Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales
Indigenous Mexican arts and culture
The bi-national organization Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales (FIOB) serves Hispanic-Indigenous migrant and non-migrant communities and individuals across California and in various Mexican states. Through implementing programs that encourage civic participation as well as economic, social, and cultural sustainability and growth, FIOB’s mission is to contribute to the development and self-determination of indigenous communities. FIOB promotes indigenous cultural expression, preservation, and recuperation by facilitating decolonization workshops, traditional festivities (such as the traditional Oaxacan Guelaguetza festival), producing the bi-national magazine El Tequito, as well as offering lending and business training resources to small farmers, artisans, and merchanges based in the United States and Oaxaca, Mexico.
As a grantee in ACTA’s Living Cultures Grants Program in 2019, FIOB received funding for trilingual Mixtec artist and cultural activist, Miguel Villegas Ventura, to lead indigenous Mixtec families residing in Fresno through workshops aimed at preserving and transmitting Mixtec language and traditional foodways.
As a grantee in ACTA’s Living Cultures Grants Program in 2012, FIOB received support for Recipes for Change; Recipes for Continuity, an intergenerational project which will document and honor the foodways of traditional Zapotec cuisine as prepared by women living in Los Angeles. Foodways are one important marker of identity and will also be the portal by which oral storytelling is shared among the women participating in the project. The indigenous Zapotec community, like many émigré communities, is in danger of losing their traditional foodways as they engage in international migration.