Reversal of hopeful initiative sparks concern about ethnocide in Ecuador

Say It Like It Is: Gratitude and speaking out for change aren’t mutually exclusive

Since organizing efforts for Michael Brown began last year, students of color at Bowdoin have become vocal in ways that I’d never seen my freshman and sophomore year here. There is more that needs to be done. It seems like this keeps being repeated over and over again, but for as many times as it is has been said, there is someone saying that we should just be grateful that we’re here and suck it up.
In the past years, elite colleges have changed their demographics by giving out more generous financial aid and making stronger efforts to reach out to underrepresented groups. I found out about Bowdoin when I was in high school because it was on an online list of colleges with a no loan policy. Colleges with no loan policies have a financial aid packet that expects no parental contribution if the student is from a low-income family and only includes grants. Those policies have given many low-income students the opportunity to attend elite schools like Bowdoin.
The fact that it was possible for me to come to one of the top schools in the country even though I was a low-income student seemed like a miracle. I felt extremely grateful.But now we’re here as low-income students and students of color, and Bowdoin, like many colleges across the country, doesn’t seem to know what to do with us. In the past, Bowdoin has had a lower graduation rate for blacks and Latinos compared to white students. There are constant racial tensions. Women of color are the most dissatisfied group on campus. There are still economic barriers for low-income students when they come here, despite the financial aid that’s offered. I remember asking someone on my first-year floor if I could borrow their OneCard and pay them back because I didn’t have any money to do my laundry. I had to wait for pay day, which if you’re a working student at Bowdoin, is a big deal. I was lucky enough to only have to support myself and not have to work to send money home like other students at Bowdoin have had to do.
I am grateful for Bowdoin’s efforts to try to even the playing field. I have benefited from many of them, like the funded internships that the Career Planning Center gives to students each summer. But I also feel that my sense of gratitude has kept me and many students quiet for a while, and now that we’re speaking out, there seems to be a type of backlash.Students of color who want their elite institutions to change have been painted as privileged, whiny kids. There is an attitude of, “Shut up and be grateful.” Do I need to be more grateful than other students that I’m here? Am I not supposed to want to change a place just because it’s elite?
Students of color in colleges across the country are saying, “We’re here.” And we’re not leaving or staying quiet. Elitist colleges like Bowdoin might have been made for white privileged males, but we’re making them ours. This is scary to many, but for me, it’s about time.

Say It Like It Is: Bowdoin community shows its international support to Ecuador

Last Saturday night I was walking to Smith Union with one of my best friends when I heard the news. We were eagerly chatting as we made our plans to go to My Tie after doing some homework, but everything at Bowdoin went out of focus when I heard about the 7.8 earthquake in Ecuador, my home. I barely mustered the energy to say, “I’ll call you back” when my mother gave me the news. I wondered if my partner who lives in the coast, the area most affected by this tragedy, was alive. I wondered how bad it was across the country and not just in the epicenter of the earthquake. Were my brothers who lived more than five hours away from the coastal region affected too? Were my high school friends okay? I frantically messaged and called everyone I knew in Ecuador.
My family and friends are fortunately doing well and I thank everyone who has expressed concern, but I am luckier than many people who have lost loved ones. There are over 500 people who have died and even more who are wounded and homeless. Some are still trapped under collapsed buildings. The long term implications of this for Ecuador will be devastating as well. The low price of oil already had Ecuador in a tough spot economically before the earthquake. On top of that one of Ecuador’s main exports is seafood and the earthquake destroyed many coastal towns, affecting Ecuador’s largest city as well which is in the coast, Guayaquil.
As Ecuador deals with the impact and aftershock of the earthquake – a magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook Ecuador again on Wednesday, April 20, 2016 – I begin to ask myself what I can do while being here at Bowdoin, which if you know me is the question that has daunted me during my four years here. What can we do as an international community in times of crisis like these? How can we show solidarity in a place like the US, which has shown it has problematic ways of helping? Despite the fact that Bowdoin is an isolated liberal arts school, it is an international community. We have students who come from many different countries and we deal with subjects outside the US in most of our classes. But what does this mean in terms of our responsibility not only to the US, but to the rest of the world? I don’t have the perfect answers to all of these questions, but I encourage all of us to begin asking ourselves how to create an international solidarity support network and want to invite you to join a small campaign that Ecuadorian students in our very own school are starting.
Our objective is to raise $5,000 for Ecuador’s Red Cross by May 6th. We’re doing this by individual donations and bake sales. Check out our donation site at: https://www.gofundme.com/2ms6yj6k. And keep your eyes open for people selling food in the union and other locations with an Ecuadorian flag. We’ve already raised close to $1,000 since the campaign started on Wednesday. Thank you to everyone who has come out and supported Ecuador’s victims, volunteered to help with this initiative, or just asked somebody from Ecuador if they’re family members are safe. I’m not sure what an ideal international community would look like, but the type of international solidarity I’ve seen at Bowdoin gives me a little bit of hope in this very dark time for my country.

Say It Like It Is

Reversal of hopeful initiative sparks concern about ethnocide in Ecuador

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

April 7, 2016

In 2007, Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president, led what was acclaimed as an international example of environmental conservation. He headed an initiative, known as the Yasuní Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) initiative, which would maintain oil found in the Yasuní National Park in the ground in exchange for $3.6 billion. These funds would be raised by the international community and equaled half of the total revenue Ecuador’s government would make from exploiting the Yasuní. Correa, however, changed his mind in 2013 and announced the Yasuní was now fair game.

The problem with the internationally-applauded ITT initiative, as well as with the wonderful fact that Ecuador’s constitution is currently the only one in the entire world that gives nature inalienable rights, is that the actions of Ecuador’s government completely contradicted and belittled these acclaimed efforts. On March 28, 2016, less than two weeks ago, the first well in the Yasuní began to be drilled.

In the midst of all the environmental disasters going on in the world and abuses by corporations, why does this case deserve our particular attention?
There was genuine hope that Ecuador’s government would not allow for one of the most biodiverse places in the world to be exploited, that an alternative was found and that other countries would follow Ecuador’s great example. It felt like a huge betrayal for Ecaudor’s government to backtrack on the ITT initiative.

This mistake has also already been made before and feels almost like a joke to many Ecuadorians, like myself, who grew up hearing about the horrible effects Chevron and Petroecuador had in a different location in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, the province of Sucumbíos. People in this area are still suffering from cancer and birth defects and continue to have unsafe sources of drinking water.

According to Amazon Watch, the Yasuní National Park covers “nearly 2.5 million acres of primary tropical rainforest at the intersection of the Andes and the Amazon” and is home to the Waorani, Tagaeri and the Taromenane peoples. There is great concern that these indigenous people, some of the few in the entire world who have chosen to live in voluntary isolation, will cease to exist. Ethnocide will take place.

Ecuador’s government has created a rhetoric that is similar to the one that justified the exploitation and human rights’ violations that Chevron is responsible for: exploiting oil in the Yasuní will lift the country out of poverty. Cutting edge technology will be put into place. The revenue from oil will be used to lift the country out of poverty despite the fact that it’s lost so much of its value.

But as good as this sounds, it’s just not true. History has proven it is not true. Economic interests have proven it is not true—Ecuador holds a large debt with China and will sell the oil from the Yasuní to a Chinese company at a very reduced price. And indigenous people from the Amazon who will be most affected by this have proven it is not true. They’ve said it over and over again in international courts, marches, letters and conferences.

It’s scary for many people in Ecuador, especially indigenous people who will be the most affected by this, to even imagine that at this very moment the exploitation of the Yasuní has already begun. But it should also be scary for people in places like faraway Maine and for the rest of the international community that eagerly supported the Yasuní initiative. The rainforest is said to be the lungs of the world for a reason. The rainforest is a vital part of our ecosystem and the fact that sources of water and land continue to be contaminated puts a bleak future before us. As climate change and environmental destruction continue to gain more attention, it is important to be able to clearly see what will be lost. If the Tagaeri and the Taromenane die because of this oil exploration, which many have predicted will happen, it will be a clear ethnocide. These people will not come back from the dead. Not all of the damage that is currently being done to people and their environments can be undone. And those who end up suffering the most are those who are already the most oppressed and invisible in society.

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