A Wetback in Reverse

by Frederick Martin-Del-Campo

  His full name was Federico de Martin-Lopez de la Cruz y Vivar, and he was celebrated by my grandfather Ismael, who had reputedly known him, as the most learned and virtuous gentleman of his crowd; but such virtue, and such learning, contributed neither to the perfection of the person, nor to the happiness of his beloved. He was a slave of the most abject superstition. He was surrounded by visible and invisible enemies, in the streets where he’d provoked many a duel, or in his nightmares; nor were the fires of Hell less dreadful to his whims. Yet, he insisted that he sacrificed all for the well-being and security of his siblings and descendants. In a letter to his children, dated one day before his death in 1924, which coincided with the transfer of power from Alvaro Obregon’ to Plutarco Elias-Calles, his two remaining and most powerful nemeses, he wrote:

  “My treasures, they shall be consecrated to the common cause; and happy would be my demise, could I deserve and procure the laurel of martyrdom. Words cannot express the ardour with which I pray for the joining of the scattered members of Christ. If my death could avail, I would gladly present my pistol and ask them to point it at my heart. If the spiritual phoenix could arise from my ashes, I would build the pyre, and kindle the conflagration with my bare hands.”

  ... Unfortunately for him and his convictions, the clergy, from whom he took his actual orders, were greedy and fanatic monks; and their vices and venality, their knowledge or ignorance, were equally mischievous or contemptible.

  Fortunately for me, it was revealed in the document that the next one to inherit the name would succeed where Federico had failed.

  The qualities of this character assuredly explain why my present relatives turned out the way they are ... the way I am. I suppose they are traits, good or bad, that were shared by the entire clan. There was plenty of hypocrisy and piety to be had, much cruelty or clemency to dish out, wanderlust or isolation that impelled the fancy. There was so much religious intolerance putrefying the family atmosphere that it suffocated some to the point of resorting to atheism for some peace of mind, but that the sinner should swallow the last dregs of the cup of penance, it was an option of last resort. Such was his pretense of Christian rectitude that the foolish tale was propagated of his punishing a sacrilegious donkey that had tasted the greens of a monastic garden.

  Many rebels fighting on Federico’s side were not safe from his wrath. In fact, some were shot on evidence provided by him to the Obregon’ loyalists, frequently in their houses, or in front of their wives and children. Particularly horrific to Catholics, after a verbal truce had been betrayed, was the government’s insistence on a complete state monopoly on education. They began by suppressing all Catholic indoctrination and introducing “socialist education” (“atheistic brainwashing” to Catholics) in its place, which really became widespread after Calles, his one-time battle-field nemesis in 1915, had taken office in 1924. Worried that he was losing his grip on his purpose and posterity, he told his followers: “We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth. Otherwise, my friends, we have lost possession of the future.”

  Their future, however, was already in the past. The persecution continued for many years as Calles, who had succeeded Obregon’, consolidated power and expanded the anti-clerical legislation, maintaining control under his Maximato (behind the scenes dictatorship) and did not relent until 1940 when President Manuel Avila Camacho, a believing Catholic, took office ~ long after my ancestor had perished.

  Federico’s treachery caught up with him however, and he tried to involve his family. He assured them that he did everything for their spiritual salvation, but they refused to uphold his lies. Consequently, he trembled on the brink of the abyss, which his own dishonesty had dug under his feet. He had counted himself among the truly faithful. He had viewed himself as the shepherd of his family and town and had vowed to lead them down the path of Christ, but by the time Zapata, Villa, and Venustiano Carranza had all been killed, they no longer trusted, nor would defend, him in the face of adversity.

  Untamed by disgrace and hardened by solitude, this shepherd of rebellious souls was inexecrably odious to the flock, and his enemies contrived a singularly successful mode of revenge; Federico was painted with a bridle in his mouth, and a caricature of the Archbishop of Mexico leading the tractable beast to the feet of Christ. The awful mural provoked moral outrage amongst the local yokels, and led to a public ostracism with rotten vegetables.

  Federico’s motives may have been selfish; his ends always legitimate. He had conspired with the Church, and rebelled without any views of interest. The violence which he inflicted or suffered is celebrated as the spontaneous effect of reason mixed with rascality. The faults of his character became still more conspicuous to those whom had trusted him with their own souls as well as safety.

  After 1920, according to my grandfather, he saw the proverbial writing on the wall. The intemperance of his libertine youth had accelerated the infirmities of age, and he cried that he had failed the revolution. Upon learning of Carranza’s assassination, he led his men against a brigade loyal to Obregon’. The latter’s forces were repeatedly baffled by what they perceived as a rebel’s challenge, whom they pursued with seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixteen hundred horse, Federico entered Sonora, home state of Obregon’. He might have ravaged the open country, occupied the defenseless pueblos, re-opened the boarded-up churches and took possession of abandoned provisions and materiel, and punished with death his adult and obstinate captives, but the conquests of the rag-tag band were confined to the petty fortress of San Juan De La Cruz.

  The federal garrison, invincible to his arms, was oppressed by the paltry artifice of ideals and the superstitious scruple of illiterates. Federico retired with shame and loss from the walls of San Juan and retreated to Guaymas, a port in Sonora, where-from many of his followers came. The march, the siege, the retreat were all harassed by an vexatious, and almost invisible, adversary; and the disappointment of San Juan De La Cruz might have embittered, perhaps shortened, his last days, but he didn’t know it yet. In the fullness of his rise to power, Obregon’ still felt at his bosom this domestic thorn; his lieutenants were permitted to negotiate a truce, but their adversary was reduced to a shadow of his former self. Without disparagement to his fame, they might have owned that Federico and his loyal men were finally oppressed by the admission of their own defeat. In his extreme danger he applied to other rebel groups associated with Carranza, to Pancho Villa, and to Zapatista guerrilleros for a refuge from the judgment awaiting him. His resources, regrettably, were almost exhausted, leaving him as a fugitive in Sonora,. His intended flight to Durango was impeded by the demoralization and vocal disgust of his men. He was consequently delivered with all of his men to the firing-squad of justice, the vengeance of the people, and the sodomitic intentions of Satan. His fortunes were confiscated, and his aged father, who had fought on the side of the Diaz, then Huerta, reactionaries, was cast into prison. All of his past services were buried in accusations, and his surviving supporters were driven by injustice to perpetrate the crimes of which he was accused.

  Upon learning of his fate, a monk entered his cell and prayed with him, repeating an old monastic rule that he thought might help him in his final hours: “shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and thy thoughts toward the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first, all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light.”

  Well, the latter might be good for a monk, but it certainly left Federico baffled. Despite the self righteous calling that drove him to take up arms on behalf of his Christ, this light the monk was describing was little more than the production of a distempered fancy, the animal of a
growling belly and a vacant brain, like all monastic epiphanies are, and no amount of monkish meditation was going to turn him into a saint over-night. He was nonetheless adored by his comrades-in-arms as the pure and perfect essence of Christ himself, or a Mexican proto-Christ at least, for having suffered on their behalf.

  For his part, Federico actually questioned what good prayer had produced during that whole time. He even ridiculed his confessor by remarking that as long as the folly was confined to monasteries, no one cared. Furthermore, the simple solitaries were not inquisitive about how the divine essence could be a material substance in any case, or how an immaterial substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. Federico was not of a mind, and repudiated his Christ during those very hours before his execution.

  Writing to his brother, and sending his last will and testament, he stipulated: “Since the death of my mother and the imprisonment of our father, who alone advised me without interest or passion, I am robbed of the Mexico I have so loved, and am instead surrounded by men whom I can love no longer, nor trust, nor esteem. The Federal agents are swayed by their personal or factious views, and how can I consult the monks on questions of amnesty or legal clemency? My commands have ceased to carry weight with my comrades, and my jailers laughed when I asked them to consider that if I am thus perpetually absent from my family, my wife may be tempted either to seek the arms of another man, or to abandon herself to a convent.”

  After laughing at his apprehensions, the colonel in charge of his imprisonment gravely consoled him by the less-than pleasing assurance that the payment of his debts (his execution) should be his last service to the Mexico he “so loved.”

  From the outset he had pledged himself to divide with his followers the sweets and the bitters of life, and now they had preceded him to the grave, thus there was nothing left to struggle for or against. The sphere of his attraction had been magnified by the ruin of the proud and the submission of the prudent, thus it was incumbent upon him to accept an early demise, and allow the dead to bury their dead. At the appointed hour, perhaps 12pm, on December 1, 1924, protesting his innocence and accusing his fortune, he was led out to the “field of woe” along with three others, blind-folded and tied to an old tree-stump. His last words were fated, ironically, to be repeated as the lyrics to the battle hymn of the future Cristeros:

  The Virgin Mary is our protector

  and defender when there is something to fear,

  She will defeat the demons crying “Long live Christ the King!”

  She will defeat the demons crying “Long live Christ the King!”

  Soldiers of Christ let us follow the flag

  that the Cross shows the army of God!

  He was then shot dead at the age of 45 (as I wrote this, I suddenly remembered that I am 44, and none too certain about the immediate future). His mortal remains were left to the crows and buzzards to dispose of as they saw fit. By the Vespertine hour, his mourners had meekly picked up what was left of his skeleton, and they buried it close to his family home.

  Thus ended the legend of Federico de Martin-Lopez de la Cruz y Vivar.

  The introduction of barbarians and savages into the contests of civilized nations is a measure fraught with grief and cynicism (so explained the librarian who had allowed me to examine the genealogical archives while I was traveling through Jalisco a couple of months before), and the revolution was a contest between shame and mischief; the governmental barbarians on the winning side had the interest of the moment to compel them and do good for the republic, but the shame of their fancy was reprobated by the worst principles of cruelty and reason. The rebel savages on the losing side employed mischief to grasp at their moment of interest, but itself was reprobated by the best principles of humanity and madness. Grief and cynicism was had, therefore, on both sides before the smoke of retribution had cleared. It was the practice of both sides to accuse their enemies of the guilt of the first alliances. Those who had failed in their negotiations were loudest in their censure of the other’s example of order, discipline, and ruthless purpose, which they envied and would gladly imitate.

  Federico envied and imitated well.

  Thus was the life that inspired my name. Thus was the life of one who gave everything to his faith, his family, and the history of his country. He was not remembered by posterity, at least the way he should have been. He could have inspired a great epic, but even one so knowledgeable of his country’s mythology like Fulgencio San Roman somehow missed out and never learned of his existence. This is strange, even mysterious, but my ancestor had more than his fair share of enemies, and they possessed the power of the pen. His memory was therefore ignored by the learned, and those who had actually known and admired him died illiterate, hence failing to honor his name even by an oral tradition.

  All that had existed was this very document Becky had discovered while doing some genealogical research for me, and I was not permitted to take it home with me.

  Damn!

  His memory, nevertheless, just might survive through me.

  FORWARD BACK TO AMERICA

  Time had run out on this most unforgettable (for all the wrong reasons) and turbulent journey. The time had come to reverse my course, and I looked forward to a most welcome end. It was time to back track to the border, and the memory of my ill-remembered ancestor haunted me in the final days of this Mexican sally. He fought for what others believed in, yet clung to a few convictions of his own. He knew, and he certainly understood that everything for which Mexico had torn itself apart had been in vain and could have come about in more peaceful ways. The swashbuckler inside of him, however, just had to glory in the blood-letting and terror. Mexico had triumphed, had overcome the forces of intolerance and stagnation to reinvent itself, and, by the time Lazaro Cardenas assumed the presidency, the victory of the people over tyranny had been declared. And yet, the philosophic strain in his blood was not ashamed to confess that the ruin of his cherished country might be the consequence of a second and similar victory. So much has happened since Federico’s death in 1924 that this unrepentant wetback writing this story is paying no mind to what others fear may come in 2012. Actually, many people here, the descendants of the ancient Mayas in particular, think that their world will explode not in 2012, as the Mayas foretold, but by the time they celebrate the Bicentennial of their Independence, and the Centennial of the Revolution, in the fall of 2010.

  So, what if the sky falls sooner than later? More of that “who gives a damn” attitude will see them through the worst of it. Mexican history has a strange way of rectifying itself by the mistakes of her people who care not for the lessons of history. The Revolution of 1910 witnessed the onset of ten years of bloody civil war, which ended the lives of over a million wretches, mostly peasants, in a cataclysm of murder, betrayal, rapine, destruction, and tequila binging. And that very cataclysm occurred just over one-hundred years after Miguel Hidalgo gave his “grito de independencia” in 1810, which then led to the ten years of bloody murder, arson, destruction, and drunkenness that is known as “Guerra de la Independencia” (War of Independence).

  Everyone is now asking themselves: “I wonder what the next ten years have in store for us?”

  In Mexico, things do tend to repeat themselves, blindly and purposely. Wagging tongues have spread the anxiety that terrible things are oncoming. Narco-traffickers are the new oppressors, the government is as corrupt and inefficient as it has always been ... actually, the last time it was really efficient was during the very dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Armed rebel groups are again gathering strength, and, many believe, shall erupt in a bloody reaction against Mexican Society by the time Christmas, 2010 rolls around.

  There is really no reason for concern, according to the average Mexican. Things may have been worse back in 1809, before Independence, or in 1909, before the Revolution, but grievances abound at all times. Mexico has known bloody war many times in her history ~ before and after the arrival of the Spaniards with Cortez, and t
he land does not reject new corpses, which shall fertilize the neglected fields. The peasants may no longer be exploited by the landed gentry, and people exercise their right to vote as never before, but the modern descendants of the sainted Soldaderas are brutalized still by the most cruel criminal violence and social repression in its history, and reeling from one of the most miserable economic recessions. An intellectual from the University of Mexico, in Mexico City complained that “We are very near a social crisis ...The conditions are there.”

  Mexican mutinies have coincided with significant dates, and many people know it, yet laugh at the suggestion that history does repeat itself. In any case, Zapatista guerrillas did in fact unleash an insurrection in the poor, underdeveloped state of Chiapas on the 1st of January, 1994, the very day that the new NAFTA, or North American Trade Agreement, took effect. Was this a coincidence? Or did the Zapatistas feel that Yankee Doodle was again invading their sacred land to turn it into one big maquiladora, or sweat-shoppe, for the over-fed Gringoes?

  A festering fear bites at the ears of ordinary citizens, that the seemingly all-powerful drug cartels, which have cold-bloodedly murdered about 15,000 hapless suckers during a period of ten years, are trading their armaments and materiel to the restless guerrillas. They are ready to pounce on the imagination of Mexicans willing to trade the inertia of their circumstances for the thrill of seeing their country blown apart by the accumulated anger of the most desperate, and the resurgent barbarity of the worst, of their compatriots.

  Whatever the fears of the average folk, it appears that the plan of the malcontents may be to spread Bicentennial terror, have ordinary Mexicans betray their allegiance to President Felipe Calderon’ and his successors, and repudiate his drug-war offensive. The seizure of immense weapons arsenals over the course of the present administration, allegedly transferred from the Zetas, a savage drug gang, to Jose’ Enrique Hernandez, a notorious head-buster of the rebel group called the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), has not stemmed the tide of resentment. The EPR in recent years has boasted of its terrorist reprisals against government officials, and assaults on the Mexican oil infrastructure, including the destruction of six pipelines in the last few years. Although Hernandez repudiated the charges, many Mexicans, from what I have gathered during my illegal stay, have actually cheered him on.