In October of 1992, Mexico City was filled with counter-protests to the official celebration of the Quincentennial of Columbus’ “discovery” of America, and I was there to witness it. Nonfiction Views opens tonight with a photo diary of that time, and at the end will offer a number of books about contemporary Mexico City.
I was joined in Mexico City by Gerardo dell Oro, a photographer/activist friend of mine from Buenos Aires, Argentina. We’d both seen our share of Latin American protests, and we anticipated that this global 500th anniversary celebration an event that was a disaster for the indigenous population would spark a major demonstration.
The government of Mexico was playing it cautious, treading the line between celebrating the colonial heritage that created the mixed ‘mestizo’ culture that was the dominant force in the country, while also wanting to acknowledge the great people and the culture that existed before the conquistadors arrived. This dual approach was visible in the government’s decision to seize control of the Zócalo, the huge concrete plaza in the heart of the historic center of Mexico City. It was the site of Tenochtitlan, a primary city of the Aztec empire before the Spaniards arrived, and is today bordered by the National Cathedral, the National Palace, and other government buildings. It is a central gathering place for events both official and unofficial, which made it a prime contested space for the Quincentennial.
Thus, the government chose to close off the entire central portion of the Zócalo in the days leading up to October 12th. Clearly their intent was to exert control over any potential protests, but they tried to disguise this by staging a celebration of indigenous culture in the closed space. Much of the plaza was covered with a huge Aztec ideogram laid out in garish colored gravel. A sign explained the purported symbolism of the display. Double rows of giant planters sealed off access to the area; closer inspection showed that the foliage in them was not actually planted, but rather were just tucked into plastic bags of dirt stacked into the planters.
Elsewhere in the Zócalo, various indigenous groupings filled more of the space. Some were performing cultural dances in traditional costumes, while elsewhere, other New Age indigenous-chic mystics were performing cleansing rituals. These were intended to celebrate indigenous culture, and dazzle the tourists, but in talking to them, and as revealed in subsequent press conferences, these groups were in the Zócalo through an informal arrangement with the government, intended to control space while appearing spontaneous. There were thirteen hunger strikers in front of the cathedral who did not seem to be part of the government strategy, but it was a small enough group that the authorities let them be.
Two days before the actual 500th anniversary, Gerardo and I took the long subway and bus ride to Nezahualcóyotl, a sprawling city adjacent to Mexico City, home to modern neighborhoods and to one of the world’s largest slums. We’d come to Neza, as it is usually called, to attend a major press conference at the Casa de la Cultura given by various organizations planning protests. Alas, the Mexican press did not have much interest in covering it. Gerardo and I were the first to arrive, to the joy of the organizers, who offered us bottled water and coffee. Only a dozen local reporters arrived after us (“we sent out 30 invitations”, grumbled one of the organizers).
The press conference outlined an array of grievances, some general and some specifically geared to prejudice against the indigenous populations. There were calls for 6000 indigenous prisoners to be released. The Zócalo situation was discussed, with some grumbling about how it was an insult and an abridgement of the right to assembly, but they also acknowledged that an agreement had been struck with the government that there would be no protests on the 12th between noon and 4:00pm, to allow the government speeches to proceed uninterrupted. More attention seemed to be placed on plans for the 11th, when columns of marchers from all over Mexico would converge on Tlatelolco and then proceed to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
And so that’s where we headed on the 11th. Both Tlatelolco and the Basilica are important places in Mexican culture. Tlatelolco is where the Mexican Armed Forces massacred hundreds of student protestors in 1968, as well as being the site of older Aztec ruins. The Basilica is one of the most revered pilgrimage sites of Catholicism, where the Virgin Mary appeared to a local peasant in 1531. There were indeed thousands of marchers converging on Tlatelolco. Here are some more pictures, before the story continues below:
As dusk fell, the marchers approached the Basilica, with Gerardo and I marching alongside.
There are three churches at this site, two older colonial cathedrals, one with serious cracks in the façade, and the current Basilica, a modern monstrosity. The marchers paraded in front of the older churches first, and then entered the main Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where a mass was already in progress. They sang as they crowded with one of their bands playing, and then settled in to let the mass continue. It was all very mellow. I listened in on some of the protest organizers having a calm negotiation with the police and the clergy to get access to water and restrooms for the marchers who planned to remain in the plaza overnight, an ambulance on site, and a police escort for the march to the Zócalo the next morning, after another mass to be offered specifically for the marchers.
Gerardo and I headed back to the Zócalo late that evening, and were surprised to find the planters blockading the expanse were already being removed.
At dawn the next morning, we took the bus back to the Basilica to attend the mass in honor of the protestors. A procession of priests entered the Basilica, followed by protestors playing music and waving banners. Many of those in attendance were genuinely devout, obviously moved to be at this holy pilgrimage site. The homilies delivered by the priests were very geared to their audience, seeking a forgiving understanding for the past, and promising to work towards a more just future. Many of the indigenous spoke as well, pointing out various grievances, and asking that indigenous religions be given respect as well. The priests circulated through the crowd offering communion, and it all ended up with cheers of “Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!”
And then on the march again, October 12th, the 500th anniversary of Columbus setting ashore in the Bahamas. The Zócalo was open when the marchers arrived, the gravel Aztec ideogram being trod upon. People cheered them as they arrived, showering them with flower petals. There was a lot of speechifying, and a soup kitchen, a lot of vendors. Some graffiti sprayed on the walls of the National Palace, but none on the National Cathedral. Overall, a mellow day. That evening, another press conference was held at the Majestic Hotel by the protest organizers. Once again, Gerardo and I were there, and once again, few members of the local press. There was self-congratulations about the success of the demonstrations, some reports of similar demonstrations around the world, another recounting of grievances, an announcement of future plans to march to the presidential palace to present a list of hundreds of demands, and that was it.
In the end, it was much less of a protest than I expected. This momentous occasion to commemorate 500 years of indigenous survival and resistance turned into more of a fiesta in spite of itself. Mexico is complicated. There are varying degrees of pride across many sectors in the foundational story of the mestizo blended identity, a pride in how different cultures have forged a nation. Yes, there is prejudice against the indigenous, and there is indigenous anger at injustice, but that thread of Mexicanness has proven to be powerfully cohesive. The fissures that create the clash of protest are complicated. Even among the various indigenous organizations, there were obvious differences and rivalries. To a great extent, the indigenous protestors became subsumed within larger groups of leftists, progressives and New-Agers, and in the process became objectified as much as heeded.
I think about a pair of documentarians from Boston we met. They were laden with expensive equipment, and giving rapt attention to an indigenous leader they were interviewing. Their interviewee was well-traveled, and spoke of his visits to Europe. His patter was a practiced mix of what Gerardo called ‘Indigenismo 101’. I spoke to the filmmakers afterwards. Their main interest seemed to be the New Age cleansing of Teotihuacan ritual angle, but I tried to clue them in to the political angle. I showed them press releases, described the press conference in Neza, the marches through the streets, the mass at the Basilica….
At the mention of the mass, their mouths dropped open and their eyes glazed over. “A Catholic
mass!?” one exclaimed. It was clear that to their minds, any indigenous person who was attending a mass could never be the real thing. To them, indigenismo was some sacred object of mysterious wisdom, not the complicated reality I saw of people who could passionately protest in the streets, filled with righteous anger and a strong sense of self, but who also could be moved to tears in the Basilica.
In the ensuing 29 years, I think indigenous politics have made some progress, but there is still a very long way to go.
Thank you for indulging my outpouring of memories. But this is Nonfiction Views, and you came for the books, right?
Here then is a brief selection of books about contemporary Mexico City. I’m sorry to say that I found Down and Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century, by Daniel Hernandez (2011), to be a bit annoying. It may be because the book opens with a large march to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in his case the annual feast day pilgrimage on December 12th, but still similar to my adventure. But somehow, his primary experience of the evening has to do with hanging out with some young Mexicans who invite him to get high and get drunk, and he wanders away without even attempting to make his way into the crowded Basilica. Yes, that is the focus of the book: the ‘down and delirious’ side of a complicated metropolis, but his attitude was a little too hip for my tastes.
Several Ways to Die in Mexico City: An Autobiography, by Kurt Hollander, seems like a grim book on the surface, with its litany of the lethalness of daily life in the great metropolis, but his attention to detail and deadpan humor make it all worthwhile. Yes, the air pollution is horrible, making a city of bright painted colors appear grey at times, while filling your lungs with toxins and your pores with grit. Yes, the water that comes from the tap, for those lucky enough to have such a luxury, can be “a variety of colors (yellow, rusty or earthy), flavors (sulfuric, chlorinated or metallic) and even textures (muddy or gritty).” Yes, the city has the highest percentage of gastrointestinal infections, and yes, the lollipops may be laced with lead. But it’s Mexico City, and it’s one of the greatest cities in the world! This 2012 book also discusses the fact that Mexico imports half of its food from the United States, and that genetically modified crops are common. Both these issues were part of the grievances laid out in the 1992 protests twenty years earlier.
Two other books, First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century, by David Lida (2008), and Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico, by Juan Villoro (2021), don’t shy away from the difficulties that Mexico City faces, but both books are valentines to the place. Lida in particular offers paeans to the vibrant and cosmopolitan life, which still manages to maintain a strong sense of neighborliness. Some of his complaints are more amusing than harrowing, such as the fact that there are 850 streets named Juarez and 750 named Hidalgo. But in the end, his attitude seems to be that “what makes a city dynamic is the way that its citizens deal with its problems, and people here are nothing if not imaginative at problem solving”.
Villoro is similarly both gimlet-eyed and starry-eyed about the city as he walks the streets. His book is more anecdotal than the others, made up of many short chapters, and he is definitely the most literary of the bunch, lacing his observations with all manner of references to history and literature. His chapter on the swine flu outbreak of 2009 is an interesting counterpart to our days of Covid. There was rampant worry, confused information, the city and the country shut down in many ways, and there were dire predictions that the epidemic could go global. In the end, through a combination of taking action and luck, the virus faded away with only a relatively small number of casualties.
The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle, by Francisco Goldman (2015) also mixes the love of the city with the elegiac, built around his recovery from the sudden accidental death of his 30-year-old wife, not even two years after they wed. Facing the terrors of such city dangers as insane traffic and crime waves help him face his sense of loss, and the life of the city helps keep him afloat. The book gets into the politics of Mexico much more than the others. Here too is an interesting parallel with our own travails: Andrés Manuel López Obrador narrowly lost the presidential election in 2006, perhaps due to fraud. He insisted he won, and even had himself named president in a somewhat unhinged parallel ceremony. The leftist did recover to win the presidency in 2018.
All of these authors have lived for years, if not decades, in Mexico City. At one point in The Interior Circuit, Goldman is out on the town with David Lida, author of First Stop in the New World. They all evoke the city so wonderfully, and make me long to visit it again. Hmm. Next year will be 30 years since my 1992 adventure. Time for a return visit?
This Week’s New Hardcover Releases
- Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, by Adam Schiff. As historian Ron Chernow blurbed: “Although he failed to secure the conviction of Donald Trump in the first impeachment trial, Adam Schiff has now vanquished him forever in these pages.” If only! But it still should be a good read.
- American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears, by Farah Stockman. This book focuses on the lives of displaced factory workers in Indianapolis, in terms of both their economic and psychological struggles. The author had an op-ed in last Sunday’s New York Times (a very common symbiotic arrangement between the NYT and authors with books coming out): What Killed the Blue-Collar Struggle for Social Justice
- Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War, by Howard W. French. This sweeping history displaces the Euro-centric narrative of Western development over the past six centuries, and retells the story placing Africa and Africans at the center of the narrative.
- When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe, by Maureen Quilligan. Another game-changing revisionist history, bringing to the forefront four powerful women who redefined the culture of European monarchy in the glorious sixteenth century.
- The Crime Without a Name: Ethnocide and the Erasure of Culture in America, by Barrett Holmes Pitner. The journalist/activist traces the historical origins of racist ethnocide in the United States, examines the personal, lived consequences of this ongoing erasure of ancestral culture, and offers ways for readers to combat and overcome it. He is the founder of The Sustainable Culture Lab.
- White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall, by Reece Jones. The author counters the mythology of the United States as a nation of immigrants by showing how immigration laws have always been motivated by racial exclusion and the desire to save the idea of a white America.
- Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me about Our Home Planet--And Our Mission to Protect It, by Nicole Stott. Both a memoir of her astronaut training and space flights, and an optimistic call for scientists and politicians and all the rest of us to tackle climate change.
- The Car That Knew Too Much: Can a Machine Be Moral?, by Jean-Francois Bonnefon. The psychologist is one of the creators of the Moral Machine website, where people judge life-or-death scenarios involving intelligent technology like driverless cars: how many errors in machine judgement are we willing to accept?
- Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It, by Jessie Daniels. An invitation to white people to examine microaggressions, their choices in schools and doctors, and and other manifestations of structural racism to be aware of the unintended harm perpetrated by even the most well-intentioned.
- Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes, by Albert Samaha. The author traces generations of his family’s history from the Philippines to America.
- The Loneliest Americans, by Jay Caspian Kang. A timely book in an era of rising anti-Asian hate. He looks at the Asian immigrant experience of the millions who came to the United States after restrictions were lifted in 1965, in the wake of the Vietnam War and in the years since then.
- Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds: A Refugee's Search for Home, by Mondiant Dogon, recounts the decades his family spent in refugee camps fleeing the violence of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Seed Money: Monsanto's Past and Our Food Future, by Bartow Elmore. How one corporation came to have so much control over our food supply.
- On Animals, by Susan Orlean. The essayist collects her writing about animal-human relationships
- The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America, by Catherine Prendergast. A wild story of the founding of Carmel-By-The-Sea in California as an artists colony, of ambition, early feminism, suicide, and more.
- Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era, by Laurence Leamer. Details Capote’s complicated friendships with a number of socialite women, along with what those women saw as his betrayal of them in his thinly veiled unfinished novel Answered Prayers.
- Oscar Wilde: A Life, by Matthew Sturgis. Drawing on material that has come to light in the past thirty years, including newly discovered letters, documents, first draft notebooks, and the full transcript of the libel trial, Matthew Sturgis meticulously portrays the key events and influences that shaped Oscar Wilde's life, returning the man "to his times, and to the facts," giving us Wilde's own experience as he experienced it.
- The Gilded Page: The Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts, by Mary Wellesley. Alook more at the actual manuscripts rather than the writing itself: the ink-makers, vellum preparers and pigment grinders. It also looks at how certain manuscripts survived at all; for example, we can read The Canterbury Tales in part because Chaucer was a government official as well as a writer, and that helped him ensure his works were preserved.
- All of the Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told, by Douglas Wolk. The author has read all 17,000 Marvel comics, over half a million pages in all, the longest ongoing work of fiction in history, and now brings all the marvels to you.
- The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, a dual Hollywood memoir by the Howard brothers, actor/director Ron and actor Clint
- Music is History, by Questlove. The musician follows up his directing of the documentary Summer of Soul with this musical history of the past fifty years, choosing one song per year to represent issues of race, gender, politics, and identity.
- More for the music lovers this week: The Beatles: Get Back, the official account of the creation of their final album, Let It Be, told in The Beatles' own words, illustrated with hundreds of previously unpublished images, coinciding with the release of Peter Jackson’s documentary film; Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar with the Doors, by Robby Krieger
- For the little ones, there’s Pinkie Promises, by Elizabeth Warren and illustrated by Charlene Chua, about dreaming big.
- Now available in paperback: Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy, by Talia Lavin; and The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the Struggle for American Freedom, by H. W. Brand.
All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them. If you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be appreciated. Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 15% each week). We also partner with Hummingbird Media for ebooks and Libro.fm for audiobooks. The ebook app is admittedly not as robust as some, but it gets the job done. Libro.fm is similar to Amazon’s Audible, with a la carte audiobooks, or a $14.99 monthly membership which includes the audiobook of your choice and 20% off subsequent purchases during the month.
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