January 1, 2024 marked 30 years since the Zapatista movement captured the world’s imagination with its brief but audacious uprising to demand justice and democracy for indigenous peasants in southern Mexico. Since 1994, the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation, EZLN) has become known more for its peaceful mobilizations, dialogue with civil society, and structures of political, economic, and cultural autonomy.

Over the past three decades, the Zapatista movement has made significant gains in its own territory, with a ripple effect in Mexico and around the world. The Zapatistas stepped onto the world stage as the Cold War was drawing to a close, and the EZLN played an important role in broadening the possibilities of what the next wave of popular movements might look like. The Zapatista movement influenced grassroots activists and social movements like few others of the late 20th century.

The Zapatista uprising stood against the backdrop of colonialism and its legacy – centuries of poverty and inequality, racism, and exploitation. Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state, is rich in natural resources but one of the poorest states in Mexico. It has one of the country’s largest indigenous populations, along with some of the highest rates of malnutrition, maternal mortality, and illiteracy. The founders of the EZLN named the group after Emiliano Zapata, a hero of the Mexican Revolution, and took up his rallying cry of tierra y libertad (land and freedom).

After 10 years of clandestine organizing in the mountains and jungles of Chiapas, the Zapatistas chose a symbolic date for their uprising: January 1, 1994 was the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. The EZLN was one of the first popular movements to recognize neoliberalism as a dangerous new stage of global capitalism, and called NAFTA a death sentence for the indigenous peasants of Mexico.

In Zapatista territory, land takeovers carried out after the 1994 uprising – where Zapatistas occupied large ranches and reapportioned property to landless peasants – impacted the distribution of wealth in Chiapas, and continue to benefit Zapatista villages farming on reclaimed land today. The Zapatista structures of indigenous autonomy have extended access to rudimentary health care and education to rural villages in Chiapas. The Zapatistas exercise self-determination through local and regional governments, and their economic cooperatives organizing the production of goods generate resources to invest back into their communities.

Women’s involvement in the EZLN helped shape the Zapatista movement, which, in turn, opened new spaces for women and led to dramatic changes in their lives. When the EZLN began organizing in the rural villages of Chiapas, women there were experiencing an extraordinary level of violence and discrimination. The Zapatista movement radically redefined gender roles in the context of the Zapatista movement, as women became guerrilla insurgents and political leaders, healers and educators, and members of economic cooperatives. Women’s organizing led to the banning of alcohol in Zapatista territories, which women credit with helping significantly reduce domestic violence. The tremendous changes in women’s lives have included public roles of leadership and participation in community affairs and the ability to choose their romantic partner and decide how many children to have. 

People around the world have been inspired by images of Zapatista women: Major Ana María wearing a black ski mask and brown uniform, leading indigenous troops during the uprising; Comandanta Ramona standing next to Subcomandante Marcos during peace negotiations with the Mexican government, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder; Comandanta Ester, draped in a white shawl with embroidered flowers, addressing the Mexican Congress to demand respect for indigenous rights and culture. The dignity with which these women carried themselves, set against a backdrop of centuries of racism and exploitation, embodies what the Zapatista movement has come to represent – the resistance of the marginalized and the forgotten against the powerful. Peasants turned warriors, mothers turned revolutionary leaders – they have marched, they have organized, and they have planted seeds, both real and symbolic. They have stood up to the Mexican army and to their own husbands. They have changed their own lives and they have changed the world around them.

I lived in Chiapas from 1997-2003, working with women’s cooperatives in Zapatista villages. I feel deeply fortunate to have worked side-by-side with them for those years, witnessing and absorbing the quiet dignity of their resistance, their unflinching commitment, and their discipline infused with humor, militancy infused with tenderness.

What might we learn from the Zapatista movement about the struggle for collective liberation in our own context?

What might we learn from Zapatista women in particular?

In a black-and-white photograph, a woman grapples with a soldier, holding onto his uniform as he falls backward. All around them and in the background are lines of soldiers, with women similarly blocking them.