More Angry Teachers June 9, 2023
Patricia Guadalupe’s current stay with us is indefinite at the moment, particularly because all roads north out of the city are closed, including her return bus route to Cuernavaca. Yes, it is the teacher’s union hard at work again. The road blockages are predicted to last for 72 hours, as if that was the agreement with local and state authorities. Until then, no one leaves, or enters, Oaxaca, unless one escapes east to Chiapas or west to Guerrero.
Meanwhile, there are many hundreds of pedagogues gathered in my neighborhood at present, and space is being cleared to accommodate even more. The road closures downtown span four central streets east to west—Reforma, 5 de Mayo, Alcala, Garcia Vigil—and four streets north to south—Independencia, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Colon. This includes the entire Zocalo, which is full of tent campers, making it virtually impossible to traverse. Visitors to the Cathedral can barely squeeze through the throng to reach the front door. Diners at the landmark establishments are surrounded by the squatters on their dirty cardboard flooring. Only the buzzing marimba at Mayordomo offers respite, a sound of normalcy however irritating. Back at home, I cannot even hear an automobile, only the bustle and chatter outside, beneath a river of plastic tarpaulin.
This particular teacher protest is by far the largest of the year, and it is indeed receiving national attention. Addressing the persistent demand that teachers receive adequate compensation, the President has pledged a monthly salary of at least 16,000 pesos for first-year teachers. This amounts to less than a $1000 per month for a nine-month contract. And it is not enough.
Such a meager paycheck is purported to be justified by Oaxaca’s low cost of living, but this is misleading: It is not that costs are necessarily low, for they increasingly are not; rather, it is that the standard of living for teachers is low. My colleagues in the United States would not recognize the marginal lives of these skilled professionals—mathematicians, scientists, historians, writing instructors, child therapists—sitting on curbs, flagging venders for sustenance, signing the attendance clipboard of a union leader, and waiting. One can only wonder what the children at school are doing today without their teachers, but I would not dare ask a teacher here—they have their own problems.
For the next few days, traveling food venders on tricycles will be doing brisk business, worming their way through hanging tarps and clusters of camping tents. The salesmen shout advertisements below my window as they pedal by—for sliced mango and jicama, tamales, french fries, even messy chilaquiles, as well as Paletas con Chile (2 for 10 pesos), which are basically spicy popsicles, for those with a sweet tooth and a masochistic tongue that wants to freeze while on fire.
All of this occurs out of my view, of course, below the rainproof plastic strung from my front door to Miguel’s gift store across the street, and extending off in a perfect line for four blocks. I have never felt so inundated with teachers in my life, and it frankly unsettles and disturbs me, which I suppose is exactly what the union wants. Like the marimba player, he is happy to annoy—he just wants the attention.