ICESI also says that among express kidnappings alone, which usually occur in taxi cabs, corrupt police participate in about 12 percent of such cases. The group provided no such figure on more sophisticated ransom kidnappings such as those of Silvia Vargas and Fernando Martí. At the height of the kidnapping hysteria, the L.A. Times reported (“Fear of kidnapping grips Mexico,” by Ken Ellingwood, September 1, 2008): “A report by the daily Milenio newspaper said a review of federal statistics showed that only 1 in 8 kidnapping victims was a business executive. About half were in the middle class or below, the newspaper reported.” This piece is also where I gathered the figure of approximately seventy kidnappings a month being more realistically a figure of five hundred.
The march against “inseguridad” in 2008 was the second such march in Mexico City since 2000; the first occurred in 2004 during the administration of Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who claimed the demonstration was a political plot against him cooked up by the right.
8 | The Delinquent Is Us
Numerous sources informed my understanding of corruption in Mexico, first among them news accounts of lynchings or attempted lynchings of both police officers and suspected “delinquents,” in addition to archival articles and John Ross, in his comprehensive descriptions of illicit political acts in each post-Revolutionary presidency, in El Monstruo.
I looked at several issues of Proceso, though the magazine has a somewhat shoddy reputation of making factual errors on small points of information. But Proceso remains an influential running screenplay of the drama that is Mexican graft, extortion, money laundering, illicit and unethical political activities, violence, and the drug-trafficking organizations’ operations and conflicts. People read it. Two particular issues were crucial here: The Proceso of November 16, 2008, published an excerpt of Los cómplices del presidente; and the November 1, 2009, issue, which revisited the federal government’s questionable investigation into the Learjet crash that killed Juan Camilo Mouriño.
The CIA World Factbook sets Mexico’s poverty rate this way: “18.2% using food-based definition of poverty; asset-based poverty amounted to more than 47% (2008).” It’s been getting worse. Reuters says (“Rising poverty weakens Mexico conservatives,” by Jason Lange, April 14, 2009): “A slowing economy has probably pushed 4 million or 5 million Mexicans into poverty in the two years through August 2008.”
Regarding the reach of the cartels into non-drug-trafficking enterprises, I source the L.A. Times (“Mexico drug cartels thrive despite Calderón’s offensive,” by Tracy Wilkinson and Ken Ellingwood, August 8, 2010): “The groups also are expanding their ambitions far beyond the drug trade, transforming themselves into broad criminal empires deeply involved in migrant smuggling, extortion, kidnapping and trafficking in contraband such as pirated DVDs.”
9 | A Feathered Serpent in Burberry Shades
Sexuality in Mexico is a complex issue that demands further research. I would like to acknowledge some sources that have helped me understand it to this point. First, the photography book Flesh Life: Sex in Mexico City, by Joseph Rodriguez (PowerHouse Books, 2006), with an introduction by Ruben Martinez, who writes of his time in here: “I was swept up by what I experienced, initially, as the incredible eroticism of having all that’s hidden and forbidden suddenly laid out before you . . .”; Lida’s chapter on sexuality in First Stop in the New World, “Sex Capital”; the July-August 2010 edition of Arqueologίa Mexicana, a special issue on sexuality in Mesoamerica; the unforgettable novel El Vampiro de la Colonia Roma, by Luis Zapata (Grijalbo, 1979); and one book by Salvador Novo, Mexico’s earliest modern gay writer, Las locas, el sexo y los burdeles (Diana, 1979).
For my understanding of gender and sexual identity, including transgender identity, a strong influence is the work of June Singer in Androgyny: Toward a New Theory of Sexuality (Anchor Books, 1976).
10 | Negotiating Saints
The story of Jonathan Legaria was reported extensively in the newspapers in Mexico City, and I contributed my own reporting in several visits to the Santa Muerte altar in Tultitlán, partly for a video report for Current TV, produced by Grillo (“Mexican Death Saint,” November 25, 2008). Death and the Idea of Mexico by Lomnitz informed the writing here as well. The destruction of Santa Muerte altars in Tijuana occurred in March 2009 and prompted protests in Mexico City (see Intersections, “Messing with the Santa Muerte . . . ,” April 14, 2009).
Regarding Tepito, it’s important to note that its myths are often more powerful than its realities, and acquiring real data on how Tepito operates is a difficult task that few foreign or national researchers have undertaken. Most news reports related to Tepito usually cover police operations and arrests of pirate vendors. In November 2007, the magazine Letras Libres published a reporter’s exploration of Tepito (“Bienvenidos a Tepito,” by Cynthia Ramírez) that gave a population figure of 38,000 residents and at least 10,000 “floating” residents, or vendors. The story says Tepito’s official languages are Spanish and Korean “if you want to establish commercial relationships in the zone,” but makes no reference on whether any native to the barrio actually speaks it. Seven of ten pirated items sold and consumed in Mexico pass through Tepito, Letras Libres said. The Monsiváis quote—“a cemetery of ambitions, a congregation of thieves”—is from the chapter on Tepito in Dίas de guardar (Era, 1970).
Regarding the cult of San Judas Tadeo, it is relatively new, so research or journalism is scarce. In June 2010, the New York Times produced a video report on the subculture (“Streetwise Saint Joins Mexico Drug War,” by Greg Brosnan and Jennifer Szymaszek) that focuses mostly on the crime and addiction connection between the cult and its adherents. The sonidero culture is closely tied to the San Judas and Santa Muerte cults, but my understanding is limited compared to the work of others, including Mariana Delgado and the team behind the Proyecto Sonidero, ethnomusicologist Cathy Ragland (see “Under the Musical Spell of the Sonidero; Mexican D.J.’s Relay Messages, on Dance Floor and to the Homeland,” New York Times, November 22, 2003), and the work of tepiteño cultural producers and local historians.
11 | Originals of Punk
There is plenty of documentary and historical work on Mexican punk. The work of Mexico City filmmaker Sarah Minter was vital to my understanding of the general geography of punk in Mexico City. Minter produced a documentary/drama chronicling the lives of punks in Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl called Nadie es inocente (1987), then returned two decades later to seek out her original subjects for another film called Nadie es inocente 20 años después (2010), which she kindly allowed me to view before its release. For an understanding of contemporary punk, I just spent a lot of time at Chopo, again, and attended punk shows and events. The photographs of New York–based William Dunleavy and D.F.’s Federico Gama are a strong window into the geography of punks and related subcultures in recent years.
I found research or journalism on the history of the razing and development of Santa Fe lacking, but did look in newspaper archives and niche articles to get a general sense of how Santa Fe became what it is today. Lida’s take on Santa Fe in First Stop in the New World is also very illuminating. He sums it up this way: “There are no parks, no gardens, and there is nowhere to walk.”
I also consulted a few academic sources to get a sense on how punk is read by researchers, including “Punk and globalization: Spain and Mexico,” by Alan O’Connor at Trent University in Canada (International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2004).
12 | Attack of the Sweat Lodge
The temazcal is part of a curious resurgence or reclamation of pre-Hispanic cultural practices that operates awkwardly in the context of the social stratification, urbanization, and globalization that defines everyday life for many Mexicans, and certainly most of those who live in the capital. It’s also increasingly used as an “immersion” or “relaxation” spectacle for foreign tourists who congregate in Mexico’s coastal resorts and officially tagged “pueblos mágicos” such as Tepoztlán. Nonetheless, its practice
is taken seriously by a segment of educated modern Mexicans and Mesoamerican descendants. What’s not clear to me still is how prevalent the temazcal remains among indigenous communities in Mexico, and whether its use has changed in any measurable way since pre-Hispanic times. For now, the question is another future area of inquiry.
The Neza portion of this chapter appeared first as raw notes on Intersections, then in an expanded form in the inaugural issue of Slake magazine in Los Angeles, as “Tripping Out in Neza York.” Neza is fertile territory for studies of urbanism and built space, and has many researchers and historians who work on chronicling the municipio. A recent easy-to-digest account in English is found at the site Geo-Mexico.com (“Nezahualcóyotl, an irregular settlement which grew into a monster,” July 2, 2010), which describes the area in part: “By 2000, Nezahualcóyotl had essentially joined the mainstream. Nearly all residents had electricity and TVs, over 80% had refrigerators, 60% had telephones, nearly one in three had access to an automobile, and almost one in five had a computer. While Nezahualcóyotl has slums, gangs, and crime, it also has tree-lined boulevards, parks, a zoo, banks, shopping centers, offices, libraries, hospitals, universities, cinemas, and apartment buildings.”
In a documentary project called Mazahuacholoskatopunk, Mexico City photographer Federico Gama looks at the lives of urban Indian young people who come to the city from the outer highlands to find work. Gama gives the subculture a term—Mazahuacholoskatopunk—that amalgamates those urban cultural subgroups and adds a reference to the Mazahua nation. Their style is a shield in the urban jungle, a way to identify and defend themselves against other city natives, Gama argues. The photos have been exhibited extensively and were published in book form (IMJuve, 2009).
13 | Death by Decadence
This discussion of the culture of excess and “decadence” is based mostly on anecdotal stories, which run aplenty if you spend enough time among people who survived the anecdotes. One tragic case of note is the death in 2005 of Natasha Fuentes, a daughter of the celebrated writer Carlos Fuentes, under mysterious circumstances in Tepito. Fuentes was reportedly scoring drugs and pregnant at the time of her death, but the incident has never been conclusively reported. Rumor and myth, once more, may be colliding with fact here.
Quetzal is sadly one of those noteworthy deaths of a young person in Mexico City, a death that as time goes on also becomes subject to rumor and mythologizing. The December 2008 issue of Chilango features a long article reported by César L. Balan on Quetzal’s formation as a young designer, his relationship with Marvin Duran, and his death, including interviews with his family. My rendering here is purposefully not peppered with too many details. My intent is to frankly and thoughtfully address a loss that affected me, many friends, and the “scene” at large. I’d like to acknowledge once more Quetzal’s survivors, his family, whom I had the pleasure of meeting during a Sunday celebration after a successful Fashion Week for Marvin y Quetzal.
Regarding addiction, I consulted directly with anthropologist Angela Garcia, author of The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along the Rio Grande (University of California Press, 2010). She writes to me in an e-mail: “Even the wealthy, with decent access to rehab (only about 20% of Mexican addicts receive some kind of care), relapse. Rates of relapse are estimated at 70–90%. So quitting is super hard, even when the desire/access is there. Folks I’ve talked to say the poorest Mexicans are experiencing the steepest rise in addiction rates (esp. crack), but are often not included in these studies because they’re ‘outside the system.’ ”
Marvin Duran continues working on the Marvin y Quetzal label with friends and collaborators. In 2009, Susana Iglesias won the first international Aura Estrada Prize, honoring young Spanish-language women writers, which author Francisco Goldman established in honor of his wife, Aura Estrada (Q.D.E.P.). El Internet, meanwhile, is open again as of early 2010—for now.
14 | At Home
There are active and historical graffiti and hip-hop communities in Mexico City with strong ties to similar scenes in other cities in Mexico, the U.S., the rest of Latin America, and Europe. A recent significant documentary on the scene is a 2005 title Otros Nosotros, produced by Mexico’s Canal 22. A book of interviews with Mexico City MCs is Ciudad Rap, compiled by Alan R. Ramírez and published in 2010; it’s available at hip-hop stalls and shops at various points in the city. I also looked at many editions of several Mexico graffiti magazines, most prominently Rayarte, and attended several hip-hop or graffiti events in different areas of the city.
Regarding the deportation of prison inmates without proper U.S. documents, I cite the Washington Post, which reported that in 2008 the U.S. government deported 117,000 “criminal aliens” from prisons and jails (“U.S. to Expand Immigration Checks to All Local Jails,” by Spencer S. Hsu, May 19, 2009). In an Obama administration pilot program expanding efforts started by George W. Bush, the government hopes to expand a fingerprint database to search for illegal residents in prison populations to all local jails by the end of 2012, the Post says.
15 | The Seven Muses of Mexico City
The opening excerpt is reprinted with permission of the Associated Press, 2010. This chapter is inspired by the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky, Pedro Friedeberg, the Surrealists movement, and by conversations with various friends, mentors, and muses.
The quote by Legorreta is from a talk at the Postopolis events cited earlier. An important and cutting satire documentary on the culture of fear during the swine flu crisis of 2009 is Love in Times of Swine Flu, by filmmaker Gregory Berger, of The Revolutionary Tourist Project (www.gringoyo.com). The Paz quote is from The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid (Grove Press, 1972).
How to delve into the contemporary mythology of the end of the Fifth Sun in Mayan cosmology when Hollywood does it for you in a blockbuster summer film (see 2012, directed by Roland Emmerich)? An intriguing recent article on the topic is by Castellanos, in the February 2010 issue of Gatopardo, titled “2012, adiós al materialismo”). The piece is a profile on a mystic and pseudo-prophet named José Argüelles. Castellanos writes (in my translation): “Argüelles presumes the role of preacher and prophet of the message that the ‘galactic maya’ of the Pleiades left us five thousand years in their calendars, and contradicts the film. In the year 2012 a cycle ends for humanity but will not be the end of the world. The planet will align with the center of the galaxy and from there a new vibrating frequency will take us to a superior dimension, which will have profound effects on the collective consciousness and will succumb the materialistic system that rules today. In this year, on top of that, the cosmic maya could return to Earth. Their spaceships will sweep our skies to take 144,000 terrestrial humans more spiritually evolved than others and carry them to another planet or dimension to continue their learning.”
| Acknowledgments
The genesis for this book, and its title, starts at the LA Weekly in 2006. Editor Laurie Ochoa gave me one of the weekly’s last-ever foreign assignments, to cover the presidential race in Mexico between Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Felipe Calderón. I wrote a story (with edits from Ochoa, Tom Christie, and Joe Donnelly) that used the turmoil of the election as a backdrop for a tale about the culture and moment in Mexico City. It discussed a maturing art scene, a maturing sophistication in Mexico absorbing foreign influences, and a sense of foreboding about the future. The headline for the piece was “Down and Delirious in Mexico City.” When it came time to choose this book’s title, the winning choice was also the most serendipitous. So thank you Laurie, Joe, and Tom.
Thank you, Colin Robinson, for being the first to spot this book lurking inside me. Thank you, Paul Whitlatch, for helping me see it through with skill and persistence. Thank you, Katherine Fausset, for being a tireless and genuine advocate.
To all the chilangos whom I’ve met along the way, who went with me on phases of this journey, thank you for your generosity, openness, encouragement, and trust. I hope that you find I’ve rendered your city
faithfully and with the love we and so many people around the world share for it. Thank you Familia Uruzquieta. Thank you Familia Mejía Urbán. Thank you Familia Flores Magón Bustamante. Thank you Familia Botey. Thank you Familia Rangel Sánchez. Thank you Mom and Dad, Sergio and Norma Hernandez. Dad, thank you for always being in my corner.
The following lists are long because I feel compelled to thank all the people who have given me a hand along the way.
Thank you, sincerely, in Mexico: Umair Khan, Elka Morgado, Rodrigo “Ponce” Betancourt, Miguel Calderón, Gabriela Jauregui, James Young, Caroline MacKinnon, Jason Lange, Guillermo Osorno, Froylan Enciso, Yoshua Okon, Francisco Goldman, Armando Miguelez, Cristal Ortiz, Savlan Hauser, Alfredo Villareal, Enrique González Rangel, Nuria Hoyer, Mario Ballesteros, Susana Iglesias, Ioan Grillo, Victor Jaramillo, Juan Carlos Bautista, Valerio Gámez, Trisha Ziff, Cindy Hawes, Carine Zinat, Yvonne Dávalos Dunnig, Galia García-Palafox, Andrea Aragón, Cynthia Gonzalez, Rafael Breart de Boisanger, Tatiana Lipkes, Avril Ceballos, Marvin Duran, César Arellano, Carlos Temores, Naomi Palovits, Guillermo Fadanelli, Yolanda M. Guadarrama, Daffodil Altan, Marco Villalobos, Abe Atri, Ana Karla Escobar, Anne-Marie O’Conner, Sumer Susanne Carlos, Ryan Warmuth, Morgan-Lovely N’gouda, Jim Fitches, Rodrigo Hernández, Liliana Carpinteyro, Arturo Mizrahi, Héctor Mauricio Cadena Ainslie, Gabrielle Civil, Adam Saytanides, Elizabeth Flores, Leslie Diego, Carina Guzmán, Niki Nakazawa, Gustavo Abascal, David Lida, Federico Gama, Jorge Arguello, Sarah Minter, Pablo “El Podrido” Hernandez, Maru Aguzzi, Claudio Lomnitz, Michael Scott O’Boyle, Monica Campbell, Livia Radwanski, Jesus Chairez, Lesley Tellez, Anita Khashu, Diego Jiménez, John Ross, Ali Gardoki, Yasmine Dubois, Florent Ruppert, Rafael Uriegas, Mariana Delgado, Catalina Morales, Anibal Gámez, Tracy Wilkinson, Ken Ellingwood, Natalia “Galletas” Ruíz, Oscar Sánchez Gómez, Diego Flores Magón, Carlos Alvarez Montero, Pablo Chemor, Romeo Guzmán, Pia Camil, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Eréndira Cruzvillegas, Jerónimo “Dr. Lakra” López Ramírez, Laura Castellanos, the crew at Mercado Negro, all my neighbors, and Patrick Corcoran.
Down and Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century Page 24