Lessons from Guatemala

Tanya Santiago ’14 and Amy Flores ’15 led a group of 10 Grinnellians on a January trip to Guatemala made possible by a co-curricular travel grant through the Center for International Studies. Alumna Jenny Dale ’06 linked the group up with a grassroots organization that helped the students better understand the cultures in Guatamala. They returned with lessons learned from artisans, small-business owners and activities, information they plan to share through special events, programs and publications.

Lesson One:
Find a Sense of Place

Santiago, a Spanish and economics double major from Pomona, Calif., liked the feel of the campus — including the fact that she saw more diversity than at other schools she visited — when she visited Grinnell as a prospective student.

She joined the Student Organization of Latinas and Latinos (SOL) — a group that educates the campus community about the Latino community in the United States — toward the end of her first year. She has become progressively more involved, and this year she is a coleader.

Flores, a math major from Rockville, Md., heard about Grinnell and SOL through Posse Scholars, a renowned college access and youth leadership development program. She loved SOL’s members and the space and eventually became the group’s secretary.

Lesson Two:
Be Prepared to Lead

Flores and Santiago spearheaded the trip to help students travel beyond America’s borders to better understand many of the issues facing Latino communities in this country.

Santiago reached out to SOL alumna Jenny Dale ’06, who enthusiastically arranged for them to work with the grassroots organization Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala to plan a 10-day trip to the country. The group also recruited the help of a staff sponsor, Gabriel Barela, residence life coordinator, and secured College funding from the Center for International Studies.

The nine students selected to travel, Santiago says, were a very diverse group. Some were fluent in Spanish, others not. Many, but not all, had taken Latin American studies courses. Some were first-generation Americans; most weren’t. In addition to a few undeclared second-years, the students major in economics, Spanish, chemistry, music, sociology, math, psychology, and art.

Lesson Three:
Learn from Those Who Live There

The students immediately began learning about the country from Guatemalans. They met with student activists who reclaim public spaces with art, with academic experts, with artisans and small-business owners. They traveled from urban centers to rural areas. The Guatemalans, they say, openly shared their experiences and frustrations. Each night the students and Barela reflected on what they’d learned, posting to a daily blog when they had Internet access.

Each student took away something different. Santiago says the trip left her feeling “very empowered.” It gave her a different lens for viewing the economic, social, and legal structure behind Guatemala’s society; it helped her connect the products and things she buys back to the people who created them, she says.

Flores says that now they “know people from the community. They hosted us and were very honest about their struggles, but still had a lot of pride and hope.” On a more personal level, she says, it was the art that meant the most to her. Her fall semester, studying abroad in Budapest, was “very science-related,” she says. “By the end, I felt my passion for art was dead. In Guatemala, I found out how amazing and powerful it could be.”

Lesson Four:
Share Knowledge Back Home

This semester, the students created an action committee called Grinnell Latin American Solidarity Society. They are planning several events and programs to share what they  learned, including:

• Supporting an artists’ workshop and taking part in a graphic arts competition.
• Curating and sharing images, photos, videos, and blogs from their trip.
• Publishing written works and photos from the trip in a book.
• Hosting a workshop to help students understand the economic, legal, and social aspects of fair trade.

The group is also exploring ways to work with the Guatemalans they met on their trip, including:

• Creating a SOL coffee blend — similar to the Grinnell blend at the Spencer Grill — to sell, working through direct fair trade with an organic farm they visited on their travels.
• Ordering SOL graduation stoles through a weaving collective that hosted them.

“We’re trying to wake people up in what we do. We’re not radical … [but] with this group we want to take it to another level and do something tangible,” Flores says.