Swaying to the cacophony of norteño and banda music and admiring the traditional outfits as enthusiasts wait for the bull riders to begin their competition, it is easy to forget about the expected symbols that communicate “North Carolina”: tobacco production, pork barbecues, and the deeply entrenched black-white binary. Wendell, a cozy, self-proclaimed “small town with big charm,” is about thirty minutes outside of the Tar Heel State’s capital, Raleigh. Since 2011, Mexican migrants like Gamaliel Juárez Sánchez and Gonzalo Tomás from Cherán, Michoacán, have been organizing their hometown’s saint day festival on the outskirts of this rural North Carolina landscape.

Raising an estimated $30,000 for the extravaganza, hundreds from across North Carolina and surrounding Southeastern states flock to the “Fiesta Patronal de Cherán,” honoring Francisco de Asís, a Catholic saint venerated for his austerity and commitment to campesino communities. St. Francis of Assisi, of course, is also widely recognized in Catholic circles, as former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires took on his name to become Pope Francis––the first Pope of the Americas––the Vatican’s 266th head of state. The saint day commemoration celebrated now in Wendell originally was celebrated in Mexico. Given this festival’s new geography, cheranenses—those from Cherán—are forging a sense of place in rural North Carolina through the re-creation and performance of these religious traditions and celebrations.

Though North Carolina’s cheranense migrants mostly do not speak P’urhépecha, the language and name of the indigenous group to which they belong, their festivals and religious celebrations “speak for them” publicly, asserting a performance of P’urhépecha-ness that cannot be easily erased. The unique ability to activate an engaged transnational population also has allowed cheranenses—in Mexico and North Carolina—to make political claims of indigeneity, garnering them national autonomy and international renown. [1] “P’urhépecha Migrants in North Carolina: A Saint Day Festival” depicts a portion of the cheranenses’ patron saint day celebration in North Carolina.

INCORPORATING CHERÁN IN THE US SOUTH

Since the 1900s, Mexican migration had been mostly directed to the Southwest and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Rapid shifts in both Mexico and the United States, however, changed migration and settlement patterns throughout the 1980s. U.S. newspaper headlines sensationalized the problems of the borderlands and only exacerbated anti-immigrant sentiment. In California, politicians introduced legislation that prohibited undocumented migrants from benefitting from social services like education and health care, and ultimately encouraged migrants to settle in areas outside the historic receiving states along the U.S.-Mexico border. Meanwhile, the push of Mexico’s “lost decade” following the 1982 debt crisis and the pull of manufacturing and industrial agriculture—especially in the southeast—increased international labor migration.[2] In North Carolina, this economic globalization strengthened the demand for low-wage labor in poultry- and pork-processing plants during the closing decades of the twentieth century.

It was during the 1980s that hundreds from Cherán, Michoacán, migrated to the United States, especially to North Carolina. Though michoacanos had been migrating since before the Mexican Revolution, distinguishing it as one of the two most important sending communities since the twentieth century, indigenous communities within the state mostly had managed to resist migration through their agricultural practices and artisanal production.[3] By the 1980s, however, Mexico’s economic crises and the devaluation of the peso forced indigenous migrants to seek alternative methods of subsistence.[4] As the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 legalized the status of millions of Mexicans, migrants from Cherán began to migrate to North Carolina in significant numbers, contributing to the largest increase of Latina/o population within any state—a staggering 394 percent increase between 1990 and 2000.[5] By 2013, Mexican officials estimated that more than one million michoacanos lived in North Carolina.[6]

The P’urhépecha were one of the thriving pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica. Today, only 200,000 continue to speak the P’urhépecha language. Educational programs, in collaboration with indigenous councils, have promoted the rescuing of P’urhépecha language and have implemented language of instruction in schools across the state. The crafts and popular religious festivals, especially for the Day of the Dead, held in towns like Tzintzuntzan, Ihuatzio, and Patzcuaro, have made the state the focus of national and international fame. The highest indices of migration have flowed from the north and northeast region of the Bajío. It is in this region of the state where one can find Cherán, a municipality with both a long tradition of emigration and a high number of immigrants to the United States. Even so, Cherán has conserved and has successfully defended its ethnic identity on both a local and national scale, ensuring that people as far away as the United Kingdom took notice.

Cheranenses at home and abroad can stake claims in indigeneity and fashion it as they please precisely because they are from Cherán, a city that on April 15, 2011, made international headlines when women, armed with sticks, machetes, and rocks, attacked a busload of illegal loggers—armed with AK-47s—as they drove through Cherán. The loggers, backed by a leading drug cartel and even the town’s mayor, had terrorized the community’s ecological and social environment for years. Cheranenses for centuries had depended immensely on their rich forest economy for subsistence, and the women who stood in defense of their community in April had seen enough of their neighbors perish at the hands of the cartels or immigrate to the United States.[7] After taking the loggers hostage, the women—joined by a group of townspeople—expelled both the police force and the governing political representatives. Blockades were set up at each of the town’s entrances, staffed by mostly women and children who kept watch all night, every night, for nearly two years. Through a court appeal in November, Cherán was recognized by the federal government as an autonomous community; cheranenses still would receive federal and state funding, but the people would be allowed to govern themselves under a legal framework called “uses and customs” that already had been granted to few other indigenous communities in Mexico. The villagers effectively banned political parties and opted instead to elect twelve representatives, or keris, to govern their community, a tradition that continues today.[8]

Gamaliel and his wife, Cecilia, heard about their hometown’s uprising over the phone, and they committed themselves to supporting the efforts of their family members so many thousands of miles away. Gamaliel and Cecilia began by asking for donations from fellow cheranenses in North Carolina to organize a kermes—a carnival—promising that 100 percent of the profits would be sent to Cherán to sustain the vigilante efforts. Though at first hesitant, cheranenses in North Carolina responded quickly as the violence in their home community escalated. These cheranenses raised thousands of dollars, which were then distributed equally among the blockades that had been established to protect each of the entrances to Cherán. By mobilizing the cheranense community to engage in a working-class struggle, Cecilia and Gamaliel called for a remembering of their cultural identity and collective memory. Through this public performance of civic participation, they ensured that their community and families would survive.

It was only until after the uprising in Cherán that Gamaliel and Cecilia—perhaps taking advantage of the renewed social interest in Cherán and the engaged network of cheranense migrants—began organizing Cherán’s saint day festival in Wendell with other cheranenses, like Gonzalo. The first patron saint celebration raised more than $30,000 dollars, and it was such a success that plans quickly ensued for the following year. 2016 marked the sixth celebration of the patron saint day festival in North Carolina, a tradition all cheranenses hope will continue for many more years to come.

*Originally published in “Borders Beyond the Border”

[1] ACCORDING TO THE POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS, “INDIGENOUS” MEXICANS ARE THOSE WHO LIVE WITHIN A GEOGRAPHIC AREA CONSIDERED AS SUCH, AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SPEAK AN INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE OR SELF IDENTIFY AS INDIGENOUS.

[2] FERNANDO CHARVET, JORGE DURAND, AND DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, “THE CHANGING GEOGRAPHY OF MEXICAN IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES: 1910-1996,” SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY 81, NO. 1 (2000).

[3] DAVID FITZGERALD, A NATION OF EMIGRANTS: HOW MEXICO MANAGES ITS MIGRATION (BERKELEY: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 2009).

[4] CASIMIRO LECO TOMÁS, MIGRACIÓN INDÍGENA A ESTADOS UNIDOS: PURHÉPECHAS EN BURNSVILLE, NORTE CAROLINA (MORELIA, MICHOACÁN, MÉXICO: UNIVERSIDAD MICHOACANA DE SAN NICOLÁS DE HIDALGO, 2009).

[5] U.S. CENSUS AMERICAN FACTFINDER FOR 1990 AND 2000 DECENNIAL CENSUS RESULTS AND 2006-8 AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY POPULATION ESTIMATES. (HTTP://FACTFINDER.CENSUS.GOV/).

[6] THOUGH ITS UNCERTAIN HOW MANY INDIGENOUS MIGRANTS LIVE IN NORTH CAROLINA, STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT 2.2 PERCENT OF THE MICHOACANOS WHO MIGRATE TO THE UNITED STATES ARE INDIGENOUS. OF INDIGENOUS MICHOACANOS, 80 PERCENT ARE P’URHÉPECHA. SEE GAIL MUMMERT, “DILEMAS FAMILIARES EN UN MICHOACÁN DE MIGRANTES,” IN DIÁSPORA MICHOACANA, ED. GUSTAVO LÓPEZ CASTRO (ZAMORA, MICHOACÁN: EL COLEGIO DE MICHOACÁN, 2003), 113–45; C. SERRANO, ENRIQUE, AND ET AL., “LA DIÁSPORA INDÍGENA. LA MIGRACIÓN INTERNACIONAL DE LOS PUEBLOS INDÍGENAS MEXICANOS,” VOL. 2, 6 VOLS. (MORELIA, MICHOACÁN, MÉXICO: PUBLICACIÓN TRIMESTRAL DE LA COMISIÓN NACIONAL PARA EL DESARROLLO DE LOS PUEBLOS INDÍGENAS. NUEVA ÉPOCA, 2003), 45–60.

[7] LECO TOMÁS, MIGRACIÓN INDÍGENA A ESTADOS UNIDOS; CECILIA M, INTERVIEW.

[8] CECILIA M, INTERVIEW; MIKE AIKEN, “CHERÁN: THE SECESSION OF A MEXICAN VILLAGE,” RED PEPPER, FEBRUARY 2003, HTTP://WWW.REDPEPPER.ORG.UK/CHERAN-THE-SECESSION-OF-A-MEXICAN-VILLAGE/; KARLA ZABLUDOVSKY, “IN MEXICO, RECLAIMING THE FORESTS AND THE RIGHT TO FEEL SAFE,” THE NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 2, 2012, HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2012/08/03/WORLD/AMERICAS/IN-MEXICO-RECLAIMING-THE-FORESTS-AND-THE-RIGHT-TO-FEEL-SAFE.HTML.