Images of JuchitanAuthor(s): Howard CampbellSource: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 23, No. 2, Ethnicity and Class in Latin America(Spring, 1996), pp. 141-142Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2634252 .

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Images of Juchitan by

Howard Campbell

The Coalici6n Obrera Campesina Estudiantil del Istmo (Worker-Peasant- Student Coalition of the Isthmus-COCEI) is one of the most successful indigenous political movements in Mexico. Founded in the early 1970s in Juchitan, Oaxaca, the movement draws on a long history of Zapotec political rebellions against external domination. In contrast to most grass-roots peas- ant organizations in Mexico, the COCEI has been able to avoid total co-op- tation by the PRI government, serious internal schisms, and collapse in the face of violent repression. Its ethnic unity-reflected in the use of the Zapotec language in political rallies, the promotion of a wide range of artistic, musical, and literary productions concerned with Zapotec customs, and a militant ethnic discourse-is perhaps the key factor that has allowed the movement to control Juchitan politics for much of the past 15 years.

Howard Campbell is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Texas-El Paso. He is the author of Zapotec Renaissance (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994) and coeditor (with Leigh Binford and others) of Zapotec Struggles (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993).

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 89, Vol. 23 No. 2, Spring 1996 141-142 ? 1996 Latin American Perspectives

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142 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

COCEI militants at a political demonstration in front of the Juchitin City Hall.

Zapotec women holding a COCEI flag at a political rally In Juchitan.

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