Down and Delirious in Mexico City (34 page)

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.”

T
he 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.

Thank you to the crews: the homies in Neza, Reyes and the band in Santa Fe, “Gomita” and the guys in Murder for a Lover, the guys from the tollbooth to Cuernavaca, Señor Arturo and all the friends at Las Duelistas.

Thank you to the artists and photographers who shared their work with me. Your images are golden and indispensable in these pages.

In the United States and elsewhere, thank you Pilar Perez, Adam Jacobson, Richard Fausset, Gustavo Arellano, Alexis Rivera, Ruben Martinez, Alexandro Gradilla, Daniel Alarcon, Aura Bogado, Douglas Foster, Margarita Florez, Juan Maya, Ángel Marcel Porras, Francisco Dueñas, Josh Kun, Andy Greenwald, Gregory Rodriguez, Jonathan Gold, Rita Gonzalez, Mandalit del Barco, Pedro Ciriano Perez, Sandra de la Loza, Ky-Phong Tran, Adolfo Guzman Lopez, Erin Gallagher, William Dunleavy, Eamon Ore-giron, Adam Teicholz, Jessica Sanders, Vincent Valdez, Ashland Mines, Wu Tsang, Ector Garcia, Jose Luis Lopez, Nick Morrow, Valmiki Reyes, Mark Mauer, Nina Mehta, Harry Gamboa Jr., Shizu Saldamando, Jordan Long, Alma Ruiz, Raul Pacheco, Elizebeta Betiniski, Lyn Kienholz, Abel Salas, Melissa Sanchez, Macarena Hernandez, Emi Fontana, Marco Antonio Prado, Sarvia Jasso, Leilah Weinraub, Natalie Rodgers, Mehammed Mack, Eric Zolov, Carolina Hernandez, Alan Mittelstaedt, Sarah Ball, Jorge Neal, Natalia Linares, Elisa Sol Garcia, Neil Rivas, Rebecca Kahlenberg, Richard Kahlenberg, Erika Hayasaki, Marc Cooper, Cheech Marín, Sasha Anawalt, Reed Johnson, Marla Dickerson, Ben Gertner, Carribean Fragoza, Matthew Fleischer, Erin Blakemore, Richard Lidinksy, Suzi Weissman, Kathy Ochoa, Michelle Neely, Adrienne Crew, Luca Martinazzoli, Nadia Ahmad, Joshua Glenn, Joy Hepp, Ana Castillo, William Nericcio, Alan Minksy, Ernest Hardy, Conrad Starr, Darrel Ng, Samuel Vasquez, Gabriel San Roman, and the esteemed members of the H.C.

Thank you to those whose names do not appear here and who deserve my gratitude.

Thank you, Uriel Urbán, for always being down.

Thank you to my inspirations, the baddest women I know: Susana Chavez-Silverman, Mariana Botey, Andrea Daugirdas, Denise Marchebout, Nina Tahash, Jazmin Ochoa, my sister Erika Hernandez, and Kathryn Garcia. This book is dedicated to those for whom it is primarily written, for the enjoyment of Erika, Sergio, Ernesto, Gaston, Lisa, Sandra, Victor, Michi, Christian, Ángel, Alan, Brian, all our cousins far and wide, for Tía Martha and for all the nieces and nephews.

And in the memory of Anna Andrade, and Dash Snow, and Quetzalcóatl Rangel Sánchez.

Finally, thank you, K. Bandell, a reader in Norwalk, California, who in August 2007 sent me in the post a short note of encouragement and congratulations, the kindest and most sensitive I've ever received.