Balloons, and the Political Economy of Marginality

Fruit vendors, squatting communities, balloon-sellers, and taxi drivers are hardly the stuff of political legend. But in Mexico, such economically marginalized populations have long been a staple of urban politics, organized into countless trade unions and civic associations by ambitious politicians and upwardly mobile leaders. The proliferation of this low-level corporatism is not hard to understand in a country where millions live in the gray shadows of the informal economy, their livelihoods determined by the largesse and tolerance of often capricious authorities. For those who must obtain official permits--or achieve the official condonation of their absence--in order to survive, this vulnerability provides a strong impulse to organization, both for those who seek to defend legally-granted privilege as well as for those who must bitterly defend their non-legal means of subsistence. That there should exist a balloon-sellers union, then, is not surprising: how else to defend access to public plazas and confront extortion from police officers? But the price of defending or ensuring such privileges has never been cheap, and Mexico's one-party system was skilled at both incorporating and manipulating these groups, turning them into fiercely loyal clients of the regime. But lost in the chaotic swirl of Uniones, Coaliciones, Frentes, and Sindicatos, is the fact that these groups--prey as they might upon their members--also provided a certain degree of meaningful benefits. Corporatist incorporation into the PRI may have often meant subjugation to the demands of the state, but it was a relationship that only functioned due to its inherent reciprocity, and even balloon-sellers knew how to play the game.

With its roots in pre-Hispanic celebrations and its distinctly non-Western attitude toward death, Dia de los Muertos has become Mexico's most marketable cultural holiday and a staple of middle school Spanish classes in the United States. This mingling of authentic tradition with exportable exhibition, of meaningful commemoration with commercialized caricature, are the marks of a holiday that has increasingly become a transnational event.










Across the country, students of all ages participated in altar building contests, painting elaborate designs with flower petals and arranging candles around photos of revolutionary heroes or famous musicians. The practice of incorporating an offering to the dead of special food and drink occasionally took an ironic turn: it was not uncommon to see a bottle of tequila sharing an altar with a picture of Pancho Villa--a notorious teetotaller.







While public plazas filled with overly-ornate ofrendas, a different scene unfolded in the municipal cemetery in Puebla. A stream of families swirled through the gates and crowded down the central walkway, carrying bunches of marigolds in tin cans. Workers stood amid the chaos, calling out "¿necesita pala, agua?" as they offered their shoveling services to families hoping to tidy up the tangles of weeds creeping over the graves.

In the fourth class section of the cemetery, among the tessellated sprawl of wrought-iron crosses and stone slabs, mariachis plucked out tunes and families hugged. By the grave of a salsa singer, a man replaced batteries in a tired boom box.

















These intimate, personal ceremonies overlapped with boisterous public celebrations. The female icons of Santa Muerte--Saint Death--were paraded through the streets of Puebla in open veneration of a cult that has traditionally remained on the fringes of official Mexican Catholicism and connected to poverty and crime. Elsewhere, oversized skeleton puppets danced in plazas and festive crowds gathered around colorful altars and bought black and white balloons with images of cartoon skulls.


























Not all the public altars were whimsical tributes to national heroes, however. Some were reminders of true grief, such as the horrific fire at a nursery school in Sonora. In the end, the perfusion of death in Mexican popular culture is more than a touristic curiosity or academic fascination, it is a reflection of a society that has lived far too many tragedies and where embracing death is easier than trying to push it away.

The Fading Colors of Fall

Fall in central Mexico lacks the colorful glory of turning leaves and blazing sunsets. Here, nature's palette is more subdued. Green fades to yellow, then to a pale burnt khaki, dropping silently from branches to lodge amongst the litter on the street below. Pale blue skies, crisp and brilliant, offer only the slightest hint of a coming winter.

Movement

Thousands of planes trace the flight paths of Mexico City's airspace every day, silhouettes slipping between the buildings and billboards. From a distance, their passing is a reminder of the inevitability of movement, and the need to explore. This week I have left Mexico City for Queretaro, trading familiar archival routines for new intellectual pursuits.

The solitude of traveling alone, of wandering without a map and without a purpose, is both frustrating and thrilling. To fumble through dark and winding streets in a city you do not know in search of a taqueria unmarked in a guidebook--this is perhaps the essence of living abroad. And to find, at last, the signless door of the place, to savor something authentic, to feel the exhilaration of an unsharable experience--this is perhaps the essence of life.

Afloat

Research in Mexico is a lot like a paddleboat. You splash around a lot, discover that you've got no real way to steer, try to avoid drinking the water, and ultimately end up back at the dock. Most of the time, you don't really know where you're going but you do know that you're not moving real fast. Ultimately, if you manage not to drown, you've done alright.

Itinerancy

After nearly 8 months in Mexico, I have succumbed to a peculiar strain of homesickness. It is partially the nostalgic hollowness for familiar people and things left behind. Yet it is also the sense of the impermanence of my life in Mexico, a feeling that I should just hold on another month, that if I put my head down and keep going, I will get to the destination. Often, new discoveries buoy my research and the thrills of living abroad are welcome challenges. But there are still days when the longings don't fade, when the sense of itinerancy becomes more acute, and the city around me slips into a blur of frustration and tedium.




Today marks the 5 month anniversary of this adventure in bloggery, and after 50-plus posts, I am, as ever, curious who reads them. So, if you've used the blog to procrastinate, distract, or otherwise occupy your time, I'd love to hear from you.

The Corrosion of Autumn

There is something corrosive about fall, in the crisp winds that toss dead leaves down the streets and the long shadows of shortened days. There is beauty in this inexorable movement, but melancholy in the reminder of decay. Autumn has arrived in Mexico City, dry and cloudless, the slow rhythm of nature overlaid on the bustling rhythms of the city.

Feliz Cumple

There are a lot of ways to mark a birthday.

Feliz Cumpleaños, Anne.

Exposure

Historical research is a solitary pursuit. Alone in the venture, as when climbing, the elation at success is indescribable. But when a foot slips and the world spins, a sense of exposure grips your stomach like a fist. This week, as I reached for a handhold I thought to be secure, I found only sandstone that crumbled away. Without a guidebook to the climb above me, and only the distant voices of encouragement from those on other mountainsides, as I ponder the next move isolation presses in and the fear of falling gnaws at my core.

No se olvide

Remembering is more than simply not forgetting. Commemoration is a process that inherently recreates, distorts, and defines history. Personal experiences are extruded through the mesh of collective memory and ideals are refracted through the lens of contemporary events. Remembering consists of creating new meaning, and for the participants and heirs of past struggles it is by investing symbolism in a sacrosanct reference point that identities are created and sustained.

Saturday marked the anniversary of the 1968 massacre of protesting students in Mexico City's Plaza de las Tres Culturas. The march that flowed down central avenues and into the Zocalo was not a memorial for the victims but a living affirmation of a protest identity. Students intermixed with campesinos and miners, chants of "no se olvide" ("do not forget") combined with diatribes against yankee imperialism and a sell-out government. Nearly every social movement that had clashed with the government carried a banner, while chanting universitarios attempted to claim the mantle of 1968. Bandanna-covered faces and an overwhelming police presence created an ominous atmosphere, yet ice cream vendors rolled their carts along the side of the march and puzzled children watched from the crowd, asking their parents if the protesters were supporting Emiliano Zapata.

























The 1968 movement, and its tragic denouement, are often cited as the birthplace of Mexico's democratization. While this perspective radically exaggerates the long term importance of the student movement, the protest identity that congealed in that moment remains an actor on the country's political stage. Yet wrapped in the flag of past struggles and faded icons, it is unclear where these groups fit in the country's future.