On December 22nd 1997, 32 women and 13 men in los Naranjos encampment for displaced people in the community of Acteal, Chiapas, México, were assassinated by heavily armed men. Various human rights organizations wrote detailed reports of the massacre and different media organizations produced their analyses as well.

The voices and feelings of women that were lost among the numbers, chronologies, and political analyses of this mass of information are rescued in this book. The authors of the essays and compilers of testimonies have for more than ten years worked to repair the profound effects of such violent acts, occurring in Chiapas.

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This book provides a history of the Mames of the Sierra Madre of the state of Chiapas. The authors capture the oral history of the region, as well as its inhabitant’s visions of the future. The diverse organizational experiences of the Mames peoples analyzed in the book tell us about the cultural hybridity and the multiple identities that are being built along the border area.

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On December 22, 1997, 32 women and 13 men from the displaced person camp in Los Naranjos, in the community of Acteal, municipality of San Pedro Chenalhó, Chiapas, Mexico, were killed by heavily armed men. The attackers identified by the survivors were members of paramilitary gangs who had destroyed their homes and crops weeks before, forcing them to seek refuge in Acteal. Several human rights defenders associations have prepared detailed reports of the massacre and various media outlets have disseminated their analysis. In this accumulation of information, the voices and feelings of the women who had lost themselves in the chaos, as well as chronologies and political analyses are rescued. The authors of the essays and compilers of the testimonies make up a group that for more than ten years has come together in the organizational work with indigenous and mestizos of Chiapas. Its strategy of action is registered with all those who seek to stop the violent acts that deeply and frequently prevail in Chiapas.

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The settlement of Guatemalan refugees in the Mexican territory has modified living conditions, social relations, the economy and even the political perspective on the southern border region. This work characterizes the border dynamics in the historical and contemporary frameworks, to address the processes and relationships developed by the social actors directly involved in the refuge experience.

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