"For decadescenturies evenher ancestors had worked with agave, planting, harvesting, and producing the traditional spirit in Santiago, Matatlan, the so-called world capital of mezcal. It wasn't just a job; it was an essential part of their heritage and identity as members of the Indigenous Zapotec community. But in the 1980s, an agave shortage, combined with increasing demand for tequila (and other local factors), tanked the industry on which their livelihoods depended."
"Santiago, her mother, and her brother joined him a few years later in Los Angeles, where she lived the next 20-plus years of her life without the documentation necessary to emerge from the shadows. In her L.A. community, the largest concentration of Oaxacan people outside of the Mexican state, traditions remained strong. So too did mezcal's role in celebration, healing, and remembrance. The origins and craft of the spirit were things in which the Zapotec diaspora could take pride."
"I realized that there was a lot of exploitation and theft, says Santiago, who now operates the local nonprofit organization Mi Oaxaca. People would buy in large quantities and never pay. At the same time, I was seeing all of this marketing for ancestral, traditional It just upset me. Mexico has a long history"
Generations of Zapotec families in Santiago Matatlán cultivated agave and produced mezcal as a heritage craft and communal identity. An agave shortage and rising tequila demand in the 1980s devastated the local mezcal economy and forced many families to migrate to the United States for work. Large Oaxacan communities in Los Angeles maintained mezcal traditions for celebration, healing, and remembrance despite undocumented living conditions. As mezcal’s popularity grew nationally by 2019, industry expansion often co-opted Indigenous origins while exploiting producers through nonpayment and mistreatment. Community organizers formed local nonprofit efforts like Mi Oaxaca to defend producers and cultural integrity.
Read at www.7x7.com
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