Question: How has your “single story” of Mexico/Mexicans/the “developing world”/engineering/the role of engineers in society changed?
The “single story” of Mexicans or the “developing world” is often thought of as hundreds of thousands of people who are helpless and need “first world countries” to find solutions to their never ending problems. We are often taught the narrative in the United States that Mexicans are synonymous with the word immigrant and we place them into certain identities/categories to differentiate ourselves from them. However, in the first 4 days we have been here in Mexico City, we have learned so much about their history; the reason for the location of their city was due to the Spanish wanting to demonstrate dominance and locate themselves on top of the conquered Aztecs. However, we have seen monuments here that clearly convey the heart and courage of the people, especially the story of the 6 young teenagers/soldiers who fought on top of the hill in the Chapultepec park and did not surrender their flag!
Caption: This is from our trip to Chapultepec in Mexico City(statues commemorating the 6 teens/soldiers)!
After hundreds of years, Mexico had put too much time and money into the land and infrastructure that they could not justify moving elsewhere although they were facing huge issues regarding water scarcity! Here in the city, we learned about the numerous adaptations and evolutions Mexico went through in regards to its engineering skills! Although Mexico is not primarily thought of as being advanced in many places due to poor education systems, we learned that the Aztecs had one of the most greatest engineering feats at such a early time period. They created an aqueduct in order to provide clean water to their empire which the Spanish destroyed but then could not rebuild/recreate due to their incapabilities! Additionally, they had such a well structured irrigation system and agriculture system called chinampas for their time!
Caption: This is our visit to the Templo Mayor Museo in Mexico City(these are the chinampas)!
Not only were we able to learn about these systems, but we are also able to visit one of the chinampa sites that still exist and grow food! Here, we learned about their way of growing crops and got some hands on experience volunteering! While working with Xavier, one of the few full time workers there and son of the longest worker there, I got to ask him personal questions and truly learn about his life and some of the history behind their gods. He talked about how he is one of the two workers that show up every morning to complete tasks over the entire chinampa and they have to work fast so that the sun doesn’t beat them to the things they have to do. He also spoke to me about their religious “danzas” that are held about every 8 days where they pray and give offerings to their water, sun, land, wind, and agriculture gods. He spoke to me a lot about Tlaloc, one of their gods and how he is working on documenting their festivals and gods in order to spread awareness! He has been working on this documentary for 2 years now and is in the investigating stage where he is finding answers to the various questions people want to know about his culture! He also told me that the team he works with were Rice volunteers that had come years before us! Instead of seeing these people through a single minded lens and by being here, my single story of them has been completely changed through my personal experiences with them!
Caption: Out visit to the Templo Mayor Museo(the god of death on the left) and to the Chinampas!
Finally, on our Thursday and Friday here, we were able to partner with Isla Urbana, a organization that aims to bring water to communities facing water scarcity through their rain water harvesting technology! Collaborating with them has completely changed the way I view engineering designs because they factor in so many different perspectives in order to shape the technology to the people and not the people to the technology! They prioritize getting to actually know they people that they want to help by traveling to their locations and doing communal activities in order to get a better idea of the situation! This is the best way to create a way to actually solve the problem instead of creating a solution that cannot be applied to these people because of cultural, social, political, and economic conditions. My single story of their engineering has completely changed because they are so broad in their thinking in order to mold their solution “with” the people and not “for” the people!
This has been an amazing experience so far and I hope to learn so much more!