Mary Hendriksen | Apr. 23, 2013 | Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters
Just as the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas on January 1, 1994, was a turning point in Mexico’s history, it was a turning point for Guillermo Trejo, associate professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Political Science and a faculty fellow in the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
After the extraordinary events of that day—when after years of peaceful mobilization and land struggle, an estimated 3,000 armed Mayan peasants launched a major military offensive against the Mexican government on the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect—his perspective changed.
“It was a jolt,” he recounts. “It forced me to ask myself, why don’t you try to understand what the poor themselves are doing to overcome poverty?”