Mexico Before Calderon (2006)

Mexico Before Calderon (elected 2006)

[I write this on U.S. Independence Day, 2019.]

I was trying to write a book about Mexico, based on thoughts and impressions of walking, literally and metaphorically, in the country since I was eleven (1982). The time was the early 2000s, a time after my new wife and I witnessed the pivotal election of July 2000 when Vicente Fox won the presidency, overturning the then longest running political party in the world, the PRI. The Institutional Revolutionary Party. We were on a nice honeymoon, summer before the turn of the century and the millennium. We observed some world history. Fitting?

The ideas and hopes of historical heroic Mexican presidents, now barely mentioned or known outside of Mexico, tried to help the state of Mexico like Benito Juarez and other legendary characters of the country for the people and nation to advance. Perhaps they succeeded? Poverty was the pickle.

Arguably, the PRI had done many good things in 71 years. Hence, they were re-elected repeatedly.

However, in the summer of 2000 the Mexican people were ready for a change. And it happened to many people's delight and satisfaction. It made me happy as an American observer, personally, a person who had delved in the world if Latin America a bit academically and intellectually, if I dared to presume, then or now. If at the end of the end of the day, the totality of my pursuits towards Mexico and the region were only anecdotal, I will accept that charge and assessment.

Anecdotes at least can lead to higher analysis and thought. Hence my book, my memoirs.

"An Itinerant Journey".

End of 2004

I took my pregnant wife and small daughter to Mexico: the idea was to drive as far south in a week with comfortable time to return. I was a church minister administrating in Spanish with Spanish speaking immigrants of all hues. In very Latino southern California. This type of searching for Latino themes thing was in me, more less, already. This inborn curiosity or hunger to explore, to observe, to look and listen, to speak and dialog with the "Other", the language of my non-native birth that had become more a part of my conscious and subconscious reality and imagination.

I thought, prayed, joked, dreamed, cajoled, preached, cried peoples to repentance, and many other things in Spanish. I felt the need to hear and see, smell and taste more. To feel more Latin America, and Mexico was right there.

Times were better, in retrospect. At least, times were safer: the tourists and everyday Mexican was safer from wanton violence, as it is now opposite 14 years later. Whole Mexican presidencies later.

Felipe Calderon was elected in 2006, the six year term after Fox.

The war on drugs became a war, and has been ever since. I began working on cases and seeing close up instances in 2010. I see it now. I try to analyze it. Times have changed. China and India now are part of the drug flow, the competition, making times and prices steeper in Sinaloa and every where the illicit drugs flow. It is deadlier than ever.

Brutal. Mexico has become brutalized, a war zone across the map.

We see more Central Americans fleeing the violence and destitution now, the drugs and the trafficking.

2005 was a safer, sweeter time. Acapulco, which I had visited in 2000-2001, was a safe place before Calderon. No longer. Sonora and Sinaloa were open for my Ford Taurus and my small family and me at the end of 2004.

We stayed the night on the Arizona side, Nogales. No frills hotel, a little isolated. I am sure I watched television. Did I watch Mexican? Perhaps. The border lands. It's its own place, really. 

Then Hermosillo, Sonora. Desert town, not bad. My neighbors in the hotel were the worst. What a terrible night of sleep. I considered sending them a note under the door or calling the front desk.

I should have blasted the TV, in retrospect. Yeah.

Next stop, the coast. Down the way from Guaymas, on an isolated beach, no-no frills. Roaming dogs on the windswept beach and small boat fishermen. This was just after the winter solstice. Not particularly warm, but not freezing. This was probably the outskirts of Los Mochis.

The next night we stayed at a nice hotel in Guasave, I got a hair cut down the street.

Then on to Mazatlan, the beach in the Mexican, i.e. cheaper zone.

I drove on (without the ladies on the beach) to Nayarit and the border of Jalisco, towards Guadalajara.

And then returned.

Free to move, only to be yelled at on occasion (see casa de cobro in Jalisco), no threats of violence or brutality.

Made it back by new years. 2005.

Safer, kinder, different Mexico.

May it be that way again.

Eduardo,

Fourth of July, 2019. 7:03 am