8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
raising the indigenous voice, December 4, 2004
This review is from: Chiva: A Village Takes on the Global Heroin Trade (Paperback)
Every now and then somebody comes along who acts as a bridge or emissary between two cultures. Not as a missionary out to "improve," "evolve," or Christianize the natives, or to sell them slicker TV sets; not to study them like infusoria under a microscope; not to turn their gods into meteorology; but to listen, deeply, into the patterns of their life and language, and then--strictly by invitation within that community--to create a thing of beauty that casts a circle of illumination over what had remained hidden in the shadows cast by the mainstream.
In Chimayo, New Mexico, that emissary is Chellis Glendinning.
At one time Chimayo ranked #1 in drug overdoses in a state (New Mexico) that also ranked first in this grim category. This book is a story--personal, cultural, wrenching, hard to read in places because disturbing in its detail--of how the Chicanos and Mexicanos of Chimayo went back to their cultural roots to push the dealers out of their town, then apply the wisdom of those roots to healing the victims of the dragon Chiva, "heroin."
The use of "roots" is deliberate, because as the author makes clear, the drug problem is a product of a long tradition of colonial expansion and devastation in which a land-based people have been globalized, exploited, and thrust into poverty on soils their ancestors once cultivated and loved. From out of that soil came the remedies to combat sniffed, smoked, and injected poisons which users employ to forget for a moment that they are poor; that they have few options and scarce employment; that they are seen by the culture that has alienated them as aliens.
Whence this black-market plague of Thebes? Nations in which the United States Government has intervened to make the world safer for its businessmen: Afghanistan, Columbia, the Asian Golden Triangle, where farmers made poor by either military activity or "free" trade (free for whom?) are forced to grow opiates for sale to Europe and, of course, the United States of the Fifties, where 20,000 users would soon swell into millions.
Their supply? Substances sold by "freedom fighter" drug lords (remember Air America? Burma, now Myanmar? the Afghanistani Northern Alliance?) in the pay of the CIA--even while conservatives sold the sham of a righteous war on drugs. Just say no, except that "like a McDonald's hamburger, heroin can be had just about anywhere in the world."
Chimayo said no and meant it, and although overdoses continue, the last part of this book could be used as a manual for how healing practices implemented locally--NOT from the top down or imposed from outside--successfully grapple on many levels (land, culture, faith, mentoring, and ceremony) with a scourge of the colonialism that continues today transnationally.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well written story, May 8, 2005
This review is from: Chiva: A Village Takes on the Global Heroin Trade (Paperback)
Chiva paints a picture of Chimayó New Mexico, number one per-capita consumer of heroin in the number one per-capita consumer state in the United States. The book also offers a well-researched history of the global heroin trade from past to present. The picture is ugly indeed.
For those advocating legalization (of hard drugs) as the remedy to this problem, I suggest reading this and then asking yourself: is this the kind of country I want to live in? And for those that think the current plan in the war on drugs is working, I have the same suggestion. Quite obviously it is not working and will not cure the problem.
The author points out that at one time heroin was legally introduced to China. The result: over one quarter of the adult population became hopelessly addicted. In Chimayó, the supply was plentiful, with an individual dose costing $15, but anyhing not nailed down was likely to be stolen. Overdoses and shootings were common events. A friend of mine from a barrio full of tecatos in Juarez speaks of the same.
Anywhere heroin has been introduced without control to a population, usage of the drug has increased exponentially. With disastrous consequences.
The writing is good and kept me interested from start to finish. But I think the weakness of the book comes near the end where solutions to the problem are offered. There, you'll find more questions than answers.
I highly recommend Chiva for anyone interested in the drug problem or the region described in the book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Really Big Picture, July 16, 2007
This review is from: Chiva: A Village Takes on the Global Heroin Trade (Paperback)
The bibliography and research notes alone justifies the price of the book. The stories of one small town and of 20th Century Globalism are artfully interwoven. Altogether, it's inspiring in a painful, eye-opening sort of way.
Contrary to "About the Author", Chellis Glendinning is a she, not a he.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
