is often a pre-condition for occupying leadership positions in indigenous communities (López-Bárcenas, 2004).

Practices of tequio are an important part of the cultural capital that indigenous immigrants bring in their migratory journey from Mexico to the United States. Because of tequio activities, it is necessary to build an entire transnational communication space (Flores-Quintero, 2004) where social capital is reinforced and created through service. Tequio itself is being transformed when exercised in the context of transnational migratory networks, because it brings together host and home communities into daily decisions of immigrants. The organizational principles of FIOB are based on this system of cooperation.

Analyzing El Tequio

What does El Tequio say?

From the 171 stories analyzed, 34.5 percent (n= 59) were news, 20 percent (n=34) feature articles, 11 percent (n=19) editorials, 17.5 percent (n=30) pliegos petitorios (manifestos or list of petitions), 11 percent (n=19) Op Eds, and 4.7 percent (n=8) other stories. All the stories in El Tequio are written voluntarily, either by members or by occasional contributors. From the articles analyzed, 53 percent (n=91) were written by FIOB members, 9.4 percent (n=16) collectively signed by FIOB, 11 percent (n=19) had no byline, 17.5 percent (n=30) were collective lists of demands or “pliegos petitorios,” and 9 percent (n=15), were signed by an outside contributor.

Topics from El Tequio

The content of El Tequio is original, without any wire service stories. Stories cover a variety of topics (Table 1). Occasionally Spanish-language media journalists who are in contact with FIOB publish their stories there, but normally it contains accounts and feature articles from FIOB members about events, community members and leaders, human-interest stories, and the traditions, religion, and culture of different indigenous groups.

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Table 1.

Topics of El Tequio stories.

Topic	Total=171	Binational % within topic
Politics	35.0%	50.0%
Religion	2.3	–
Economy and business	2.3	75.0
Education	2.3	25.0
Culture	9.0	53.3
Crime and justice	9.0	12.0
Health	4.0	-
Immigration	25.0	66.7
Gender	3.0	-
Labor rights	3.0	-
Mother language	2.3	25.0
Environment	1.0	-
Sports	.6	-
Violence and security	1.0	-
Other	1.0	-

Politics

As Table 1 shows (see bold highlights) the most prominent topic in El Tequio is “politics,” with 35 percent of stories referring either to elections, general politics in Mexico or the US, civic participation, or political action by grassroots actors. Half of the stories referring to politics are also binational (see Table 1). Binational stories were coded considering events that are happening in one community (either the sending or receiving community), but eventually unfold in a different place and country, or have consequences in both places and for both countries.

Editors and contributors to El Tequio are generally more educated than most rank and file members of FIOB. Therefore, the character of the stories is nuanced and analytical, with several topics treated at once. Topics were coded according to what was deemed the “primary topic of the story.” For example, there was an article by Francisco Mendoza, a Mexican journalist in Los Angeles and occasional contributor of El Tequio, referring to the election for governor of California that year, highlighting the importance of the Latino vote for the success of Democrat candidate Jerry Brown against Republican candidate Meg Whitman. The article highlights the importance of the Latino support in “crushing” the Republican Party in California, and with that, preventing the state, which is 38 percent Latino, from passing further immigration restrictions. The article ends with a comment on the official position of FIOB in the election, supporting the Democratic Party candidates, and issuing a statement condemning Meg Whitman’s “double discourse” strategy of attacking Latinos in the English media, while trying to court the Latino vote in the Spanish language media (Mendoza, 2010).

This story shows the interest of FIOB editors in publishing political news, especially ones that highlight the role of indigenous Mexicans in US politics. FIOB’s statement about Republican candidate Meg Whitman shows their level of involvement in California politics, and their attentiveness to candidate messages. Political news also showed the organization’s cross-border activities, since 50 percent of stories are categorized as binational.

Immigration

A very important topic in El Tequio is immigration, with 25 percent of the total stories. Interestingly, 66.7 percent of stories related to immigration were binational, suggesting an impact on both countries. For example, in a story titled “Behind the border; confabulation against ‘the nobodies,’ we, the migrants” the author denounces “citizenship” as a privilege for a few, referring to US citizens reaping all the benefits of immigrant labor:

you have turned us into ‘illegal aliens,’ undocs (sic) so it does not sound too bad…and automatically you enjoy whatever we can give you: delicious fruits, vegetables, food, and the gardens beautified with our sweat and blood; the thousands of products and services offered at reduced prices due to the devalued cost of our labor (Estrella, 2010: 9–12).

This story shows the immigrant as someone placed outside of the social contract, an unfair social arrangement that values the products of cheap labor, but does not value the producers as human beings and citizens. It denounces the “citizens of a powerful country,” the United States, who can afford to have a good lifestyle by banking in the structural exploitation of others. The traditional form of citizenship, as belonging to a formal political community, is portrayed as an institution of privilege perpetuating inequality.

Discussions about neoliberal policies and globalization, along with the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the Mexican countryside, are also very common in El Tequio. Stories criticizing NAFTA began to appear early on in the magazine. One example is a 1992 comment by Rufino Domínguez, in which he argues that migration is a response to economic problems, and a way to survive: “Migration will not stop with measures to only protect the rich, not even with NAFTA…workers should circulate freely, just as commodities do” (Domínguez, 1992).

This commentary was published when NAFTA negotiations were still ongoing. Indigenous migrants were already feeling the forces of the market that pulled them to jobs in Northern Mexico and the US. Despite the fact that many labor and grassroots organizations in both countries pushed for clauses to regulate labor in NAFTA, the measures taken were minimal and market forces turned immigrant labor into a commodity subjected to supply and demand. The high rate of post-NAFTA migration to the United States (albeit now diminished by the recent US recession) shows the profound economic consequences of the agreement.

The editors and authors of the magazine have been preoccupied with documenting what they consider the roots of their displacement as migrants. Neoliberal policies embedded in NAFTA, and the lack of proper regulation of the movement of labor and capital across political borders, has caused this inequality, affecting indigenous immigrants considerably (Rivera-Salgado, 2010: 1).

Religion

Another finding was that “religion” was not a prominent primary topic in El Tequio. Most of the stories about religion were intertwined with culture or civic participation as primary or secondary topics. An example is a story written by Leoncio Vásquez in May 2005 about a festival to celebrate the patron saint of San Juan Mixtepec, Oaxaca in Arvin, California. There was a public gathering where local agencies, such as the Health Department of Kern County and the California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), were invited to distribute information about health and labor rights to community members who attended the celebration (Vásquez, 2005).

El Pliego Petitorio as a tool for action

Pliegos petitorios are published lists or letters with collective demands that workers make to their employers to better labor conditions. Pliegos petitorios are also used by grassroots organizations to list demands to authorities, and commonly appear in advocacy publications throughout Latin America. These are also main staples of El Tequio, constituting almost 18 percent of total stories. Pliegos petitorios are an instrument of civic advocacy journalism, a practice that citizen organizations use when they produce their own media stories or use media to influence the public policy agenda (Waisbord, 2009).

The content of some pliegos petitorios in El Tequio shows the openness of the organization’s agenda and its political sophistication, highlighting their relationships with US and Mexican authorities, and their outreach efforts to international organizations, such as the International Migrant Alliance and the International Labor Organization. These efforts to reach out to publics beyond the sending and receiving countries breaks with the conception of “bilocality.”

Pliegos petitorios from El Tequio generally address both US and Mexican government authorities when demanding the betterment of migrant workers’ lives. The petitions also make reference to international norms of human and labor rights, as well as international law. For example, in a pliego petitorio directed to President Barack Obama in January 2009, FIOB published a list of demands ranging from granting legal residence to an Oaxacan immigrant currently living in Chicago to re-negotiating NAFTA, especially the labor and human rights sections. It also voiced concerns with Plan Mérida (Merida Initiative) approved by the US government in 2008 to help Mexico combat organized crime. FIOB members were concerned about Mexican authorities using Plan Merida’s money to criminalize social activists in Mexico rather than fight criminal organizations. Some of the demands regarding immigration issues ask to stop the construction of the wall between US and Mexico, to end immigration raids in workplaces, and to pass comprehensive immigration reform. In the same pliego petitorio FIOB also demands that the US “signs and recognizes International Treaties such as the 169 Convention about Indigenous and Tribal People within the International Labor Organization, ILO” (FIOB, 2009: 20). In this petition there is an ethno-political vindication for the recognition of indigenous people’s rights, evoking the 169 Convention of the ILO. Having the US sign this Convention, would allow the recognition of indigenous people and their needs as workers and human beings. They also demanded that the US signs the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers.

The pliegos petitorios are also sent to lists of contacts that include other organizations and English and Spanish language media. The English language media seldom picks up those stories, but sometimes they are published in Spanish-language media in the US or Mexico. Pliegos petitorios appear in El Tequio as a testimony of the activities and positions that FIOB members take regarding different issues affecting them.

Preservation of tradition

A recurrent preoccupation among FIOB members is to maintain their indigenous identity, through the preservation of cultural capital, ranging from indigenous languages, traditional dress, dances, and food, traditions of direct democracy, and systems of tequio. Some have complained about the loss of traditional culture due to migration. Consequently, some male members complain about the loss of women’s “traditional roles,” referencing their desire for women to stay in the realm of the house, cooking and caring for children, rather than in the organization as leaders. However, this has been a contested area, since FIOB has increased the inclusion of women in prominent positions of leadership.

Most of the stories in El Tequio focus rather positively on the preservation of indigenous culture. Table 2 shows a cross tabulation between topics, cultural preservation, and loss of culture variables, while only 23 percent (n=40) of the total stories coded referred to cultural loss, 33 percent referred to cultural preservation in an optimistic fashion.

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Table 2.

Loss or preservation of culture by topic in El Tequio.

Topic	Loss of culture n=40	Cultural preservation n=56
Culture	22.5%	23%
Religion	7.5	4
Sports	2.5	2
Politics	32.5	29
Immigration	17.5	21
The environment	–	2
Mother language	5.0	7
Crime and justice	5.0	5
Other	2.5
Education	5.0	4
Gender	–	4

Social and cultural activities are opportunities for indigenous migrants to actively preserve their heritage, develop solidarity links with other groups in the public sphere, and reinvent themselves in a transnational context. Interestingly, many of the instances referring to “preservation of tradition or culture” were mainly seen in stories referring to politics and immigration, demonstrating what Poole (2007) argued as the use of the language of culture to open political spaces. For example, the organization of workshops, and talks is a very important activity for FIOB. Many of those workshops are related to systematizing community knowledge for future use, since much indigenous knowledge has been lost under colonial and oppressive nation-state regimes in Mexico, and the community’s reliance on the transmission of knowledge through oral culture.

Janet Martinez, a second generation indigenous Zapotec born in Los Angeles, describes in El Tequio the efforts of the Zoogochense community in that city to preserve Zapotec, their mother language, and transfer it to the new generations born outside Zoogocho, a town in the Oaxacan Sierra. Zoogochenses here are rejecting the models of assimilation to the dominant cultures in both Mexico and the United States, and are reaffirming their cultural and linguistic heritage as a component of their identity, acquiring at the same time characteristics of the Mexican and the US dominant cultures. The Zapotec language workshops organized by Zoogochenses are a way to preserve and reproduce knowledge that the traditional school systems in both countries are not recognizing as valid cultural capital. Martínez explains that Zoogochenses have been able to mix the different cultures they encounter. For example, they include the US flag in their costume for a traditional dance forming a “cultural mestizaje” or miscegenation (Martínez, 2009: 7). The American flag sewn into the dancer’s costume, however, can be seen either as a commodity or as a cultural symbol incorporated and mixed to create a nuanced transnational identity, demonstrating the importance of culture as a venue for civic discourse.

Us and them: Bridging and bonding activities

Communicative practices derived from communal work, can be classified as important components of social capital, because they foster a sense of solidarity and belonging. According to Putnam (2000), social capital has two functions: bridging (inclusive), and bonding (exclusive). Immigrant organizations are created with bonding social capital, joining together members of the same town of origin and cultural heritage; although, bonding social capital does not always guarantee positive outcomes for the greater society, if associations do not venture out of their enclosed contexts. Fortunately, bridging activities are also very important for immigrant organizations, since they approach other associations, individuals, and groups in order to execute projects, make connections, and establish relationships of dialogue and understanding. Bridging social capital can also be materialized in public discourse engagement in the public sphere, something Squires defined as acting as a “counterpublic.”

Activities of bonding, and bridging can be seen in stories published since early on in El Tequio. For example, 83 percent (n=142) of stories in El Tequio mention Oaxacans and Oaxacan immigrants from different ethnicities in the state (Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Mixes, Triquis, Chatinos, etc.), while only 17 percent (n=29) did not. However, as Table 3 shows, a good percentage of stories mention other ethnic groups and organizations from Mexico and the US, either by discussing their cooperation with FIOB, or simply by acknowledging them, or their willingness to engage with them.

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Table 3.

Same or different ethnic group or organization, and outlook for the future.

Organization or ethnic group	Stories (number)	Negative	Neutral	Positive
FIOB	89	19%	44%	37%
Other immigrant organization	12	17%	17%	66%
FIOB and other immigrant organization	12	17%	25%	58%
FIOB and other non-immigrant organization	43	21%	49%	30%
Other non-immigrant organization	76	25%	42%	33%
Other ethnic groups	105	29.5%	39%	31.5%

Note: Percentages are calculated across number of stories referring to either FIOB or other organizations and ethnic groups.

Of the stories analyzed, 113 (66 percent) referred to an immigrant organization, 89 of those stories refer to FIOB, while only 24 refer to other immigrant organizations. An evaluation of the outlook for the future was performed on each story, considering a positive outlook as one that highlights good aspects of an event or encounter, a negative outlook as a story pointing out a situation that is not likely to get better, such as systematic discrimination, and a neutral outlook as a story that only states an account of events. As Table 3 shows, stories that mention FIOB and other immigrant organizations at the same time are mostly positive, suggesting cooperative relationships. For example, there is a story about how different Oaxacan immigrant organizations in California joined together to support the candidacy of Gabino Cué for governor of Oaxaca in 2010, organizing a campaign of phone calls from California to Oaxaca to ask people to vote for Cué (Rodríguez-Santos, 2010: 7–8). The story remarks that organizations that may have different interests were able to work together in a successful electoral coalition that brought Cué to the governorship.

Cooperation is not limited to working with other immigrant organizations; 44 percent of the stories coded (n=76) refer to activities with non-immigrant organizations, such as local unions, human rights, educational and health organizations, international labor associations, and foundations. As seen in Table 3, 48 percent (n=43) of stories referring to FIOB also mention another, non-immigrant organization. The National Council of La Raza, the California Endowment, the MacArthur Foundation, the American Friends Service Committee, the Organization of American States, the International Labor Organization, and the Mexican National Indigenous Institute are some of the organizations mentioned.

Most of stories mentioning FIOB have a neutral or positive outlook. When the story refers solely to other immigrant organizations, it usually has an optimistic tone, although these stories are fewer overall. Table 3 also shows the same tendency when stories with FIOB and other organizations are represented together (see third and fourth rows). The tendency changes when non-immigrant organizations are mentioned in the stories, because the outlook for the future is mostly neutral (42 percent), or positive (33 percent). Still the tendency for fewer negative stories persists, although those are more frequent than in the stories when FIOB and non-immigrant organizations appear together. The majority of the stories referring to groups different from indigenous migrants were either neutral or positive, suggesting that they view their connections with other ethnic or racial groups mostly with optimism. For example, at the end of a story regarding a community health conference organized in Madera, California between indigenous women from FIOB and Hmong women, Oralia Maceda states: “we should continue to cultivate this relationship of friendship and cooperation with Hmong women in Madera” (Maceda-Méndez, 2001).

The evolution of El Tequio

El Tequio’s stories reflect the way certain conflicts have affected FIOB over the years. Table 4 shows who wrote, and who was included in the stories published in the magazine. For example, women in FIOB have attained positions of leadership, and exert some influence in the organization challenging “traditional” patriarchal practices of oppression and exclusion, as shown by the prominent roles of Odilia Romero and Bertha Rodríguez producing El Tequio.

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Table 4.

Topics by first and second decade of El Tequio.

Topic	Period 1 1992–2001 11 issues n=92	Period 2 2002–2010 10 issues n=79
Inclusion of women as writers	15 %	35 %
Participation of 2nd generation immigrants	6.5	13
Mentions of Oaxacans	90.0	75
Mentions of other ethnic groups (outside Oaxaca)	58.0	66
Other non-immigrant organization	55.0	32
Home country news	60.0	56
Binational news	46.0	49
Politics	42.0	25
Immigration	16.0	34
Culture	6.5	11
Loss of cultural tradition	15.0	33
Preserving cultural tradition	24.0	43
Positive outlook for the future	29.0	46

During the first decade of the organization, about 15 percent of stories were written by women (see Table 4). This percentage has been steadily increasing, and reached 35 percent by the second decade, as more women are joining the migratory networks along with men. The evolution of El Tequio stories shows not only the presence of women, who are a long part of the rank and file of the organization, but also their current influence and inclusion in positions of power and decision-making.

FIOB has also made efforts to incorporate the children of immigrants. Many of the participants even bring their children to events and rallies, and say that they are working in the organization as a way to benefit their children’s future. As leaders of FIOB get older, conversations about the integration of the second generation are increasing. During their State Assembly in June 2011, US-born Sarait Martínez was elected as head of the newly created Youth Affairs Coordination. However, as Table 4 shows, the incorporation of second-generation indigenous migrants has been proportionally smaller than that of women, although growing from 6.5 to 13 percent of mentions by the second decade.

As an organ for self-representation and advocacy, El Tequio has included more stories mentioning indigenous Oaxacans (of different ethnicities) in the first period of the magazine (90 percent of stories). This percentage dropped to 75 percent by the second decade, suggesting that FIOB members are increasingly reaching out to different groups, something reflected in their 2004 name change (they were formerly known as the Oaxacan Binational Indigenous Front). Reaching out to other groups represents a sign of bridging social capital, something useful for engaging in the public sphere. When encountering and knowing others, people may experience a transformation in understanding their self in relationship to a diverse world. In the stories reported in El Tequio this transformation can be seen through the years.

Surprisingly, coverage of politics fell from 42 to 25 percent, suggesting a variation of topics over time. Binational news increased from 46 to 49 percent, as did stories about immigration, from 16 to 34 percent. This increase has something to do with the voicing of proposals for immigration reform by FIOB members, which have been published in the magazine. Immigration reform in particular has been considered as one of the main goals of the organization.

Conclusion

The analysis of El Tequio offers a glimpse not only into FIOB’s civic and communicative engagement across borders, but into the struggle of indigenous migrants for recognition and dignity, and their willingness to reach out to other transnational publics, such as international organizations, and other minorities, and to have a voice in the public sphere. FIOB has engaged in multiple communication strategies, from the sending of letters and telegrams to publishing a magazine, opening and maintaining a website, hosting a long-lasting binational and multi-lingual radio program, and establishing an interpreters’ training program in indigenous languages. While communication practices have sustained FIOB’s transnational engagements, the publication of El Tequio has also been a space for social justice because of its civic advocacy journalism. The voluntary character of their communication activities (embedded in traditions of community work) also shows that information and communication are as important as action itself.

Opening communication channels has also allowed the organization to sustain its multi-sitedness and express ideas related to their indigenous and immigrant identity simultaneously, demonstrating interests that are not only regionalistic, but global. El Tequio stories talk about the action of political actors who bring the institutions of the state and other groups into this dialogue as counterpublics, linking two national public spheres with transnational immigrant networks. This participation allows for the development of dialogic mechanisms to recognize differences and similarities among groups, and to accommodate general norms of human dignity, in particular norms of individual and collective agency in a transnational context. El Tequio, with its stories about Oaxacalifornia, contributes to the diversity of voices and dialogue in the public sphere, fostering dialogical practices that allow the strengthening of transnational social capital, and the emergence of enclaves and spaces for counterpublics to thrive.