An interview with Eufrosina Cruz - the first indigenous woman to enter politics in Mexico.

Originally published for Wempower August 2022

During the summer of 2022, I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Efrosina Cruz in a small café in Oaxaca Mexico. “Los sueños de la niña de la montaña – The Dreams of the Mountain Girl“ was, then, only recently published. It chronicles the challenges and motivations behind her impressive political career. We started the conversation discussing her early life and route into politics.

Efrosina was Born in Santa María Quiegolani. In her community there was a very strong custom of women being the first to wake up and the last to go to bed, fulfilling all the household duties and supporting the men in the family. ‘Usos y Costumbres’ dictated much of the lived experience of women in her village and enforced many negative routines that kept women uneducated and oppressed. She told me that most girls were married at 13/ 14 years old. Her sister was 12 years old when she was married, 13 when she became a mother and now, at the age of 31, she had 9 kids. All the women the same age as Eufrosina are grandmothers. She doesn’t blame her father or anyone else for following the practices of their community because that was all they knew. 

In her hometown girls couldn’t play, they had to cook, serve, help brothers and fathers. A turning point in her life came when, at 7 years old, her schoolteacher ket her play marbles with the boys. This freedom, she said, changed her life. At the age of twelve, and after much persuasion her father let her leave the community to study Spanish. Moving away she says taught her that she had the right as a girl to be in public spaces and to play. Eufrosina believes the key to politics is education. “One girl with education can change her own paradigms and change her future“.

In terms of the situation for young girls now, she tells me that child marriages continue although at a lesser rate. Sometimes dowries are nothing more than beers, animals, and small amounts of money. Two months ago, as a federal deputy she made a law against child marriage which used to be forbidden but not penalised, according to her, an “imperfect law“.

Eufrosina has a long line of achievements including changing Article 25 of the state constitution in 2010 to ensure women were practically involved in politics both through voting and running for positions of power. She argues that customs within small communities such as her own should relate to features of culture such as language, food and clothing, but should not warrant or support abuse nor make rules pertaining to who accesses certain human rights.  In other words, communities cannot get away with continuing exploitative and sexist practices under the guise of cultural norms.

The way her community interacts with politics has changed drastically compared to 20 years ago. Now 70% of the console is women. She told me she feels more like an activist than she does a politician. But “in politics you can make the change that you can’t in activism, politicians need to know what the screaming is about. You have to be inside to change“. She expressed a satisfaction in being able to modify things that hurt or caused her pain in her youth. One of the greatest days for her was the day women got called to vote in her hometown. She said all the women in her village were excited, her mother included.  They all got dressed up in their best clothes with ribbons in their hair. This was the first-time women were accepted in the public space, that they were seen and welcomed into the city hall.

“No one is going to change our history if we don’t do it ourselves, to break the destiny that had been decided for you, you must challenge your own paradigms. Don’t be afraid to take the space that you deserve, what life didn’t give you, you have to take. To be seen you must be brave. You find a lot of people that only criticise you, but what are they doing as a person in their neighbourhood, in their family? In their own fights. It’s very comfortable only to complain about the things, but if you stay still, life stays still. The fashion can pass, the hunger can pass, but your dreams won’t pass. And they won’t come true if you don’t work“.

It hasn’t all been easy either, Eufrosina experienced first-hand the discrimination within Mexican politics. When there is a face that is different, the treatment is different. She felt that she took a space that didn’t belong to her and experienced painful times because of this. “Mexico has to learn how to look at indigenous people again with new eyes, the Indigenous people are not vulnerable, they do not need decisions made for them about their destiny. There is not a lack of intelligence, there is a lack of opportunity”.

“Los sueños de la niña de la montaña” is currently a best-selling book on Amazon, it has an audiobook form and shortly will be translated into English. Eufrosina said during the writing process, she had to find someone, an editor, who would allow her to be herself and speak freely. It was important to her to be candid about her life and views. It took two years to finish the book. During the writing process she understood how to forgive; how to forgive herself, how to forgive the circumstances and her father. It was also, at times, a very painful process in remembering small aspects of her life that were particularly hard. Regardless, she feels compelled to write the book to inspire young girls who may have similar beginnings in life. 

Frances Douglas Thomson, August 2022.

An exert from her book:

“I want, for example, to show Diego (her son) what women are worth.

For him to know that we all win when women are respected.

I want to show society every day the extraordinary achievements of women. 

I want their work to be recognized every day.

I want schools to always have places for girls when they need it, 

and that there are never forced marriages for which they do not want. 

I want a Mexico that respects all the rights of girls.

Above all, to teach young girls that they are magnificent. 

That girls know they must take what they want from life.

And that they all have the right to imagine, build and fufill their dreams, just like this girl of the mountain“.