About the banner
The Mex Files writes about many facets of Mexico — historical, cultural, political. The banner represents some of these concerns.
From left to right we have:
Bartolome de las Casas. Fray Bartolome was the Americas first “investigative reporter” as well as the great human rights activists of all times. In an era when one voyage across the Atlantic was a lifetime achievement (assuming you survived it), Las Casas continued to commute from Mexico to Europe to lobby for better treatment of the indigenous peoples, even when he was well past ninety years old.
John Pershing and Pancho Villa met in El Paso in 1914 when the then-Revolutionary Governor of Chihuahua was in favor with the United States Department of State. Border issues and United States-Mexican relations have been, and continue to be, complicated and ever-changing.
A detail from Diego Rivera’s Sunday at Parque Alameda showing Rivera (who looks like Pugsly Addams), his wife Frieda Kahlo as the little boy’s mommy and Rivera’s mentor, the graphic artist Jose-Guadelupe Posada walking arm-in-arm with La Caternina, a popular “calavera” or Day of the Dead skeleton figure. Mexican art, folk art and the enduring traditional culture, as well as Mexico’s historical figures, all figured in Rivera’s mural of Mexico City life.
Vicente Lombardo Toledano was a major figure in 20th century Mexican politics. A socialist and labor leader, he was an important figure in any discussion of Mexican economics, politics and resource issues.
El Tajin… one of the great cities of Mexico’s Pre-Colombian era, is an important tourist attraction only slightly off the “beaten path”.
El Pantelon, an office building in Mexico City’s Santa Fe district, is distinctly Mexican, but a part of the international, 21st century Mexico.
Indigenous protesters in Mexico City encapusulate the enduring traditions of Mexico — from human rights, to border issues, to foreign policy to politics to daily life and modernity, in Mexico the past is present, the present is past and the future is now (and then).
All photos public domain, except the Indigenous protesters, © John Kirsch, 2007 and used by permission.
And us…
Richard Grabman
When I moved to Mexico at the age of 45, I said I was from Texas. True, though I grew up in western New York State.
I studied English and Biology (and Classics, for God knows why), but found that qualified me to be a starving artiste… so with a year of computer and accounting courses, reinvented myself as a technical writer… which I did long enough to never want to write “Press any key to continue” as long as I lived. By that time, I was living in Houston, in a Mexican neighborhood, and travelling every chance I had back and forth to Mexico. Flights were cheap and I didn’t have anything more pressing to do than to fly down to Mexico City every three day weekend I could.
When the dot.com industry went belly-up, I was ready for a change anyway. So, half-way into a still-unfinished book on Mexican History, I took a job teaching English at a grade school in Cuernavaca. I don’t particularly like kids (and cannibalism is no longer an option in Mexico), so moved to Mexico City, where I taught English, did translations, wrote and went bust setting up an avocado exporter.
I spent two year in Texas, mostly in the Big Bend region, exploring the borderlands (mostly because I needed to make a living and when I wasn’t reporting for a couple of local weekly newspapers, was a chauffeur for railroad crews) and working on Gods, Gauchipines and Gringos. I moved to Mazatlan in March 2008.
Between working for my publisher, writing and a bit of travel, I still do translations, at Mexican rates, by the way. My overhead is low, but MexFiles takes up the bulk of my time — and electric bills. I don’t want to put up advertising, or charge for the site, so do ask for donations via PalPal.
Lyn_2
Lyn worked with the migrant farmerworker community, and with the immigrant community in the United States. She is a fearless Mexican traveller, going far off the beaten path sometimes by the simple expedient of following the hotel maid about her daily chores.
Lyn’s lair lay somewhere in the mountains (of Colorado) in dangerous “occupied territory”… her congressman is Tom Tancredo.
