Boletín
April,
2005welte@prodigy.net.mxhttp://www.welte.org
Our
organization finds itself at an important crossroads in its history.For
the past ten years we have survived through the efforts of a few individuals
who have given generously of their time and financial resources to ensure
that WELTE continued to serve Oaxaca in the same tradition that Cecil Welte
did.However, due to the changing
nature of the population served by the Institute and on the advice of our
attorneys, it has become necessary to re-structure the operations and governance
of our organization.
As
in the past the governance of WELTE will be vested in a board of directors
that will consist of 9 members with overlapping 3 year terms.In
addition to the 9 members elected at large, the board will consist of a
secretary and a treasure selected by the board.The
President of The Welte Institute for Oaxaca Studies will be selected by
the board from among its members to serve a 3 year term.The
responsibilities of the board will be to set general policy for the Institute
and to raise funds for its operation and growth.
An
executive
committee consisting of an executive
director, the librarian, and any other members deemed necessary by the
Board of Directors will be responsible for the daily operations of WELTE
in accordance with the policies established by the board.Members
of the executive committee who are not voting members of the board of directors
will serve as ex-oficio members of the board of directors.
This
new organizational structure will allow WELTE to continue to move forward
into the future and fulfill the mission of providing a quality research
environment for those working in Oaxaca and Southern Mexico.
We
are currently soliciting nominations and volunteers to serve on the board
of directors of the Welte Institute for Oaxaca Studies.If
you are interested and/or would like to nominate another individual, please
let me know at admurphy@uncg.ed.
In
the near future those of you who are voting members of WELTE, which means
you have made a donation in 2004 or 2005, will receive a ballot with the
slate of candidates for the board of directors.If
you are not currently a voting member and would like to help in the development
of this new phase of our Institute, please send in your donation as soon
as possible.
I
am looking forward to working with all of you in the future to continue
our support of this great institution.
Art
Murphy
President
Many
people and institutions are to be thanked for the success of the symposium,
but a few collaborators should be given particular kudos.The
URSE not only provided us with the space, it also designed and printed
the convocatoria and posters,sent
announcements to the media, supplied all of the audio-visual equipment,
and provided bus service to and from city center, all free of charge.Furthermore,
the staff that the university assigned to assist us was exceptionally attentive
and competent.We could not have
been treated better.CIESAS-Istmo,
as in previous symposiums, sponsored Thursday eveningÕs reception
at which a delicious and ample assortment of Oaxacan food and beverages
was offered to the attendees.The
Southwest Center for International Studies of
Tucson repeated their collaboration by paying for the hand-made folders
that contained the information package given each attendee.Individuals
that should be mentioned, in addition to the staff of the URSE, include
Gillian
Clarke, Jack Corbett,
Jayne
Howell, Angeles Romero,
Paola
Sesia, Ignacio Silva,
Carole
Turkenik, Rosalba Vera,
and Laura Waterbury.
FACILITATING TEACHING
AND RESEARCH
The
Welte Institute continues to provide facilities and assistance to several
study abroad programs.The winter-springacademic
term (roughly January through March or April, is the busiest with programs
from Kalamazoo, Redlands,
and Linfield colleges, and
the University of Chicago.For
the latter, classes were held in the Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca, and
library research was at the Welte.Also
during the winter months, for the last two years Lynn Foster
has organized an adult learning program about Oaxaca, mostly dealing with
Oaxacan archaeology and history.(Another
program is being planned for 2006.)One
of LynnÕs goals is to introduce OaxacaÕs English-speaking
expatriatesto the Welte and to
involve them in the serious study of Oaxaca. (As one of LynnÕs attendees
said,ÒÉso that the
expats donÕt just sit around the z—calo getting drunk.Ó)In
the middle of all of that the Welte also hosted a three-day seminar in
February on applied linguistics, organized by Angeles Clemente
and Michael Higgins of the
Facultad de Idiomas of UABJO.Their
keynote lecture was ÒEnglish Language Teaching in Mexico:Towards
a Positional Paper,Ó presented by the Australian professor ofapplied
linguistics, Alastair Pennycook.Needless
to say, during the first three moths of the year the Welte Library bustles
with students, but, thanks to GudrunÕs skills, weÕve been
able to accommodate everyone.
The
place is far from moribund at other times of the year either.The
summer is not only the season for the influx of independent researchers
from abroad, butit is when Ramona
Perez (San Diego State U) brings
down her group of students to study Mixtec in the Welte.And
in the fall, the Southwest Center for International Studies,
under the leadership of Jack Corbett,bases
its semester abroad at the Welte.
And
particularly noteworthy this year was a program from Morehouse College,
headed by Lee Gallo.Lee
has brought a group of Morehouse students for several summers now to learn
about the Afro-Mestizo peoples of the Costa Chica.But
this past winter (December 11-January 10) ? with financial support from
the Fulbright Commission and organizational support from the Welte ? Lee
headed up a group of faculty and administrators from Morehouse who were
here to familiarize themselves with Oaxaca and the Afro-Mestizos to lay
the groundwork for a more extensive cooperative program between Morehouse
and OaxacaÕs Afro-Mestizo peoples.Morehouse
College as you probably know, is a traditionally black institution.(What
you may not know is that it is the only remaining all-male college in the
US.)
An
exciting new role for the Welte Institute is in the making.We
have been approved as the local administrator of a research project affiliated
with UCLAÕs North American Integration and Development Center and
funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.(Additional
Ford Foundation funding is pending.)The
title of the project is: Coffee, Migration and Rural Development in
Southern Mexico.David
Runsten, associate director
of NAIDC, is the principal investigator, and Arthur Murphy
and Ronald Waterbury will
serve as co-PIs, although their role will be limited primarily to project
administration in representation of the Welte Institute. Along with David
Runsten, the researchteam will include
Josefina
Aranda of UABJOÕssociology
institute, Jonathan Fox (UC
Santa Cruz), Jessa Lewis
(UC San Diego), Ted Muttersbaugh(U
of Kentucky), and Carol Zabin
(UC Berkeley). The project, which began in Summer 2004, will run through
the Fall of 2006.
LIBRARY HOLDINGS
Gudrun
Dorhmann, our stalwart librarian, reports that the Library's database of
books and articles now contains approximately 10,500 titles, not counting
the map collection which is catalogued in a separate database.ItÕs
worth repeating that until we are flush enough financially to establish
an acquisition fund, we are fully dependent on donations.An
important source of titles is the authors themselves, many of whom systematically
donate copies of their own publications to the library.So
if you have written anything that is even remotely related to Oaxaca, please
deliver it, mail it, or send it as an e-mail attachment to the Welte.Remember
that depositing a copy of your work in the Welte Library is the best way
to assure that it will be read and appreciated by truly interested people.
Many
people also donate books to us from their personal libraries,and
in some cases people actually buy new books about Oaxaca that they donate
to the Welte. Among the latter are people who live in Oaxaca but have limited
space.They donate new or recently
published books to the Welte Library because they know they can always
find them there if they wish to consult any of them in the future.
Another
important source of titles has been retired North American professors who
downsize their home and office collections by donating them to the Welte.(Mexican
professors or researchers rarely retire because of their utterly inadequate
pension systems.)
Incidentally,
it does not cost much to mail boxes of books using the Òmail sackÓ
system of the US Post Office.The
books go from post office to post office; i.e., they wonÕt pick
up at the US end or deliver at the Mexican end.You
must schlep your boxes of books to the post office where they are literally
put into canvas bags, two or three boxes per bag depending upon the size
and weight of the boxes.(Since
books are heavy, keep your boxes relatively small to avoid the boxes bursting
in transit or giving hernias to the postal employees.)The
bags are then sent (via truck presumably) to the recipient post office
in Mexico where a notice is delivered to the recipient.At
this end, we go to the post office and pick up the books.The
books can take two months or more to arrive, but it is our experience they
always eventually arrive.You can
mail your books to the Oaxaca address on the donation form on the last
page of the bulletin.
CYBERSPACE
The e-mail list
The
Oaxacan Studies e-mail list now has over 270 participants, and it has become
an important means of communication for researchers and other people seriously
interested in Oaxacan matters.It
also will become the principal link with the Welte membership as we gradually
move to an all electronic communication system.If
you are not on the list but would like to be, send an e-mail to Ron Waterbury
at ronwater@prodigy.net.mx.
The Webpage
The
less than adequate state of our website (www.welte.org)
is additional evidence that, other than Gudrun, the Welte Institute is
administered entirely by volunteers who have many other competitors for
their time and attention.Jayne
Howell (Cal State Long Beach)
has made a few corrective changes to the page, but she will not be able
to continue with it beyond May.We
need a volunteer, knowledgeable about webpage matters, to serve as our
webmaster.If youÕre willing
to perform this tequio for
the Welte,please e-mail Ron Waterbury.
WHATÕS HAPPENING:
PERSONS, PROJECTS, AND PUBLICATIONS
The
International
Association for the Study of Common Property
(IASCP) celebrated its Tenth Biennial Congress in Oaxaca, 9-13 August,
2004.The program was comprised of
a multiplicity of panels scattered over the five days and featured presentations
broadly related to common property issues around the globe.Many
of the papers dealt with OaxacaÑtoo many to mention in this bulletin.We
encourage you to go to the webpage http://www.iascp2004.org.mx/download/final_program.pdf.If
you do a search for the word ÒOaxacaÓ, youÕll get
70 hits.Not all of those hits represent
a paper, of course, but nonetheless the number is impressive.Many
of the papers of the congress are available for downloading in PDF format.
***Under
the coordination of Daniela Traffano, CIESAS-Istmo
has been hosting an ongoing series of seminars on Historia, Etnohistoria
y Afines. For
the schedule, e-mail Daniela at daniela_traffano@yahoo.com.***Michael
Chibnik (Iowa) is curating an
exhibit of 30 Oaxacan wood carvings at the U of Iowa Museum of Art.It
will show there from December 2005 through March 2006, after which it will
travel to other locations.***Camile
Antinori is doing a post-doc
in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley.Her
latest paper, ÒVertical Integration in the Community Forest Enterprises
of Oaxaca,Ó will be published in The Community-Managed Forests
of Mexico: The Struggle for Equity and Sustainability,
edited by David Bray, Leticia Merino-P*rez and Deborah Barry (Texas Press).Many
of her papers are available on her webpage: http://are.berkeley.edu/~antinori.***Jack
Corbett (Portland State) is
a Fulbright visiting scholar in the Department of Political Science, U
Alberta, for the spring 2005 term.***Gary
Feinman and Linda Nicholas
(Field Museum) have now led six seasons of excavation at the site of El
Palmillo in the hills above Santiago Matatl?n.In
June 2004, Feinman and Nicholas made a formal presentation to the community
about the projectÕs findings, which was held in conjunction with
an exposition in the municipal building of some of the key archaeological
pieces discovered during the project.The
event was facilitated by INAH-Oaxaca and was organized and sponsored by
community groups from Matatl?n.Already
emanating from this research is a hefty list of publications,for
which there is space here to mention only three (all published in 2004):Hilltop
Terrace Sites of Oaxaca, Mexico: Intensive Surface Survey at Guirœn, El
Palmillo, and the Mitla Fortress,
Fieldiana, Anthropology, New Series No. 37; ÒHousehold Economic
Specialization and Social Differentiation: The Stone-Tool Assemblage at
El Palmillo, Oaxaca,Ó(with
Helen
Haines), Ancient Mesoamerica
15:251-266; ÒEl Palmillo: Una perspectiva dom*stica del periodo
Cl?sico, en el valle de Oaxaca,Ó Cuadernos del Sur
20:7-29. ***OaxacaÕs
rich prehispanic history is receiving more worldwide recognition.The
first chapter of Ancient Oaxaca
by Blanton, Feinman, Kowalewski, and Nicholas (Cambridge University Press)
has been translated and published in Chinese in the journal Huaxia Kaogu.***Ross
Mitchell (Alberta) finished
his dissertation entitled Ecological Democracy and Forest-dependent
Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, Department
of Rural Economy, University of Alberta, Canada (2005).Also
forthcoming is ÒPlanting Trees, Building Democracy: Sustainable
Forestry in Mexico,Ó in Environmental Issues in Latin America
and the Caribbean, edited
by Aldemaro Romero and Sarah West, Springer Publishing, 2005.). Ross
now works with the Alberta Research Council (www.arc.ab.ca).
***Patricia
Plunket has edited a festschrift
honoring the memory of John Paddock: Homenaje a John Paddock,
University of the Americas-Puebla, 2003. ***From
the pen of Marc Winter we
get: ÒMonte
Alb?n and Late Classic Site Abandonment in Highland Oaxaca,Ó in
The Archaeology of Settlement Abandonment in Middle America,
T. Inomata and R.W. Webb, eds, (Utah Press, 2003).And
ÒExcavaciones Arqueol—gicas en El Carrizal, Ixtepec, Oaxaca, in
Palabras
de luz, palabras floridas,
Vicente Marcial Cerqueda, ed, (U del Istmo, Tehuantepec).***The
results of Jeffrey CohenÕs
(Penn State) research on migration are coming out.For
example, The Culture of Migration in Rural Oaxaca
(Texas Press, 2004); ÒRemittance outcomes in rural Oaxaca, Mexico:
Challenges, Options and Opportunities for Migrant HouseholdsÓ (with
Leila
Rodriguez), Population, Space
and Place, 11(1), 2005.***Deborah
PooleÕs (Johns Hopkins)
article ÒAn Image of ÔOur IndianÕ: Type Photographs
and Racial Sentiments in Oaxaca, 1920-1940Ó appeared in 2004 in
the Hispanic American Historical Review.
*** Jayne Howell,(Cal State
Long Beach) published ÒTurning Out Good Ethnography, or Talking
Out of Turn?Ó Journal of Contemporary Ethnography,
33(3).***Jayne
and W. Warner Woods
organized a panel for the Society for Applied Anthropology meetings in
Santa Fe, NM, entitled ÒSe Vende Oaxaca?Ó that features presentations
by Diana Carr, Ronda Brulotte (Texas
Austin),and Ramona P*rez (San
Diego State)with a discussion by
Lois
Wasserspring.***Ramona
P*rez also had an article on
the development of Santa Maria Atzompa as a peri-urban space entitled ÒFrom
Ejido to Colonia: Reforms to Article 27 and the Formation of an Urban Landscape
in OaxacaÓ, Urban Anthropology
37(4).
***Eugene Hunn (Washington)
has completed his mammoth manuscript (1068 pages) for a book to be titled:
A
Zapotec Botany: Trees, Herbs, and Flowers in the Life of San Juan Gbee,
which is under review with Arizona Press.The
opus documents local recognition and use of 720 categories of plants named
in the local Zapotec language, as well as chapters detailing the community
and its natural environment.The
book will be accompanied by a CD with some 300 color images of plants,
people, places, activities.Like
all honorable authors, he will donate a copy of the book to the Welte Library.
***A
particularly notable anthology recently appeared (despite the fact that
it bears a 2002 publication date): Oaxaca: Escenarios del Nuevo Siglo
(Sociedad, Economia, Politica),
edited by Victor Raul Martinez (victorraulm@hotmail.com)
of UABJOÕS sociology institute.The
compilation includes 17 mostly short articles covering a broad range of
contemporary issues, and is extremely useful as an overview of Oaxaca.If
you want to recommend one book to someone whose knowledge of Oaxaca is
limited, this is the bookÑprovided, of course, that your someone
reads Spanish.***Another
noteworthy recent publication is Ind’genas Mexicanos Migrantes en los
Estados Unidos, which is the
Spanish version of Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States,
edited by Jonathan Fox and
Gaspar
Rivera-Salgado.Remarkably,
both have publication dates of 2004 and came out within months of each
other, unlike the years that it often takes for a work in English to be
produced in Spanish.Much of this
and related matter can be accessed on FoxÕs webpage: http://www.lals.ucsc.edu/Fox.***The
dynamic duo of Alicia Barabas
and Miguel Bartolom* keep
producing.Either
jointly or individually, they have recently published: Atlas Etnogr?fico
de Oaxaca
(with Benjam’n Maldonado,INAH-
FCE, 2004); Di?logos con el Territorio: Simbolizaciones sobre elEspacio
en las Culturas Ind’genas de M*xico
(4 Tomos, INAH, 2004); Historias y Palabras de los Antepasados: Investigaci—n
y Devoluci—n Social de la Informaci—n Antropol—gica
(Secretar’a de Asuntos Ind’genas, 2003).ÒElogio
del Polite’smo: las Cosmovisiones Ind’genas en Oaxaca,Ó Cuadernos
de Etnolog’a
No. 3, 2005.***Nicole
SaultÕs (4nicole@racsa.co.cr)
paper ÒThe Godmother as Mediator: Constraining Violence in a Zapotec
Village of Oaxaca, MexicoÓ came out in The Cultural Shaping of
Violence: Victimization, Escalation, Response,
editor Myrdene Anderson (Purdue Press, 2004). ***Mark Overmyer-Vel?zquezÕs
(UConn)
most recent article is: ÒA New Political Religious Order: Church,
State, and Workers in Oaxaca City, 1887-1911Ó in Martin A. Nesvig,
ed. Religious Culture in Modern Mexico,
Scholarly Resources, 2005.MarkÕs
book
Visions of the Emerald City: Modernity, Tradition and the Formation
of Porfirian Oaxaca, Mexico
will be published by Duke Press in 2006.***La
Ruta Mixteca. El Impacto Etnopol’tico de la Migraci—n Trasnacional en los
Pueblos Ind’genas de M*xico,
Stefano
Varese
y Sylvia Esc?rcega
(coordinadores) was published by UNAM in December, 2004.***On
January 7, 2005 the book Historia de la Arqueolog’a en Oaxaca
by Nelly Robles and A.
Ju?rez Osnaya (Conaculta 2004)
was presented to the public.This
eminently readable book reveals the history and methodology of the cast
of characters who have enlivened Oaxacan archaeology over the years, including,
of course, Alfonso Caso.***Gabriela
P*rez B?ez, a PhD student in
linguistics at Buffalo, is developing a lexical database of Juchit?n Zapotec.***Gonzalo
S?nchez Santiago is
writing a thesis on ÒLos artefactos sonoros antiguos en M*xico:
El caso de Oaxaca prehisp?nicaÓ for the Escuela Nacional de Mœsica
of UNAM.If
youÕre interested in prehispanic musical instruments, check out
GonzaloÕs website: http://www.geocities.com/gsxochipilli.***The
revised English edition (co-authored by Laura R. Waterbury)
of Manuel EsparzaÕs
1993 Juan Pel?ez de Berrio Alcalde Mayor de la Villa de AntequeraÉ
was published in early 2005.The
title of the English edition is: The Foundation of the City of Oaxaca
(1529-1531): A History of Sex, Greed, Torture and Death.The
sub-title forewarns the reader that Juan Pel?ez de Berrio was an archetypically
nasty Spanish overlord.It was largely
the sex that led to the alcaldeÕs downfall, which is probably why
Esparza chose to adorn the front cover of the book with a photograph by
Ariel Mendoza of a bare-breasted
beauty representing the Indian ÒprincessÓ who was Pel?ez
de BerrioÕs forbidden lover.Perhaps
as a companion piece, L. R. Waterbury and M. Esparza should publish an
English version of EsparzaÕs Con las Naguas Alzadas.How
would they translate that into English?With
Skirts on High?Now,
this editor asks, why canÕt everybody write history like this?***Laura
R. Waterbury does more than
collaborate on sexy histories.She
just received her PhD in historical anthropology from the U of Illinois-Chicago
with a dissertation bearing the more chaste title of: In a Land with
Two Laws: Spanish and Indigenous Justice in Eighteenth Century Oaxaca,
Mexico.***Yet
another recent PhD is Robert Markens,
whose 2004 dissertation for Brandeisis
titled: Ceramic Chronology in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico during the
Late Classic and Postclassic Periods and the Organization of Ceramic Production. ***Several
doctorates in regional development have recently been granted by the Instituto
Tecnol—gico de Oaxaca (ITO), notably: Rafael Reyes Morales
with the thesis titled Condicionantes del bienestar en los hogares urbanos
pobres de Oaxaca;Jaime
Segura,
Las
actividades econ—micas en la expansi—n de la capital de Oaxaca: 1970-1990;
andIgnacio Silva Leyva,
La
Poblaci—n Pendular en el Desarrollo Urbano de la Ciudad de Oaxaca de Ju?rezÑall
students of Arthur Murphy.***We
close this chat section with the doings of one of the deans of Oaxaca research:Ronald
Spores.Although
technically retired from Vanderbilt, he is more active than ever and, in
his own words, Òhaving the time of my life,Ó carrying out
a project that he has been dreaming of doing for years. Thanks to major
funding from OaxacaÕs principal philanthropist, Alfredo Harp
Helœ,Ron
is heading up a multi-team research project in Teposcolula.Teposcolula
is important for the historical transitions it reveals in the Mixteca Alta.On
a hilltop above the valley three crews are excavating Pueblo Viejo.The
city,which at its apogee had 8,000
to 10,000 inhabitants, was founded in 100AD, abandoned in 400AD, and reestablished
in 900AD.From then it thrived until
the Spaniards imposed themselves in 1524, the conspicuous evidence for
which is the church that the Spaniards built in the middle of the city
and the sealing up of the sacred caves.In
1545, perhaps because of an epidemic,the
Spaniards moved the entire settlement down into the valley and founded
the present town of Teposcolula.History
and this megaproject do not stop there.Teposcolula
was first indirectly ruled through the local indigenous nobility,one
of whom built a gleaming white palace complex not long after the town was
established.The grounds of thisspectacular
complex, known as the ÒCasa de la CacicaÓ are being excavated
by a team of archeologists, and the palace structures themselves are being
restored under the guidance of historian Sebastian Van Doesburg.The
restoration of three other colonial buildings in the town are also in the
offing, which will add yet more to the colonial patrimony of Teposcolula,
already famous for its magnificent Dominican complex of church, monastery,
and open chapel.Government and business
interests are chomping at the bit to make Teposcolula a principal way station
in the long-hoped-for tourist routecalled
the ÒRuta Dominicana.ÓThe
first stepÑrumor has itÑwould be to build a Holiday Inn to
anchor a complex of tourist services.Needless
to say,Ron Spores has nothing to
do with that phase of the project.
Where
will the money come from?The vast
majority of the LibraryÕs users are Mexican (principally Oaxacan)
students and researchers, whose incomes are meager and for whom a sizeable
donation to the Welte is difficult if notimpossible.Setting
aside the miserable economic condition of Mexican students, remember that
even the average base pay of a full-time professor-researcher at any of
OaxacaÕs academic institutions is well under 10,000 pesos per month.That
places them in the $25 bracket in the membership fee schedule.(See
the donation form at the end of the bulletin.)None
of this should be misconstrued to mean that the Mexican users donÕt
contribute.They do.In
fact they comprise the majority of our membership.However,
most of them cannot afford to become members beyond the $25 or $35 category.True,
there is a small group of Mexican researchers who do quite wellÑe.g.,
INAH and CIESAS researchers who are also members of the National System
of Researchers (SNI), which provides a robust supplement to their base
pay.And many of them do contribute
at the $75 level, and two or three at the $100 level.Although
we are making an effort to increase the level of support from locals even
further, under the best of circumstances they will never be able to keep
us afloat.So the major share of
the burden of supporting the Welte will continue to fall on the shoulders
of non-Mexicans.
WeÕre
asking you to make the Welte your Òpet charity.We
all support some good cause or other through a charitable donation:the
Red Cross, Oxfam, Public Radio,the
Alma Mater, Doctors Without Borders,Amnesty
International, the public library,a
museum, cancer research, you name it.Our
donations to those causes are important.But
those organizations have huge membership bases and multimillion dollar
budgets, and they also receive money from deep-pocketed individuals, large
foundations and even, in some cases, governments.Donations
to small organizations, like the Welte, that have small budgets but that
serve critical needs is where your donation makes the CRITICAL DIFFERENCE
We
have more than once heard a North American academic say,ÒWhy
should I donate to the Welte when I barely use it any more?ÓOr,
ÒNow I only come to Oaxaca occasionally.Ó(And
this even from people who were friends of Cecil Welte and who praised him
and availed themselves of his generosity.)Of
course they donÕt personally ÒneedÓ the Welte all
that much, if at all.They have extensive
personal libraries and access to wonderful university and public libraries.
Our
reply to this thinking is: ÒItÕsPAYBACK
TIME.ÓDonÕt think
of your donation as a toll to the Welte Institute for services rendered,
pro-rated by the number of hours of library use. Rather your donation is
a way to repay Oaxaca for providing you the research material on which
your career depends and to repay, albeit indirectly, the Oaxacans who made
your work here possible.What you
are supporting directly is the Oaxacan intellectual community for whom
the Welte Library is a unique, critical, and indispensable resource.
So,
if you havenÕt given for 2005 yet, fill out the form and mail in
your donation.Make it as hefty as
you can afford so that the Welte can survive and continue to provide its
unique services. In that way you will be repaying Oaxaca a portion of what
you have taken. Perhaps itÕs best to think of your donation as Òcash
tequio,Ówhich is what villagers
contribute when they, for whatever reason, cannot be present to respond
to the sound of the concha.We
think that every North American (excepting students and the truly destitute)
who has profited directly or indirectly from Oaxaca is morally bound to
donate a minimum of $100 a year.Hell,
a case of mediocre wine (you teetotalers name your own vice) costs much
more than a hundred bucks; and you donÕt owe anything to the wine
companies. You do to Oaxaca.
You
can earmark your donation to a specific purpose, if you choose.For
example, we would be eternally grateful if somebody would pledge to pay
for the roof repairs and waterproofing, a cost ofapproximately
15,000 pesos.Given the exchange
rate, a donation of US$1,500 could also repaint the main reading room to
cover the ugly water stains.WeÕll
even hang a plaque saying ÒThe books in this room were saved by
Fulano de Tal who paid to repair the roof,Óor
words to that effect.Or how about
buying library tables?WeÕll
put little plaques on them too.
One
final comment:In addition to the
fact that the Welte desperately needs your financial support, it is particularly
important that you become a new or renewed member now.As
Art Murphy said in his message, we will soon be holding elections for the
Board of Directors.Being a member
will make you eligible to vote and to be a candidate for a position on
the Board.We need not only your
financial support but also your ideas and energy.
 |
Welte
Institute for Oaxacan
Studies
|
MEMBERSHIP/DONATION
FORM
2005
|
Date
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____________________________________
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Name
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____________________________________
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Institutional Affiliation
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Write a check or money order in US funds to: Welte Institute for Oaxacan Studies, Inc.
Mail to:
Dr. Ramona Perez, Welte Treasurer
Department of Anthropology
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-4443
Your donation is deductible from US income tax, and you will receive an acknowledgement to that effect.
Michael Chibnik
Department of Anthropology
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA52242