Indigenous communities resist gentrification of Downtown Mexico City

Albina, who asked to reserve her last name for security reasons, belongs to the Mazahua community in Mexico City. She lives on Turin Street in Colonia Juarez. On October 15, along with families from 43 other apartments, she was forcibly evicted without prior notice. Historically, indigenous communities in the capital city have been affected by discrimination and persecution by the judicial system.

The woman in resistance was born in San Antonio Pueblo Nuevo, in the municipality of San José del Rincón, State of Mexico, her parents were loving and kind, but in her town, she said in an interview with Once Noticias, there are no sources of work, it is a place that has no streets and is made up of gaps of milpas.

"At that time in 1935 they worked in the streets, there were no leaders of street commerce. They sold outside the Blanquita Theater or the City Theater, any corner was fine, but they went more to the movie theaters. They managed to fight to have a little piece of land and work honestly".

"They would sell on a white blanket and put on their morelianas, nuts, tangerines, pepitas, and so all the Mazahuas in the State of Mexico gained a space to work. In those days the government truck would come to take away the merchants. On one occasion they grabbed my mother because she didn't have time to pick up her white blanket and they took her away, my mother says that inside they put her to clean the tables or wash the pots so they wouldn't cut her braids. She was identified as one of the indigenous women who fought to have a place to work and give us food, clothes, shoes, and a studio. As Mazahuas we do not sell fayuca or Chinese products, we transform our merchandise and sell it in a cart or tricycle and so we continue to resist, me as a merchant, a worker, and as an indigenous person," Albina explains in a calm voice.

She arrived in Colonia Juarez in 2009, she had been working as a merchant for some time and one of the neighbors offered her a room in exchange for very cheap rent. "I sell corn and if they stop me they take up to 300 pesos. They have blocked us before it was the mockery, now it is the discrimination of Mexico City, we are already the third generation to live here, to continue resisting to achieve a dignified space for work and housing, we fight for what we want, and we want to be a worthy example for the following generations".

Arrival at the Mexico City Center

"Mr. Lencho told us that we were hard workers and that he had space, that he could help us, and since it was cheaper than what I was paying, I accepted. The place was in very bad shape, it had no ceilings and the walls were falling, so we started painting and remodeling the place; we put roofs on it, we also brought all the water and electricity payments up to date because they were just little devils and we already lowered them individually to pay and be well in our house", she narrates.

Everything was up to date, she never asked for a receipt or contract, because the word is what sustains the organization of many native communities. However, in the earthquake of September 19, 2017, they stopped seeing Don Lecho. They were removed on that date because a slab expired, they installed a tent outside the place, but two days later people arrived who wanted to get into the place on behalf of a supposed owner that they had never seen. The individuals threatened to burn the tent if they did not leave; however, the source remarked, they never showed proof that they were the owners. The threats made them unsafe, so they left the tent and returned to the property.

"We began to ask for information to be on a housing list and when we went to look for the folio number in the public registry of the property they told us that it was under protection by the Attorney General's Office (of Mexico City) and that we are accused of organized crime, so we could not put any document. We are looking for support because we can't do anything, they have blocked us from all sides and we are threatened with going to jail. We have not been able to find out what is going on. We are not invaders, we have supported this place for 12 years, we have paid rents and we have brought everything up to date, we cannot have private agents come and violate our rights as indigenous people and as human beings", she says.

Albina demanded that the capital's Public Prosecutor's Office release the folio number of the Public Registry of Property and that the local government help to manage the expropriation procedures because without information the indigenous owners have no right to defend themselves from a civil and criminal dispute.

Source: Once Noticias