In Mexico’s Countryside, Machismo on Wane

The Wall Street Journal, 6/06/2012

Every year for the past decade, 200,000 Mexican men have left for the U.S.

The result has been a steady reshaping of everyday culture around those left behind—usually forcing women to become breadwinners. And as the shift deepens, it is upending one of the long-standing cultural pillars here: the Mexican cult of machismo.

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Not enough to stem the tide

National Catholic Reporter, 8/23/11

Thirteen years have passed since the massacre of 45 men, women and children in a Catholic chapel here in December 1997. Their relatives and neighbors scattered, afraid to return home or go to their fields to harvest their coffee crop.

Determination overcame fear, however, and a few years later the farmers founded Maya Vinic — which means “Mayan man” — a coffee and honey cooperative that rose from the ashes of tragedy.

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