I was raised between two worlds: my father indigenous, my mother white mestiza. From an early age, I witnessed violence, men against women, mestizo against indigenous, white against people of color. 

In 1995, my world changed, with the Zapatistas my wake-up call. The Zapatistas took up a courageous attack against neoliberalism, a regime that they believed would increase violence against the common people. After college, I went to Tlaxcala state, where NAFTA had forced so many people to leave home, just as the Zapatistas predicted. For those left behind, those who left seemed to have fallen into a hole and could no longer be touched. 

After a few years doing community service in these communities, I learned that the people in Tlaxcala didn’t need outsiders like me to “help” them. Local leaders felt I could be more effective going to the United States and, among other things, find those who had dropped out of sight and help reconnect them with their families. That’s how I began doing transnational organizing.

Armed conflicts, repression, and violence against women and minority peoples are going on around the world. Why the focus on a México/US Peace Summit? 

The US sent massive numbers of guns to the Mexican military and police to conduct this “war,” and many of those weapons made their way to the very drug dealers the policy was meant to “defeat.” In México, 70 percent of the firearms recovered from crime scenes came from the USA. And the United States itself is suffering from an epidemic of shootings. 

What do you hope the Peace Summit will accomplish? What do you mean by “peace”?

We need to see peace as not just the absence of war. Peace requires ongoing work. It’s not an end goal, it’s a path. The Summit will be a place to begin reflecting, organizing, and acting to create a region without guns, where human mobility has become a right, environmental justice a priority. A region where human rights take center stage and marginalized communities can decide their own destinies. These issues exist on both sides of the border.

Photo: PBS NewsHour

We also need to see the Peace Summit itself as path, a process, not a one-off event. We’ve had several preparatory forums in the US and México, where people have been listening, talking, learning from each other and those who bear the emotional scars.

In the US, we’ve heard from Black Lives Matter activists and from the parents of those killed in school shootings. In México, we’ve involved parents of the disappeared and migrants who’ve experienced terror along their journeys. Through these conversations, we’re constructing an agenda for peace.

At the Summit we’ll be tackling ways to build an effective movement for peace. What elements make up binational action? What actions can strengthen our work if we do them binationally?

After the Summit — just a stop along the way for us — we’ll hold dialogues with government officials, starting at local levels, to implement changes. We agree with the Zapatista slogan, “think globally, act locally.” Small collaborations can change local realities. Autonomous local initiatives, as they grow in number, can impact whole countries.

Organizing strategies and traditions differ in the United States and México. US organizing puts a lot of energy into advocacy and legislative changes, while most progressive movements for social justice in Latin America are demanding systemic change. 

We need to model a kind of leadership that concentrates on asking the right questions, inviting creativity, and giving everyone the same level of power to answer. We don’t believe that a Biden or an AMLO should come up with ideas and impose them on the rest of us. Our definition of leadership skills includes listening, facilitating, and guiding people to put their ideas into action.

In these violent times, you’re boldly demanding peace! What makes you hopeful that peace can be possible?

We can’t put off peace building until we have peace! Global leaders seem to consider peace the last resort to problem solving. But for the people, only making peace can open up the possibility for us to dream again.