Events

La Mujer Obrera presents:

When a woman rises—no man is left behind Author, Christine Eber, debuts book at Café Mayapan

El Paso, TX.- La Mujer Obrera presents: When a Woman Rises, the debut novel of Weaving for Justice founding member Christine Eber on Friday, October 5th at 6pm at Cafe Mayapan, 2000 Texas Ave. The book draws from Eber’s 30+ years of friendships with Tsotsil-Maya women weavers and community organizers in highland Chiapas, Mexico. Join us for an evening featuring author, Christine Eber, with dinner, dessert and silent auction to support the efforts of La Mujer Obrera. The event is free and open to the public.

When a Woman Rises begins in the Maya township of Chenalhó in Chiapas, where Veronica, a teenage girl, is recovering from a disastrous early marriage. Spurred on by a community program of women telling their stories, she asks her mother, Magdalena to record the story of her growing up. Magdalena summons the soul of her comadre who has disappeared. She tells how, as young girls, they yearned to be teachers and how poverty, cultural beliefs, and gender roles stole away their dreams.

In 1987, Christine Engla Eber lived for a year with a family in San Pedro Chenalhó, doing fieldwork for her PhD in Anthropology. She shared daily life with women and their families, witnessing the difficulties they faced. It changed her life. After all these years she continues visiting with her friends in San Pedro Chenalhó, working with weaving and fabric collectives; and she has created a non-profit WEAVING JUSTICE to sell their work in the U.S. Now, as a respected anthropologist, she writes of their communities. Her research is centered in Chiapas, Mexico, where she studies the gendered aspects of social change, specifically women’s participation in the Zapatista movement, the weaving cooperative movement, and the Liberation Theology movement of the Catholic Church. She is author of Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: WATER OF HOPE, WATER OF SORROW which was recently translated into Spanish, and co-editor with Christine Kovic of WOMEN OF CHIAPAS: MAKING HISTORY IN TIMES OF STRUGGLE AND HOPE. She is also a board member of the Maya Educational Foundation (www.mayaedufound.org) which seeks support for scholarships for young people in Maya communities of Chiapas, Guatemala, and Belize. She lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico.