Maria Finn Dominguez - Mexico in Mind

LOVE IN MEXICO
Bsame Mucho

A LICE A DAMS
from Mexico: Some Travels and Some Travelers There (1991)

E DWARD W ESTON
from The Daybooks of Edward Weston (1923)

K ATHERINE A NNE P ORTER
The Martyr (1923)

M URIEL R UKEYSER
Evening Plaza, San Miguel (1944)

R AY B RADBURY
Calling Mexico (1950)

J OHN S TEINBECK
from The Pearl (1945)

L UIS R ODRIGUEZ
The Old Woman of Mrida (2005)

SIGHTS, SOUNDS, AND TASTES
Fiesta del Pueblo

F RANCES C ALDERN DE LA B ARCA
from Life in Mexico (1843)

F ANNY C HAMBERS G OOCH I NGLEHART
from Face to Face with the Mexicans (1887)

C HARLES M ACOMB F LANDRAU
from Viva Mexico! (1908)

D. H. L AWRENCE
from Mornings in Mexico (1927)

D IANA K ENNEDY
from My Mexico (1998)

T OM M ILLER
from Searching for the Heart of La Bamba, in Jack Rubys Kitchen Sink (2000)

REVOLUTIONARY ENCOUNTERS
Que Viva Mexico!

A RCHIBALD M ACLEISH
from Conquistador (1932)

J OHN R EED
from Insurgent Mexico (1914)

A NITA D ESAI
from The Zigzag Way (2004)

G RAHAM G REENE
from Another Mexico (1939)

A NN L OUISE B ARDACH
from Mexicos Poet Rebel (1994)

DOWN AND OUT IN MEXICO
Desperados

T ENNESSEE W ILLIAMS
from Night of the Iguana (1961)

M ALCOLM L OWRY
from Under the Volcano (1947)

J ACK K EROUAC
from Mexico Fellaheen (1960)

W ILLIAM S. B URROUGHS
from Junky (1953)

D ONNA M. G ERSHTEN
from Kissing the Virgins Mouth (2000)

ICONS AND IDENTITY
Patria and Pilgrims

R ICHARD R ODRIGUEZ
from Days of Obligation (1992)

A NA C ASTILLO
My Mothers Mxico (1994)

R UBN M ARTNEZ
from Crossing Over (2001)

S ANDRA C ISNEROS
You Bring Out the Mexican in Me (1994)

RITUAL AND MYTH
Da de los Muertos and Beyond

E RNA F ERGUSSON
from Fiesta in Mexico (1934)

L ANGSTON H UGHES
from The Big Sea (1940)

G ARY J ENNINGS
from Aztec (1980)

S ALMAN R USHDIE
from The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)

Mexico in Mind offers a sampling of travelers impressions of Mexico over the span of two centuries. There are many Mexicos here: D. H. Lawrence writes about the spark of contact on market day near Oaxaca, Charles Macomb Flandrau describes life on a coffee plantation in Chiapas, the cultural fusions of Veracruz are explored by Tom Miller, the feeling of dusk in a Mexican plaza is evoked by poet Muriel Rukeyser, William Burroughs reveals the lawless underside of Mexico City, Ray Bradbury shows us a dying mans nostalgia for the citys bustle and life.

This anthology has been shaped both by my trips to Mexico and by my extended family, which has given me a more personal connection to the place. Ive traveled to several places in Mexico over the course of many years and now my memories of the trips are like snapshots: the cool, dry plaza in Oaxaca, the surrounding mountains blue-hued in evening light; Chiapas, with indigenous people wearing brightly woven huipiles and the vinegary scent of drying coffee filling the air; tasting mango sprinkled with chili powder while sitting on the seawall of Veracruz; the turquoise lagoons near Cancn and the view from the tops of Mayan pyramids; the energy and hum of Mexico City, from magnificent museums to plazas filled with mariachi musicians. And the no-mans-land feel of the raw Chihuahuan desert surrounding Ciudad Jurez, just over the border from El Paso, Texas.

My three brothers live in El Paso, and all three of them are married to women from Mexico. When I started this project, my mother protested. You cant create a Mexico in Mind, she said. Its too much. There needs to be a Mexico City in Mind, a Oaxaca in Mind. There are more than eleven types of indigenous people in Oaxaca alone. Shes right in a way. I found Mexico, fascinating and beautiful as it is, to be an enormous, complex place that I couldnt possibly come to know in one lifetime, let alone convey in one volume.

In Mexico, history is alive. Revolutions inspire future revolutions, and the names of the movements heroes resurface in different times and places. The names one hears called out of doorways to playing children carry on Mexicos legends. My sister-in-law Nohemi named her first son Emiliano, for the great revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and her second son Cuauhtmoc for the Aztec king who tried to fend off the Spaniards after Montezuma handed over the empire. Ive included an excerpt from Gary Jenningss novel Aztec that recreates Cuauhtmocs time in history, and while trying to select a portion of Anita Desais lovely novel The Zigzag Way, Im sure I was influenced by my little nephew named for a revolutionary when I decided on a passage where insurgents led by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata disrupt the mining industry.

Journalist John Reed rode with those revolutionaries, even spending time with Pancho Villa himself and chronicling it in his book Insurgent Mexico. His account of the scrappy soldiers and their families is at times sad, at times humorous, but always lively. Almost a century later, another intrepid journalist, Ann Louise Bardach, traveled to the Chiapas region to interview Subcomandante Marcos, a legendary leader of the Zapatista Revolution.

Nohemi, my brother, and their children moved into a suburb with large beige and white houses just over the border of Texas into New Mexico. The woman who lived in the house before Nohemi had been asked by neighbors if she was the cleaning woman. She had been the only Mexican on the block. When Nohemi moved in, she had the house painted bright orange with blue trim to make sure nobody asked her that question. In no subtle way, the colors say Mexican owner on the block. There are particular shades of blue and orange that can be identified as Mexican throughout the world. This is in no small part due to the paintings of Frida Kahlo and murals of Diego Rivera, whose art has made the bold, bright colors popular in Mexico recognizable worldwide. Diego Rivera appears three times in this collection, once in the journals of photographer Edward Weston, who was his friend and contemporary during what is now known as The Mexican Renaissance, and also in a short story by Katherine Anne Porter, where she fictionalizes his relationship with the beauty Lupe Marin. Alice Adams uses a visit to Frida Kahlos house to write about Kahlos art and her tempestuous relationship with Rivera.