Sustainable Development in Indigenous Communities in Mexico and the United States By David Beck, Professor and Chair Native American Studies Department Tribal communities in the were from, Ixmiquilpan, he United States and Mexico told them that they are all share similar histories and indigenous. The stigma of challenges, and at the same identifying as indigenous time differ in significant ways. is very strong in Mexico; it UM has partnered with two can lead to discrimination Mexican universities as part of and severely diminish a larger consortium to explore an individual's economic issues related to sustainable prospects, in a way similar to community development in the U.S. thirty to fifty years indigenous communities. This ago. partnership is funded in the United States by a FIPSE (Fund Both Rosalyn and I lectured for the Improvement of Post to the students and provided Secondary Education) grant, a workshop for the faculty on which the UM International issues relating to tribes in the Programs office supplemented United States in general, and to support my travel to Mexico in case studies in community during wintersession. Together development among various with my family I traveled to Market day in Actopan, Hidalgo tribal groups in the U.S., the states of Colima and Hidalgo to serve as a visiting faculty member in our partner universities, Universidad de Colima in the city of Colima and Universidad Tecnologica del Valle del Mezquital in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo. My wife Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet and Little Shell Chippewa), a Ph .D. candidate in the UM history department, was invited by both universities to share her knowledge of ethnobotany and language revitalization efforts from her home community on the Blackfeet Reservation. Colima is a state on the west coast of Mexico. Its climate is tropical and warm. We began our visit in Colima and took a ten hour bus ride to Mexico City where the Rector (President) of Universidad Tecnologica del Valle del Mezquital, Leodan Partes Vargas met us to provide us with a driving tour of his school's home state before we began our work there . Hidalgo is north of Mexico City, with a dry and colder climate. We hiked in the National Park, visited a mining town where we ate pasties and drank locally brewed beer (and hot chocolate for the children), and spent an afternoon at a game preserve, one of the few places in the region where wildlife biologists can help manage the landscape for larger wild animals such as red deer, which are the size of elk, and wild boar. Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, is home to the Otomi people, who aided the Spanish in the conquest and were thus able to retain some control over their communities in the early colonial era. Features of their cultural heritage are visible in the architecture and the landscape. Otomi elder Francisco Luna Tavera provided us with guided tours of religious sites, both Catholic and traditional, and interpreted the artwork which showed clear signs of indigenous religious belief systems . On the other hand, while we were on a bus tour with a group of several dozen students he asked how many were indigenous and none raised their hand. When he asked where they including the Blackfeet, the Menominee of Wisconsin, and tribes on Oregon's coast. One of the reasons that the university rector worked so hard to encourage us to visit Hidalgo was to bring some legitimacy to the concept of indigeneity from the outside world to this community. We were the first scholarly visitors from a U . S. university to lecture at this school. Many of the students and faculty at this university, which is a three year and ten month technical school in a rural state, are indigenous. Most of the students are on 100% state-funded scholarships. After a wonderful week with our marvelous hosts in Ixmiquilpan we returned by bus to the city of Colima, in the state of Colima, where Rosalyn and I participated in a much-publicized three day seminar at the Universidad de Colima entitled "Seminario Estudios de indigenismo ydesarollo communitario en EUA y Mexico." The state of Colima is home to a variety of indigenous groups. Dr. Renata Gonzalez Sanchez, a member of the Colima Economics Department, served as our host . He leads the rural outreach program and organizes community projects in the region, and has served as a close partner with us in our work. Another faculty member, one of the leading quantitative economics professors in Mexico, gave us a tour of rural indigenous communities that rely on coffee and agricultural products for development. The Economics Department at Colima conducts the majority of the sustainable development work in surrounding rural communities, many of which are indigenous . Featured speakers at the seminar included members of the economics department, the tourism department and the social work department. Rosalyn and I both spoke the first night, and I was scheduled to present on all three nights. After Rosalyn's first presentation, the faculty requested that she prepare and give another talk on her home community Beck cont. on pg 3 2