Coming to Terms

Mennonitas learning Spanish, courtesy Excelsior News.

Ne Sproak School     

(from Excelsior News)

    It seems that Mexico’s Mennonites, many of whom left Canada due in part to language assimilation pressures in the public schools, have finally decided to come to terms with this past… coming terms in Spanish.

   

    At a time when speculations rests regarding the future of Mennonites in Mexico, Excelsior News reports that Chihuahua’s Mennonites are now enrolling in Mexico’s public school programs in order to learn Spanish.

    Excelsior indicates that over one hundred Mennonites have enrolled in primary and secondary school programming through Chihuahua Institute of Adult Education (ICHEA). 

    Mennonites are feeling the need to learn Spanish in order to obtain official identification papers for passports and to establish business and bank accounts. 

    But, it seems that Spanish is also being used increasingly to communicate with non-Mennonite employees, encouraging these employees also to learn formal Spanish and to complete their education in order to facilitate friendships, business connections and the ability to communicate.

    Excelsior indicates that Mennonites began attending ICHEA courses in 2012, beginning with a group of about 20 farmwives and shortly including several couples and Mennonite school teachers.  Though mostly Mennonite women are studying Spanish with fewer men.

    Daicy Mauricio Gallegos, a volunteer teacher, describes her students as follows, “Son muy metódicos, les gusta estudiar a conciencia libro por libro; saben leer y escribir, pero como no dominan el español, tienen dificultades para entender las preguntas de los exámenes, así que decidieron estudiar desde el nivel inicial (alfabetización).” (Excelsior, see link).

    “The Mennonite students are very methodical, and conscientiously study their books.  They can both read and write but are not as fluent when speaking Spanish and often have difficulty understanding the test questions.  For this reason, I start them at the basic level.”

    In reading this story, one can help but be amused at the turn of events whereby so many of us have volunteered to help teach Mexican immigrant families English and how test questions seem to be especially difficult to comprehend / translate.   Perhaps the world is not so large after all.

http://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/2013/04/30/896653  

an update in response to HadW...

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An Update on the Drought-related Tensions of Mennonites in Chihuahua:

   

    The Mexican consulate of Minnesota has confirmed that there are increasing tensions in the Chihuahua region between Mennonites, non-Mennonites and others over land and water resources.  The Consulate also confirms that rumours have been circulating in the national press of Mexico that the Mennonites are going to immigrate elsewhere.  BUT there has been no confirmation from authorities in the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Mexico or Tatarstan, Russia, that any of the smaller Mexican Mennonite groups have or are planning to immigrate back to Russia.  You will recall that it is from Russia that these Mennonites’ fore-parents fled as refugees from legal and religious persecution by Tsarist officials and later, economic, political and physical persecution from the Soviets.

    It seems clear that there have been some sort of contacts regarding immigration potential by Mennonites from Chihuahua elsewhere due to the drought and rising tensions with non-Mennonite neighbours.  BUT this is also a very normal thing for Mennonites.  As Mennonites communities, congregations and kolonies increase in size, small groups often leave to establish new communities and farms elsewhere.  In fact, Amish and Hutterite groups within the United States and Canada are constantly making news with their plans to move to new areas to buy inexpensive land for establishing new farms, communities and families.  So the entire immigration angle might be true but have nothing to do with any potential conflict or even the drought.  The Russia and Kazakh angles are interesting only in that they would indicate a return to the Mennonite diaspora’s ancestral “homeland.”

Frente Menonita

  

Announcing The Front for the Defense of the Mennonite Colonies Civil Association of Chihuahua

en fer'ein

Dueck sworn in as president of Frente Menonita, courtesy La Cronica de Chihuahua

    Noting heightened tensions between Mennonite settlers and their Mestizo neighbors in Mexico's state of Chihuahua, complicated by recent rumors that at least small numbers of settlers are now seeking to immigrate out of Mexico, either to Canada or central Russia, the Mennonite colonies have now formed a new organization to promote unity, dialogue, rights, cooperation and philanthropy amongst the region's Russian Mennonite population.

    Generally, this is both welcomed and sad news.  The welcoming is that it is probably not only long overdue for the existence of such an organization (especially if it is able to speak on behalf of all ethnic Mennonites regardless of conference or denomination), but also indicates the need for other global pan-Mennonite organizations such as Mennonite World Conference and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) to again review their leadership of the pan-Mennonite diaspora and to continue a commitment to ethnic and cultural preservation, above and beyond still needed foci on evangelism, spirituality and social justice for others.

 "We will promote unity amongst the Mennonite colonies to help loosen the mood and look towards establishing agreements with other groups through dialogue," Dueck.