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This study focuses on writing as it emerges, deeply rooted in oral discourse, in Mexican villages committed to defend their autonomy while seeking to obtain urban services during the 1950-1970 period. Interviews with two men from Cuauhtenco and Xaltipan provide insights into their involvement with complex written transactions which have various repercussions within the public sphere of each community. The accounts support a view of literacy as a situated practice, shaped by the social context and rooted in local relationships, but also marked by a history of particular ways of dealing with the State. These relationships shed light on emerging strategies for using written documents in the process of urbanization, and their implications at different levels of power.