The Mex Files

The things I do for research!  Hopefully, this will be the ONLY time I have to deal with this. 

I look at what searches people run to get to this site.  I try to not let it affect what I write about, but it’s instructive to see what’s on the minds of folks who visit The Mex Files.  

Some I assume are from dunks with a computer (”Aztec warriors attack Montreal bar punk rock” was my favorite… though I’m not sure how that particular google search ended up here.  I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Montreal).  

For a while, there were bunches of hits every couple of days from people looking up the Salm-Salm family or Princess Alice zu Salm-Salm.  She was an interesting footnote in Mexican history, but I don’t know what made her suddenly so popular.  Maybe she showed up in a Women’s Studies syllabus.  I don’t know.

And some, I’ve just gotta check out.  I’ve learned a few things from what others are looking for, or realized they are issues for people interested in Mexico.  I’ve had three or four in the past few days from people typing in ”Alejandro Fernandez gay” , and I get a couple of hits a month from people trying to track down the Tijuana donkey dens. 

So… hoping to deal with both requests… here’s my first (and last) post on those two subjects. 

The gerbil in the mariachi 

Years ago, I went to the trouble of checking out the back issues of the Journal of Forensic Pathology in the course of writing a an article on a right-wing student group at the University of Iowa mounting a “Straights for Gerbil Rights” demonstration (they didn’t have “illegal” immigrants to pick on in those days). I found the alleged “proof” the group claimed was the scientific confirmation of that nasty little urban legend. 

The pathologist who wrote the article (Clyde Snow, a famous pathologist of the time)  had heard the stories too, and — ahem — bent over backwards to figure out the mechanics of such behavior, and went to the trouble to figure out what the indications would be if there were such an incident.  He couldn’t come up with any way it could happen.

None of which prevents the story from remaining popular. There’s a variation, in which a handsome movie star is in OUR hospital and you won’t believe what they found shoved up his butt… and you won’t believe it, but the guy was.. well, in the published version from Snopes.com, it’s Richard Gere, but I’ve heard Tom Cruise and Errol Flynn (from much older people) among many others.

It seems that legend now has a Mexican variant.  After pop star Christian Chavez came out on his group’s website, there’ve been a rash of gay Mexican star sightings. On a website for foreign tourists, I picked up the emergency protology report from Guadalajara… this time, the “exposed” star is singer Alejandro Fernandez.

I’m kind of disappointed that press reports on Christian said he was “outed after compromising photos appeared” which weren’t compromising at all… they were his wedding pictures in Canada. And geeze, coming out from a singer in a telenovela about a band at a private school who dyes his hair pink and otherwise is supposed to be a flaming youth is no shocker (though, being the first Latin American pop star to come out, I guess it’s noteworthy). Chavez fits the gay stereotype in Latin America… but Alejandro Fernandez?

Why not? He’s a good looking guy (and these stories seem to be based as much on jealousy as anything – “anybody that good looking can’t be straight”) and he did play Emiliano Zapata (who was also a handsome guy rumored to be gay). Funny the rumors have never attached to Spanish actor Antonio Bandaras, who has played gay characters in several movies, though. Maybe it’s the way Alejandro dresses… that hat!

I think a lot of it has to do with the differences between U.S. (and that includes Mexican-American) and Mexican attitudes. Fernandez – and his father – have defined macho for two generations, but they are Mexican machos. They show affection. Abrazos are part of everyday life. They’re flamboyant and showy.  They kiss close relations on the lips. It’s all normal.

I ran across this on VivarLatina

Don’t go calling him gay. Apparently “El Potrillo” Alejandro Fernández has been the target of criticism and speculation lately regarding his sexual orientation because he and his father engage in kisses on the mouth as a show of affection. Alejandro counters:

“Esta es una costumbre familiar y no nos interesan las críticas. Yo a mis hijos también los beso en la boca, tal y como me lo enseñó mi padre, y eso no significa nada sobre nuestras tendencias sexuales, por el contrario, somos muy hombrecitos”, expresó el artista en rueda de prensa.

“It’s pretty lame that he’s basically saying he’s a “real man” as opposed to a “gay man”, who aren’t considered “hombres”.

Lame because I liked him and thought he’d be beyond the typical of Mexican machismo BS of gay men are “locas”. I guess guys who kiss their dad on the mouth…we’ll, they’re just chest-beating machos who can do that.As for the speculation, how ridiculous is it to think that a man is gay because he kisses his dad? I mean do gay men make out with their fathers? Ugh.

 Getting some ass in Boy’s Town Searching for donkey shows, I’ve found a college radio show called “Tijuana Donkey Show”, a bar in Denver (the object of some protests back in early 2005), a cocktail (tequila, ginger beer and fresh lime), a lot of salacious talk, and … some bad jokes.

Wikipedia says “It is common knowledge in the area that Tijuana and Juarez cab drivers will offer to take tourists to “donkey shows,” and instead take them to a location where they are robbed,” but the footnoted source (from a message board for guys looking for cheap whores) only says the poster thought “it [the alleged sex show] was bullshit”. 

Every claim I’ve ever seen or heard or read beings “this was 20 years ago, but…”  In other words… “A friend of a friends’ cousin once…”  Snopes.com — the best source for tracking urban legends — has a thread on Donkey shows.  But, other than an unreliable reference from reformed porn star Linda Lovelace and references to alleged shows in Europe, nothing relating to Mexico. 

Someone named “Gator” wrote a review of Nuevo Laredo’s “Boy’s Town” for a skin mag back in 2003 that has a picture of two donkeys, and gives the same of a bar where this supposedly occurs.  Of course, this “e-zine” also has a feature claiming George W. Bush was involved in a Matamoros Satanic cult (and, bad as I think “el pendejo” is, I don’t think I’ll put too much stock in that particular tale (which also has John Kerry sacrificing 2 year olds)… or in anything printed by “Gator”. 

Of course you can (if you turn off “safe search”, haven’t eaten and aren’t easily grossed out) find pictures of just about any depraved act.  There is one photo (too gross to link to) that every single souce claiming the story is true (and that the act is “common”) uses.  The exact same photo.  The only indication that the photo was taken in Tijuana, or anywhere in Mexico for that matter, is that you can see a can of Tecate on a table.  And a fat lady.  And a donkey (which might be stuffed donkey, as far as anyone can tell).   

My sense is that because we come from a puritanical country where the law has tried to regulate sexual acts, we think anything NOT illegal is common, or at least easy to find, in Mexico.  We project all kinds of imaginable (or theoretically possible – I never though of donkeys and sex together, let alone researching the question) dubious activities go on in Mexico. 

When I wrote my guide book for foreign teachers, I had to deal with the issue of pedophilic teachers… I was suprised at the number of people who told me THAT particular perversion was legal, too.  It ain’t.  The “proof” was a mistaken entry in a website dealing with age of consent laws… where a Sonoran judge had dropped charges in a case involving two minors, which someone thought established precedent (not in Napoleonic Law, where things not specifically covered in the code are decided case by case… nor would a lower court ruling be binding on anyone, in any legal system). 

So.. if you’re coming here looking for the truth about the fat lady and the Tijuana donkey… here it is:

 Photo:© Copyright 2000–2006 Worldwide

(Christian Chavez photo, Univision; Alejandro Fernandez, VivarLatina)

The

The Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Federal District Government (GDF) yesterday signed an agreement to provide youths in the capital who now lack an educational alternative the ability to earn their bachillarato (high school diplomas) on line. UNAM Rector Juan Ramón de la Fuente and Head of the District Government, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón said in a joint statement that this was not the “basic solution, but a tool with enormous potential for the educational system.”

(Jose Galvin, in today’s Jornada [my translation])

My first “post-starving artiste” job (I’m in the minority that went to a Community College after graduate school… finding a two-year computer degree more marketable than a Masters in English) was writing Computer Based Training materials. My first “post-midlife crisis, run off to Mexico” job was teaching junior high school. I was amazed at the creativity Mexican teachers. Mexicans are immensely practical when it comes to resolving immediate problems, and a shortage of teaching materials sometimes called for desperate acts. For the good of the people (at least the ones who could afford private tutors, having beat a strategic retreat from el Escula Bilingüal – where I also was expected to teach computer classes to grades K – Secondaria 3°), resorted to subterfuge and chicanery on occasion. I’ve sat through more than one textbook sales promotion, just to scarf up samples (and then violate every copyright law in the world) to get my students and I the materials we needed.

I can’t see writing a general history of Mexico without talking about the most successful of the Revolutionaries… not the Generals, but the school teachers.

“Gods, Gachapines and Gringos”:

[Alvaro] Obregón later would say “The Revolutionary Party includes everyone who fought for the Revolution”. Even though he would favor a more socialist economic system, he had no problem working with conservatives who were experts in their particular field. While still roving the country with his army, he’d put together a “think tank” from all political persuasions, charged with coming up with practical solutions to the country’s overwhelming problems.

José Vasconcelos was extremely conservative, elitist philosophy professor, but had a practical turn of mind. He served as Secretary of Education under interim president de la Huerta (between Carrenza’s death and Obregón’s election) and later under Obregón. He, and his staff, with full government support, turned to whatever innovative and unorthodox solutions they could find to what was seen as Mexico’s single largest problem – illiteracy and the “backwardsness” of the countryside.

Vasconcelos – helped immeasurably by the fact that both Obregón and Plutarco Eliás Calles had been rural teachers – began recruiting a new kind of teacher. The village maestro or maestra was a “vanguard of the Revolution” Official propaganda equated teachers with soldiers: Ignorance and poverty were the enemy. Books and knowledge the weapons. Although poorly paid, the teachers were dedicated and tough. During the Cristero War, when religious fanatics were likely to assasinate village teachers as representatives of the secular state, sometimes the village school ma’arm was armed.

In the 1947 propaganda film, Rio Escondito, the glamorous Maria Feliz played against type as a sickly recent teaching school graduate sent to clean up “the worst town in Mexico.” She does… as Maria Felix always does… but only fighting a typus epidemic and winning a wild shootout with the villians. And somehow, she manages to teach the children the story of Benito Juarez.

For most rural Mexicans, the arrival of the village schoolteacher was the beginning of the Revolution. The teacher was armed with the blueprints for a schoolhouse… Vasconellos’ staff had designed a designed a standard plan for a building that could be put up by untrained labor, of whatever the local building material happened to be – adobe, brick, or wood. The schools only had walls half-way to the roof, but windows could be added later, in warm climates before rainy season, or walls in cold climates. If there was need for more classrooms, the same plan could be used to add on to the basic model, which originally included a residence for the teacher. Within a month of arrival, a teacher was expected to have their school up and running.

Faced with designing a standard curriculum for both rural and urban students, the former philosophy professor suddenly found himself talking about saddlebags and mules in Cabinet meetings. School books were no problem in Mexico City, or on the rail lines. But Vasconcello’s team had to consider how to deliver a comparable education to the 80 percent of Mexicans who still lived in communities of less than 2500 people and were not served by roads or railroads. Everything from the weight of book covers, to the reporting forms a school superintendent needed was considered. And how much a mule could carry. Everything needed to open a primary school, from the texts to the teacher (and his or her personal belongings) was calculated, based on what one mule could carry.

The “mule school” was only the start of a tradition of innovative educational techniques. One of the few benefits given these underpaid agents of the revolution was a free subscription to the Sunday newspaper. The teachers, especially those in roadless areas, might get their paper a week or month late, they did eventually receive it. So, rather than burden the mules with lessons that wouldn’t be given for months, texts, especially for adult literacy programs, were inserted as advertisements in the paper. These on-going lessons not only included literacy, but other “revolutionary” material – the need to protecting water supplies from contamination, the importance of personal hygene and the need to eat nutritious food.

One unintended consequence of the revolutionary attitude towards education was a change in traditional women’s clothing. The newspapers, for whatever reason, ran the education department advertisements in the fashion section. Women in traditional areas, whose style of clothing hadn’t changed in centuries, adapted the latest in Mexico City haute couture to their own needs. What are today considered “traditional Indian costumes” are often partially based on 1920s urban chic.

The innovative spirit begun by Vasconcelos continued long after he was gone. Radio, television and the Internet have all been pressed into service to provide rural education. In the early 1960s, Mexico was the first country to use satellites to beam basic education into hard to reach communities. Vasconcelos himself is credited with inventing the still successful adult literacy program known in English as “Each one teach one.” By law, every literate Mexican was supposed to teach one illiterate, or pay someone else to give the lessons. Everyone fully expected people to evade the law, but it was successful enough to double the literacy rate within a few years. With innovative primary education, Mexico managed to reduce illiteracy from nearly 90 percent in 1920 to about 8 percent today. Most illiterates in Mexico are older women who speak a language other than Spanish.

Higher education was only available to the wealthy in 1920. Vasconcelos reformed the University, re-instituting the old University of Mexico as the Autonomous National University (UNAM) – constitutionally guaranteed its operating budget and self-governing, as well as other federal schools. UNAM today is the largest university in the Americas.

DAMN… two of the best people in Texas in a week. One famous for what she said, the other — no less remarkable — known for what she never said.

Molly Ivins, 1944 -2007

I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults

There are some fine “in memoriums” on Molly Ivins around… The Texas Observer, which prides itself on covering the “strangest state in the union” devotes their entire latest issue to Ivins.  Her last regular newspaper employer, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram laments the passing of a “difficult” writer. 

“XicanoPwr” at ¡Para justicia y liberdad! expresses the thoughts of the hoarde (and we are legion) of Texas progressives who’ve lost the best — and funniest — of us. 

 Ivins, like me, wasn’t born in Texas, but never let that shut us up. But I didn’t get here until much later, and she grew up here, managing to even date some not-real-bright, but presentable college boy named George W. Bush during her years in Houston. 

Ivins was the first “major” Texas news writer to come out and say that it was racist for papers not to have Spanish-speaking reporters.  My Spanish is aweful, by the way, but I’d miss a hell of a lot of what happens around here if I didn’t hear what was said around me.  And, around here, half of it is in Spanish. 

When I lived in Mexico City, I kept up with what was really going on in Tejas, not from the A.P., but from Ivin’s column in Jornada.  Though she was fluent in Spanish, her wit and style was that of an old-fashioned story-teller (and, covering the scoundrels and rascals that run Texas, there’s never a dearth of stories to tell), dependent on nuance and turn of phrase that didn’t always come through in a serious, academic, scrupulously edited publication like Jornada.  Oh, they could deal with “el gobernador bien-pelo” without too much trouble, but quoting Ann Richard’s wisecrack about having to take the Christmas Star off the Texas Statehouse (”Nunca podremos ahora conseguir a tres hombres sabios” — “Now we’ll never find three wise men”) required one of Jornada’s specialties… a learned footnote and short essay on cultural differences, attached to a newspaper column (but, hey, that’s Jornada!). 

Ivins and I agree about West Texans — “The nicest people in the world. You just don’t want them running it.”  She was writing about the rich guys from Midland.  Those of us in the strangest corner of the strangest chunk of the strangest state of the Union, whichever language we speak, aren’t in any position to do so.  We’re the kind of people she wrote for — not the big boys, but those affected by the outside world:  

I’m aware of the risk of putting up another animal article and having this site turned in the cyber version of the Animal Planet, but….

Small Mexican farmers are finding out that in order to compete, they need to bring back the mule. Tractors aren’t doing the job on all types of farmland.Exactly what is a mule? They are the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. That makes them a hybrid. Except in rare cases, mules (males and females) are sterile and cannot reproduce themselves…. donkeys have 62 chromosomes and and horses have 64. Their offspring end up with 63 chromosomes and therefore cannot be divided evenly.

Mules are thought to be stronger and smarter than donkeys and are somewhat easier to work with. People in third world countries around the world have used them to do the plowing and transporting needed on farms.

When farmers could afford, they’ve been upgrading by purchasing John Deere tractors and replacing their mules, altogether. The problem is that these tractors don’t work well on steep inclines and the cost of gas has risen so much that they aren’t cost effective.

Sara Miller Llana reports in: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1011/p07s02-woam.html that project leader, Leonel Gonzales Jauregui, wants a mule breeding center with donkeys from the U.S. The center is located near Tlajomulco, Mexico.“The Precious One”, a male donkey, was donated to the Cofradia Ranch, part of the University of Guadalajara, six months ago. Leonel Gonzalez Jáuregui, executive director of the research ranch, says he wants to create a breeding center that will turn out sturdy mules to help local producers work their fields and remain competitive.

In 2005, six Kentucky Jacks were brought in because they are taller and stronger than their Mexican counterparts. “These are work animals, the American ones,” says Sepulveda. “Not like the Mexican ones.”

There are those here who view the effort to revive the donkey population as regressive. “They see it as going backward,” admits Mr. Patrick Fenton, director of the Kentucky Agricultural and Commercial Trade Office. . “But a burro can be technology.”

The mayor-elect of Tlajomulco, Antonio Tatengo, says donkeys could help the 10 percent of landowners in his municipality with properties too small to necessitate tractors. He is quick to add that most would prefer them, though, over donkeys. “We are very modernized here,” says Mr. Tatengo.

It seems that modern technology isn’t always the best technology. The “Beast of Burden” is making a comeback!