By Dr. Jaime García Leyva
Research Professor. Research Center of
Tropical Diseases, Autonomous University of Guerrero
In recent decades, Indigenous youth have reconfigured their personal and collective identities, as well as their ties and sense of belonging to their communities of origin. The formation of youth identity stems from factors such as access to educational services; migration to urban and agro-industrial cities in the interior of the country and abroad; the use of media; and the adoption of forms of expression, organization, music, symbols, and dress that lead them to transform their status as young people belonging to an Indigenous people.
They are present in community life. They move and walk along the paths, cross the mountains and the geography of their communities. They are either silent or dynamic. They are attentive to what is happening in their villages. They influence and make decisions, participate in or distance themselves from the community's cultural centers. In their daily habits, they display forms of behavior and attitudes different from those of their parents. Although they speak the language and remain connected to their community, they begin to generate new ideas, changes, and transformations. They cling to their group identity as a people and culture, but along the way, they incorporate forms of expression from outside. They have different paths and share common problems. To a greater or lesser extent, they suffer from social exclusion, denied rights, and limited opportunities for educational and professional development. It is evident that there are ruptures between young people and their parents in the ways they conceive of life, in their activities, and in their personal growth processes. There are personal changes and transformations in young people that simultaneously define them as members of a community and also make them part of groups or collectives in which they organize as part of their new youth identity.
The definition established by international organizations places youth within a specific life period and indicates that this period of life should be marked by situations that contribute to a person's gradual development toward social goals and a set of conditions that allow, where desirable, for margins of comfort and improved physical and mental growth as individuals. Thus, in certain studies on youth, the versions are limited and based on personal processes.
Young people between the ages of 14 and 20 are those who are trained in their native culture, observing and participating in community, family, religious, work, agricultural, health, and other activities.
They represent the new generations. They are observed walking along the rugged paths that lead to the cornfields, in the geography that forges and shapes them. Their activities from an early age include fetching water, planting and tending corn, caring for domestic animals, and participating in family chores; spending time with friends on the basketball court, having fun at village festivals, and assuming community responsibilities due to early marriages, which make them heads of households. From a very early age, they assume a role that grants and assigns them a place in the community. They learn many traits of their culture within the family and the circles in which they interact, through observation, accompanying their parents, in the reprimands they receive for performing an activity inappropriately, in the language they learn every day, and in participating with their parents in many everyday situations.
The poverty conditions of the indigenous population present a grim social picture. High poverty rates predominate, impairing life expectancy and diminishing social benefits for a large segment of the population. Families are large, consisting of households of four to eight individuals. Production units generally base their organizational and productive strength on their intra- and inter-family social organization to address their food production needs. Their organization is based on correspondence, family and community work, and networks of mutual support established both in the sense of sharing work and collaborating, as well as on the set of values that instill in them the ability to offer their solidarity, assets, tools, and labor to resolve their problems. In different contexts, amidst social inequality, indigenous children are incorporated into the family structure to obtain resources and means of subsistence.
Children and adolescents participate in labor, agricultural, economic, livestock, and other activities that provide a living. Common practices include participating in domestic chores, cleaning, fetching water, fetching firewood, caring for younger siblings, helping with food preparation, cultivating and cleaning the cornfield, and caring for animals, among other activities. Family and community learning through festive celebrations, daily life, rituals, accompanying their parents and grandparents, and in various social settings, trains them in value-based situations such as interfamily and intercommunity correspondence; in patron saint festivals; in joining musical bands; participating in brotherhoods, dances, and other forms of community organization. Learning from the family takes place in various settings. The mother tongue and worldview are learned through the advice provided by elders; methods of production; and spaces for interacting with other members of the community. In the community sense, they are taught in the collective spirit to work for and on behalf of the people.
The knowledge acquired from family and community gradually shapes them with a sense of responsibility, participation, collaboration, compliance, and learning through consensual actions, which have historically been based on custom and as unwritten codes of moral conduct, but constantly carried out and reproduced. These practices are also modified or reinvented at different times. However, given the conditions of social inequality, the period of childhood or youth is reduced, for the majority of the population, to a stage in which there is a fortuitous maturity, a transitional phase that transforms them into "grown-ups." Thus, knowing how to plant, chop firewood properly, show respect, participate in celebrations, and fulfill community mandates begin to define them as responsible individuals. This period of incorporation into economic and productive activities begins at age 5 and gradually strengthens over the years. By the time adolescents reach 16, they are already familiar with various agricultural, productive, economic, and food practices they have learned during their short career. This training in work and subsistence activities is related to the poverty in which they live. Learning a trade, earning a living, working, and earning respect is a way to acquire a face, an identity, and recognition within communities.
Work activities are combined with attending primary, secondary, or high school. Educational opportunities in the communities are limited to the basic level, and to pursue higher education, they generally migrate to other places. Generally, due to a lack of financial resources, they drop out of school and dedicate themselves to farm work, get married, or migrate far from the community, either to an urban center or to the northern part of the country. Others venture across the border into the United States and become undocumented in that country.
Indigenous youth, between the ages of 16 and 20, have in some cases already trained in productive and economic activities that, for some older members of the communities, can lead them to supporting a family. In adverse conditions, the paths that Indigenous youth can take are the following:
a. Get marriedWith this event, they begin a process of integration to assume family and community responsibilities. Whether the decision was personal or under family pressure to establish interfamily alliances, this marks a transition in the lives of young people. It is the beginning of forming a new family unit and of taking positions and beginning to forge a face to lead the family. In this sense, whether marriage is arranged by relatives, parents, or among young people, or due to premature pregnancies, it indicates that from an early age their youthful world is altered, and they abruptly become adults.
b. StudyComplete basic education and continue their developmental stage by training in high school or higher education. In recent years, this has generated an increasingly active sector seeking professionalization or an academic career to become a professional. Despite the difficulties of completing high school studies, an increasing number of Indigenous youth are seeking access to educational spaces and supporting their education with work activities. Access to education allows some young people to modify their cultural norms, prolong their single life, learn a trade, or pursue a university degree, but also to detach themselves from their own cultural environment. The impact on young people is ambivalent, and the educational model they are enrolled in often forces them to forget their cultural traits.
c. MigrateWhether for economic reasons, to pursue studies, for work reasons, or financial commitments, leaving their communities offers the opportunity to "live abroad," experience other cultural expressions, and extend a period of adolescence or youth. This process has increased visibly and has had diverse impacts within communities.
d. Engaging in illegal activities either in their communities of origin or in places where they migraten. This gives rise to the presence of criminal groups, gangs, or other forms of such organizations that are present in several municipalities.
Indigenous youth are not only prey to structural problems such as poverty, social inequality, discrimination, and injustice, but they are also born and raised in environments where "living youth" is sometimes a time in their lives that goes unnoticed. They experience their youth differently, with different ways of identifying as part of a broader social group. The question of what it means to be young generates varied responses and is a category that is rarely discussed among the population itself. Youth is conceived as "a time in life"; as "a transition to becoming an adult"; it is the time of being a "boy or girl," which they assume is very fleeting.
In the case of young women, they show significant changes in their personal journey. Although these cases are not widespread, they are more prevalent, implying changes in the way they identify, exist, and define themselves. Personal attire is changing. From traditional clothing such as dresses, they now dress in jeans and other attire that until a few years ago was questioned by adults and elders. Undoubtedly, access to educational spaces has allowed Indigenous women to have a different perspective on life and reflect on themselves and make decisions differently than their parents. These situations are observed through the generation of greater independence, decision-making capacity, economic resources in some cases, and, in this sense, a certain amount of room to think about their personal lives and their future. Few young people manage to complete their professional or university studies. And those who manage to achieve their academic goals do so through a process of personal and family effort, as well as a journey of disqualification, racism, and discrimination in the places where they study. The path to becoming a professional also involves detaching themselves from their cultural ways of being, their language, and their identity, given that the educational model they face compels them to deny their community culture or be acculturated into another language and different social spaces.
The roles and responsibilities of young people have gradually transformed. For men, studying allows them greater economic opportunity and employment, enabling them to have their own means and resources and, at times, to live a more comfortable life independent of their families. This allows them to build social networks with others and interact differently. Not only do they prolong their single status, but some experience their sexuality differently, making their aspirations and decisions independently or with less ties to their families.
Indigenous youth are a pending issue and require analyses and diagnostic studies that allow for the proposal of development alternatives.