Mary Weadon had found the Web site for an international human rights organization, Global Exchange based in San Francisco, and told her daughter, Marcie Weadon-Moreno, she was thinking of traveling to Cuba with the group.
Intrigued, Weadon-Moreno visited the Web site and earlier this month ended up being the one to spend 10 days abroad. Weadon-Moreno, 20, of Herndon and a third-year anthropology major at the University of Virginia, traveled to Chiapas, Mexico, to learn about the indigenous revolutionaries, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, better known as the Zapatistas.
"I had some concerns," said her mother. "I loved the idea of her getting involved in it, but I had safety concerns and medical concerns. It required a lot of shots. By the time she went, I was OK with her going."
FOR WEADON-MORENO, the experience was a way to connect with her heritage. Her father, who lives in Colorado, is Mexican and had wanted her to learn more about her roots. In 10th grade at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Weadon-Moreno wrote a paper about the Mexican revolution including studying about Emiliano Zapata, the revolution's leader and for whom the Zapatistas are named, so when she saw on the Web site that one of the human rights observation missions Global Exchange takes part in was to Chiapas, home of the Zapatista revolution, she jumped at the opportunity.
"The only kind of indigenous population we have come across is Native Americans … I wanted to see Chiapas … I had heard a little bit about the revolution there before," Weadon-Moreno. "Of all the places the group went, this was the most nitty gritty. The only one where I could see first hand what was happening."
The Zapatistas, according to the Web site zapatistarevolution.com, formed in 1994 to protest "the heavy handed treatment by the government and its patrons," and are seeking equal rights and free trade. The United States Department of State Web site labels the Zapatistas a rebel army. The State Department site recommends "that U.S. citizens traveling to the state of Chiapas exercise caution. Armed rebels and armed civilian groups are present in some areas of the state. In the mountain highlands north of San Cristobal de Las Casas, the municipality of Ocosingo, and the entire southeastern jungle portion of the state east of Comitan, tensions and violence ebb and flow."
WEADON-MORENO said she had no trouble and was even a little overwhelmed by how well treated the group, 18 people strong, was treated by the locals despite not being able to speak their language. The indigenous people speak their own language rather than Spanish, which required the Global Exchange observers to communicate through interpreters. The travelers talked with local residents, Zapatistas supporters and critics, other aid workers in the area; and visited training camps and coffee and weaving cooperatives in order to get a range of opinions regarding the revolutionaries. The Global Exchange group stayed at a hotel in San Cristobal and attended an annual three-day rally for the Zapatistas in the city of Oventic, where everyone camped out in tents, and listened to speeches and dressed in native costumes during the day and rumbaed into the night.
"The Zapatistas like visitors, so they can get the word out of what they do," Weadon-Moreno said. "The biggest threat to me was the paramilitary who didn't want us there. I was a little afraid at the rally because the paramilitary knew all those people were there."
BEFORE LEAVING on her trip, Weadon-Moreno said she did some research on her own about the Zapatistas and the area she would be traveling to in order to avoid being caught up in propaganda. What she took away from her travels, she said, is that the indigenous people are rural farmers who are exploited by a corrupt government and large corporations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, better known as NAFTA, is part of the reason. She says Zapatistas wear black ski masks as a symbol of their invisibility as far as the government is concerned; it is not the hugely violent group it may have once been.
"Their whole sense of community is to work together as a community and the government comes in and breaks them up," Weadon-Moreno said. "It really did seem they have a valid concern."
Since returning, Weadon-Moreno has been more conscientious about the products she and her mom buy.
"There are a lot of corporations I don't feel comfortable with anymore," she said.