Cristina Pacheco, DEP

A combinaton of Oprah and Studs Terkel, Cristina Pacheco chronicled the lives of Mexico City’s denizens for over 50 years, both in her long-running weekly “Mar de Historias” in La Jornada, and her television program, “Aqui nos tocó vivir“, and in an interview chat show that always surprised me.. in which she’d interview, in depth, figures as unlikely to be found in the same program as Nobel Laurate Gabriel Garcia Marquez and workers in a sweatshop turing out the clothes for Barbie dolls, giving equal respect to both, In 2010, she was honored by UNESCO for her contributions to memorializing the Mexican cultural identity. 

Born in 1941, Pacheco was a working reporter and mother. Her husband, José Emilio Pacheco — a poet, essayist and “public intellectual” — died in 2014, and she is survived by her two daughters. A workaholic of sorts, she only gave up her television work a few weeks ago, and her newpaper column a week ago, never mentioning her terminal cancer. 

One of my favorite segments was her search for, and discovery of, the source of that most enduring (though not always endearing) melodies that everyone in the city (and in large parts of Latin America) has come to know by heart: ”Colchones! Tambores!…” and finding dignity and worth in those plying even the must humble of trades.