!Que Viva Mexico!

So, you may have noticed the long lag between this and the last post and wondered whether we had slipped into a taco coma. Truth is, we just returned from a week in Mexico City where we traveled with the students to learn about Mexican history, meet with different civil society organizations and do a bit of touring. Mexico City is an exciting place, and there would be lots to report on just about any given trip. This trip, however, was exceptional because of its timing around this year's big bicentennial on September 15—the same date on which Mexico celebrated not only two hundred years of independence, but also 100 years since the revolution. Clearly an important day and, especially in the context of Mexico's current political turmoil, an ambivalent one.

To give you an idea, our trip to Mexico allowed us to witness first-hand the major festivities that the state had organized, including massive decorations in the Zocalo, major shows and event destinations around the city center, and a totally contradictory Independence Day parade that included military processions by all of Mexico's previous invaders, the U.S., France, and Spain. I did say ambivalent and contradictory, didn't I? While Mexico's president was giving the traditional “grito,” or independence day declaration, from the National Palace, the internationally-acclaimed Tigres del Norte were among several big performers appearing at the Angel stage in the downtown, Mexico's political spoiler, Lopez Obrador, was giving his own anti-grito at the site of the 1968 student massacre, and many other millions of Mexicans were either thronging in the streets in revelry or having friends over to their homes to drink and complain in private. Oh, and literally thousands and thousands of Mexican federal police and military were patrolling the streets in full riot gear, aided by all sorts of major armaments. Even after all of my years in Guatemala, I have to confess that the Mexican security establishment put up an impressive show of force--it was really quite a scene! Luckily, no terrorist activities spoiled the festivities.

Anyway, we enjoyed seeing the festivities and the unique forms of celebration among everyday citizens. There was clearly a huge surge of tourism by Mexican citizens in the capitol, and on the eve of independence, all of the upper class party-goers paraded nostalgic representations of their favorite Mexican folkloric figure. (Josh and I couldn't resist grabbing an honorary Zapata mustache to show our colors.) For example, it was more than a bit ironic to be served our set-plate dinner in a nice restaurant by a waiter clad in “peasant” attire (still freshly starched and bearing fold marks from its recent packaging), a pair of spanking new huarache sandals, a big Zapata mustache, and a hat adorned with colored ribbon meant to mimic indigenous traditions from Chiapas).

Nonetheless, we all loved Mexico City and enjoyed catching a glimpse of Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, sampling such culinary delights as Lebanese food (a big Lebanese population in Mexico and Central America) and Chinese food (from the small “barrio Chino”), touring Teotihuacan, and strolling through the miles of vendors on the alameda. We took in some great coffee and ambiance at the famous La Habana Cafe, where Fidel and Che plotted, and later generations of Mexican journalists have been known to come get their small "commissions" from government officials (it pays to report the right news).

Josh and the girls did more wandering than I did, given my academic duties with the students, getting out to see the Zoo and, the girls' favorite, the mall (ugh). In the end, the girls declared their love for Mexico City and all of the cool urban stuff available there, asking whether we couldn't revise our four-month Oaxaca commitment to include more time in the city. I think their enamor was as much about the lack of school in the city as it was about the urban space itself, but was glad to see their cosmopolitan zeal. We'll definitely look forward to coming back; maybe at that point I can get them to finally accompany me to the Museum of Anthropology!