Documentary sheds light on Oaxaca protests

In the Mexican city of Oaxaca, amid massive protests by teachers and supporters calling for higher pay and more funding for rural schools, a domino effect of demonstrations began. Young and old took to the streets calling for more civil rights.

Independent filmmaker Jill Friedberg chronicled the 2006 demonstrations in her film A Little Bit of So Much Truth, or Un Poquito De Tanto Verdad, which is being screened at the Ethnic Cultural Center tonight. Friedberg will attend the screening and answer questions.

In the film, Friedberg focuses on how protestors took over the media to publicize their desire for nonviolent change. Despite this sentiment, many were arrested, and in some cases confrontations between police and protestors turned deadly.

“It went on and on for months and months,” said Estefania Yanci, a Spanish instructor who accompanied students on the 2006 Oaxaca study abroad program.

Rachel Malinen, a student who studied abroad with Yanci, said she was excited to see the film.

“I’m looking forward to watching the film … because it may help me to understand another facet of the conflict,” she said.

Malinen’s host family was not in the streets with the demonstrators, but was sympathetic to their cause, she said.

Though few concrete reforms came out of the protests, Yanci said some progress was made.

“What has come out of the whole thing is [that] there’s a much greater sense of consciousness,” she said. “The ones who have the power want to keep it. Controlling education is a way to control people.”

Malinen wants to see whether the protestors’ use of media can be considered one of the reasons why the conflict lasted as long as it did, she said.

“I feel that while we understood the majority of what was going on, there was probably much that we weren’t aware of,” she said.

Malinen is planning to bring friends to the screening.

“I do hope that the film will help to give them a better sense of what was going on when we were down there,” she said

[Reach reporter Erinn Unger at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]