"Voices of Mexico" iisue 115

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ISSN 0186 • 9418 Voices of Mexico is published by the Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte, cisan (Center for Research on North America) of the Coordinación de Humanidades (Office of the Coordinator of Human­ities), Uni­versidad Nacional Autónoma de México, unam (National Autonomous University of Mexico).

Director

Graciela Martínez-Zalce

Astrid Velasco Montante

Coordinator of Publications

Editor-in-Chief

Art Director

Copyeditor & Translator

Teresa Jiménez Andreu

Patricia Pérez Ramírez

Heather Dashner Monk

Editor

Editor

Translator for Art & Culture

Diego Bugeda Bernal

María Cristina Hernández Escobar

María Cristina Fernández Hall

Layout

María Elena Álvarez Sotelo

Assistant to the Coordinator of Publications

Minerva Cruz Salas

Rector, unam Enrique Graue Wiechers Coordinator of Humanities Guadalupe Valencia García Director of the Center for Research on North America (cisan) Graciela Martínez-Zalce

EDITORIAL BOARD Sergio Aguayo, Carlos Alba Vega, Norma Blázquez, Fernando Rafael Castañeda Sabido, Roberto Castañón Romo María Leoba Castañeda, Lourdes N. Chehaibar Náder, Gua­dalupe González, Roberto Gutiérrez López, Elizabeth Gutiérrez Romero, Carlos Heredia, Julio La­bastida, Miguel León-Portilla (V), David Maciel, Paz Consuelo Márquez-Padilla, Alicia Mayer, Humberto Muñoz García, Silvia Núñez, Olga Pellicer, Elena Poniatowska, Vicente Quirarte, Federico Re­yes Heroles, Andrés Rozental, José Sarukhán, Mari Carmen Serra Puche, Alina María Signoret, María Teresa Uriarte, Diego Valadés, José Luis Valdés-Ugalde, Mónica Ve­rea, Verónica Villarespe Reyes. Address letters, advertising, and subscription correspondence to Voices of Mexico, Torre II de Humanidades, piso 9, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, C. P. 04510, Cd. de México Tel: 555623 0308. Electronic mail: voicesmx@unam.mx. Annual subscription rates: Mexico Mex$140; USA US$30; Canada Can$40; other countries US$55, prepaid in U.S. curren­cy to UNAM. Opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily represent the views of Voices of Mexico. All contents are fully protected by © copyright and may not be reproduced without the written consent of Voices of Mexico. The magazine is not responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts. Publicación cua­trimestral, año treinta y cuatro, número 115, diciembre, 2021. ISSN 0186-9418. Certificado de Licitud de Contenido núm. 2930 y Certifi­ ca­do de Licitud de Título núm. 3340, ex­pedidos por la Co­mi­­sión Cali­fi­cadora de Publicaciones y Revistas Ilustradas. Reserva al uso exclusivo del título núm. 04-2002-0604 13383000-102, expedida por el Ins­ti­tuto Na­cional del Derecho de Autor. Co­rres­pon­dencia nacional de segunda clase. Registro 0851292. Características 220261212. Correspondencia in­ternacional de segunda clase. Registro Cri D F 002-92. Todos los derechos reservados. Queda prohibida la reproducción parcial o total de esta revis­ ta por cualquier medio, sin la previa autorización por escrito de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.


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Our Voice

Women Issue 115 Winter 2021

7

Minimal History of Gender Studies in Mexico Graciela Martínez-Zalce

10

The Diana Morán Workshop An Exceptional Space for Resistance and Sisterhood Ana Rosa Domenella

14

Mexican Feminisms Today Marta Lamas

19

Mothers Who Search Under Ground Maite Azuela

23

Rebeca Ramos Duarte

Cover Art: Xanic Galván;

The Fight for Abortion in Mexico

@xan_ic

26

Whether Chance or Science, Always Chasing Neurons An Interview with Herminia Pasantes Teresa Jiménez

30

A Review of Aaraón Díaz’s Short Documentary Migranta con M de Mamá María Cristina Hall

33

The Inclusion Of Feminist Art in Mexico Margarita Martínez Rivera


74 Vindictas. An Interview with Socorro Venegas Astrid Velasco 78 Wake up, my love! The Lesbian Stories of Victoria

Art and Culture

Enríquez and Elena Madrigal María Elena Olivera Córdova

37 Self-portraits Gretta Hernández

82 Artemisa On Line Artemisa Téllez

42 Voices of Mexico: Two Women in Ancestral Song

Reviews

Mariana Velasco and Gustavo Marcovich 86 Minorías políticas en la agenda de Estados Unidos: 46 Black Hen Powder: Feminism’s Beginnings in Mexican Art Marifé Medrano Flor 52 Dissertation on the Origin of Sight by Elisa Díaz Castelo Illustrations by Armando Fonseca 58 Young Mother by Maria Luisa Puga Illustrations by Amanda Mijangos 62 Ana Segovia’s Painting:

Feeling Uncomfortable in The Categories We Inhabit Christian Gómez 69 The Republic of Letters Aline Meza Corona Illustration by Juan Palomino

representación y agenda de cambio by Estefanía Cruz Lera Diego Bugeda Bernal


Gretta Hernández


Our Voice You’ll never have the comfort of our silence (Placard at a women’s demonstration, March 8, 2019)

W

omen’s struggle for equality is not new: in Mexico it dates from the early twentieth century when small groups began to demand participation in political life, among other things. But it is new to think about it as the exercise of equity in all spheres, as many women demonstrate without having previously been involved in political activism or having had a prior feminist consciousness, since they, like all of us, experience harassment —the #MeToo movement showed us just how widespread and generalized it is— and, especially daily violence. In this decade in Mexico, the numbers of women murdered and forcibly disappeared have reached historic, alarming heights; so has violence outside the home and inside the family, while the state has not taken actions to guarantee protection and equity for us. As a matter of fact, many military and police for­ces participate in kidnappings and murder. This situation has had the effect that most of today’s feminisms are anti-system and many have chosen to violently protest to attempt to move society and the authorities who dodge the problem. Another of the reactions has been women organiz­ ing to protect themselves and to look for disappeared women and men, since, besides the proliferation of fem­ inicides, kidnapping for trafficking or for rape and murder has also increased. Thus, mothers have launched themselves into the search for clandestine graves or the places where their disappeared relatives might be found. Nevertheless, at the same time, and paradoxically, extraordinary achievements have been made thanks to our own tenacity: one of them is the proliferation of academic spaces for gender studies, as well as their incorporation into the study programs of several universities. These have served not only to make visible women’s work or problems, but also to create aware-

ness and to have an impact on the public policies put in place. At the same time, important advan­ces have been made in reproductive health and the right to decide about our own bodies, due to the legislation that has decriminalized abortion, the court decisions that have declared its prohibition unconstitutional, and the unofficial establishment of work or educational equity quotas so that maternity is not an obstacle to professionalization —although the latter depends a great deal on parents equally caring for their children and doing housework, something which should not even have to be an issue, since it should be habitual, but isn’t. Something else that is important today is that women’s voices are loud. Women artists are more visible every day; special collections of women’s literature are being published more and more; music expresses a special point of view rooted in tradition and the mixture of races; the visual arts are part of diverse feminisms and denounce violence through sophisticated and/or stark aesthetic resources that make us look at it without flinching. This is a moment of visibility, of activism. Also, unfortunately, the feminine has become a trending topic, in which the market wants to make a gourmet media dish out of a political struggle. However, at Voices of Mexico, we are interested in making it clear that the moment for women has changed: although we do not yet enjoy full equity, and violence against us is measured in horrific intensity, we no long­ er live in silence or submission. We are a tide, a blow, a shout, work, and we make very clear what we represent for the economy: an indispensable percentage of production and the work force. Astrid Velasco Montante cisan-unam Coordinator of Publications And editor at Voices of Mexico

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Gaceta unam

Graciela Martínez-Zalce*

Minimal History of Gender Studies in Mexico This article is based on interviews with Marisa Belausteguigoitia, Laura Cázares, Luzelena Gutiérrez de Velasco, and Gloria Prado1

A

t this point in the twenty-first century, I think no

about their experiences from the standpoint of academia

doubt remains that feminist movements and gen-

in this transformation.

der studies have changed both society and acade­

Luzelena Gutiérrez de Velasco states that feminism

mia. We have become aware that both sexual and gender

has a very exciting —though late-starting— history in

differences have an impact on our lives and on social, po-

Mexico, beginning after the United States, particularly in

litical, economic, and cultural relations and processes and

academia —because the movements were more or less

that, in general, women have had to fight to gain their free­

simultaneous. In Mexico, research began in the late 1970s

doms and that the lgbtti “minorities” have had to fight to

and early 1980s as a reflection of the 1968 movement,

make their situation visible and win space and rights.

when clearly women participated in society, but were not

Also at this point in the twenty-first century, how-

recognized for it —this despite the fact that Santa Martha

ever, so far, neither the gains nor the changes in thinking

Acatitla Prison held women prisoners. There was no

have gone far enough. How, then, can we advance even

record of their history —much less archives— about their

more? In this article, protagonists of these changes speak

condition as a unified collective, due to the kind of oppression they experienced regardless of social class. The im-

* Dr. Martínez-Zalce is the director of the cisan-unam; you can contact her at zalce@unam.mx.

portant thing was to recognize and prove that we women were subjected.

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Voices of Mexico 115

It was at the end of the 1970s when projects that would lead both to the creation of research centers and graduate programs began to be cemented. At the unam, for example, the School of Psychology saw the emergence of the Autonomous Group of University Women (gamu), made up of both academics and students, who analyzed the situation of women and wanted to cre-

All the protagonists of this experience agreed that the institutions had two things in common: nonacceptance by our male colleagues —and some of the women— and the determination to change mentalities and consciousness through teaching.

ate a space specifically for that at the university. Their objective was to raise the feminist consciousness of both

very important studies about general social conditions

men and women in the university community; to do this,

from which some analyses about women’s conditions could

they held different academic events at high schools and

be extrapolated. Workshops were founded to reflect on

college-level campuses. In 1984, the Center for Women’s

different issues, above all in the fields of history and so-

Studies was created at the School of Psychology, which set

ciology. In 1984, we created the literary theory and criticism

up an information and documentation center dedicat­ed

workshop, which continues to exist and has pioneered

to collecting and organizing information about women

the study of Mexican women writers from the nineteenth

nationwide. The 1990 University Congress accepted the

century on. After an open invitation was launched, wom-

proposal to create a women’s and gender studies program.

en professors from different universities and other inter-

As a result, the University Gender Studies Program (pueg)

ested persons came to this workshop, and it took many

was created in 1992 under the aegis of the Huma­nities

years to established the theoretical bases for this field.

Coordination Office and headed by Gra­ciela Hierro until

At the Iztapalapa campus of the Autonomous Metro­po­l­

her death, as a mechanism to link up projects and groups

­itan and Ibero-American Universities, it was individual

inside and outside the unam. The pueg also aimed to spear-

efforts by professors who participated in these workshops

head research, develop teaching and extension activities,

that fostered both feminist and gender studies. Laura Cá­

and offer a specialized library and pu­blishing program

zares mentions that it was a great discovery to begin to

that would fulfill its expectations of in-depth, continu-

read the large number of women writers who had been

ous education.

completely erased, because, when we reviewed texts about

Meanwhile, at the Colegio de México (Colmex), Elena

literature, at the end, in a short paragraph, authors would

Urrutia, together with a group of researchers, concretized

include a list of writers, but seldom included women au-

this movement, oriented toward studying women’s con-

thors. This incredible erasure sadly continues because

dition institutionally. The precedent for this was the pub-

many people are against giving women writers their place,

lication of the magazine Fem, edited by Alaíde Foppa, in

thinking that, when they are included, it is because they’re

which Elena, Marta Lamas, and many other colleagues

women and not because of the quality of their work.

participated intensely, translating articles published in

At the Ibero, the experience with the male and female

the United States. These were the first steps toward the

students was easy, although some of the women students

creation of study centers that emerged from the need to

were very frightened and were questioned because they

study women’s condition academically. The Ford Foundation

had a conservative, religious educational background.

offered Colmex funding, contingent on regular report­ing.

They were very frightened of feminism. The willingness

This was decisive for Elena Urrutia and other researchers

of Gloria Prado to disseminate women’s literature and fe­m­

in different Colmex centers (sociology, history, literature)

inist theory was so they would venture in, so they would

to collaborate without leaving our positions. That is how

read, so they would become aware, because she thinks

the Interdisciplinary Women’s Studies Program (piem)

we all have to be very open and accept the circumstan­

began in 1983. At that time, Luzelena Gutiérrez de Velasco

ces of reality, our surroundings, the world that is there,

explains, people referred to the topic as “women’s issues.”

and that would help them not only academically, but also

The concept of gender had not yet entered into intellec-

to be able to live and develop.

tual discussion; we had not yet reached a critical-theoret-

All the protagonists of this experience agreed that the

ical mass in our experience in Mexico, but, rather, we had

institutions had two things in common: nonacceptance

8


Women

by our male colleagues —and some of the women— and

ganizations. At the Ibero, where the chair for gender studies

the determination to change mentalities and conscious-

is named after Gloria Prado, for example, the aim is to have

ness through teaching. With regard to the former, Luze­

an impact on society. The method is to create spaces for

lena Gutiérrez de Velasco tells us that the biggest problem

students to work with marginalized groups, women who

was the debate among colleagues, above all with the men

have suffered violence and rape, indigenous peasant

who held power in the academic institutions who thought

women living in Mexico City, etc., through fieldwork, in

that the work done in those research programs was acti­v­

order to go beyond the classroom and combine academic

ism. For that reason, some authorities did not place the

work with social practices. At the uam, what was a specia­l­

same academic value on these studies as on that of other

ization has become a doctorate in feminist studies.

fields. That was one of the weightiest discussions in those years, the years of transition between the complete non-

Life had an impact on society, which today is aiming to have an impact on life.

existence of research about women, feminisms, and gen-

Luzelena Gutiérrez de Velasco asks a question that I

der and their becoming legitimate programs. Regarding

think is relevant for closing this very short review: With-

teaching, Marisa Belausteguigoitia says that, in her case,

out that critical mass of knowledge about women, about

feminist activism still exists in the classroom, encourag­

gender, about queers, lesbians, gays, transsexuals, trans-

ing her students to carry out activities based on theore­t­

gender people, etc., how can decisions be made that later

ical knowledge. For Laura Cázares, the important thing is

become public policies with respect and dignified images

to eliminate the dismissal of women’s writings, and, through

and representations? It is important to think about how

a feminist, gender perspective, reveal to male and female

the future of these gender relations will play out as society

students alike that women’s writing has been erased. And

transforms. Because feminisms are not abstract theories;

Gloria Prado talks about the importan­ce of inclusion,

rather, they think, rethink, and transform themselves in

with which she created an innovative perspective, propos­

relation to the context they find themselves in.

ing to understand it hermeneutically, disseminating it so it can be accepted as a fundamental area of study. Thanks to the efforts of women academics and insti-

Women’s studies, gender studies, initially sought equality. As analyses about difference advanced, these groups of scholars realized that what was needed was equity.

tutions, today it is recognized that these studies have not

Today Mexico’s academy dedicated to gender does its

only contributed to changes, for example, in legislation

work with a trans-disciplinary approach; it produces crit-

and daily life, but also that they have been fundamental

ical, theoretical, and applied knowledge from the aware-

for the creation of a critical mass that has given rise to

ness that it must respond to the challenges emerging in

vast academic production.

our country in the current historic moment and that all

Many decades later, the unam and Colmex programs

of them are crisscrossed with gender issues. This is why

(cieg and ceg, respectively) have become research centers

it is fundamental not to forget to shine a light on, ana-

that have generated theoretical and applied knowledge

lyze, and interpret them from a perspective that includes

about the causes and possible solutions to the social, eco-

gender.

nomic, political, and cultural inequalities between men and women and advise government bodies and social or-

Thanks to the efforts of women academics and institutions, today it is recognized that these studies have not only contributed to changes, for example, in legislation and daily life, but also that they have been fundamental for the creation of a critical mass that has given rise to vast academic production.

 Notes 1 I want to thank Tere Jiménez for doing the interviews that were the basis for this article. Dr. Marisa Belauteguigoitia was the director of the University Program for Gender Studies (pueg) and currently heads the unam Center for Gender Studies Research (cieg); Laura Cá­zares is a professor-researcher at the Iztapalapa campus of the Autonomous Metropolitan University (uam); Dr. Luzelena Gutiérrez de Velasco was the director of the Interdisciplinary Women’s Studies Program (piem), now the Center for Gender Studies (ceg) at the Colegio de México (Colmex); and Dr. Gloria Prado was the director of the Department of Letters at the Ibero-American University (uia) and the founder of its Critical Gender Studies Doctoral Program.

9


Ana Rosa Domenella*

The Diana Morán Workshop An Exceptional Space for Resistance and Sisterhood Background

I

begin these thoughts by attempting to create a histo­

Marxist and structuralist theoretical currents, we picked

ry of a road travelled for almost four decades. In the

a body of eleven writers born in the twentieth century,

wake of the discussions arising out of International

of whom only two were women (Rosario Castellanos and

Women’s Year, celebrated in Mexico in 1975, three col­

Elena Poniatowska). The paper’s title telegraphed a crit­

leagues from the Colegio de México’s Center for Literary

ical position: “Images of Women in Contemporary Mexi­

Linguistic Studies Literature and Society Seminar, decid­

can Fiction.” It was chosen to be included in a book called

ed to present a paper at the First Mexico-Central America

La mujer y la cultura (Women and Culture). Our aim was

Symposium on Women in 1977, organized by the colegio

to analyze images of women in their day-to-day lives us­

and the Ford Foundation. Based on the works by Mexi­

ing historical, political, and literary criteria. We chose to

cans we read and analyzed in the seminar in the light of

use Marxism as the theoretical framework according to our understanding of literature and society, but shaded

*Ana Rosa Domenella is a professor-researcher at the Iztapala­ pa campus of the Autonomous Metropolitan University; you can contact her at ardomenella@gmail.com.

10

this by our reading of Lefebvre’s La vie quotidienne dans le monde moderne (Everyday Life in the Modern World) and Notas sobre la cultura en México (Notes about Culture in


Women

Mexico) by Carlos Monsiváis, as well as the feminist take

and the stereotyped images of women (as angels or mon­

by Gisèle Halimi in her then-recent book La cause del

sters) and what is called textual harassment, together

femmes (published as The Right to Choose in English) (1976).

with a systematic exclusion of women writers from liter­ ary history.” Meanwhile, in the piem workshop, we reviewed our literature —a decade later than the English-speakers—

The Diana Morán Workshop

and we discovered the absences and disparagement of what has been called “macho criticism.” We discovered

This working group originated in 1984 in the Workshop

splendid women authors who were not included in our

on Mexican Women’s Fiction, promoted by Aralia López

graduate literature programs, as well as certain curious

González, with the backing and enthusiasm of Elena Urru­

items, such as, despite the fact that Max Aub stated in

tia, then the coordinator of the Colegio de México’s Inter­

an article that Nellie Campobe­llo was one of the most

disciplinary Women’s Studies Program (piem), today the

interesting writers of the Mexican Revolution, he did not

Interdisciplinary Gender Studies Program (pieg). The work­

include her in his anthology. In the face of some women

shop’s first aim was to review Mexican women writers’

writers’ success with the public, the criticism of certain re­

fiction from the time of the Revolution (1910) to 1980, in

viewers was frankly just acrimonious.

order to begin a project to write the history of women’s lit­

In a second phase, we set ourselves the task of building

erature in Mexico. In 1988, a seminar on feminist literary

a genealogy of literature penned by women in the twen­

criticism was added, which met on Fridays, alternating with

tieth century, tracing their mothers and grandmothers. We

the workshop. At that time, Luz Elena Gutiérrez de Velaz­

tracked down their nineteenth-century literary roots, with

co and Nora Pasternac joined the coordinating team, and

great difficulty in acquiring the texts; years later, we used

soon attendance grew from fifteen to thirty. Some of the

this work to publish what would be the workshop’s first

researchers who did not work at the Colegio de Mexico,

book, Las voces olvidadas (The Forgotten Voices), a critical

such as Gloria Prado and Doris Maquini, remember having

anthology of Mexican women writers born in the nine­

joined after seeing the announcements aimed at persons

teenth century. We began to publish the results of our re­

interested in literature written by women, published in the

search and to participate in conferences and congresses,

Tiempo Libre weekly magazine and the Excélsior daily paper.

like those held in Tijuana between 1988 and 1990 at the

Others, like Laura Cázares and Diana Morán, and some of

Northern Border College (colef), organized by the piem,

the younger members like Graciela Martínez-Zalce —who

the colef, and the University of California. Later, we also

has spent more than half her life in the workshop— re­

initiated relations with women researchers and profes­

ceiv­ed invitations. After Diana Morán died in 1987, Luz Ele­na

sors working at the Casa de las Americas and the Univer­

Gutiérrez de Velazco proposed that the workshop be named

sity of Havana, concretely during the meeting of Mexican

after her because she was an excellent poet and an advo­

and Cuban women writers in 1990.

cate for social causes who we all loved very much. With

In 1992, the seminar and workshop closed their first

time, the workshop was closed to new recruits for two rea­

cycle, that of the piem. We then began a non-institutional

sons: one was the physical space needed, and the other

stage that was close to self-organization with a self-suffi­

was the intellectual space that had to be safeguarded.

cient economic structure, an annually rotating coordinat­ ing committee very different from authoritarian male models. Gloria Prado took us in at the Coyoacán College.

Progression Over Time

The workshop’s third phase, which continues to this day, has implied greater challenges since we have had to refor­

From its beginnings, the workshop has followed its meth­

mulate our initial conceptual basis and theoretical suppo­

odology in three phases, which coincide with those esta­b­

sitions, which had had an androcentric, centralist view

lished by Diana Decker in her article “Hacia una revision

of study and literary criticism. To do this, we have review­ed

de la crítica literaria feminista” (Toward a Review of Fem­

and used English- and French-language-based feminist

inist Literary Criticism), which states, “In the first stage,

theory as our theoretical framework, and later a Latin-

an analysis showed both the misogyny in literary practice

American-based view, to produce a view rooted in Mex­

11


Voices of Mexico 115

ico. The workshop has been an extraordinary space for thinking and working in freedom and sisterhood. Its mem­ bers have come and gone, but almost all the founders have remained. It is particularly noteworthy that the group has been inter-institutional and continues to include members from both public institutions of higher education (Col­

In this intense space, we have collecti­vely created an atmosphere for work and self-reflection in which academic discussion, critical experimentation, sisterhood, and the joy of knowledge come toge­ther, all of which is reflected in an extensive oeuvre.

mex, unam, and uam) and private ones (the Ibero-Amer­ ican University [uia], the Autonomous Technological Ins­titute

eth-Century Mexican Women Writers); Escribir la infancia:

of Mexico [itam], and the Monterrey Technolo­gical Insti­

narradoras mexicanas contemporáneas (Writing about Child­

tute [itesm]).

hood: Contemporary Mexican Women Writers); and Fe­ menino/masculino en las literaturas de América. Escrituras en contraste (Feminine/masculine in the Literatures of the

Scope

Americas. Writings in Contrast). These are only a few of the many listed at the end of this article, which are evi­

Despite the fact that the workshop is no longer part of an

dence of the collective’s long and fruitful endeavors.

institution, the change in location to the Coyoacán Col­ le­ge brought a new challenge: to be considered a research group as an independent collective without direct institu­

Evaluation

tional backing or financing, but with a work record and some publications in academia. And it was precisely the

In addition to the accomplishments mentioned above,

solidity of our work that allowed us to later get financing

the workshop has made very important achievements in

from other institutions such as the National Fund for Cul­

other spheres. In 1990, we evaluated the workshop using

ture and the Arts (Fonca) and the National Council for

several questionnaires. The members pointed to the con­

Science and Technology (Conacyt) to publish more books.

stant, continual research together with its pluralism as

In addition to the initial publications, which, as men­

pluses for the collective. Others mentioned the atmos­

tioned above, resulted from the border colloquia and works

phere of solidarity that we know today as sisterhood, the

published by the Casa de las Américas magazine after our

free confrontation of ideas, its being a welcoming space,

1991 meeting with Cuban colleagues, the workshop has

the stimulating reflection about women and their sym­

continued to publish its work, both alone and as co-pub­

bolic production, as well as repeated mention of the high

lications. In all of them we can observe the theoretical-

level of most contributions, the feedback received in terms

methodological evolution that has guided our collective. In

of interests and common concerns, and the appropriate­

retrospect, we can say that our workshop, and therefore

ness of complementing theory with the practice of tex­

its publications, followed the stages pointed out by Diana

tual analysis.

Decker: first, in the 1970s, denouncing misogyny in liter­

The workshop is one of the spaces of resistance that

ary practice and shining a spotlight on the stereotypical

we have. Despite the differences in age and training of its

images of women as angels or monsters; secondly, criti­

members as new participants joined in the 1980s, 1990s,

quing textual harassment together with the systematic

and the new century, it has been a space where we have

exclusion of women writers in literary histories; and third­

educated and reformulated rigorously, respectfully, cre­

ly, applying our theoretical tenets to criticism.

atively, and with very enjoyable and tenacious discipline.

The first book published the workshop collective pub­

The writers who have accompanied us, in addition to

lished after the two Tijuana volumes was Las voces olvida­

Aralia López, include Aline Petterson, who for many years

das (The Forgotten Voices), a critical anthology of Mexican

was a member of the workshop; Josefina Vicens; Leonora

fiction writers born in the nineteenth century, put out by

Carrington; Elena Poniatowska; Angelina Muñíz; Margo

piem Colmex in 1991. This was followed by titles such as

Glantz; Amparo Dávila; Tununa Mercado; Adriana Gon­zá­

Sin imágenes falsas, sin falsos espejos (No False Images, No

lez Mateos; Cristina Rivera Garza; Ana Clavel; and Rosa

False Mirrors); Narradoras mexicanas del siglo xx (Twenti­

Beltrán, among others who went to our congress.

12


Women

In our experience of working and living together, we

2005, Territorio de escrituras. Narrativa mexicana del fin del

have prioritized new ways of inter-subjective relationships

milenio, Nora Pasternac, comp. (uam-i and Casa Juan

around a shared task and a fondness for each other that

Pablos).

we don’t avoid, but also do not put first. The workshop has

2005, Lo monstruoso es habitar en otro. Encuentros con Inés

overcome the danger of becoming a club of girlfriends in­

Arredondo, Luz Elena Zamudio, comp. (uam-i/Casa

terested in literature, an activist feminist group, or a semi­

Juan Pablos).

nar in which theoretical rigor and the quest for excellence

2006, Josefina Vicens. Un vacío siempre lleno, Maricruz Castro

creates competitive resentments. The very competitive

and Aline Pettersson, eds. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/

people who participated in the workshop have left, because

Conaculta-Fonca).

we are very tolerant of differences and not everyone can

2006, Nellie Campobello. La revolución en clave de mujer, Lau­

put up with that. In this intense space, we have collec­

ra Cázares, ed. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/Universi­

ti­vely created an atmosphere for work and self-reflection

dad Iberoamericana/Conaculta-Fonca).

in which academic discussion, critical experimentation,

2006, Rosario Castellanos. De Comitán a Jerusalén, Luz Elena

sisterhood, and the joy of knowledge come toge­ther, all of

Zamudio and Margarita Tapia, eds. (Tecnológico de Mon­

which is reflected in an extensive oeuvre.

terrey/Conaculta-Fonca). 2006, María Luisa Puga. La escritura que no cesa, Ana Rosa Domenella, ed. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/uam/ Cona­

The Workshop’s Bookshelf

culta-Fonca). 2008, Elena Garro. Recuerdo y porvenir de una escritura, Luze­

1991, Las voces olvidadas. Antología crítica de narradoras me­

lena Gutiérrez de Velasco and Gloria Prado, eds. (Tec­

xicanas nacidas en el siglo xix, Ana Rosa Domenella and

no­lógico de Monterrey/ Universidad Iberoamericana/

Nora Pasternac, eds. (El Colegio de México/piem). 1995, Sin imágenes falsas, sin falsos espejos. Narradoras mexi­ canas del siglo xx, Aralia López Gónzalez, comp. (El Cole­ gio de México/piem).

Conaculta-Fonca). 2009, Amparo Dávila. Bordar en el abismo, Regina Cardoso and Laura Cázares, eds. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/uam). 2010, Guadalupe Dueñas. Después del silencio, Maricruz Cas­

1996, Escribir la infancia. Narradoras mexicanas contempo­rá­

tro and Laura López, eds. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/

neas, Nora Pasternac, Ana Rosa Domenella, and Lu­

Universidad Iberoamericana/unam/uam-i/Conaculta).

ze­le­na Gutiérrez de Velasco, comps. (El Colegio de

2010, Concha Urquiza. Entre lo místico y lo mítico, Margarita

México/piem). 1999, De pesares y alegrías. Escritoras latinoamericanas y ca­ ribeñas contemporáneas, Luzelena Gutiérrez de Velasco, Gloria Prado, and Ana Rosa Domenella, comps. (uam-i and El Colegio de México/piem). 2000, Territorio de leonas. Cartografía de narradoras mexicanas en los noventa, Ana Rosa Domenella, comp. (uam-i and Casa Juan Pablos).

Tapia and Luz Elena Zamudio, eds. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/Universidad Iberoamericana/Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México/Conaculta-Fonca). 2010, Enriqueta Ochoa. En cada latido, un monte de zozobra, Glo­ ria Prado and Blanca Ansoleaga, eds. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/Universidad Iberoamericana/unam/uam-i/ Conaculta-Fonca). 2010, Luisa Josefina Hernández. Entre iconos, enigmas y capri­

2004, Escrituras en contraste. Femenino/masculino en la litera­

chos. Navegaciones múltiples, Gloria Prado and Luzma

tura mexicana del siglo xx, Maricruz Castro, Laura Cáza­res,

Becerra, eds. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/Universidad

and Gloria Prado, comps. (uam-i and Editorial Aldus).

Iberoamericana/unam/uam-i/uaem/Conaculta-Fonca).

2004, Escritoras mexicanas. Voces y presencias, Milagros Ez­

2010, Julieta Campos. Para rescatar a Eurídice, Luzelena Gu­

querro and Nora Pasternac, eds. (Éditions indigo &

tié­rrez de Velasco, ed. (Tecnológico de Monterrey/uam).

Côté-femmes). 2005, Femenino/masculino en las literaturas de América. Escri­

2016, Diana Morán. Encallar en los arrecifes de la espera, Lau­ ra Cázares and Luz Elena Zamudio, eds. (uam-i).

turas en contraste, Graciela Martínez-Zalce, Luzelena

2017, Esther Seligson. Fugacidad y permanencia. “Soy un refle­

Gutiérrez de Velasco, and Ana Rosa Domenella, eds.

jo del sol en las aguas...,” Luzelena Gutiérrez de Velasco

(uam-i and Editorial Aldus).

and Ana Rosa Domenella, eds. (uam).

13


Rubén Bagüés / Unsplash

Balazo

Marta Lamas*

Mexican Feminisms Today

T

he great variety in the political landscape of Mex-

adolescents who worked in the maquila plants. These

ican feminism is noticeable at a glance. However,

crimes have continued to replicate nationwide and have

despite the country’s many feminisms and their

given rise to the criminal category of “feminicide” and

different political positions, they all agree that the cen-

the term “youthicide.”1 For Lucía Melgar, the term “femi-

tral axis of their protests is violence against women. In

nicide” refers to all the murders of women for being

the 1970s and 1980s, feminicides were not known as they

women, which go unpunished and in which the state has

are now, nor were women’s daily lives threatened by the

a responsibility either through action or omission.

terror of being kidnapped or disappeared or by the ten-

The denunciation and fight against violence against

sion of being on the receiving end of different kinds of

women has become the great battle of most feminists

violence, as they are now. It was in the beginning of the

and has brought into the public eye the magnitude of a

1990s when one of the most painful and scandalous trag-

social problem and its naturalization in society. The fem-

edies to affect our lives became public knowledge: the

inist struggle has become very visible and has been high-

murders in Ciudad Juárez of poor women, many of them

ly supported by people all along the political spectrum, by all governments, and by all churches. No other femi-

* In addition to being one of Mexico’s emblematic feminists, Marta is a professor and researcher at the unam Center for Gender Research and Studies; you can contact her at martalamas@gmail.com.

14

nist cause has achieved more laws, resources, and propaganda than the fight against violence against women. Feminist activism has focused not only on denouncing


Women

brutal feminicides, but also in researching them and accompanying the victims of violence and their families in the quest for justice, protection, and reparations.2 Much remains to be done before women can live tranquil lives, both in the street and in their homes. That is why, together with other demands and proposals, Mexi-

The denunciation of and fight against violence against women has become the great battle of most feminists and has brought into the public eye the magnitude of a social problem and its naturalization in society.

can women have joined the worldwide cry of “Enough!” In recent years, most of the demonstrations that have brought

entists, artists, government officials, and politicians. Young

out thousands of women —mainly young women— have

women, who have taken on the intersectional perspec-

been to protest against this state of things. Thus, enor-

tive,4 are very aware that they live in a patriarchy and in

mous numbers of indignant young women in pain have

capitalism, and this molds their activism. And although

carried out a variety of actions, particularly marches and

their best-known sphere of action is the street, they carry

demonstrations, where they express their repudiation and

out internal work among themselves. This includes cul-

how fed up they are with macho violence. These protests

tural forms of solidarity (bartering services, collective kitch-

have brought together women from different social sec-

ens, fanzines), that go beyond their merely expressing

tors, a variety of ocupations, and different ages: from the

their dissatisfaction. Many “do their feminism” in a dif-

mothers of disappeared teens to professional women, in-

ferent way and, as is to be expected, certain of their activi-

cluding many, many young women, sick of the existing

ties and political protests (like their escraches,5 take-overs

impunity in the case of feminicides and of the sexual ag-

of university institutions, destruction of property in the

gressions they experience daily, demand a political change,

street) are not shared by other feminist tendencies. Dif-

not only from the authorities, but from society as well.

ferences even exist in the terms used in their narratives,

One of the characteristics of the new feminisms, not

and some of their indignant statements can be interpret­

only in Mexico, but throughout Latin America, is that the

ed as the plaints of victims or proclamations of unques-

vast majority tend to be anti-system. Their reflections de-

tioning support of anything women do.

nounce the unspeakable effects of neoliberalism in the

It is obvious that feminist activism is also the result

hemisphere, and the particularly disseminate the demands

of a subjective process, and each generation produces its

of the indigenous, Afro-descendent, and marginalized

demands and gives them new meanings. What is happen­

populations, focusing on the racism and continuing ex-

ing in Mexico among many young feminists is a worldwide

istence of the colonial model in people’s subjective lives.

generational phenomenon called the Fourth Feminist Wave.

Young feminists who consider themselves anti-capitalist,

Prudence Chamberlain talks about the feminist wave be-

anti-racist, and anti-patriarchal question the powerful,

ing open to the affect of its time and ready to take the form

commercial cultural dissemination of a liberal feminism

that the momentum of public sentiment gives it, and that

that today is expressed in the media and in some best

this is one of indignation, pain, and rage against violence,

sellers. Not only are women “fashionable” and do their

and, at the same time, one of the use of information and

problems make for important news —the press publish-

communication technologies (icts) that they use to call

es articles about wage inequality or sexual abuse that in

for and accompany their protests, making it possible for

the past would not have been news—, but even traditional

the mobilization not to only take place in the street, but

women’s fashion and beauty magazines include topics

also virtually. icts have facilitated a process of collective

about feminism. Saying you’re a feminist is a sign of be-

action that goes beyond borders, inaugurating atypical

ing progressive, and a phenomenon is flooding the media:

modes of intervention, different from previous forms;

celebrities from the entertainment industries and figures

and this powerful tool for dissemination is characteristic

from the worlds of art, culture, and politics proudly pro-

of what has been called the Fourth Wave of feminism.6

claim themselves to be feminists.

In the marches, the demand “We want us alive!” has

For years now, feminism as a radical idea and egalitar-

been accompanied by placards that repeat “You’re not

ian aspiration has had a presence in Mexico,3 and it has

alone.” “One of us is all of us.” “I march with my daughters

very effectively mobilized groups of women writers, sci-

so I don’t have to march for them.” “You’ll never have the

15


Voices of Mexico 115

convenience of our silence.” Other heart-wrenching signs

“epistemological break,” that is, an opening to signify and

remember the murdered and disappeared women by name:

re-signify the place people occupy in conditions of sub-

“I’m missing my sister Valeria.” “Where is Maribel?” New

ordination. Amneris, an academic from the unam’s Center

slogans have emerged: “Yes, we’re the Nazis,” “Why are we

for Gender Research and Studies (formerly the pueg), states

the ones who die?” “Being born in a macho family made

that this break has different aspects. Among them is the

me a feminist,” “I’d rather be violent than dead,” and “I

challenge to traditional forms of femininity and women’s

dressed as a wall so that now you can be indignant if

appropriation of the public space through symbolic and/

something happens to me.” As was to be expected, many

or violent interventions.

women who had never before gone out to protest have

Rosana Reguillo has described two narratives often

taken the opportunity to do so against the government:

applied to young people: demonization or exaltation. To-

“The oppressive state is a macho rapist.” And, alluding to

day, both are present when talking about young feminists

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “Mr. President, forgive us

in general, and especially about the hooded ones: there

for bothering you: they’re killing us.” The mix of emotions in

are those who classify them as “vandals” and those who

the marches is awe-inspiring: expressions of pain, rage, en-

see them as “heroines.” Years ago, political scientist Wen-

thusiasm, joy, indignation, curiosity. While some groups of

dy Brown pointed out that our era is facing a large number

young women sing, “Now that we’re together, now you see

of political dangers, many of which have been deepened

us; down with patriarchy, it’ll fall, it’ll fall,” others put out a

by an inappropriate understanding of the specifically

combative message: “Let’s defend joy and organize rage.”

post-modern forms of power. We should ask ourselves if

Groups of hooded young women dressed in black car-

it our understanding of the intense, conflictive protests

rying spray cans and mallets have also appeared, and they

of many young feminists is appropriate.

have broken windows, set fires, and even attacked police-

I’ll use as an example what happened in August 2019

women. Their organized actions in small, fast-moving,

in Mexico City and became a paradigmatic expression of

well-coordinated groups is one of the most novel, spec-

young feminists’ activities. A leak to the press that a young

tacular aspects of recent feminist demonstrations. This

woman had been raped by four policemen as she return­ed

appearance of the “anarchists,”7 dressed all in black, hood-

home in the early hours resulted in an enormous outpour­

ed and masked, destroying things along their way begins

ing of protests. Young women’s fury was unprecedented:

to be considered “feminist violence.” A few days ago, Mex-

on August 12, they broke a glass door at a police office

ico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said in an interview

and created other damages and threw pink glitter on the

with El País, “I don’t understand this idea of destruction

police chief. It was starting with that highly-reported ac-

associated with the feminist movement. I don’t agree with

tion that the police began to talk about “vandalism,” un-

those who say that since we women have suffered vio-

derplaying the feelings of being under threat that many

lence, we have the right to be violent.” I agree: violence

young women experience every day when on the street

cannot be solved with violence.

and the absolutely legitimate distrust that they have of

The rejection, the surprise caused by these hooded

male police officers.

young women who set fire to or destroy installations in-

Manuel Castells uses the term “explosion” to describe

volves the break with “the feminine.” Political theorist

exactly when a political or social movement arrives at a

Amneris Chaparro interprets what is happening as also an

point when it comes to an impasse with the institutional system, when it is faced with denial and more repres-

Feminist activism is also the result of a subjective process, and each generation produces its demands and gives them new meanings. What is happen­ing in Mexico among many young feminists is a worldwide generational phenomenon called the Fourth Feminist Wave.

sion and it explodes. And the explosion is violent! Not all of them explode, but there is a sufficiently serious margin for violence and counter-violence to erupt. Castells sees “social explosion” as revealing and symptomatic and also points out that it can be —and is— destructive. However, this explosion of young women, which also had the playful component of the pink glitter, is different from the systematic activities of the “anarcas.” This

16


Women

School of Philosophy and Letters has taken on the direc-

In Mexico, the diversity of feminisms has achiev­ed many important things. However, all social movements, when they have achievements, when they grow and spread more widely, face new challenges.

torship of the cieg, she proposes to work toward academia linking up better with feminist activism. Her proposal is that it is essential to explore what mechanisms and practices must be set in motion to strengthen academia as a space that resonates with and can build what is common, equality, and justice next to activism. Her work plan puts

“anarchism,” which Carlos Illades describes as the entry

forward the idea of “slipping in the sound and fury of

on scene of young, hooded people dressed all in black, who

activism in academia and the rhyme of academia in ac-

paint the walls, use blowtorches, and destroy the symbols

tivism,” opening up the doors to critical debate and en-

of global capital and the state, is a far cry from the an-

couraging artistic practices. To achieve such a complex task,

archism of a feminist figure like Emma Goldman. And

Belausteguigoitia assumes “respons-ability,” a term coined

instead of distinguishing between the spontaneous actions

by Donna Haraway (2019), giving new meaning to the

of young women in the face of others more closely linked

classic “responsibility,” since it introduces “the ability to

to the phenomenon of “insurrectional anarchism,” the

respond.” And, yes, we must develop a great ability to re-

reactions in the media have been to repudiate what they

spond to the demonstrations of indignation and pain, and

classify as “vandalism.”8 However, if we compare what hap-

be able to channel them toward more productive forms

pened at the demonstration organized four days later, on

of protest. In Mexico, the diversity of feminisms has a­­

August 16, to the lack of attention or interest paid to pre-

chiev­ed many important things. However, all social move-

vious feminist mobilizations, we get the impression that

ments, when they have achievements, when they grow and

these “acts of vandalism” are “required” to ensure that me-

spread more widely, face new challenges. Perhaps with

dia analysts and writers do not ignore the protests. That

creativity and respons-ability it will be possible to collabo­

is exactly what a young woman interviewed by Elena

rate in the effort to channel the pain, indignation, and rage

Poniatowska said in 2020, who argued that if they weren’t

that mobilizes so many of our young feminists in more

violent, no one would pay any attention to them. But it

politically productive ways.

also seems that in these protests where the slogan shouted is “We want us all alive,” not only political objectives are shared, but also forms of communality, survival strat-

Further Reading

egies, and personal hopes develop. It is obvious that the phenomenon of the feminist ex-

Agoff, Carolina, Irene Casique, and Roberto Castro, comps.,

plosions is unfolding together with other political pro-

Visible en todas partes. Estudios sobre violencia contra mujeres

cesses happening in our country. Considering this, many

en múltiples ámbitos (Mexico City: crim, unam, 2013).

feminist sisters discuss and differ about the limits of

Belausteguigoitia, Marisa, “Palabras en la inauguración

protest: Does the end justify the means? While some

del xxviii Coloquio Internacional de Estudios de Gé-

think that you can’t fight violence with violence, others

nero,” unam, 2021.

affirm that without violence, they won’t be heard. Marisa

“Que caiga el telón. Equidad, comunidad y disenso

Belausteguigoitia has said that the slogans like “We want

como caminos a seguir. La toma de ffyl/unam,” Edu-

us all alive,” painted on walls reveal monumental pain and

cación futura, April 28, 2020.

rage, and at the same time she recognizes that, while she

Belausteguigoitia, Marisa, and Lucía Melgar, comps., Fron-

has empathy for these wounded young women who want

teras, violencia y justicia: nuevos discursos (Mexico City:

to burn it all down, she is convinced that “nothing arises

pueg, unam, 2007).

renewed from ashes.” And, she doesn’t believe that “pun-

Brown, Wendy, States of Injury. Power and Freedom in Late

ishment, blind radicalism, and not keeping your word”

Modernity (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995).

lead to a profound, sustained change, capable of bringing

Cano, Gabriela, “El feminismo y sus olas,” Letras Libres,

down something “as sophisticated, complex, and structural as the patriarchy.” Now that this researcher at the

November 2018. Castells, Manuel, “La crisis de la democracia liberal,” lec-

17


Voices of Mexico 115

ture at the seminar “Explosiones sociales: una visión

Poniatowska, Elena, “Si no somos violentas, nadie nos hace

global,” Centro de Estudios Públicos de Chile, Novem-

caso. Entrevista a Laura Ponte,” La Jornada, March 15,

ber 6, 2009.

2020.

Chamberlain, Prudence, The Feminist Fourth Wave. Affective Temporality (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Chaparro, Amneris, “Feminist Interventions in Mexico City: the August 16th, 2019 Demonstration,” lecture, Cultural Studies Association, Columbia College, Chi-

Reguillo, Rossana, Culturas juveniles. Formas políticas del de­ sencanto (Mexico City: Siglo xxi, 2012). Saucedo, Irma, comp., Violencia contra las mujeres en México (Mexico City: pueg and onu Mujeres, 2011). Saucedo, Irma, and María Guadalupe Huacuz Elías, “Mov-

cago, May 29, 2020.

imientos contra la violencia hacia las mujeres,” in

“Paint it Purple: Feminist Interventions as Epistemo-

Gisela Espinosa Damián and Ana Lau Jaiven, comps.,

logical Break?” paper, Association for Political Theory,

Un fantasma recorre el siglo. Luchas feministas en México

University of Massachusetts, Amherst, November 12,

1910-2010 (Mexico City: Ecosur, uam-Xochimilco, Comi­

2020.

sión de Asuntos Editoriales del Senado de la Repúbli-

Crenshaw, Kimberlé, “Mapping the Margins: Intersection-

ca, and Ítaca, 2011), pp. 213-243.

ality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of

Valenzuela, José Manuel, Trazos de sangre y fuego. Bio-ne-

Color,” in Dan Danielsen and Karen Engle, eds., After

cropolítica y juvenicidio en América Latina (Mexico City:

Identity: A Reader in Law and Culture (New York: Rout-

Universidad de Guadalajara and calas, 2019).

ledge, 1995). Espinosa Damián, Gisela, and Ana Lau Jaiven, comps., Un fantasma recorre el siglo. Luchas feministas en México 1910-

Sed de mal. Feminicidio, jóvenes y exclusión social (Mexico City: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte and Universidad Autó­ noma de Nuevo León, 2012).

2010 (Mexico City: Ecosur, uam-Xochimilco, Comisión de Asuntos Editoriales del Senado de la República and Ítaca, 2011). Gutiérrez, Griselda, Violencia sexista. Algunas claves para la comprensión del feminicidio en Ciudad Juárez (Mexico City: pueg, unam, 2004). Haraway, Donna J., Seguir con el problema (Bilbao: Conson­ ni, 2019). Huacuz, Guadalupe, “Reflexiones sobre el concepto de violencia falocrática desde el método de la complejidad,” in Ma. Guadalupe Huacuz Elías, comp., La bifurca­ ción del caos. Reflexiones interdisciplinarias sobre violencia falocéntrica (Mexico City: uam-Xochimilco and Ítaca, 2011). Illades, Carlos, “El fuego y la estopa. El anarquismo insurreccional en México,” Nexos, December 2019. Lafuente, Javier, “Claudia Sheinbaum y el futuro de México,” El País, November 20, 2021. Melgar, Lucía, “Tolerancia ante la violencia, feminicidio e impunidad: algunas reflexiones,” in Ma. Guadalupe Huacuz Elías, comp., La bifurcación del caos. Reflexiones interdisciplinarias sobre violencia falocéntrica (Mexico City: uam-Xochimilco and Ítaca, 2011). Monárrez, Julia, Trama de una injusticia. Feminicidio sexual sistémico en Ciudad Juárez (Mexico City: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte and Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 2009).

18

 Notes 1 In Mexico, many feminists have concentrated their political and intellectual energy on researching, denouncing, and trying to understand violence against women, and in particular its most brutal expression, feminicide. 2 In this vein, the work of the organization Catholics for Choice with the National Feminicide Citizen’s Observatory has been very important. 3 Espinosa and Lau’s compilation offers a good overview of this. See it and other references for feminism at the end of this article. 4 Crenshaw states that the intersectional perspective, which consists of analyzing how other elements (social class, ethnic condition, skin color, age, sexual orientation, etc.) intersect, emerges from a feminist analysis of the fact that the violence women experience is different for black women. 5 Escraches are demonstrations protesting the actions of an indivi­ dual usually at his home —in the case of feminists, usually a man— or place of work. They were first used in Argentina and then spread to other places in Latin America. [Translator’s Note.] 6 Historian Gabriela Cano has pointed out that we should be critical of conceptualizing “waves” because, on the one hand, using that metaphor does not allow for complexity, overlaps, and how some aspects coincide over time, and it also makes the conflicts among feminists seem like a generational issue. 7 Not all the feminists who consider themselves anarchists (anarcas) are part of the “Black Bloc” of insurrectional anarchism analyzed by Carlos Illades. 8 All the press reported the case. The front page of Reforma on August 17, 2019 cried, “Protest, Fury, and Vandalism”; Milenio shouted, “March for Gender Equity Ends in Vandalism”; and La Jornada stated, “Fury Explodes in March against Violence against Women.”


Isaac Esquivel / Cuartoscuro.com

Maite Azuela*

Mothers Who Search Under Ground

I

f there are voices that give Mexico the sounds of a

of people have disappeared without a trace and without

tireless struggle, a tone of persistence, and a rhythm

a state that investigates their whereabouts. Massacres

of a solidarity-based collective, they are the voices of

have also happened like those of Acteal (1997) or Ayotzi-

the mothers of the disappeared, both men and women. This

napa (2014), a sample of the magnitude of the nationwide

is not an identity that any nation wants, because it reveals

problem. This is no ordinary crime: this is a many-sided,

the entire society’s inability to contain the insecurity and

complex violation of human rights.

violence that has affected most families. The pain anchored

According to The New York Times report “Gone,”1 almost

in uncertainty about the whereabouts of their daughters,

100,000 people today are classified as disappeared or un-

sons, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers cuts even

located. Anyone who sees Mexico as a consolidated de-

deeper when confronted with institutional negligence.

mocracy would be surprised to know that, in addition to

Forced disappearance is a very grave problem that has

the cases in which armed non-state actors have been the

gone unsolved for decades; particular social trends exist

ones to deprive victims of their freedom, on many occa-

due to which, as a result of the crisis of violence, thousands

sions, state agents have been shown to have been directly involved in these acts. And they would be even more

* Maite is a political analyst, a human rights defender, and a pro­­ motor of social organizations; you can contact her at @maiteazuela on Twitter.

surprised to see that it has become customary for the state to refuse to recognize those detentions and reveal the whereabouts of the disappeared.

19


Voices of Mexico 115

official number of persons still not located comes to

The National System of Victims, created in 2014, has only met once, despite the fact that 2018 and 2019 were years with record numbers of homicides and feminicides.

86,663. These figures can give us an idea of the dimension of the phenomenon, but human rights experts affirm that they are lower than the real number: complaints about disappearance are the kinds of complaints that encounter the most institutional resistance, and, in terms of physical and emotional protection, some families of the disappeared

State responsibility can be seen in three ways: the cri­

opt to not put other relatives at risk, others who could

sis of disappeared persons speaks not only to the ongoing

suffer the same fate as a demonstration of strength by the

presence of organized crime that governments have not

perpetrators.

lessened, but also of the tendency of the state to partici-

Getting up before dawn, walking kilometers with shov-

pate, even if passively, that is, through deliberate omission,

els, pick-axes, and the immense hope that gives their frag-

in the cases of disappearances committed by private par-

ile bodies the strength that the wear and tear of the search

ties, or actively, as part of the commission of the crime.

has cost them: that is how these mothers arrive at the

As long as the state is incapable of establishing a strat-

isolated weed-infested lands indicated to them by au-

egy to prevent the violence of organized crime groups, the

thorities or criminals themselves who feel sorry for them

loss of life and the disappearance of bodies will continue

and pass them tips about areas that have become clan-

to be a daily method for which there is no punishment,

destine graves. In 2020, 559 sites were found nationwide,

with cases, even, in which authorities are involved.

where they recovered 1,086 bodies. In 2019, they found

The number of disappeared persons has grown with

835 graves and recovered 1,324 bodies.

every passing year. According to the Informe sobre fosas

Although the Mexican state has created different in-

clandestinas y registro nacional de personas desaparecidas (Re-

stitutions, bodies, and agencies specialized in forced dis-

port on Clandestine Graves and the National Registry of

appearance, it is necessary to be aware that the pertinent

Disappeared Persons), from the 1960s (mainly during the

action is not being taken. Nothing is being done to ensure

“Dirty War”) until 2020, 147,033 disappeared persons have

the safety of citizens, and justice is not being served to the

been registered. The National Search Commission puts the

disappeared persons either. In addition, in recent years,

figure of disappeared persons between September 2020

during the current presidential administration, these in-

and July 2021 at 6,453.

stitutions have undergone a process of being dismantled

With such overwhelming numbers, the faces tend to

financially and structurally, a decision that leaves out in

blur and we tend to de-personalize the stories. We cannot

the cold the mothers who are waiting for comprehensive

allow ourselves to be swept away by indifference in the

reparations, the most important of which is usually know-

face of the uncertainty of every woman who has lost a son

ing the truth about what happened.

or daughter without knowing what may have become of

The need to organize has motivated thousands of moth-

them. After the defeat of not knowing if they are alive, they

ers to carry out their own searches. Dozens of groups raise

decide to stop looking for them among other people, to

the banner of this cause and have taken upon themselves

stop seeing the glances that they might recognize, to stop

the task of digging up remains. One of these groups is

hoping that they will hear a voice nearby and they might

the collective Forces United for Our Disap­pear­ed in

turn and recover their peace by finding them. Once they

Nuevo León (fundenl), one of the organizations created

have given in to not seeing them walk again on the as-

by mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives looking for their

phalt, they decide to start looking for them under ground.

disappeared relatives. Another is Mothers Courage, as the

Mexico is faced with a crisis of disappearances with

general public knows them, who tired of waiting for the

a historic figure of 212,193 complaints lodged about miss-

authorities to “look for” their children and other loved

ing persons since 1964. Although Alejandro Encinas, cur-

ones. Using technology and other resources, such as

rent vice-minister of the interior, has stated that 125,530

drones, trained canines, metal detectors, and volunteers,

of those have been located, 93 percent of them alive, the

they have unfortunately become experts in locating clan-

20


Women

destine burial sites. The Network of Mothers Looking for Their Children operates in Veracruz; this group, made up of seventeen families, was founded in 2015 given the need to get the attention of the authorities. Another group in this same state is Mothers in Search Of, organized in May 2015 by four families in the city of Coatzacoalcos. Lost Treasures, Until We Find Them, with fifty-five fami-

The faces tend to blur and we tend to de-personalize the stories. We cannot allow ourselves to be swept away by indifference in the face of the uncertainty of women who have lost a son or daughter.

lies, is the name of another group created in 2019 in the state of Sinaloa. The fact that these collectives have more

his position to negotiate inappropriately with the kidnap-

than a dozen families reveals how the areas of extreme

pers. The detained criminals told him that government

violence sacrifice entire communities. The local authori-

officials were involved. She is a tracker-mother who re-

ties have neither the interest nor any capability whatso-

covers bodies. She assures all that she has found thou-

ever to respond professionally and the federal authorities

sands in the last decade. Araceli Salcedo is a woman from

are overwhelmed and mutilated by the austerity imposed

Orizaba who has spent the last four years of her life look-

by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

ing for her daughter, Fernanda Rubí Salcedo Jiménez, kid-

A valid concern is the inquiry into how these mothers

napped in a club and never seen again. The authorities

focus their anger on bringing together those who have

limited themselves to revictimizing Araceli, arguing that

gone through the same experience. In the complicated

her daughter was kidnapped “because she was pretty.”

route of denouncing a disappearance, the victims’ fami-

Perla Damián is looking for her son, Víctor Álvarez, miss-

lies have suffered many setbacks, but above all, they have

ing since 2013. She founded the Little Sun of Veracruz

experienced the lack of will by the authorities to actu-

collective, which has brought together several families

ally search and the legal blocks that re-victimize them.

who search through jails and fields. They have found 109

No protection exists that would allow the victims to make

clandestine gravesites. Marcela Zurita, the mother of Do­

the denunciations without being exposed to the possibil-

rian Rivera, has remodeled her son’s room, turning it into

ity that the perpetrators attack them again. Seemingly,

a search center where she gathers information for the

dialogue between the authorities and the perpetrators is

files of her own investigations. She says she has lost confi-

mysteriously more effective than the dialogue they es-

dence in the authorities and that the only justice she

tablish with the mothers of the disappeared. In their des-

expects is God’s.

peration when faced by the state’s inaction, the families

What do these women have in common? Their first

unite to pass out leaflets, hang banners, and go to the me-

step was to go to the authorities, place their trust in them,

dia so that the cases can be made visible somehow. And

and leave to them the search for what they valued most

they also seek out clandestine gravesites. They divide the

in their lives, their children. What they received in return

work: some mothers dig, others go to the jails, others look

was bureaucracy, negligence, and, in some cases, even

for new sites.

complicity with organized crime. Forced disappearance

The main responsibility clearly falls to the govern-

affects the rights and freedoms of the population as a

ments. However, those of us familiar with the stories have

whole; it is a violation of their fundamental rights. A dis-

at least the obligation to make them visible. By doing so,

appeared person cannot exercise his/her rights. Therefore,

one way or another it can be ensured that the struggle

it is urgent that the state implement measures to guar-

is not carried solely by the mothers, but that it is taken

antee the rights of those persons and their family members.

on board by a broader collective that rallies around and

It is important to mention just how much the victims’

accompanies them. It is therefore indispensable that we tell

families suffer; their relatives must face economic dif-

the stories to give names and faces to the disappeared. I’ll

ficulties, forced displacement, and threats.

tell you here about some that I am well acquainted with.

Forced disappearances in Latin America and Mexico

Margarita is the mother of a girl who was kidnapped

have been largely linked to the armed forces. From 1960

in 2011 in Oaxaca by an armed commando headed by a

to 1980, the Mexican state exercised repression and com-

government employee in the area of kidnapping, who used

mitted grave violations of human rights, mainly against

21


Voices of Mexico 115

dissident and subversive political groups. When it adopt-

Simulation by several administrations, including the

ed counter-insurgency strategies, forced disappearance

current one, keeps the victims in a permanent state of des-

became one of its main actions.

olation. The National System of Victims, created in 2014,

Despite the fact that the Inter-American Human Rights

has only met once, and that was in the year it was created.

Commission (cidh) showed that the army committed

It has never met again, despite the fact that 2018 and 2019

forced disappearances in that period, the military did not

were years with record numbers of homicides and femi-

assume responsibility for guaranteeing the right to the

nicides. Its commissioners have shown zero commitment

truth. Thus, the families of the disappeared in those two

to the victims. In fact, the current government has turned

decades have not been able to access the armed forces’

its back on them by reducing the ceav’s budget and can-

impenetrable archives.

celing the resources earmarked for the Fund for Aid, As-

Devastating similarities exist with the most recent case

sistance, and Comprehensive Reparation. The ceav was

of Ayotzinapa. The Commission for the Truth and Access

left without a director after Mara Gómez Pérez resigned

to Justice, created expressly to follow up on this case, has

in 2020; she left due to a lack of understanding with the

published important information given to it by the Minis-

victims themselves, but also to the drastic cuts to her bud-

try of Defense with military communiqués dated Septem-

get. Since then, no one has been named to permanently

ber 26 and October 4, 2014. They confirm that the Mexican

head the commission, which has had only interim chiefs.

army had information unrevealed until that time, just

Let’s tell it like it is: we are experiencing a humanitar-

as had been denounced by the victims’ families, and that

ian crisis. Mexico is in a situation that should even be an-

it had never been given to them despite the existence of

alyzed by the International Criminal Court. It is urgent that

a 2018 presidential decree obligating them to do so.

the Mexican state take this problem seriously. It must ded-

Another case of forced disappearance in which the

icate resources to the investigation of cases, and the at-

armed forces are implicated as perpetrators happened

tention to victims and reparations. The mobilization of

from February to May 2018 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.

the mothers of the disappeared deserves empathetic, pro-

After a series of violent clashes forty denunciations of

fessional treatment. Their cause should be the cause of

forced disappearance were made linked to at least thirty

all of Mexico. Their voices should have an exponential echo.

members of the Navy, charged and jailed for their par-

Hopefully, your reading this will add another voice to their

ticipation. The Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee

struggle.

(cdhnl) denounced the complicity between authorities of the Ministry of the Navy (Semar), the Federal Attorney General’s Office (fgr), and the Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (ceav) in order to protect the sailors implicated in the disappearances.

 Notes 1 The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/ 10/03/world/americas/mexico-missing-people.html.

NORTEAMÉRICA REVISTA ACADÉMICA DEL CISAN-UNAM

An open forum to debate and exchange, from a multidiscipli­nary perspective, the­­oretical, methodological, and current studies related to North America and its links to the world. http://www.revistanorteamerica.unam.mx

22


Mireya Novo / Cuartoscuro.com

Rebeca Ramos Duarte*

The Fight for Abortion in Mexico “Starting now, it will not be possible

of Latin American countries, abortion is a crime. As a

to try any woman for the issues considered

result, women and gestating individuals who interrupt

valid by this court without breaking the Court’s criteria

a pregnancy, as well as those who assist them, are subject

and violating the Constitution.

to being declared criminals and punished with sentences

Starting now, a new road of freedom begins,

that, in the case of Mexico, range from fifteen days to six

a road of clarity, dignity, and respect

years in prison, plus fines, community service, or medical

for all pregnant persons, especially women.”

or psychological treatment when freed. I mention “most of

Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar

Mexico” because in this country, each state or federal ju­ risdiction determines whether abortion is a crime and what sanctions will be applied to those found guilty of it.1

T

he year that is coming to a close has brought enor­ mous strides forward in Mexico for the regulation of abortion. To understand these advances, first

it must be said that in most of Mexico, as in a large number

* Rebeca is a feminist lawyer and director of the Group for Infor­ mation on Chosen Reproduction (gire); you can contact her at correo@gire.mx.

Far from stopping the practice of abortion, criminalization creates clandestine spaces and leads to unsafe procedures to which people living with greater vulnerability are more exposed than others in society.

23


Voices of Mexico 115

Given this legislation, we activists, collectives, and fem­

another case involving the refusal to give a woman, Mar­

inist organizations have pushed for repealing these laws

garita, access to a safe abortion when her health was in

for decades. One among many other arguments is that

danger if she continued with the pregnancy. In this case,

abortion on demand is a part of women’s reproductive lives,

the court was clear in its ruling that the state has the ob­

that criminalization, far from inhibiting its practice, cre­

ligation to protect the right to health of all persons, and

ates clandestine spaces and in certain contexts leads to

that this includes guaranteeing access to safe abortion

unsafe procedures to which people living with greater vul­

services for all women and pregnant persons who request

nerability are more exposed than others in

society.2

it whose health is in danger.

One example of this unfair regulation is the case of Pau­

Despite the enormous importance of the Supreme

lina, which caused a great stir in public opinion in 2000.

Court’s decisions involving the denial of the termination

Paulina, an adolescent from a low-income background in

of a pregnancy due to rape and when the pregnant per­

Baja California, was refused the ability to legally terminate

son’s health is in danger, what happened in 2021 cannot

her pregnancy, which had resulted from a rape.

be fully understood without taking into consideration

Despite the fact that at that time, as now, in rape cas­

the social mobilization generated by the Green Wave, born

es, abortion was and is legal in Baja California and all over

in Argentina, that spread through Latin America and in

the country, the public officials who dealt with her case

2018 flooded Mexico.

used different maneuvers to manipulate and psycholog­

From there on in, the story has changed in terms of so­

ically pressure her to prevent her from getting the medical

ciety’s demand and that demand’s presence in public

procedure. They were acting in accordance with their per­

opinion, in the streets, on social media, and in the tradi­

sonal beliefs and not according to the law, forcing her to

tional media. Thanks to the Green Wave, the movement

take her pregnancy to term.3

for legal, safe, free abortion today has a symbol, the green

For years, Paulina’s case has been emblematic because

kerchief.

it shows the real situation facing girls and women in Mexico

Before the pandemic, in early March 2020, we were

and the region, but also because of the significance and

part of the show of force of the different feminisms in the

transcendence of her struggle for justice. That struggle has led

country, with the huge demonstration on March 8, Inter­

to legal changes that have been important advances in repro­

national Women’s Day. An estimated more than 80,000

ductive rights in Mexico, from the establishment of norms to

filled the streets of Mexico City.4 The demonstrations na­

facilitate the access to services for the termination of a

tionwide were historic. The next day, a Women’s Strike

pregnancy stemming from a rape, to the decriminalization

was called with the aim that women would not carry out

of abortion during the first trimester of the pregnancy.

their usual activities for one day; media estimates put

However, from 2000 to 2020, the advances, while sig­

women’s participation at seventy percent.5 The economic

nificant, have come in tiny increments: twelve years had

impact was estimated at approximately Mex$30 billion.6

to go by before, in 2019, the state of Oaxaca joined Mexico

Days later, the world changed with the covid-19 pan­

City in decriminalizing abortion during the first twelve

demic. One of the consequences of this unprecedented

weeks of pregnancy. In 2018, the Supreme Court handed

situation was doubts about the sustainability of feminist

down its first judgments stipulating that the denial of the

struggles, among them, the demand for legal, safe, free

legal termination of a pregnancy due to rape was a human

abortion.

rights violation. This came eighteen years after Pauli­

Not only did we not stop: the Green Wave became

na’s case! A year later, in 2019, the court deliberated on

strong­er. At the end of 2020, we feminists in Mexico re­ ceived another enormous inspiration from Argentina

Thanks to the Green Wave, the movement for legal, safe, free abortion is increasingly present today in public opinion, in the streets, and in the media, and it has a symbol: the green kerchief.

with the approval of the right to abortion during the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy. The year 2021 arrived, and with it, what a dear friend and colleague has called the “rainy season of abortion.” In July, abortion was decriminalized in the first trimester of a pregnancy in the states of Hidalgo and Veracruz after

24


Women

years of work by local and national activists and organiza­ tions and feminist congresspersons. In that same month, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of a teenaged girl with disabilities from Chiapas who had been raped and refused the right to an abortion for being more than ninety days along in her pregnancy; that deci­ sion declared establishing a time-limit for getting an abor­

Although we haven’t reached the end of the road, this year has undoubtedly given us reason for celebration because what has been achieved in state congresses and in the Supreme Court represents a step forward toward a more free and fair country.

tion in a rape case unconstitutional. In September, the Supreme Court decided unanimous­

safe abortion when she requested her right to terminate

ly that the absolute criminalization of abortion is uncon­

a pregnancy that had resulted from a rape— approved a

stitutional when it reviewed the criminal code of the state

reform to decriminalize abortion during the first twelve

of Coahuila. This was the first Constitutional Court in the

weeks of pregnancy. With this, Baja California joined Mex­

region to hand down a decision of this kind. The court dis­

ico City, Oaxaca, Hidalgo, and Veracruz as the places where

cussed the case for two days, and all the judges present

it is now legal.

voted in favor of guaranteeing women and pregnant per­

This year has undoubtedly been one of achievements

sons the right to decide to continue a pregnancy or not

for the movement for legal, safe, free abortion. However, the

without running the risk of criminal prosecution, in the

road to its full realization is still long and arduous. Next

framework of a secular state. The following is an exam­

year, we organizations, collectives, people who accompa­

ple of one of the comments during the deliberations: “In

ny those having an abortion, and activists will continue

a secular state, the defense of women’s autonomy must

to demand the decriminalization of abortion nationwide,

be unconditional,” said Judge Norma Piña. While this was

at least during the first trimester of pregnancy, as well as

not the first time that the court decided favorably on an

access to abortions for all persons who need them.

issue involving abortion, it was the first time that it sent

Although we haven’t reached the end of the road, this

such a forceful message about the unconstitutionality of

year has undoubtedly given us reason for celebration

prohibiting it, that is, considering it a crime, in the crim­

because what has been achieved in state congresses and

inal justice system, as is the case in Mexico and in the

in the Supreme Court represents a step forward toward a

region. The decision has the following consequences:

more free and fair country, where women and pregnant in­ dividuals enjoy the conditions and freedom to determine

• The Coahuila State Congress must amend its legis­

their own reproduction, today and in the future.

lation to decriminalize abortion at least during the first trimester of a pregnancy. • A precedent has been set; the central arguments of

 Notes

the decision create an obligation for all judges in Mexico, both federal and local. Starting with this de­ cision, in future cases, they must classify all criminal norms in the country that criminalize abortion ab­ solutely as unconstitutional. • State congresses in the rest of the country where abortion is still restricted and punished now have criteria backed by the Supreme Court to decriminal­ ized voluntary abortion. As if what happened in July and September 2021 were not enough, in late October, the Baja California State Con­ gress —the same state that more than two decades ago violated Paulina’s human rights by denying her a legal,

1 gire, El camino hacia la justicia reproductiva: una década de avances y pendientes, https://unadecadajusticiareproductiva.gire.org.mx/1 -aborto/. 2 gire, Mitos y preguntas sobre el aborto, https://gire.org.mx/wp-content /uploads/2020/11/mitos_y_preguntas_sobre_el_aborto.pdf. 3 gire, Paulina cinco años después, https://reproductiverights.org/sites /default/files/documents/paulina5years_sp.pdf. 4 “‘Nos quitaron todo, hasta el miedo’: así fue la marcha del 8 de marzo en la cdmx,” Milenio (Mexico City), March 9, 2020, https:// www.milenio.com/politica/comunidad/marcha-8-marzo-2020-cd mx-vivo-marcha-feminista. 5 Forbes staff, “Éstas son las empresas, instituciones y autoridades que apoyan #UnDíaSinNosotras,” Forbes México, February 21, 2020, https://www.forbes.com.mx/estas-son-las-empresas-institucio nes-y-autoridades-que-apoyan-undiasinnosotras/. 6 Forbes staff, “#UnDíaSinNosotras se reflejó en 30 000 millones de pesos,” Forbes México, March 10, 2020, https://www.forbes.com.mx/ 30000-mdp-razones-no-undiasinnosotras/.

25


National Cancer Institute / Unsplash

Teresa Jiménez*

Whether Chance or Science, Always Chasing Neurons

D

espite having begun her career in an era when

vatories like in other fields. We have to go to the lab every

being a woman scientist was almost impossible,

day; so, the challenge for women is different than for men.

Herminia Pasantes was able to take advantage

In my day, it was much, much more difficult because we

of the opportunities and voids that presented themselves

had to deal with men’s suspicions about us: “Let’s see

to be able to slip in among the men of science, using out-

how these women are going to do this.” We couldn’t com-

standing intelligence and an iron will, with a little help from

plain about anything; pregnancies didn’t exist: if you were

chance —although she says that she owes it all to chance.

pregnant, you dealt with it as you could. Not even a hint

She is one of the most highly renowned scientists in Mex-

of a word or missing work for half a day; if you had to go

ico and abroad for her enormous contribution to the mo-

out of the building to vomit, you did it with all due dis-

lecular study of the brain.

cretion. I think this has changed, but not completely. The overall society doing research thinks that women are bad

Teresa Jiménez: Is it harder for women to have a career in

investments because you’re going to get married, you’re

science?

going to have children, you’re going to be distracted.

Herminia Pasantes: The truth is that, yes, it’s very hard, and in biomedical research it’s even harder because you

TJ: Was it hard for you to be a woman?

can’t work from home or plan visits to archives or obser-

HP: Actually, no, because, since I’ve always been lucky, I’ve had it good being a woman. I did my master’s after I

* Teresa is the editor-in-chief of Voices of Mexico; you can contact her at tejian@unam.mx.

26

was already married, and when I finished my master’s, my daughter was born. And when I wanted to sign up for the


Women

on them; otherwise they weren’t well thought of. And on

“I’m a materialist, a reductionist, and I believe without any doubt that everything we do, what we imagine, what we think, what we create, what we feel, is all in the brain.”

international councils, I had a dual advantage: being a woman and being from an emerging country. So, all the international councils you can imagine called me. TJ: But your case was an exception, wasn’t it? HP: Yes, my case was exceptional for the time because they hadn’t accepted me in the doctoral program, because there

doctoral program in the graduate division of biochemis-

had to be women on the councils, and for other reasons.

try in the School of Chemistry, one of the professors said

I want to tell young women today that even though, of

to me, directly, “You can’t sign up for the doctoral program

course, there are difficulties, you can have a successful

because your daughter was just born,” and he didn’t accept

career that’s compatible with a family life. My granddaugh-

me. Of course, if that had been today, it would’ve been a

ter wrote on Instagram that on Women’s Day she want-

huge scandal. But at that time, he was very powerful and

ed to celebrate her grandmother, who had taught her the

had created, together with the other researchers, the bio-

two most important things in her life: to read and that

chemistry graduate program. He said something to me

gender wasn’t an obstacle for personal development.

that, with time, I tend to think is right. He said it inappropriately: “Doctorates and motherhood are incompatible.”

TJ: The doctor who performed your medical exam to get

It’s not completely true, but it is true that when children

into the unam said to you, “Why don’t you get married

are very small, the mother’s mind biologically puts the

instead and forget about studying.” What happened to

child as her first priority. So, I didn’t sign up for the doctoral

Herminia Pasantes from that time until 2001, when you

program, but I continued working half time in the lab.

were awarded the National Prize for Arts and Sciences?

That’s something I always tell young women researchers,

HP: I told that doctor what my mother had said to my

that biology is in charge and at that stage, when children

father: “With those glasses,” —because my eyeglasses, at

are small, very probably they’ll experience a certain de-

that time the Coke-bottle variety, have been fundamen-

lay in their research and they have to assimilate that. They

tal characters in my life—, “the girl will never marry. It’s

shouldn’t feel guilty about it because later what has been

better if she studies.” And the doctor thought that be-

lost will be recovered in spades.

cause I didn’t have good eyesight, I wouldn’t be able to analyze samples in the lab, to which I responded, “My

TJ: Why do you say everything has been luck?

mother says that because of my glasses, I won’t get mar-

HP: Because, since I couldn’t do my doctorate in Mexico,

ried and you say that because of my glasses, I can’t study.”

I went to Strasbourg to do it together with my husband

So, the doctor didn’t say anything, but he signed my health

and my two children. And that’s another thing: the most

certificate. I’ve always been very competitive, and since

important thing for young women researchers, particu-

my mother said I wasn’t going to get married and wasn’t

larly in their first stages, is who their partner is going to

going to have a boyfriend, you should have seen the number

be. That’s fundamental. It has to be someone who under-

of boyfriends I had! And, as for studying, I had no problem

stands and respects a woman’s individual development

going to the university, because at that time, lots of par-

as a person and who is proud of her work. That was my case:

ents wouldn’t let their daughters study. The university was

it was wonderful and I had absolute support.

extraordinary because, in high school, I was the strange

Besides being an extraordinary personal and family

girl, while my female classmates were cheerleaders and

experience, I also found there the topic that was going to

knew all the American songs, I listened to Brahms, Shu-

be my life’s work. So, I have to thank that saintly man who

bert, and had read everything. And I was burdened with

denied me entrance into the doctoral program in Mexico.

being called strange, but then I got to the university, and,

From then on, being a woman has brought me nothing

above all, among the mathematicians and physicists, I

but advantages because I became part of the dynamic in

found many strange people like me. Then I went on to

which councils and editorial boards had to have women

study my master’s and doctorate and fortunately, I found

27


Voices of Mexico 115

a very original topic in Strasbourg, which projected me

and they die. I dedicated a large part of my life to this

as a leader in the field very quickly, and I didn’t lose that

problem also. These have been very interesting topics that

until I decided that it was all going downhill and I didn’t

allowed me to play a leading role internationally.

want to go further down. This is how far I’ve gotten and that’s that. I would define myself as a vital, competitive

TJ: What is the importance of the neurosciences?

woman.

HP: The advances in neurosciences has been absolutely spectacular. You have, for example, the project of the hu-

TJ: What have the decisive moments in your research been?

man connectome, or how neurons are connected. I’m a

HP: Well, first, having found the famous taurine in Stras-

materialist, a reductionist, and I believe without any doubt

bourg, which I spent a lot of time on. Yet again, chance:

that everything we do, what we imagine, what we think,

The Neurochemistry Center, which was the only neuro-

what we create, what we feel, is all in the brain. And every­

chemical institute in the world, had been given a donation

thing is a result of the connection among the neurons.

to study the retina. So, the director of the institute, who

So, now that the connections are being understood, we’ll

was also my thesis advisor, said, “Why don’t you study the

be able to understand many other things, and in addition,

amino acids in the retina?” Well, so, I worked with chicken

something we knew intuitively has now been demonstrat-

retinas and I noticed that the chromatograph showed an

ed: no two brains are alike because each person has re-

enormous concentration of taurine. And then I extrapo-

ceived different stimuli from his or her surroundings and

lated that experiment to humans. The papers I published

those are incorporated into the brain. We’re born with a

at that time got people to pay attention to this molecule,

piece of hardware, which is how the neurons are connect-

and for several years, other researchers and I were look-

ed during development, but even inside the mother, be-

ing for what taurine did in the human body. It was in the

fore birth, the brain is already receiving stimuli. That is,

heart, in the brain, in all the cells. So, what does it do?

“little software programs” that have an impact on how the

Because, its not one of the proteins; it has no other func-

brain is organized. That’s why even identical twins who

tion than to make bile, taurocholic acid, but what was it

have the same dna are different. Their hardware may be

doing in the retina or the heart? We spent several years

the same, the color of their eyes, their sex, but not their

studying this, until one day it occurred to me that it might

personality, because they received different stimuli inside

function as osmolytes, that is, to move liquid inside and

the mother: one was exposed to more light, one received

outside the cell to prevent it from swelling or shrinking.

a little more blood through the placenta, etc. All this chan­

And the day that I did the experiment about that and

ges the latticework of the brain. The neuronal connectiv-

when Nature’s response was “yes,” that was one of the great-

ity studies being done in the world are very difficult, but

est moments of my scientific career, perhaps the most

they’re getting extraordinary results. We’re talking about

important, because after all those years of trying to find

the possibility of having a cerebral print, just like a fin-

out what it could be there for, all the pieces of the puzzle

gerprint.

fit together. It’s needed to create a highly concentrated

Besides that, the neurosciences are having an impact

osmolyte that doesn’t change the cell’s metabolism if it

on many other disciplines: economics, philosophy, lin-

enters or exits the cell. It was the ideal osmolyte, and it’s

guistics. If you consider that the brain is the center of

still considered the ideal osmolyte.

everything, if you review the great philosophers of the

Then I did other things: I began to see that the regula-

twenty-first century, you’ll find that many of them do

tion of the volume of neurons and astrocytes in the brain,

neuroscience. They study what the brain thinks and how

of the nervous cells, was unknown. And I started studying the regulation of volume and why cells swelled and what happens when the brain’s cells swell and push against the cranium, and the brain is covered in all the arteries that take in oxygen and nutrients. If the arteries burst when they push up against the cranium, it causes anoxia and the neurons are incredibly sensitive to the lack of oxygen,

28

“The advance of technology is extraordinary, but there are issues of neuro-ethics, such as genetic editing, that concern me greatly.”


Women

it thinks, how society is organized and how the thinking

go out to small cities to talk about science. I tell people

that originates in the brain impacts society. And that’s

about what happens in the brain. Some of the topics I talk

how they create their philosophical theories.

to them about are the ages of the brain; love and mirror neurons; drugs and addictions; freedom; and depression,

TJ: We’re all immersed in a specific social and political

among many others. When I talk about depression being

context. How do you relate to that context?

a disease, for example, and that you can eliminate it with

HP: The advance of technology is extraordinary, but there

anti-depressants, it’s something that in some cities is well

are issues of neuro-ethics, such as genetic editing, that

known and accepted. But in some towns and small cities,

concern me greatly. With CRISPR Cas9 genetic technol-

not so much. So, I think it’s very important to disseminate

genes.1

It’s a very simple technique: you

knowledge, and create awareness among people about

build a ribonucleic acid or rna molecule and join it to an

the importance of scientific work. That’s my most important

enzyme that’s like a pair of scissors. Then the dna is joined

work now, together with teaching. Besides these talks, I’m

to the rna and the short blade of the scissors, because

writing a couple of books, besides the ones I’ve already

rna is complementary to dna. And then you have two

published.2

ogy, you can edit

options: you either join the pieces of dna that were cut and

Young researchers have a hard time of it because the

that dna no longer exists, or you add other genetic infor-

field of science is very competitive, and in addition, in Mex-

mation, whatever kind you want. The temptation for eu-

ico we lack resources. That’s why I don’t think we should

genics is enormous. Why not have stronger human beings?

also ask them to be disseminators of science; that should be

More intelligent human beings, more resistant to diseas-

done by professionals of dissemination, who can be an

es? This concerns me enormously and the neurosciences

interface between society and both women and men re-

also concern me because we can develop techniques that,

searchers.

with a chip, would be capable of reading our thoughts.

 Notes

And that would put an end to our greatest freedom, because up until now, I can be looking at you and think whatever I want and neither you nor anybody else will know. TJ: You’ve also dedicated a great deal of time to dissemination of knowledge. HP: It’s extraordinary to be able to spread knowledge. The brain is so beautiful, and there are so many lovely things to tell about it, that it’s a very satisfactory delight to do so. Since I’m in the Seminar of Mexican Culture, where science is also considered culture, a group of us scientists

1 In 2020, French microbiologist and biochemist Emmanuelle Charpentier and U.S. American biochemist Jennifer Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing this genetic editing technology. [Editor’s Note.] 2 De neuronas, emociones y motivaciones (About Neurons, Emotions, and Motivations) was published by the Fondo de Cultura Económica twenty years ago, and four years ago we did a second edition because by that time it was super obsolete. A book jointly authored by the unam and the Seminar of Mexican Culture is about to come out, titled Vida y muerte del cerebro (Life and Death of the Brain). And I have another that I like a lot: it’s for children, called Mi cerebro y yo (My Brain and I). It’s fully designed now and will be published by the Seminar of Mexican Culture.

www.cisan.unam.mx unamcisan@facebook.com @cisanunam cisanunam.blogspot.mx/

cisanunamweb cisan_unam

http://ru.micisan.unam.mx/

29


Aaraón Díaz

Balazo

María Cristina Hall*

A Review of Aaraón Díaz’s Short Documentary Migranta con M de Mamá1

V

icky spins inside a carousel —too old for it, she

warped. Vicky laments that her grown son is now in Leam-

recalls a lifetime of forsaken rites, of missed grad-

ington, Canada, the same place where her husband died

uations, meals, and deaths in the family. In Aaraón

as a migrant worker. Her husband, she explains, sacri­

Díaz Mendiburo’s insightful documentary Migranta con M

fic­­ed years of family life to travel to Canada as a tempo-

de Mamá (Mexico, 2020), translated as Migrant Mother, three

rary migrant worker so that his children could study and

women in the Mexico-Canada Seasonal Agricultural Work-

have a better life. His son, however, “no quiso estudiar,”

ers Program portray themselves as trapped in a vicious

“didn’t want to study,” and is now repeating the cycle: off to

cycle of family separation, but also of resistance.

Leamington, he’s left his one-year-old daughter behind.

Vicky’s narrator voice accompanies the opening shot as

As the migration expert Luciana Gandini pointed out

horses and giraffes run in endless circles, mouths gaping

at the documentary film’s showing at the unam Seminar

as if in a frenzied rush, despite the carousel’s slow pace.

on Internal Displacement, Migration, Exile, and Repatria-

Like lives spent waiting for family reunification, time seems

tion (sudimer), academics often analyze migration at the systemic level. Perhaps we’d be tempted to analyze what

* María Cristina is a poet, translator, and PhD student at unam; you can contact her at mcf2141@columbia.edu.

30

it means to “not want to study”: Is not studying a true desire? Is it the consequence of a myriad of systemic fac-


Women

tors that propel the status quo? And could considering the

300,000 migrants in 2019. Starting in the 1970s, when the

latter question in fact remove the subject’s agency, render-

feminist and contraceptive movement put a wrench in

ing the sociological perspective somewhat questionable?

Canada’s birth replacement rate, multiculturalism and

In this documentary, Aaraón Díaz goes against the grain

immigration emerged as a solution to keep population

of academia by inviting us into the lives and subjectivi-

rates up, ultimately ensuring the retirement and social

ties of the women themselves, as they share their feel-

security of aging generations. Using a points system that

ings of guilt at leaving their families for many months at

evaluates economic and human capital based on educa-

a time, but also how they resist and describe the oppres-

tion, linguistic abilities (especially in English and French),

sions bearing down on them. These women are mothers

and age, migrants are vetted and chosen as future per-

facing family separation; they cut holes in the barbed wire

manent residents and citizens. The country planned to

surrounding their dormitories in Canada to escape for cof-

invest upward of Can$1.5 billion for the 2020-2021 period

fee; they invest in their houses and in their children’s ed-

in support of settlement services for immigrants and ref-

ucations in Mexico so that future generations might have

ugees, though we may expect a mismatch in the actual

a better life.

figure due to covid-19. As progressive as it sounds, this

The women emerge as critical subjects. Letty denoun­

entire system excludes temporary agricultural workers,

ces racism when she makes clear that she will defend her

who have no path to permanent residence and citizen-

son if he’s born with brown skin. In another appeal to cycles,

ship despite their crucial role in Canadian food security

Betty notes the similarities between herself, a temporary

(the country’s agriculture industry has relied on tempo-

migrant worker in Canada, and the Tlamango people who

rary workers for more than half a century). Certain migrant

are discriminated against for working the fields of her home­

categories in Canada experience what is known as the

town in Mexico. In the mesh of North America, a region

“revolving door”: many have heard of the Haitians who

where racial and economic inequality is replicated in never-

crossed the border into Canada, were welcomed for sev-

end­ing turns of the carousel, the women speak critically,

eral months, and even given health care and a stipend,

fully aware of the uncertain business of sacrificing emo-

only to end up deported. And as this documentary shows,

tional ties in hopes of changing their children’s futures.

temporary workers can spend fifteen years seasonally

Shy of twenty-five minutes long, the documentary

migrating to Canada but see no benefit in terms of citizen-

leaves out hard data about the Mexico-Canada Seasonal

ship, keeping families apart for up to eight months at a time

Agricultural Workers Program (sawp, or ptat in Spanish)

while barring permanent family reunification in Canada.

and its historical context, keeping the film refreshingly

According to Unheeded Warnings, the laws in several Ca-

short, but also proving that subjective incursions into emo-

nadian provinces actually exclude migrant workers from

tion suffice to make clear the systemic inequalities propa-

the right to minimum wage, holidays, overtime compen-

gated by sawp.

sation, and maximum working hours. Furthermore, tem-

Still, for context, it is worth noting that, since 1966, tem-

porary workers require a yearly invitation from their

porary agricultural workers have migrated seasonally to

employers in order to return to Canada, which heavily

Canada’s fields via the Temporary Foreign Workers Program

disincentivizes workplace complaints and labor organiz-

(tfwp), which includes the Seasonal Agricultural Worker

ing. If temporary agricultural workers weren’t excluded

Program (sawp). According to the report Unheeded Warnings

from a path to citizenship, they might come together and

(2020) by the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, in 2019, nearly 57,000 migrant agricultural workers came to Canada. In 2017, 27.4 percent of the country’s agricultural workforce was foreign, with this percentage reaching 41.6 percent in Ontario. Regarding Mexico specifically, the Mexico-Canada Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program included 25,331 workers in 2018. Canada is often conceived of as one of the world’s

Although Canada relies on agricultural workers from developing countries, temporary agricultural migrants are barred from permanent residency and kept in precarious positions that permit their exploitation.

most migrant-friendly countries, welcoming upwards of

31


Voices of Mexico 115

being told by her health practitioner that she was unable

In North America, where inequality is replicated endlessly, these women speak critically, fully aware of the uncertain business of sacrificing emotional ties in hopes of changing their children’s futures.

to conceive due to cysts. Once pregnant, Letty requested a six-month, rather than eight-month, working period from her employer so that she might spend more time with her children. In the film, her petition appears unresolved. Díaz skillfully portrays the erasure of the mother. For his subjects, the act of mothering unfolds in Mexico, only to be retracted once in Canada. Betty speaks of all the “lo­ gros” or accomplishments in affection from her daughter

organize against unpaid overtime or protest living condi-

that she’s secured when in Mexico, afraid that it’ll all be

tions grouping fifteen to twenty people in the same room.2

erased when she leaves and is relegated to chatting and

These workers wouldn’t be as lucrative for Canada’s ag-

singing sessions over video calls.

ricultural industries as they are now. Needless to say, the

Díaz also follows Betty into her dancing world —to the

wage difference between Mexico and Canada, despite all

dive bar where migrant women slap on a pair of shimmer­

the labor violations, keeps the wheels of migration turning.

ing heels to go dance a northern-Mexican quebradita in Can-

The women in the film express their desire for their

ada, but also to the cumbia group for toddlers where she

children to come to Canada and spend time with them, but

takes her daughter.

this idea remains far-fetched. Despite the fact that Can-

All in all, this documentary is articulate in its symbol-

ada relies on agricultural workers from Mexico and other

ism, with the carousel spinning just like the vicious cycle

developing countries, temporary agricultural migrants are

of truncated parenting that would have a mother sacri-

barred from permanent residency and kept in precarious

fice herself for her children, only to see her grown son go

positions that permit their exploitation. Aaraón Díaz’s film

off to Canada and leave his own children to be reared by

casts light on the program’s flaws, as the women in the

other members of the community. The three subjects also

program are subject to surveillance in their living quarters

wear indigenous masks, with intricate Otomí embroidery,

with limited opportunities for socializing and no visitors

meticulous Wixárika beading, and the lush flowers of the

allowed, while their prospects of integration into Canada

Zapotec. Díaz does not explicitly address how indigenous

as residents appear to be nil.

identity weaves into migration. However, these exquisite

It is in addressing temporary migration’s gender-spe-

masks celebrate indigenous dignity in contemporary North

cific consequences that director Aaraón Díaz’s sensibilities

America, which has especially kept peoples of color exploi­t­

shine through. His gender perspective casts light on the

able and disposable. The masks also provide a certain

double precariousness of his subjects, first, as migrants,

degree of anonymity as the subjects speak, before unveil-

and then, as women, as he addresses contraception, hints

ing their true, proud identities at the very end. By only

at sensuality, and delves deep into long-distance mother-

hinting at the importance of the indigenous and scarce-

hood.

ly addressing Canadian policy, Díaz keeps the documen-

In the film, Betty shares that admitting to an employ-

tary short, insightful, and evocative, fairly and critically

er to being pregnant would bar her from being hired for

portraying the heartbreaking and sometimes tender dy-

three years. So, pregnant women work the fields without

namics of migration and family resilience.

going to checkups or taking extra vitamins. “Que pase lo que tenga que pasar,” or, “let whatever needs to happen, happen,” she says, hinting that perhaps a child may be born

 Notes

during the woman’s four-month rest period in her home country, or that miscarriages can and do occur. Letty then talks about her experience with several contraceptive methods (the iud and the arm implant), sharing that the hormones took a toll on her body, leading her to stop using them. She explains that she then became pregnant despite

32

1 http://www.cisan.unam.mx/proyectos/documentales/index.htm. 2 For more specific data and citations, see my forthcoming chapter “El aparato migratorio canadiense: un sistema menos liberal de lo que parece” (The Canadian Immigration Apparatus: A Less Liberal System than It Seems) in Canadá y sus paradojas en el siglo xxi (volume 2) (Canada and Its Paradoxes in the Twenty-First Century), Camelia Tigau, ed., cisan.


Vidar Nordli Mathisen / Unsplash

Margarita Martínez Rivera*

The Inclusion Of Feminist Art in Mexico1

I

n art history, feminist theories underline the silent

However, women’s art is not only repressed: it is con­

presence and dismissal of women based on a suppo­s­

demned. It is made invisible, barring the manifestation

edly natural incapacity for artistic creativity, prevent­

of intra-personal relations by considering female artists as

ing them from openly expressing their opinions and social

non-normative, marginal, or their work minor or informal

and political condition.

creations. Roxana Sosa adds to this idea that the history

Women in art have a medium, language, to express

of art favors one sex over the other, tending to exclude wom­

them­selves and communicate what they have experienced

en from the list of the main artistic movements on which

from their own perspective. It speaks to their experience,

the history of Western art has been built.3 For that reason,

even if it transgresses the commonplace, as well as what hap­

gender relations acquire a solid, undefinable structure us­

pens or doesn’t happen to them, and how their emotions

ing a stereotype in its different contexts, both public and

are suppressed or guided. It’s a “dual voice” that lets women

private. In response, feminist theories contribute elements to

be heard in writing or figures. Similarly, feminism shows

transform these forms of behavior ruled by stereotypical

how these obstacles prevent female artistic creati­vity from

prejudices, to achieve an equitable society that can uncov­

expressing itself and communicating experiences to oth­

er the different manifestations of art and eliminate dis­

er women, exteriorizing and sharing being a

woman.2

crimination. For her part, Pilar Vicente de Foronda adds that the art

*Margarita is a professor of psychology at the unam’s Iztacala School of Higher Studies; you can contact her at mar_khxe@hotmail.com.

history that we get from manuals, books, catalogues, etc., has silenced women creators,4 and, as incongruous as it might seem —at least in many of our country’s Fine Arts

33


Voices of Mexico 115

statement, since it emerges from the influence of the lit­

Art is a need of the artist herself, an opportunity to speak, denounce, document the control, repression, and exploitation she suffers, to demand to take control of her own body, to have the ability to decide her own actions, and talk about the sexual or symbolic violence she is subject to.

erature of feminists who worked on identity, gender, and politics. Among them are Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Frie­ dan, Judith Butler, and Linda Mochkin. Together with them are the precursors of feminist art, such as Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro, who proposed art done by and for women. Translating this thinking into artistic production was called vaginal iconology (allegory), Female Imaginary, which re­ formulated feminist art.7

Schools—, both male and female students become fami­l­

Women have had —and have— to overcome huge

iarized with very few women artists and are only able to

obstacles down through history to be able to develop their

identify a few exceptions when they finish their major.

capabilities and be duly recognized. Despite this, they have

What’s interesting about this is that most gallery manag­

made art, although their names often do not appear in

ers/owners, museum directors, art critics, or people linked

textbooks or encyclopedias. This is because art is a need

to this milieu have been educated in a similar system in

of the artist herself, an opportunity to speak, denounce,

which masculine interests prevail. Feminist theoreticians

document the control, repression, and exploitation she

deal with situations like these.

suffers, to demand to take control of her own body, to have the ability to decide her own actions, and talk about the sexual or symbolic violence she is subject to, and thus

Art and Feminism

recover the representation of her female body. It is a mo­ ment to express herself with imagination, to be authentic

Women have always made art, but in the late 1960s, fem­

and spontaneous, a moment that leads to personal real­

inist efforts and achievements emerged. In the 1970s, wom­

ization when she contemplates the body with a connec­

en’s creations became visible; and women artists began

tion between the corporeal and the subjective.8

to be recognized, becoming part of art history and female artistic

practices.5

Women artists became aware of the social and eco­ nomic transformations that began in the 1960s and par­

At the same time, feminist artists were making their

ticipated by reflecting them in their work, testing out ways

mark, ensuring that the female experience be seen as just

of articulating ethnicity, social class, and gender, as well

as valid as the male experience. Thus, they carved out a

as fighting against traditional axioms of identity.9 These

principle for awakening consciousness: their method was

artists showed art as a tool capable of expressing ques­

to use their own experience as the most valid form for

tions involving difference and identity, the processes of

formulating a political analysis, as they reformulated new

female emancipation, the problems surrounding artistic

roles in society both for men and for women. Therefore,

creation, as well as the relations of domination between

the feminist movement examines the representations of

the feminine and the masculine. In this way, female cre­

women in art as well as art made by women. From its be­

ation reflects in their work their own space and begins a

ginnings in the nineteenth century, feminism has expand­

different way of handling codes of expression with differ­

ed its observation to the needs of different women and

ent materials and new techniques, distancing themselves

cultures, making clear the need to talk about “feminisms”

from the traditional media exclusive to male artists.

and not “feminism.” The term “feminism” evokes the strug­

In this context, the generation of women attracted by

gle for equality between women and men. The 1960s and

the so-called “second wave” of the feminist movement

1970s in the United States saw a way of seeing art in which

became involved in the quest for “female identity.” Their

the way of representing the woman’s body is different: for

searches have been multiple and varied, not only be­

the first time it was women who were representing them­

cause of the supports they used —ranging from writing,

selves through their own artistic

vision.6

It should be pointed out that previous artists did rep­ resent other women, but feminism makes a very strong

34

painting, and sketching to performance or xerography—, but also because of their particular vision of how women artists imbue their production with those searches.10


Women

Feminist Art in Mexico

One of the first Mexican art collectives was the No-Group, active from 1977 to 1983, with the participation of, among

In the entire first half of the twentieth century in Mexico,

others, Maris Bustamante, Melquiades Herrera, Alfredo

women artists were marginalized both in teaching and

Núñez, and Rubén Valencia. They innovated the Mexican

participating in exhibitions, reinforcing traditional roles

art scene by involving the public in what Bustamante

stereotypes.11 This

was the case despite fem­

called “montages of visual moments,” that is, perfor­man­ce.

inist thinking and the fact that there was already a list of

These collectives of artists called themselves “cultural

painters like María Izquierdo, Isabel Villaseñor, Lola Cue­

workers” and were the beginning of a new proposal for ar­

to, Aurora Reyes, Nahui OIin, and Frida Kahlo, as well as

tistic creation and for the use of innovative materials.

and female

immigrant women artists like Remedios Varo, Olga Costa,

The groups coexisted as artists’ collectives that stood

Tina Modotti, and Leonora Carrington, among others. They

out in the context of feminist art groups in 1983, seeking

were not as frequently mentioned then as they are now,

to renovate the country’s artistic system by creating new

although some of them are not recognized even today.

critical spaces where artists had the opportunity to cre­

In the 1970s and 1980s, the concepts of feminist art in Mexico questioned the artistic and its manifestations as

ate public, political art, and thus participate in the pro­ cess of change in Mexico and the world:

well as the political, and an artistic generation was formed made up by male and female artists joining together in

• Tlacuilas (Women Scribes/Painters) and Portraitists

what were called “groups.” These groups were character­

emerged in 1983 out of the Feminist Art Workshop

ized by creating an alternative to elitist, a-political, mer­

coordinated by Mónica Mayer, with members who were

cantilist art. Their work was seen as combative art that

art school students and women historians, painters,

dealt with the reality of the country, whether through

and photographers. Their research was based on the

environmental photographs, performances, urban poetry

situation of Mexican women visual artists and how they

or engravings with social content, unconcerned with fash­

managed to —or intended to— become artists and

ion or artistic

currents.12

the difficulties they faced. To do this, they interviewed about 400 visual artists. The group’s main event, with both artistic and so­ciological aims, was the xv Fiesta,

The Feminist Art Proposal

held at the San Carlos Academy in 1984; it was an im­ portant event for society as it represented artistically

In the first place, they proposed taking art out of muse­

our country’s idiosyncrasy through performance.

ums and galleries, and that’s what they did, holding

• The Bio-Art Group began in 1983 with a clear interest

events in the street to have more contact with the public

in political art, social change, and new languages. Its

as the main way for disseminating their art. The artistic

main topic, women’s biological transformations and

groups maintained, “Feminist Art is an eminently politi­

metamor­phoses, was expressed in the mural Women

cal movement, created by women artists interested in

Artists-Artistic Women, at the Toluca, State of Mexico

participating actively in the field of culture,” proposing

Fine Arts Museum.

the following:

• I should underline the group Black Hen Powder, found­ ed in 1983,13 considered pioneers of feminist art in

• Promoting women artists’ work, recovering those

Mexico. Its members, among others Mónica Mayer,

who have been forgotten or defending their rights

Maris Bustamante, and Herminia Dosal, carried out

as professionals; • Working on themes linked to feminist issues, with a constant critical outlook on an exclusively mas­ culine world; • Influencing society to change or replace sexist im­ ages generally associated with women.

This pioneering generation of feminist artists proposed new images of women to replace the stereotypes imposed by a patriarchal system. However, women’s art continues to be largely invisible.

Different artistic groups were formed on a feminist basis.

35


Voices of Mexico 115

very solid actions for more than ten years and in­ cluded both men and women artists. The group de­ serves mention because it contributed reflections for situating women in a female artistic position. • Among the other groups were Pentagon Process, Look, Germinal and Sum, all short-lived.14 As can be seen, this pioneering generation of feminist artists proposed new images of women to replace the stereotypes imposed by a patriarchal system. However, women’s art continues to be largely invisible. The work of the groups mentioned above requires a detailed analysis to understand their contribution to women’s empower­ ment, not only in art, but in all contexts, as a valuable tool against exclusion.

 Notes 1 Part of this article was published in issue 42 of the magazine Alternativas en psicología (Mexico City), in 2019. 2 Rocío de la Villa Ardura, “Crítica de arte desde la perspectiva de El_Oficio_politico.pdf 1 09/12/2021 p. m.pp. 10-23. gé­nero,” Investigaciones Feministas vol. 04:20:20 4 (2013),

3 Roxana Sosa, “Modelos de prácticas artísticas en torno a la sociolo­ gía feminista,” Asparkía no. 21 (2010), pp. 65-73. 4 Pilar Vicente de Foronda, “La mujer como objeto de representación hasta principios del Siglo xx,” Atlánticas. Revista Internacional de Estudios Feministas vol. 2, no 1 (2017), pp. 271-296. 5 Yamileth Chacón Araya, “Una revisión crítica del concepto de cre­ atividad,” Actualidades investigativas en educación vol. 5, no. 1 (2005). 6 Soledad Novoa Donoso, “Historia del arte y feminismo: relatos lec­ turas escritura omisiones,” Seminario Historia del Arte y Feminismo: relatos lecturas escrituras omisiones, Fine Arts Museum, Santiago, Chile, (2013), pp. 11-18. 7 Rocío de la Villa Ardura, “Crítica de arte desde la perspectiva de género,” Investigaciones Feministas vol. 4 (2013), pp. 10-23. 8 Elena Sacchetti, “El cuerpo representado y actuado en el arte con­tem­ ­poráneo,” Revista de Antropología Experimental no. 10, (2010), pp. 35-53. 9 Lourdes Méndez, La antropología de las artes plásticas: aportaciones, omisio­ nes, controversias (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Socioló­gi­cas, 2003). 10 Gladys Villegas, “Arte y perspectiva de género,” Revista Qadro (AprilJune 2003). 11 Mónica Mayer, “Sobre el arte feminista en México. Un recorrido personal,” paper presented at the seminar “Historia del Arte y Fem­ inismo: relatos, lecturas escrituras, omisiones,” held at the National Fine Arts Museum in Santiago, Chile (2013), pp. 85-103. 12 Gladys Villegas, “Los grupos de arte feminista en México,” La Pala­ bra y el hombre (January-March 2006), pp. 45-57. 13 This issue of Voices of Mexico includes an article about this group’s work. See “Black Hen Powder: Feminism’s Beginnings in Mexican Art.” [Editor’s Note.] 14 Gladys Villegas, op. cit.

Novedad editorial

libros.colmex.mx

C

M

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CM

MY

CY

CMY

Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez

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Síguenos en redes sociales 36


Gretta Hernández*

SELF-PORTRAITS

Marine Goddess Caring for Leonardo: my loving gaze follows your path, son.

* Photographer @grettaph

37


 Paristan Fairy: In Persian mythology, Paristan is the place where often-female genies (fairies) live. These winged creatures cast spells on the stars and curse the land of humans.

38


Resurrection in the Time of a  Pandemic: I was born under the Chinese sign of the Rat. The year 2020 was the beginning of a new Chinese zodiac cycle. The rat symbolizes perseverance, prosperity, and survival. This year I asked myself whether surviving such dark times suggested some kind of design. A year later, I knew: I survived cancer, unemployment, oblivion, and an epidemic. After baptizing myself in thermal waters, I self-proclaimed my resurrection. I’d leave behind the pain of the past, I’d give voice to the polyphony in my mind, and I’d seek, through self-portraiture, the path to giving life to all the souls living within me.

39


 The Thousand-Legged Bug: Infiltrating ductal carcinoma is the name of the tumor that took over my right breast. To me it was like a dark invertebrate, staking its claim right next to my heart. This diptych represents the metaphor of the mother in two parts: surgery and radiation therapy.

 Gardens of Babylon: In November my days were covered with insects that drew their last breath at the foot of my door and my window sill. I tenderly gave them a home, and these beings inhabited my photographs.

40


The Queen is Not Dead: In a self-portrait workshop, one of my tasks was to create an image of my opposite. I chose the nineteenth-century Mexican aristocracy to represent a lineage that’s very harmful to us.

41


Mariana Velasco* and Gustavo Marcovich**

VOICES OF MEXICO

TWO WOMEN IN ANCESTRAL SONG

Throughout the history of humanity, the memory of songs and melodies has been a powerful tool for sharing and preserving stories, indelible experiences, and much-needed expressions. While these sounds might be fleeting, their meanings are here to stay. Mexican flutist and saxophonist Sibila de Villa Azarcoya1

W

e first heard cardanche song in 2010, when working at a radio station. We’d never heard anything like it in traditio­nal Mexican music: three male voices sing

a cappella, heavy with sorrow, which is why the song is called car­ denche, after the prickly cane cholla cactus that grows in northern Mexico. These capriccios are punctured with long pauses, sometimes mid-word, as if breathing emotion. They would help people endure long days of working the land. The lone voices’ only company was the song of crickets, the whistle of the wind, and the sound of embers crackling in the fire. These melodies have resist­ ed writing: no piece of paper could possibly capture so many feelings. Thus, they are treasured in their interpreters’ memories, without which they would no longer be shared. The melodies would die. Some time ago, we realized that women cardencheras exist, too: Doña Mariana and Doña Otila García, two women of an older generation; and Ofelia Elizalde, the first woman to sing in Los Car­ dencheros de Sapioriz, who raises her voice alongside her brother Fidel Elizalde, Guadalupe Salazar, and a new-generation cardench­ era, Higinio Chavarría. What a revelation!

*Actress and singer; you can contact her at marianayvm@yahoo.com. **Writer; you can contact him at marcoviz@prodigy.net.mx. Photos courtesy of the authors and Sibila de Villa.

42

Cane cholla cactus.


Ofelia Elizalde, Cardenchera I’ve been formally singing with Los Cardencheros for two-anda-half years. I started at an event at the Sanctuary for Cardenche Song. A few people from Ciudad Lerdo’s House of Culture attend­ ed, and our community was invited, too. My brother encouraged me to take a chance, and I said I would, at least for one song. That day, I sang “At the Foot of the Tree,” better known as “The Dark Crane.” I knew the song well, because my mother used to sing it often. Here, in my community, people sing cardenche songs —songs of love and contempt, but also songs of praise at church; these are also “acardenchadas,” or slow. People in my community sing. Sometimes my mother would sing with my Aunt Otila. They would sing their melodies together, softly. They’d sing all kinds of songs, like “At the Foot of the Tree” and “Going to Die in the Deserts,” to name a few. And my brothers and I listened to them so much that they simply had to stick with us, too. Women sing at church and at home. At church, they sing the novena and the rosary. Church is where those too shy to sing in front of anyone else will lift up their voices in praise of the Virgin . Ofelia Elizalde

Mary. When my mother and aunt were still alive, we’d sing songs at traditional Christmas parties known as posadas. And if any car­ denche song is hard, the ones people sing at posadas are even harder. But we can sing it all.

43


Keeping Cardenche Alive: Another Reason to Sing

Cardenche is very magical, the way I see it, or maybe it’s just that I love this type of singing for family reasons. The singing is magical because it allows for certain things. For instance, if my

Our tastes are like our forebears’. Today, youths follow other

brother goes too high in the song, he can stop, even if we’ve al-

trends; they sing things we don’t like, but they’re still singing.

ready started: the song allows for this. I would often hear my moth-

Before, you’d hear young people singing on every corner, but not

er and aunt telling each other to take it higher or lower, to change

anymore. The proof lies in the fact that they don’t care to join

the key. Sometimes the men would do that, too, because the song

the community’s singing workshop. Very few young people par-

was theirs. They’d sing for themselves, any way they liked, and

ticipate in it. If this kind of song is from here, then the commu-

say, “Stop and let me roll a cigarette, and then we’ll keep going”

nity should be involved.

. . . things like that. I believe it’s magical.

My son used to sing, but he stopped because he had to go work in the United States. Then my grandson learned how at a workshop, but they gave it their own twist, fusing cardenche sing-

Having Song in Your Blood

ing with the kinds of songs that they like. At least they considered our opinion: they asked their elders for permission before mixing

Sometimes I can feel it, when I sing the song my mother remem-

everything up. But now there’s nobody to sing cardenche prop-

bered in her final days. A song that nobody knew, but that she

erly. Of course, one can respect the fact that they want to add

started singing when she was already quite ill. My brother asked,

certain elements or take others out. If only cardenche wouldn’t

“What’s that song that I don’t know? I’d never heard it.” “It’s the

lose so much of its meaning . . . its essence. They learned carden­

song of the round moon,” she’d reply. When I talk about that song,

che, but they don’t sing it the same way. Still, they’re creating

or when I sing it, I’m overcome with emotion. I take great pride,

something along the same lines. It’ll find its place.

and I’m happy to practice what my parents enjoyed doing, what they’d want us to learn. I wish I had more of a voice, and I wish I could sing louder so that they could hear me and know that I ap-

Magical Singing

preciate what they taught me. This feeling is in our blood, our minds, our hearts.

The way cardenche is sung can be strange: there’s no musical

I like songs about nature or the stars, and I dare say that’s

guide, so one has to go about measuring the cadence, which is

why the songs were composed by the people who sang them,

hard, of course. It’s almost like a familiar song in which the voices

because of the things they experienced day in and day out. When

come together. Each voice has its place, but they all sing togeth-

they had a sad moment, or were kept up at night, when they’d

er. We have to follow the main voice, which is usually my brother

harmonize at the dumpsters or at the ranch’s edge, this is what

Fidel’s. If, for instance, he starts singing on a note that’s too high,

I imagine: they’d look at the sky and feel inspired by their own

then I’ll struggle, because I’m a contralto, and if it’s too low, then

needs, their poverty, their sadness, their loneliness. That’s what

we’ll have a hard time when it’s time for the glissando. He has to

I mean when I say the song comes up from my stomach, my heart,

know exactly where he’s going to hit the note, and each of us has

even my throat. Because I’m feeling it. What we sing, I feel.

to be alert, in case the other cuts his part short, draws it out, or comes to a stop . . . and we have to sing parallel to the voice that’s leading the song. The group has to be of one mind.

Amalia Romero, Flamenco Singer When I hear cardenche singing, I can feel lots of emotions stirring

These melodies have resisted writing: no piece of paper could possibly capture so many feelings. Thus, they are treasured in their interpreters’ memories, without which they would no longer be shared. The melodies would die.

inside me. I see cardenche as related to flamenco. Historically, these songs started as ballads, then, as a traditional flamenco style known as toná (meaning “tune,” but spelled the way the word tonada might sound in Andalusia). In the toná, voices come from the gut, from deep down, the cante jondo (or “deep song” in Andalusian), a palo seco (an unadorned kind of song), as they say in flamenco to refer to a cappella songs that require no accom-

44


The way cardenche is sung can be strange: there’s no musical guide, so one has to go about measuring the cadence, which is hard, of course. It’s almost like a familiar song in which the voices come together. of Mexico’s greatest flamenco dancers, or bailaoras, became my flamenco teacher and guide. I grew alongside her as I learned the song and dance. Mario Maya would say that, to teach flamenco dance, you have to know how to dance for the voice that sings, and all of us who know the world of flamenco can understand the communion between the strumming of the guitar, the moveAmalia Romer o.

ments in the dance, and the voice of the singer, who embodies the backbone of flamenco. I was happiest when I sang and could relate to it the most. In 2004, I went to Spain to study with the

panying instrument. Tonás are sung without measures, which is

renowned singers Rafael Jiménez Falo and Talegón de Córdoba.

why I think they’re close to cardenche.

This was, without a doubt, a fundamental experience, and I came back home with an even more profound love for my own soil.

Cardenche and Toná Women in Flamenco My hope and aim are to put on a performance called Cardenche and toná. This show of voices would bring together the two kinds

As women —not only in flamenco, but in many other aspects of

of songs in the realm of emotion, with the voice taking the lead.

life— I believe we have to continue on the path toward equality

The voice is the main instrument of feeling, of the pain that car­

in every sense of the word. There has been some progress, but

denche expresses, which is something I perceive in cante jondo, too.

there’s still a long road ahead for women to be seen as equals.

I arrived in Sinaloa, Mexico as a young child, and that’s where

That’s why, as a cantaora singer, flamenco has been one of my

I became familiar with these songs, through dance. All of my ex-

life’s greatest gifts. It has put me in the privileged position of

periences with cardenche have created a special place in my heart

being able to raise my voice, speak, and sense my power. And

for the part of the state of Durango that borders with Sinaloa,

especially to feel that I am there with many other women, my mo­

which brings back memories of my childhood, of my youth, and

ther and many others who undoubtedly share this position with

of those emotions that I later found in flamenco.

me . . . We are the cantaores: we have to be at the front. And we

I think that, in a way, you always end up finding why it is that

have to be brave and strong.

you do what you do. First, without even realizing it, certain things

Flamenco singing opens plenty of possibilities: going back to

crop up and become part of your life. I started practicing a tradi­

my roots as a Mexican and understanding how these songs inter­

tional Mexican folk dance at the Sinaloa School of the Arts. I’d

lace in time. They share many elements, and we have to decipher

perform mestizo dances, but what I was most attracted to the

them. I don’t see it as an ending, but as a return to our origins,

were pagan, ritualistic dances called danzas. We’d perform dan­

so that we might build something new.

ces by Mexican indigenous groups, including the Huichol and Rarámuri dances, as well as pascola ones danced by the Yaqui indigenous people. Then, I joined a folk dance company at the unam, and, in 1990, the university invited a true flamenco icon: Mario Maya. Thanks to my teachers, I became his assistant throughout the course he taught, and, a month later, Patricia Linares, one

 Notes 1 Sibila de Villa, “Entre la fotografía y la música. Una pausa en el constante fluir del tiempo,” https://issuu.com/edilar/docs/cdm-232/s/12052891.

45


Ana Paula Castro Garcés, 1975, 2021 (digital illustration). * Illustration courtesy of the author.


Marifé Medrano Flor*

Black Hen Powder: Feminism’s Beginnings In Mexican Art

w

A Few Notes on Feminism In Mexico: The Second Wave

Group (Grupo Proceso Pentágono), Germinal, Art and

Across the globe, the 1970s were marked by social

Ideology Workshop (tai), Look (Mira), Peyote, and

movements, and feminism in particular stood out for

Tepito Art Here (Tepito Arte Acá). And what do all

reclaiming the rights of women. In Mexico, the femi-

these groups have in common? They were all founded

nist movement mostly developed in Mexico City in

after a state-led-massacre-battered Mexico City on

the early 1970s and was known as new-wave, second-

October 2, 1968. They emerged with the common goal

wave, or Mexican neo-feminism, as Ana Lau Jaiven has

of denouncing Mexico’s political conditions through

described. This kind of feminism sought equity, with

art. However, there’s one other thing most of these

women’s bodies and their manifestations at its core.2

groups have in common: they were founded by men.

Mexico’s second-wave feminism was urban and

Where were the women amid this critical generation

university-based, rallying around shared dissatisfac-

of Mexican artists?

tion with the scarcity of women in Mexican politics. The

hen we talk about Mexico’s Generation of the Groups (Los Grupos), we often mention clusters like Pentagon Process

Well, they were there, but art history is patriarchal

1970s saw a variety of feminist collectives and groups

and hegemonic and has dedicated itself to making

emerge across multiple disciplines, including art. The

women invisible. The feminist art groups that estab-

feminist movement gained strength as the synergies

lished themselves at the time tend to be overlooked

between women who sought collectivity among shar­ed

when it comes to the Groups Generation. In an inter-

spaces became palpable. These women aimed to re-

view, feminist artist Mónica Mayer noted that, every

signify such spaces through their disciplines and de-

now and then, a feminist collective might be cited in

mands for justice in a country that had made them

a footnote, if at

all.1

However, the artistic practices

invisible —as is still the case today.

and discourses of these groups of women also sought

With all the ground that women had gained in

to denounce the country’s politics —and not only

Mexico and across the globe, feminism and feminist

that—; they also sought to appropriate and inhabit

art in Mexico reached a turning point in the year 1975,

spaces as women, deploying feminist discourse to re-

declared International Women’s Year by the United

define what it means to be a “woman” within a patri-

Nations. That year, Mexico hosted the World Confer-

archal system.

ence on Women, the first of its kind. The conference program included an exhibition on women in Mexican

* Marifé is project coordinator for Mercarte. She co-founded Art-Text Collaborative Laboratory (Co-Lab); you can contact her at marife.meflo@gmail.com.

art titled “Women as Creators and Theme in Art.” The pieces shown were created by men, relegating women to the background while reinforcing male-centric dis-

47


course. Women were present as muses, but not as

body. The body became a medium for protest, un-

creators.

tethered from the idea of the body as an object. The

Where were the women at this event? Well, paral-

body was re-appropriated and re-signified through

lel to these activities, Carla Stellweg —founder and

the condition of womanhood. Tools such as humor and

editor of the magazine Artes Visuales (Visual Arts)—

sarcasm were deployed to cast light on the dynamics

organized an interdisciplinary discussion seminar bas­ed

imposed by the patriarchal system.

on Linda Nochlin’s article “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” (1971). The seminar presentations were published in Artes Visuales in 1978. This

Black Hen Powder

not only helped spread the word, but it was also a pre­ cursor to the exhibition “Room 77/78: New Trends” in

Soon after The Quinceañera Party, the groups Tlacui-

Mexico City’s Museum of Modern Art, one of the first

las and Retrateras fell apart, as did Bio-Arte. However,

exhibitions of feminist art. Magali Lara, Mónica Mayer,

Black Hen Powder (pgn) remained active for almost

and Pola Weiss participated, ultimately breaking with

another decade (1983-1993), producing art prolifi-

art’s patriarchal, hegemonic discourse, in contrast to

cally. pgn emerged when Maris Bustamante and Mó­

the 1975 exhibition.

nica Mayer invited their friends to create a feminist art group. However, many women weren’t interested in joining due to the group’s “radicalism,” or feared

The Quinceañera Party: The Birth of Feminist Art Groups

being identified as feminists, Mónica Mayer has explained.3 The group called itself Black Hen Powder in allu-

Within this political, social, and cultural context, fem-

sion to a common remedy for the evil eye. Bustaman-

inist art emerged with the goal of inhabiting and

te and Mayer played with the idea of an amulet for

enunciating from the collective, with certain political

feminist artists —it was a hard undertaking back

proposals seeking to make the demands of women

then— and the humor and sarcasm that marked the

visible and question the patriarchal system. These

group’s artistic production could be gleaned from its

groups started consolidating themselves simultane-

very name.

ously as feminist ideals started to pave the way in the

Now, one of pgn’s main successes was that it set

1970s, while the 1980s saw the consolidation of groups

forth a number of goals as foundations for its practice,

like Tlacuilas (the Nahuatl word for “painter”) and Re-

which was common at the time, echoing the manifes-

trateras (meaning “portratists”) (1983-1984), who took

tos of the twentieth-century avant-garde.4 The pgn’s

on a painstaking investigation of the role of women in

goals were to study, promote, and analyze women in

Mexico’s artistic and social scene. One of their most

art; question and respond to the idea of the woman

emblematic actions was a performance held in the San

as a muse for art; and address the representation of

Carlos Academy in 1984: The Quinceañera Party (La

women in the Mexican media.

fiesta de xv años).

48

This is why their artistic practice involved creating

Two other feminist art groups participated in this

images and performative actions through the feminist

performance, Bio-Art (Bio-Arte, 1983-1984) and Black

perspective. The artists’ experiences as women in a

Hen Powder (Polvo de Gallina Negra, 1983-1993). Both

patriarchal system allowed them to question and trans-

groups’ performances questioned the implications of

form imposed stereotypes. Speaking from personal

quinceañera parties and the way this celebration pre­

experience —and hoping to avoid reification— it’s in-

sents women as objects that respond to the demands

teresting to think about how being a woman condi-

and desires of men. In doing so, these groups not only

tions the creative processes. It is in these intimate

made visible the backdrop of Mexico’s popular and

experiences that we can find ourselves with and in

almost ritualistic quinceañera parties, but also incor-

other women, generating a kind of empathy that emer­

porated a new medium in their artistic practice: the

ges as both critical and political.


pgn’s first piece, “Evil Eye for Rapists, or Peace Is the Respect for the Other’s Body,” took place at a feminist march against rape on October 7, 1983, at the Benito Juárez Semi-circle in Mexico City. The performance consisted of hexing rapists. Mayer and Bus­tamante dressed up as witches and mixed several ingredients in a cauldron to concoct a potion that they gave out to their audience. A few months after the performance, the recipe was published in FEM magazine’s 1984 issue. The potion called for the following:

Ingredients: - 2 dozen eyes and hearts of women who accept themselves as they are - 10 kilos of the sparks and lightning of a woman enraged by harassment - 1 ton of the steel muscles of a woman who demands respect for her body - 3 tongues of women who will never submit, even if they’ve been raped - 1 pouch of spinach-flavored gelatin from a woman who helps and comforts a raped woman - 30 grams of powdered voices that demystify rape - 7 drops of men who support the fight against rape - 1 pinch of legislators interested in the social change that we women demand - A few spoonfuls of relatives and schools that refrain from propagating traditional roles - 3 dozen messages from responsible communicators who are stopping the dissemination of images that promote rape - 3 hairs of a super-feminist - 2 eyeteeth of an opposition party member - ½ an ear from a spontaneous and curious person By carefully following the steps to this recipe, you will successfully brew this explosive concoction, with which you can take by surprise any rapists who might live at home or at your neighbor’s, the shy and the aggressive, the passive and the proactive, those lurking in the workplace or on the bus, and those hiding in the night we’ve come to take back.5

 Maris Bustamante and Mónica Mayer from Black Hen Powder in a scene from the performance ¡MADRES! part of a visual project from 1983 to 1987. * Photos courtesy of Mónica Mayer.

 Maris Bustamante and Mónica Mayer from Black Hen Powder performing the Recipe for Hexing Rapists, or "Respect for the Rights of Other's Bodies Is Peace," a take-off on Benito Juárez's famous saying, "Respect for the Rights of Others Is Peace" (1983).

49


Both this performance and the recipe wield the

ships with their mothers, conjuring a fictional future

group’s characteristic humor, which is not only palpa­

scenario in which the artists’ descendants would suc-

ble in the list of ingredients, but also in the way the

cessfully destroy the archetype of the mother.

text re-signifies “womanly duties.” Usually, when we

This art-mail exercise drew power from the col-

think of a recipe, we think of a kitchen —a place where

lectivity involved. This introspective action ques­

women have been boxed in by the patriarchy. This style

tion­ ed the relationships created and experienced

of writing, protesting, and making the issue of rape and

around the maternal figure. Putting together an entire

violence against women visible in Mexico is not only

art project around the mother as a theme speaks to

creative, but also very meaningful, because every time

the cultural weight that we grant such a figure, whom

a woman raises her voice, we hear voices that say, “Send

we associate with childrearing, love, and the home, or

her back to the kitchen.” This performance’s discourse

to whom we transfer our own mistakes. The figure of

subverts this idea and speaks from a space where we

the mother is an archetype imposed by the hetero­

have been boxed in by imposed gender roles.

patriarchal system, a goal to which this system says

Likewise, another of their greatest projects, “¡MA­

women should aspire. To reconsider and question this

DRES! (MOTHERS!), which can also be read as an em-

figure through writing and correspondence helps us

phatic, vulgar interjection, is rooted in Mónica Mayer

see ourselves in the other’s lived experiences.

and Maris Bustamante’s parallel motherhood. This se-

The second performance was Mother for a Day,

ries of actions and performances was based on moth-

which took place on Guillermo Ochoa’s program Our

erhood. It all started with Liberty, Equality, Maternity: pgn Strikes Again, which addressed maternity from the stance of participants’ personal relation-

Ana Paula Castro Garcés, 1975, 2021 (digital illustration). * Illustration courtesy of the author.

50


World, on Mexico’s Televisa television network. For

Through such exchanges between the piece and

the show, Ochoa cross-dressed as a pregnant woman,

the audience, pgn created a symbiotic relationship

and since Televisa has always been the cradle of Mex-

between its pieces and the public. That is, both agents

ican soap operas, the performers played with gender

complemented each other to fulfill their respective

stereotypes —which are deep-rooted in such tv

missions. The piece would share this truth with the

shows— as well as with the dichotomic ideas of good

audience, while the audience members participated

and bad that mark Televisa’s narratives.

in exposing this truth, recognizing it within their own

The tv program served as support for this live

context and lived experience.

performance, in which all participants —the perform-

Through reflection, pgn made an impact beyond

ers, tv host, and audience— completed and mediated

the play or performance, articulating several circuits

the piece’s cycle and intentionality. Mother for a Day

around the meaning of womanhood, of being a fem-

melds performance with spectacle, but the latter is

inist-woman-artist, thus amplifying the possibilities

conceived as a kind of rite that draws the spectator

of interaction and exchange beyond the museum and

in. This performance took place on mass media —Te­

gallery environment. This group’s production was root-

levisa—, which directly relates to the pgn’s goal of

ed in its purpose as a social and communicative ve-

disrupting the way women are portrayed in the media.

hicle for women’s personal and collective experience.

Reaching this audience was highly significant —while

The fact that we know about pgn can be attrib-

Televisa might have viewed the whole performance

uted to its members’ hard work, as they wrote down

as a mere comedy, its underlying meaning was impor-

and registered everything they ever did. This work

tant. The performance was ultimately a satire of the

was crucial, especially given that women artists and

tv network, mocking and laying bare the way women

feminist art in Mexico weren’t talked about in the

are represented and talked about in Televisa’s pro-

1970s and 1980s. There was generally little awareness

gramming.

of the matter. And curiously, this remains the case.

MOTHERS! stayed active for several years, with

Mónica Mayer has said that pgn is still just a footnote

several performances inciting reflection on the idea

in many texts and that there’s been no mention of it

of the maternal figure. This project always relied on

when alluding to “the Groups” and the counter-cul-

audience participation to satisfy its goal: to decon-

tural movement in Mexico.

struct and re-signify the archetype of the mother, so that the concept might divest itself from the definition of a woman who pours herself into her family and

 Notes

the home. Its goal was to make the woman behind the mother visible anew, no longer limited by the obligations imposed on her by misogynist society. This was the pgn’s final project, and in 1993, the group came to an end. While the handful of projects mentioned here are only a few of the many that pgn put together across a decade of activity, we can already gauge how these pieces center the idea of collective work. In their pieces, the audience was often both performer and witness. It would take part in collective consciousness, mediating between the piece or performance’s intentionality and the given support-object-performance. The pgn’s performances and pieces revealed the truth: the truth of artists’ everyday lives, conditioned by being women in society.

1 The information in this article comes from an interview with Mónica Mayer that I did on May 24, 2021 in Mexico City for my senior thesis, “El inicio del arte feminista en México. Una mirada al grupo Polvo de Gallina Negra (1983-1993)” (The Beginnings of Feminist Art in Mexico. A Look at the Black Hen Powder Group [1983-1993]). 2 Ana Lau Jaiven, “Emergencia y trascendencia del neofeminismo,” in Gisela Espinosa Damián and Ana Lau Jaiven, comps. Un fan­tas­ ma recorre el siglo. Luchas feministas en México 1910-2010, (Me­ xico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2011), p. 150. 3 Mónica Mayer May 24, 2021 interview, Mexico City, Mexico. 4 Andrea Giunta, “Feminismos artísticos en México, Manifiestos, conferencias, exposiciones y activismos,” in Feminismo y arte lati­ noamericano: Historias de artistas que emanciparon el cuerpo (Buenos Aires: Siglo xxi, 2018), pp. 137-179. 5 Grupo Polvo de Gallina Negra, “Receta del grupo polvo de galli­ na negra. Para hacerle el mal de ojo a los violadores o el respeto al derecho del cuerpo ajeno es la paz,” FEM vol. ix, no. 33 (1984), p. 53. Digitized by Archivos Feministas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, https://archivosfeministas.cieg.unam. mx/ejemplares/fem/volumen_9_n_33_Abril_Mayo_1984.pdf.

51


Dissertation on the Origin of Sight by Elisa Díaz Castelo* Illustrations by Armando Fonseca**

*Poet; @elisa_carinae. **Visual artist; @fuenteseca.

52


The first time you looked at me that way, trying to decipher the riddle of my body, my blood thickened and suddenly, I was skin, wholly, at midday. Years later I learned that our submarine ancestors developed, on their skin, a pair of slight, more sensitive grooves. They were eyes: black holes in which the world fell. What was temperature became light, seen for the first time, translated from touch. But in a way I’d already known. Without words, you showed me that to see is to touch, a variant that waives proximity. You were right in my hands, my lips, my drawn-out clavicles, what was visible and serene in my body. You knew me, glimpsed the ardor of skin, the true grit of sight, and without knowing, it’s true, you touched me. Let that be of comfort. (From Principia, 2018)

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V. I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. That’s when it happened. The last thing I remember is the sound of glass against the floor. I’m not sure if I woke up, if I’m alive. I’m my own colophon wrought of routine and bone. I died and held in my hand a plain glass of water. In the end, we are everything we let fall.

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Vida: a feminine noun: a needle in a haystack: a certain leaning of the light: vida: noun: see also: esto es vida: referring to chocolate cake: referring to smoking after sex: vida: gestation: reproduction: ovaries: fingernails on fetuses: vida: electrocardiogram: a declaration of love: of taxes: x-ray: leaves against the light: write a book plant a tree: etcetera: vida: etcetera: sound as a dollar: plus everything we forget:

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Orfelia Cleans Out the Closet The bridal dress hangs still in my closet and I don’t know where to buy moth balls. Lately this has been eating away at me. For starters, I worry I’m not familiar with the scent of white tar. I lack that memory, a grandmother taking pains to trace her first motifs with macerated hands, those days when she truly lived, years translated into fabric, lace, hems. Now more than ever I’m pained by all I didn’t have and thus cannot remember. I’m not familiar with the scent of moth balls. Worse yet, I don’t know where to buy them. It’s pressing. I imagine black moths, eyes on their wings, flitting across my white dress: filaments and antennas: muslin and lace. I don’t want to feed the insects, butterflies with night habits. Better for it to hang amid blank hours, its pages not written and thus unable to hold it all: what is no longer, a forever cut on the bias, finished off, a place where we were not, those we’ll never be. Because not us, I want the dress to hang, waistband, sequins and glass beads, every seam sustained by the white thread in the weave of a life that won’t ever be our own. Any moment now I could put it on and revert to the person I was like that favorite page of a cherished book, read so often it always opens exactly there. To tell time: this. This moment that didn’t pass. Let it go on, passing always.

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Or perhaps the moths would be better, in the closet’s dusty, perennial night, feeding off it on demand like mother’s milk sweetly aged in lace and muslin, so that chrysalids and caterpillars might grow, and, from the fabric, antennas morph into what they should be, flying, wing to wing, they rise. They will be the life not lived and take flight with aplomb. A descendance. They’ll don my wedding dress through the air, flutter light as ever, translated to nutrients, sustenance, substance of another life, one that won’t bear our name. They’ll be what we were not. Because it’s neither vile nor absurd to hope that only insects will survive us. (From El reino de lo no lineal, 2020)

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Young Mother By Maria Luisa Puga* Illustrations by Amanda Mijangos**

T

he birth? No, the birth was fine, I mean, apparently it was normal. Since it was my first, I was scared, of course, but I’d talked to lots of people — to my mother, my friends, even to the nurses. It was normal. You think you won’t be able

to stand it. That you’ll break. That no one will even notice, or worse yet, that no one will believe it. I must have spent the whole time trying to find a way to communicate that I really couldn’t stand it any longer. I wanted to be sure I’d convinced them before the screaming came, the real screaming, I mean, because I could feel myself screaming the whole time, or moaning, I’m not sure, but when all of a sudden someone said, “That’s it; you’ve been very brave,” and I heard her — I heard her cry — it was incredible, and I felt scared — I’d thought they’d brought her in from the room next door. She cried as if she’d been shaken awake. I couldn’t understand. I also started crying, because I felt so sad and alone, and I knew no one would understand me. Everyone was shuffling around, and I felt like I was being yanked and cleaned and that people were putting stuff on me. When a nurse said, “Everything is okay, calm down. It’s a girl, don’t cry,” I couldn’t believe her, I couldn’t. I thought I had died and was dreaming — or living my life as a dead person. I don’t know what happened next. When I woke up, they brought her in, swaddled and clean, so that I could feed her. I did what I was told. I felt clumsy and I could feel her sucking on my breast. It was true. The milk flowed and something was sucking there. I touched her, felt her breathe, but no, I couldn’t believe it. Then they took her, and I fell into a dark, narrow sleep, like I would in the months before her birth. A vaulted space. It’s not like I thought it was bad, I mean, it didn’t scare me or cause me pain. It was just the angst of getting to the other side. I don’t know when it started. I noticed it one day. Perhaps the first time I felt her inside me. It was quite strange. Neither pleasant nor

*Mexican writer (1944-2004). **Visual artist; @amandamijangos.


unpleasant. Strange. As if I were two, without knowing who the other was. I started spying on her. We were both in my body — no, I’m not talking about the baby. When I thought about the baby, it was different. I talked to the baby a lot, all the time, I think. And Mario and I would make plans for when the baby was born. But that was different. That was when I’d force myself to stop feeling the vault, that other presence, that lack of a body. I’d force myself because no one else noticed. Not Mario, not anyone. Because I couldn’t really see anything different when I looked in the mirror. And because the doctor said my pregnancy was going well, that I was in good health. And whenever I told him I felt strange, he’d say it was all normal, being my first. I forced myself to believe him. But I dragged that body along with me, feeling more panicked by the day. I felt that my voice was dropping lower and lower. That only I could hear it. That people would only be able to hear if I screamed a lot. Something in my head was closing up and getting darker, and I had to go find another way out, any way at all. I couldn’t see anything from where I was. The night started to scare me. When the streets fell quiet, when Mario turned off the light for bed, I was terrified. And when the sun came out, I could see myself making breakfast, going shopping, preparing the baby clothes, talking to people knowing none of it was real, it wasn’t real, I wasn’t really there, but trapped in this endless cave that went on and on and on, and I even thought about trying to get used to it, because apparently people were accepting me as I was. Mario still loved me, and the doctor said it was all going fantastically. Sometimes my legs would swell, I’d feel nauseous, tired — the usual things that happen during pregnancy. I’d feel relief. Those were the only times when my body and I were one. I sensed that I had to protect my body against those other things. But I’m young, I’m strong. The unease wouldn’t last. It’d go away quickly and leave behind a murky taste in my mouth. Right away, I knew I was back. I’d see everything from a distance. I was lost again. I didn’t realize I started feeling sadder and sadder. That when I smiled, a contorted gesture would take over my face.



That the laughter wasn’t my own. I think I failed to notice because I’d conjured up a hope. Or other people had. Maybe it wasn’t even hope. Every time I said I felt depressed, people would say it was normal, that it would all pass once the baby was born. That it was all due to spending so much energy and who knows what else. That I shouldn’t worry about it. So, I started counting the days. Living with my eyes glued to that date when the birth was expected. To wait out loud. To close my eyes every time I felt that vault. I also think that’s why I started to hide it. To pretend every time I was with someone else. Even when I looked in the mirror. It was like holding my breath. It’s almost over, almost over. Once the baby’s out of here, there’ll be people outside again. I had to believe that because I had to believe there’d be an end to it, a way out on the other side. I almost felt curious about observing what was happening to me from very close up. That being without being there. That unbeing. That dark dream. Because I yearned for something else. And the impatience kept me from sleeping at night. And when they took me to the hospital, I grabbed the nurses’ hands so that they wouldn’t leave me back there, so they wouldn’t leave me on the other side, whatever the cost. I saw it all clearly during childbirth. I don’t know about pain. Pain was being surrounded by all those people, while I was trapped and alone and didn’t know what to do or how. And seeing the baby being born, a girl, like I wanted. I heard Mario saying she’d be called Alina, a name he had chosen, but that I had chosen, too, with all my hopes and desire to live, for her to be called Alina, for her to be our baby, for her to teach us how to live with her. Feeling her feeding off me I knew that, no, I had not left the vault, that it couldn’t be, that no one understood me when I said I wasn’t well, and I’d hear that phrase again, another of those faraway, useless phrases, another illusory border, that postpartum depression is normal, that it’d be over in a few days, while the scream forming inside me couldn’t find a way out, and my baby didn’t know, and felt confident, alone, like me, alone. “And now?” “When the vault caved in, I felt strong. Everything shattered around me. Alina died. I’m broken. It’s time to live any way possible, wherever I can, with what I can.”

The autor was inspired to write this short story when she read the following news article in The Guardian:

London

Dec. 28, 1977:

“A YOUNG MOTHER SUFFERING FROM POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION JUMPED OUT OF A FOURTH-FLOOR WINDOW AT A TRAINING HOSPITAL IN LONDON, WITH HER THREE-DAY-OLD BABY. THE LITTLE BABY DIED; THE INJURED MOTHER LIVED...”)

We would like to thank Patricia Puga for her permission to publish her sister´s short story.

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Beka Peralta

Bullfight Huapango, 2020.

Christian Gómez*

Ana Segovia’s Painting: Feeling Uncomfortable in The Categories We Inhabit

O

ver the last decade, and especially for the last five years, contemporary art in Mexico has rekindled its interest in the pictorial. Up against the macro-narratives of globalized and neoliberal contemporary art, which focus on post-conceptual practices and media freedom,

the discipline’s possibilities have, in many ways, been obliterated. Nonetheless, plenty of research and exhibition projects, as well as the practices of numerous artists, have revealed a plethora of questions. Among these projects, we might cite Post-Neo-Mexicanisms, a curatorial research project undertaken by curator Willy Kautz, the current director of the Siqueiros Public Art Gallery (saps) and the La Tallera Workshop at the National Institute of Fine Arts (inbal) under the espac Collection’s program.2 Published as a book in 2016, this project shows how the pictorial practice has prevailed among various artists who are often merely catalogued as post-conceptual. Further, the book points toward the discipline’s vitality, as new voices and questions continue to emerge. To name but a few * Christian is a professor of art and communication at the unam School of Political Science and is the program coordinator for Association for Contemporary Art (pac); you can contact him at christiangomez@hotmail.com.

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Original painting at La Faena cantina.

examples, we might look toward the Tamayo Biennial’s revamping, the prowess of the José Atanasio Monroy Painting Biennial, and the large scale of the Tijuana Triennial: International Pictorial, first held at the Tijuana Cultural Center (cecut) in 2021. As curator Esteban King stated in reference to artist Leo Marz, “In this image-saturated world, dominated by the unfiltered and never-ending scrolling through mobile phones and the 4G Network, painting serves as a decelerating tool to stop time and reflect about images.”2 To stop the image and reflect about time. There’s no doubt in my mind that this art historian’s point of view is just as applicable when it comes to reflecting upon the work of other contemporary artists. Painting is still a privileged medium that allows us to stop and consider the visuality of our era. It is in this spirit that I would like to stop and think about the artist Ana Segovia (Mexico City, 1991), whose body of work —through the appearance and seeming repetition of well-known images, as well as through her intense use of color— allows us to reflect upon the constructions and impositions of gender roles and desire, as well as the influence that the media exerts on them. All of these elements provoke our estrangement with the ways in which we embody such constructions, but also with the ways we criticize them. In many senses, Segovia invites us to feel uncomfortable with the categories we inhabit.

The Charro, Revisited Having studied visual arts at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she specialized in painting and drawing, Segovia developed her research into stereotypical images of the vaquero cowboy and the Mexican horseback riders known as charros. She has stated that, through her work, she aims to offer a reflection on masculinity and the sociocultural conventions around it. Her paintings, in which she has recognized the formal influence of artists such as David Hockney, Dana Schutz, and Francis Bacon, are filled with literary and cinematographic references, especially from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. In them, her interest in performative masculinity shines through.

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As a lesbian woman, she inhabits the contradiction of seeking to perform certain elements of these stereotypes, despite living in an era that criticizes and dismantles them. As the curator Andrea Bustillos wrote regarding the exhibition “A Boy Named Sue” at Mexico City’s Karen Huber Gallery in 2017, “One of her main concerns remains the ways of construction —regardless of whether that refers to cinematographic and pictorial images, or gender identity. In Segovia’s work, every object becomes a symbol that reveals, questions, and even disorients; they fill the atmosphere. Her honesty and courage make her go against the current of the gender discourses currently in vogue, for example: its references to hyper masculinity and the objectification of desire and of the other.” How, then, can a pictorial practice like Ana Segovia’s be approached? I can think of at least three paths. First, I could divest myself of the idea of writing from the perspective of an expert who unilaterally evaluates and describes her practice, instead giving way to another, more situated position that recognizes my writing not as the product of an art historian, but as that of a homosexual man who attempts to enter into dialogue with these images of his time, which address certain issues that crosscut his own experiences as well. Second, I could work with the idea that the artist’s approach to masculine constructs is not reactionary, but rather uses the pictorial space to offer the possibility of decelerating: she offers up a slower time so that we can think about the deluge of images that is incessantly recasting and reconfiguring gender constructions. Lastly, I should recognize that she has ultimately produced a queer space, inviting us to get uncomfortable with the categories where we have been forced to inhabit. Images from the exhibition "Well, This Song's Over," at the Carrillo Gil Art Museum, Mexico City, 2021.

From Forlorn Encounters to Shared Frenzy The first time I encountered her work was when we both participated in the project Multiple Gesture (El gesto múltiple), a

“In Segovia’s work, every object becomes a symbol that reveals, questions, and even disorients; they fill the atmosphere. Her honesty and courage make her go against the current of the gender discourses currently in vogue.”

pu­blication, exhibition, and pictorial gathering of many artists in November 2018 as part of the program at the Machine Room gallery (El cuarto de máquinas). This exhibition by Marco Treviño, who is from Monterrey, proposed a broad reflection on painting. To this end, we created a publication, printed by S-Ediciones and El cuarto de máquinas publishing houses, which included a series of essays on contemporary painting; a collective painting exhibition; and a huge, festive inauguration in which we broadly and collectively discussed our ideas about the discipline. Marco Treviño’s work consisted of building this space around pictorial practices and making it possible to discuss them.

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I only fleetingly remember Ana Segovia’s work in that context. In passing, I heard someone say, “Ana is making some huge paintings, and these are very small.” I barely paid attention, but these small-scale pieces depicted hands gripping guns. The pieces proffered an analysis, through painting, of the gesture of pointing with guns, an eminently masculine gesture at that. I only noticed fleetingly, quick as a revolver, but the image stayed with me. Some time later, I started running into her work at several collectives, but it wasn’t until February 2020 that I encountered one of her most powerful pieces. In the context of Mexico City’s art fair week, the artist put on an exhibition called “Bullfight Huapango” (Huapango torero) at La Faena, an emblematic bullfight-themed cantina in downtown Mexico City. There, a painting several meters long hangs in the cantina as part of its general decor, depicting a man who’s raising the barbed wire fence around a bull corral to cross into it. On top of it, in the same scale, Ana Segovia paints an image of herself crossing into the corral. In contrast to the man in the original painting, who wears a beret, she dons a baseball cap and an orange sweatshirt —both painted in her own, vibrant color pallet and resembling the clothes she actually wears. Ana Segovia jumps over the wire of pricks. The artist covers up the man with an image of her own body. Perhaps someone might think of uttering a bullfighting phrase and say that she crosses brava, fiercely, but I also think of this image as an artistic gesture that says, “I, too, can cross.” Lucky to find myself alone in a place that’s usually bursting with crowds, as I observed the painting, I thought of something I’d heard her say before: the idea of the contradiction involved in desiring to perform certain elements of masculinity at the same time that we’ve distanced ourselves from these same elements. I thought that, perhaps, we were cross­ ing paths, even though we were heading in different directions. In my writing practice, I’ve attempted to divest myself of the figure of the male expert at all costs. In her case, there is a thrusting herself forward, which makes me consider the persistence of asymmetry of gender relations. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t know what to do if faced with that barbed-wire fence. It occurred to me that, perhaps, I’d never crossed it. Then I finally got to meet her. I’d spotted her in several collective exhibitions, but we’d never spoken. I’d seen her work, known her face, and read her, but never met her in person. We met at an exhibition on maternity and care by the artist Tahanny Lee Betancourt. At a relaxed gathering after the exhibition, we danced and sang in the same circle. I confessed to Ana that I’d been following her work, and we talked about a couple of texts, perhaps about the way her work sparks questions around gender roles. At the gathering, the artists and attendees created a collective playlist,

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singer Pedro Infante. She chose the song “One Hundred Years” (Cien años). I wanted her to sing to me. In this shared frenzy, I became convinced that she embodied the questions in her images.

Octavio Rivadeneyra

and Ana decidedly chose a song by the traditional Mexican ranchera

Desire across Different Spaces In 2020 and 2021, her work was included in three exhibitions at influential art spaces. First, she showed in the collective exhibition “Normal Exceptions: Contemporary Art in Mexico,” a twentyyear review of the Jumex Museum; she also showed in “OTRXS MUNDXS: (Some) Other Worlds,” on the works by a new generation of artists, at the Tamayo Museum. However, the exhibiExhibition Bullfight Huapango at La Faena, 2020.

tion that shook me the most was of her individual project “Well, This Song’s Over” (Pos’ se acabó este cantar), which ran from April to its scale and intimacy, this exhibition was the one that provoked the most thought, emotion, and puzzling feelings in me, given the ways it revisited the archetypes of masculinity that emanate from the same visual culture that permeates Mexican cinema, one of Segovia’s main thematic sources. In her paintings,

Octavio Rivadeneyra

to July 2021, at the Carrillo Gil Art Museum’s project room. Due

Segovia pushes us to think about the ways in which these archetypes become widespread, are dismantled, go astray, and re-signify themselves in affective and festive spaces, such as in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersexual, transvestite, or queer bars. This makes me wonder how we might wrest back these archetypes, which have been imposed by the patriarchy, to deconstruct, re-signify, and transform them into something different and our own. Her paintings push me to question how much of our desire is merely a construction. “Well, This Song’s Over” is simply a collection of just a few

La Faena cantina in downtown Mexico City.

paintings and a brief video. In the video, Even if I Prick My Hand, two people dressed as charros interact through gestures: they play a hand-clapping game, help each other tuck in their shirts when putting on their charro suits, hug tenderly, experience mutual desire, slap the other’s face, and shake each other. Minute by minute, they perform the charro in a cycle that ends with a fist punching the wall until it breaks. This pictorially created video boasts her bright, pastel pallet. Surrounding this video-canvas, one can observe the other paintings: one depicts a bar crowded with men in hats (“INTERIOR, Night at the Cantina,” 2020), with some of the men dancing in a disconcerting light that tints the whole venue in a Mexican pink, making the images vibrate with it; while in the other someone wears a dress, with arms crossed, before two men, one of whom plays guitar, while the other grasps

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In her paintings, Segovia pushes us to think about the ways in which these archetypes become widespread, are dismantled, go astray, and re-signify themselves in affective and festive spaces, such as in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersexual, transvestite, or queer bars.


his belt, almost touching his groin (“EXTERIOR NIGHT, Pedro

All in all, the text at hand is nothing but a public letter to Ana,

and Company,” 2020). I consider myself in this space: I hope we’re

to tell her that I’m writing about my thoughts and feelings on her

straying, becoming something other than Mexican pink.

work, as well as about some of my memories of how we first met. I would like to tell her that we crossed paths on the spectrum of desire, that her work helps me question certain visualities that

Writing about Ourselves

I don’t believe in, so that I might reformulate new ways of inhabiting them. I would also like to say that her work harkened me

Lastly, in another exhibition at the Zapopan Art Museum in 2021,

back to Sara Ahmed’s thoughts in “Queer Feelings,” where she

called “Peeper, join us!” alluding to people who live inside the

writes that “We can feel uncomfortable in the categories we in-

closet and only occasionally peer outside at gay pride parades, Ana

habit, even categories that are shaped by their refusal of public

Segovia showed her work alongside artist Alan Sierra and sev-

comfort.”3 This is the case with the “queer” category, too, as it

eral others. As part of a seminar on the exhibition, they held a talk

disrupts the hegemonic heterosexual space. As such, all we can

about queer writing and narratives. They considered the task of

do is vibrantly recast our categories, spaces, and identities, just

writing among ourselves, as people whose sexual spectrums go

like Ana does in her own work. So, I’m glad to be moved by her

beyond the heterosexual, which has wielded so much control over

and think of her as a spectator who once passed her by, but who

our narratives. I wrote down a few of the phrases I heard there,

won’t ever overlook her again. I would like to tell her that I hope

never to be forgotten: “What’s the difference with them, the ones

to cross the barbed-wire fence with her.

who’ve always written among themselves?” they asked. “Let their narratives become fissured. The rest of us give ourselves over to writing from other places of enunciation.” “When we change this, we’re writing the future,” said Alan. “When we write about ourselves, we don’t wait for permission. I faced problems in my learning space, because I made other people visible who didn’t have their blessing. Then they became interested. With language, we’re producing that space of visibility,” said the museum’s curator.

 Notes 1 espac is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study, dissemination, and promotion of contemporary art based on multiple readings and approaches. 2 Andrés Gómez Servín, ed., Monolito. Leo Marz (Mexico City: Mixedmedia.Press, n.d.), p. 80. 3 Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004).

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2

26

3

6

8

25 10

19 32 18

28 1

15 9

24 12

22 14

16

11 7 17 13

29 21

31

30

20

27

5

Map by Juan Palomino. Visual artist; @juanpalomino.ilustrador.

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4

23


Aline Meza Corona*

The Republic of Letters [This map includes only a small sample of the literary talent of thousonds of Mexican women writers of all time.]

Dolores Castro (Aguascalientes, 1923) is a fiction writer,

in 2012. Her work appears in several anthologies, such

poet, and founder and producer at Radio unam. She

as Women of Chiapas. Making History in Times of Struggle

has received many awards, such as the Mazatlán Na-

and Hope (2003) and Laissez parler notre coeur. Poètes

tional Prize for Poetry (1980); the Ramon López Velar­de

indiens du Chiapas (2007). (5)

Ibero-American Prize for Poetry (2013); the National

Elpidia García Delgado (Chihuahua, 1959) is a fiction writ-

Sciences and Arts Prize for Literature and Linguistics

er and member of the Zurdo Mendieta Novel Collec-

(2014); and the José Emilio Pacheco Medal for her life’s

tive. Among other awards, in 2012 she received the

work in 2016. (1)

David Alfaro Siqueiros Fellowship for Short Story; in

Rebeca Orozco Mora (Baja California, 1956) is a fiction

2013, the IChiCult Publications Program Prize; and

writer. She has penned scripts for radio and television

the Amparo Dávila Fine Arts Prize for Short Story in

and a play, Zaidé, and won the Julio Bracho Prize for the

2018 for her El hombre que mató a Dedos Fríos y otros

Best Experimental Theater in 1987. She also received

relatos. In 2017, she won the Forcan Migrant Words

the Antonio García Cubas Prize awarded by the Na-

competition. (6)

tional Institute of Anthropology and History (inah) in 2006 for Detrás de la mascara. (2)

Liliana Pedroza (Chihuahua, 1976) is a writer and researcher. Among other honors, she has received the Ultra-

Estela Davis (Baja California Sur, 1935) is the author of

short Story Extraordinary Prize at the 2007 Garzón

books of short stories, local history, novels and other

Céspedes International Micro-fiction Competition,

contributions, making her the most prolific author in

the Chihuahua Prize for Literature (2008), and the Ju­

her home state of South Baja California, even though

lio Torri National Prize for Short Story (2009). (6)

she only began her literary production less than twen-

Coral Bracho (Mexico City, 1951) is a poet and has been

ty years ago when she published El alojamiento en Baja

a member of the National System of Creators. Among

California Sur (1998). She has also published Cuando

other awards, she received the Aguascalientes Na-

salga el sol, La visita, and Los días circulares. (3)

tional Prize for Poetry (1981) for El ser que va a morir,

Laura Baeza (Campeche, 1988) is a fiction writer and ed-

the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize (2003) for Ese espacio, ese

itor. She won at the National University Floral Games

jardín, and the Jaime Sabines-Gatien Lapointe Inter-

(2013) for her Al fondo se ve el mar. She was also award-

national Prize for Poetry (2011). (7)

ed the Julio Torri National Prize for Short Story for her

Guadalupe Nettel (Mexico City, 1973) won the Ribera del

Ensayo de orquesta and the 2017 Gerardo Cornejo Na-

Duero Prize for Short Fiction with her El matrimonio

tional Prize for Fiction for Época de cerezos. (4)

de los peces rojos (2013) and the Herralde Prize for a

Ruperta Bautista (Chiapas, 1975) is a writer and transla-

novel for Después del invierno (2014). She has contrib-

tor from Tsotsil. She won the Pat O’Tan Prize for In-

uted to publications like Granta, The White Review, El

digenous Poetry in 2001 and the Benito Juárez Medal

País, The New York Times in Spanish, La Repubblica, and La Stampa. She is the director of the unam’s Revista de

* Aline is a student of Spanish language and literature at the unam Acatlán campus of the School for Higher Studies; you can contact her at alinemeza33@gmail.com.

la Universidad de México. (7) Luisa Josefina Hernández (Mexico City, 1928) is a writer and playwright. She developed a useful system of

69


Voices of Mexico 115

analysis for work in the theater. Among other prizes,

Valeria Luiselli (Mexico City, 1983) is the author of the

she has received the Magda Donato Prize for Nostalgia

books of essays Papeles falsos (2010) and Los niños per­

de Troya (1971) and the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize for her

didos (2016), and the novels Los ingrávidos (2011), La

Apocalipsis cum figuris (1982). She is also an Emeritus

historia de mis dientes (2013), and Desierto sonoro (2019,

Creator at Mexico’s National Council for Culture (Co­

all published by Sexto Piso). She has received three

naculta). (7) Margo Glantz (Mexico City, 1930) is a writer, essayist, lite­ rary critic, and academic. She delves into issues such

awards: The Los Angeles Times Book Award (2014 and 2015), the American Book Award (2018), and the Fernanda Pivano Award (2020). (7)

as eroticism, migration, and memory. She is a mem-

Enriqueta Ochoa (Coahuila, 1928-2008) was a poet. Among

ber of the Mexican Academy of Language and has

other awards, she was named Favorite Daughter of

received many awards, such as the National Prize for

Coahuila in 1979. In 1994, the National Council for

Science and the Arts (2004) and the Xavier Villaur-

Culture (Conaculta) and the Municipality of Torreón

rutia Prize (1984), as well as a Rockefeller fellowship

created the Enriqueta Ochoa National Poetry Com-

in 1996 and a Guggenheim fellowship in 1998. (7)

petition; and in 2008 she received the Fine Arts Medal.

María Luisa Puga (Mexico City, 1944-2004) was a writer

Her poems have been translated into English, French,

of fiction and a contributor to the El Universal, La Jor­

German, and Japanese. (8)

nada, La Plaza, and Unomásuno newspapers. She re-

Nadia Contreras (Colima, 1976) is a writer, academic, and

ceived a fellowship from the National System of

workshop leader. Among other awards, she has re­

Creators in 2001 and in 1983 received the Xavier Vil-

ceiv­ed Honorable Mention in the contest for the Elías

laurrutia Prize for her Pánico o peligro and in 1996 was

Nandino National Prize for Poetry (2001), the Colima

awarded the Juan Ruiz de Alarcón Prize. (7)

State Youth Prize (2002), the Mexican Institute for

Mercedes Alvarado (Mexico City, 1984) is a poet, and the

Youth Poetry Prize (2003), the Salvador Márquez Gi-

author of the artistic project “Y hasta la muerte amar.”

leta Competition for Fiction (2011), and the Griselda

She has lectured about contemporary Mexican and

Álvarez Ponce de León Prize for her literary produc-

urban literature in Norway and has contributed to

tion (2014). (9)

magazines like Blanco Móvil, Flanzine (Portugal), and

Atenea Cruz (Durango, 1984) is a writer of fiction and a

Monolito, and is included in the anthologies Púas en el

poet. She has received awards and honors such as the

alambre (2006), 60 minicuentos (2008), and Antología de

National Prize for Fantasy and Science Fiction Short

mujeres poetas (2014). (7)

Story (2017, the Beatriz Quiñones Regional Prize for

Rosa Beltrán (Mexico City, 1960) is a writer and pro­fessor.

Poetry (2012), and the National Fund for Culture and

A member of the Mexican Academy of Language since

the Arts (Fonca) fellowship for young short story writ-

2014, she received fellowships from the Mexican Cen-

ers (2018-2019). She has been a columnist and book

ter for Writers and the Fulbright in 1993, the Planeta-

reviewer in many magazines. (10)

Joaquín Mortiz Prize for La corte de los ilusos (1995), the

Nellie Campobello (Durango, 1900-1986) witnessed and

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz honor from the unam in 2011,

wrote about the Mexican Revolution, in addition to

and the José Emilio Pacheco Prize for Excellence in

being a precursor of ballet in our country. Her literary

Letters in 2022. (7)

work, including Cartucho, has made her be considered

Rosario Castellanos (Mexico City, 1925-1974) was a writer, journalist, and diplomat, considered one of Mexi-

70

the first modern female fiction writer of twentiethcentury Mexico. (10)

co’s most important female literary figures of the

Alma Mancilla (State of Mexico, 1974) has been includ­ed

twentieth century. In 1958 she received the Chiapas

on the Borderlines Writer’s Circle list in Edmonton,

Prize, for her Balún Canán, and two years later, the Xavi-

Canada (2015). Among the awards she has received

er Villaurrutia Prize for Ciudad Real, among other awards.

are the Benemérito de las Américas Fifth National

Several public places have been named after her, as

Contest for Poetry and Short Stories (2001) for her

well as a few libraries, including the library in the unam

book Los días del verano más largo, the Gilberto Owen

Center for Gender Research and Studies (cieg). (7)

National Prize for Literature (2011) for Las babas del


Women

caracol, and the Ignacio Manuel Altamirano National

Margarita Michelena (Hidalgo, 1917-1998) was a poet and

Prize for the Novel (2020) for El libro de las brujas. (11)

essayist. She was a founder of the daily paper El Co­

Araceli Ardón (Guanajuato, 1958) is a writer and cultu­ral

tidiano, the editor-in-chief of El Libro y el Pueblo, Res­

promotor. She founded and headed the Comunica­

puesta, La Cultura en México, and Cuestión; an editor at

ción del Centro publishing house. In 1988, she received

Novedades and Excélsior dailies; a scriptwriter at the

the Rosario Castellanos National Prize for Journalism

xew radio station; and a host on xemx Radio Femeni-

and Literature from the World Association of Women

na. She contributed to América, Casa de la Cultura, Esta­

Journalists and Writers. The Congress of the state of

ciones, Examen, and México en la Cultura. She translated

Querétaro awarded her the Junípero Serra Medal in

Raymon Aron, Baudelaire, Nerval, and Proust. (14)

2006 for contributing to local cultural development,

María Refugio Barragán Carrillo (Jalisco, 1843-1916) pub-

and since 2016, she has coordinated the Querétaro

lished a series of works: Celajes de Occidente and La hija

Center for the Arts. (12)

de Nazaret simultaneously in 1880; and the novels Liber­

Emma Godoy (Guanajuato, 1918-1989) was an essayist,

tinaje y virtud o el verdugo del hogar (1881), Premio del bien

fiction writer, and poet. She was the honorary presi-

y castigo del mal (1884), and La hija del bandido o los sub­

dent of the Pan-American University Philosophic Ath-

te­rráneos del Nevado (1887), her most popular work. (15)

enaeum and a member of the International Academy

Concha Urquiza (Michoacán, 1910-1945) was a poet and

of Philosophy of Art. Among the awards she received

professor of history and literature in San Luis Potosí.

were the International Sophia Prize (1979), the Sor Jua­

She was a militant of the Communist Party and con-

na Inés de la Cruz Prize given by the Mexican Athenae-

tributed to the magazines Ábside, Aula, Juventud, Labor,

um of Women, and the William Faulkner Prize given by the University of Virginia. (12)

Logos, México al Día, Rueca, and Saber. (16) Leticia Herrera Álvarez (Michoacán, 1954) is a playwright,

Benita Galeana (Guerrero, 1903-1995) was a feminist writ-

fiction writer, and poet translated into several lan-

er, suffragette, union organizer, and activist for wom-

guages. She was named author of the year by the

en’s and workers’ rights. As a Communist, she fought

Universum de Italia publishing house and has been

for the eight-hour day, equal wages, and the creation of

included in Globus, the international anthology of

child care centers. Her home is now the Center for Wom-

end-of-millennium poets (1999). She has written cre-

en’s Studies and the Social Struggle. She authored two

ative scripts and adaptations of classic works for ra-

autobiographical works: Benita and El peso mocho. (13)

dio and television and received multiple prizes for

Reyna Grande (Guerrero,1975) crossed the border with-

poetry and fiction. (16)

out papers to live in Los Angeles with her father. She

Alejandra Atala (Morelos, 1966) is a fiction writer and poet.

was the first in her family to receive a college degree

She has been giving workshops, lectures, and diploma

(from the University of California). She has received,

courses since 1995. She was the coordinator of the

among other honors, the American Book Award, the

Morelos State Cultural Institute’s Publishing Fund and

Aztlán Literary Award (2006) for A través de cien mon­

has contributed to El Nacional del Sur, La Otra, La Jorna­

tañas, and the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chi-

da Semanal, Textual, and Voz de la Tribu. She is the creator

cano/Latino Literature for 2015. She is a member of

and host of the literary radio program “Vuelo entre

the Macondo Writers Workshop, founded by Sandra

líneas” and won the Medal of Honor for Culture in

Cisneros (Texas). (13)

2016 awarded by the Morelos State Congress. (17)

Ilallalí Hernández (Hidalgo, 1981) is a fiction writer and

Adelaida Martínez Aguilar (Nayarit, 1870-?) was a teacher,

editor. As a freelance editor, she manages cultural

writer, and poet. In 1886, se was awarded her degree

projects at the binational magazine Literal Latin Amer­

as a primary school teacher and was sent to work in her

ican Voices. She won the Hidalgo State Youth Institute

hometown, Santiago Ixquintla, Nayarít, where she taught

literary prize for 2001 and the Ricardo Garibay Short

and gave piano lessons. Beginning in 1893, she wrote

Story Competition in 2006. In 2008, she enjoyed a Mex-

poetry in the local newspaper, El Fonógrafo under the

ico-Colombia artistic residence with support from the

pseudonym Celia. Leaureana Wright de Kleinhans

National Fund for Culture and the Arts (Fonca). (14)

mentions her in Mujeres notables mexicanas (1910). (18)

71


Voices of Mexico 115

Iliana Hernández Partida (Nayarit) published a collection

Lola Ancira (Querétaro, 1987) is a writer of fiction, editor,

of poems, Apuntes para La Malquerida de Gabriel Fi­gue­

and model. She edits the digital magazine Zarzamora

roa, and some of her short stories and poems ha­ve

and is a contributor to Yaconic, Panóptico, Tierra Adentro,

been included in Poemas, cuentitos y cuentotes (2014), Via­

El Cultural, and La Jornada Semanal. Some of her short

je a la oscuridad (2015), and Outrage: A Protest Anthology

stories have been published in the magazines Proyec­

for Injustice in a Post 9/11 World (2015). (18)

to Neurosis, Onomatopeya, and La Testadura Literaria and

Elsa D. Solórzano (Nuevo León, 1960) has published

have been included in different anthologies. (22)

short stories, novels, and poetry. She received an hon-

Sara Uribe (Querétaro, 1978) is a poet and the director of

orary mention in 2011 for her novel En tierra ajena.

the Tampico Historical Archive. She won the Tijuana

Among her prize-winning short stories are “La mu-

National Prize for Poetry (2005) and has been a con-

ñeca de trapo” (2012) and “Números romanos” (2018),

tributor to the magazines Blanco Móvil, Saloma Letras

and in 2020, she was given the Juan Rulfo Parchment award. (19)

entre Ríos, Shearsman, and Tierra Adentro. (22) Mariel Turrent Eggleton (Quintana Roo, 1967) is the co-

Gabriela Riveros Elizondo (Nuevo León, 1973) is a writer

founder of the Malix Editores publishing house. Among

of fiction. She won the udem Contest for Short Story

the awards she has received are the Eight Deer King

Writing (1993) and the Deutsche Welle Literary Prize

Prize for the best poem of the year, given at the Tenth

(1995) for her radio-drama Ven por el chile y la sal. Her

International Conference of Women Poets Mexico, 2002,

books El encargo de Fernanda and Mi hermano Paco won

and the Juan Domingo Argüelles Prize for Short Story

her the Castillo de la Lectura Prize for Children’s Lit-

of 1999. (23)

erature in 2000 and 2001. (19)

Carolina Toro (San Luis Potosí 1976) is an announcer and

Clyo Huitzilin Mendoza Herrera (Oaxaca, 1993) is a writ-

fiction writer and an active member of the Michoacán

er and poet and was awarded a National Fund for Cul-

Writers’ Society. She produces a program on aural lit-

ture and the Arts (Fonca) fellowship (2015-2016). In

erature, “Letra Viva,” for the radio. Her book of short

2017, she won the prize for poetry at the Sor Juana Inés

stories La sombra de las cornisas won the Manuel José

de la Cruz International Literature Competition, the

Othón Prize for fiction in 2016. (24)

youngest writer to have won it. With support from

Inés Arredondo (Sinaloa, 1928-1989) was one of the coun-

the Antonio Gala Foundation, she enjoyed a residence

try’s most brilliant short story writers, translators,

in Córdoba, Spain. (20)

and art critics. She dealt with issues that were deli-

Irma Pineda Santiago (Oaxaca, 1974) is a poet and trans-

cate for Mexican society, questioning traditional roles

lator of Zapotec. She has participated in international

and values. Born in Sinaloa, she was awarded the

literary conferences such as the Congress on Orality

Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1979, as well as other im-

and Literature, the World Poetry Festival in Venezue­

Patricia Carrillo Collard (Sinaloa, 1972) is a co-founder

She was the president of the Association of Writers in

of the Alternatives and Skills group and collaborates

Indigenous Languages and has been included in an-

in the Gendes Council, an organization that works on

thologies such as Guie’ sti’ diidxazá/La flor de la palabra

the issue of masculinities. She writes children’s sto-

(unam, 1999) and Los 43: poetas por Ayotzinapa (2015). (20)

ries; her book Nadie que me comprenda won the Gilber­

Elena Garro (Puebla, 1916-1998) was a scriptwriter, jour-

72

portant honors. (25)

la, and the International Poetry Festival of Medellín.

to Owen National Prize for Literature in 2015. (25)

nalist, and fiction writer. She won four of Mexico’s

Dina Grijalva (Sonora) is a writer, researcher, and profes-

most important prizes: the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize

sor who has published several books of essays and

in 1963 for Los recuerdos del porvenir (Recollections of

mini-fiction. She has been translated into Mixe, Za-

Things to Come); the Grijalbo prize in 1981 for Testimo­

potec, Mixtec, and French. Since 2008, she has been a

nios sobre Mariana (Testimonies about Mariana); the Co-

writer and promotor of mini-fiction. In 2010 she re-

lima Fine Arts Prize for Published Fictional Works,

ceived her doctorate in letters from the unam with a

in 1996; and the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize in

dissertation about the fiction of Inés Arredondo and

1996. (21)

Luisa Valenzuela. (26)


Women

Josefina Vicens (Tabasco, 1911-1988) was awarded the

Carballo Prize (2018) for essay, and the Edmundo Va-

Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1958 for her first novel El

ladés Latin American Prize for Short Story (2017). (29)

libro vacío. She was a prolific film scriptwriter and jour-

Fernanda Melchor (Boca del Río, Veracruz, 1982) is a writ-

nalist, writing in the pages on bullfights, politics, and

er and translator. Among the awards she has won is

film criticism. She fought for women to have equal con-

the Prize for an Essay about Lynching (2002); the Hunt-

ditions on the job, in society, and politics. (27)

ing for Letters prize (unam, 2007); the Dolores Guerre­

Sue Zurita (Tabasco, 1985) published El viaje de los colibríes

ro National Prize for Chronicles (2011); the Pen Club

in 1985, and, in 2016, Buenas noches desolación. In 2017,

Prize for excellence in journalism and literature (2018)

she founded the Kookay publishing house, where she

for Aquí no es Miami; and the House of Cultures of the

published the anthology Cuentos cortos para tardes lar­

World Prize for Literature for Temporada de huracanes

gas. She has participated in international book fairs

(Berlin, 2019). (30)

like those in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Chiapas-Central

Magali Velasco Vargas (Veracruz, 1975) is a researcher,

America, and Mexico City’s central Zócalo Square. (27)

academic, and writer. She has won Chile’s Interna-

Carmen Alardín (Tamaulipas, 1933-2014) was a poet and

tional Young Americanists International Prize (2003)

contributor to the print media. From 1996 to 2000 she

for an essay, and the Juan José Arreola National Prize

edited the magazine Armas y Letras (Arms and Letters),

for Short Story (2004). She is the author of books of

published by the Nuevo León Autonomous Universi­

short stories, essays, and literary criticism and has

ty. She received the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1984

taught at the Ciudad Juárez Autonomous University

for her poetry, and the Medal for Civic Merit in 1989 for

and the Veracruzana University School of Spanish

coordinating workshops for children and adults in public libraries and poor neighborhoods. (28)

Letters. (30) Marisol Ceh Moo (Yucatán,1968) is a Mayan poet, essay-

Cristina Rivera Garza (Tamaulipas, 1964) has been rec-

ist, fiction writer, and chronicler. Among the honors

ognized for Nadie me verá llorar (No One Will See Me Cry)

she has received are the Nezahualcóyotl Prize for Lit-

(1999). Among her awards are the Anna Seghers Prize

erature in Mexican Languages (2014), the Indigenous

for Latin American Literature (2005) and two Sor Juana

Literatures of the Americas Prize (2019), and being

Inés de la Cruz Prizes: one in 2001 for the aforemen-

made an honorary member of the Alfredo Barrera Váz­

tioned book and a second in 2009 for La muerte me da,

quez Chair in recognition of her academic merits. She

as well as the Roger Caillois Prize for Latin American

gives workshops on literary creation among Maya

Literature (2013). (28)

speakers. (31)

Karen Villeda (Tlaxcala, 1985) is a poet and net-artist.

Rita Cetina Gutiérrez (Yucatán, 1846-1908) was a teach-

Among the awards she has received are the Elías Nan-

er, poet, and feminist. As an advocate for secular ed-

dino National Poetry Prize (2013), the Juan de la Cabada

ucation and education for women, she founded the

Prize (2014) for Cuadrado de cabeza, the José Revueltas

Scientific and Literary Society and was recognized for

Prize (2017), and the Ignacio Manuel Altamirano prize

her advanced ideas about women’s education and

(2020) for Anna y Hans. She is a contributor to the third

her participation in Mexico’s social, cultural, and pro-

volume of mit’s Electronic Literature Collection. Her po-

fessional life. She contributed to publications such as

ems have been translated into Arabic, French, English,

La Biblioteca de Señoritas, El Repertorio Pintoresco, and El

and Portuguese. (29)

Recreo del Hogar. (31)

Olivia Teroba (Tlaxcala, 1988) is a writer of fiction. She re-

Silvia Gurrola (Zacatecas, 1966) is a teacher with studies

ceived fellowships from the Tlaxcala State Stimulus

in Gestalt psychotherapy, which determines the na-

Program for Creation and Artistic Development in 2013,

ture of her novels and her characters’ profiles. In 1992,

from the Foundation for Mexican Letters (2015-2017),

she became a feminist, which is central to her work.

and from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts

In 1994, she traveled to Mozambique and began working

(Fonca) (2018-2019). She participates in the Osa Me­

with international organizations like Doctors Without

nor publishing project and has received the Beatriz

Borders. This inspired her to write her first novel, La

Espejo Prize for Short Story (2013), the Emmanuel

dignidad encarnada (2014). (32)

73


Voices of Mexico 115

Astrid Velasco*

Vindictas

An Interview with Socorro Venegas** Astrid Velasco: Tell us about Vindictas.

A little while ago, I remembered that the idea for the

Socorro Venegas: Vindictas is a unam publishing project

collection came to me after a chat with Ave. I said that this

born out of a concern. It evolved and began to turn into

book wasn’t an isolated case, that there are many women

indignation, and then a need and solidarity. I associate

writers out there that we should read again, or, even more,

many emotions with it, as well as intellectual curiosity.

there are young readers who have never even heard of

A young writer, Ave Barrera, told me that it had been

or imagined that María Luisa Oval, Marvel Moreno, or Dul­ce

difficult to find a novel by Luisa Josefina Hernández, and

María Loynaz existed, the latter a very famous novelist, but

I became curious about why this woman, born in the 1980s,

better known as a poet. I told Ave that we should create a

was interested in a work by a woman author from the last

collection of novels by not only Mexican women writers,

century who is better known as a playwright and that I

but by women writers from other Latin American coun­

didn’t even know had written novels. I asked her about the

tries. This project should expand and it should always be

book and asked to borrow it, and she generously loaned

a young woman writer who introduces her literary pre­

it to me. Starting with that reading, the Vindictas project

decessor. With that, we would be creating a kind of gene­

began to take shape.

alogy or establishing a bloodline, so to speak, seeking out

What a wonderful novel; how sad that it’s out of print

those sentinel voices and the works that paved a road for

and can only be found with great difficulty. So, I thought

those of us who write and publish today. So, that’s a strug­

of publishing it at the unam, and we began researching the

gle that should be recognized.

copyrights. I also thought that it was a good idea for Ave Ba­

These writers fought the fight and opened up horizons

rrera to write a prologue to introduce this writer from

for other women who came later. That’s how the project

the last century to new readers. And that outlined the en­

was born. Then I asked Ave to come to work with me and

tire publishing project.

join the team of publications as the editorial coordinator, and we work together on the projects. It’s an endeavor that really involves many points of view. What I did at the be­

* Astrid is the coordinator of publications of the unam’s cisan; you can contact her at astrid.velasco@gmail.com. ** Socorro Venegas is a writer and the director of the unam Gen­ eral Office for Publications and Publication Development.

74

ginning was to ask one woman writer, and then another, and also women researchers, to search their memories about which women writers they would like to read, which


Women

ones we should recover from that atrocious marginalization that they have suffered and vindicate and publish them. I also thought that the collection design should honor the works themselves. I’ve wanted them to be carefully pub­ lished, with love, so that the books are beautiful but at the

Writers included in this project fought the fight and opened up horizons for other women who came later. That’s how the project was born.

same time inexpensive, so that members of the university community can buy them and have access to them. I think

things: we left some of the important marks of the first

that’s fundamental: weaving with those other viewpoints,

edition to underline how they could publish it. I couldn’t

with those voices, with women authors from Argentina,

say they were defects, but marks of their time and of the

Colombia, Chile.

conditions in which the book came about. We did work on

We’ve also organized seminars and training activities

punctuation and typographical syntax.

for readers who accompany these new discoverers of the

There are other novels, like the one by María Luisa Men­

writers to feed their curiosity and offer more information

doza, whose main character is an empowered woman

about the context, about the works and the authors. That’s

who inherits a fortune from her father and doesn’t have

why the five we published in 2019 and that we launched

to worry about marrying or about what society might think.

at the Guadalajara International Book Fair were reprint­

She owns her own body, her sexuality, and her destiny,

ed two months later: they sold out. We love that because

and, of course, is an anomalous character. This is why I

it means people have been receptive to a project like this

think about an aura that surrounds the novels, and there

from the unam. It was important that these works were

it is, the same as the thinking in the prejudiced readings

accompanied by activities like seminars and conferences

that might exist.

that bring in the reflections of academia, that commu­

There’s also Tita Valencia’s novel Minotauromaquia (Mi­

nicate and socialize other reading experiences and the

notauromachy), which won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in

knowledge of new readers.

1976, one of the most important awards a writer can re­ ceive in this country, which is why it was very good to be

av: Did you have particular criteria for creating the cat­ alogue?

able to republish it. We could never use as a criterion that we publish these

sv: At the beginning of the project, the first criterion was

authors because they’re women, but because of these works’

to create a collection that recovered twentieth-century au­

literary value. We have an editorial team that has read

thors. Later, it was to cover Latin America and that a young

and adjudicated them but external collaborators have also

woman author would always write the prologue, some­

participated in the process. We try to have representatives

thing fundamental for this collection to have a very precise

from other countries and ensure that the authors of the

aura, that is, something that would be out there surround­

prologues can also be of other nationalities in order to en­

ing these voices. I am very moved when I read a Vindictas

rich and join in this Latin American or Hispanic-American

novel by seeing the reasons that book was demonized or

discourse. Soon, Vindictas will publish a book by a Spanish

rejected. For example, La única (The Only Woman) by Lupe

novelist since the authors didn’t experience this misogyny

Marín, was rejected because she made spelling mistakes,

and marginalization exclusively in Latin America. We’re

as did Lezama Lima. But there was a creative capability, a

talking about something quite generalized.

literary vision, a gaze, an aesthetic venture that had gone

Jorge Volpi made our project transversal for the entire

unnoticed. La única is also a book of a very brave, daring

Coordinating Office of Cultural Dissemination, and that’s

denunciation that could have offended the cultural milieu

why there have been programs of Vindictas reflection, mu­

of its time. Imagine a woman, a character in this novel, who

sic, visual arts, theater, etc.

stands in the middle of a market and shouts out a speech against the sexism of doctors, talking about her terrible

av: Who thought of the collection’s name?

experiences.

sv: I worked very closely with Clarisa Moura on the de­

It’s an extraordinary novel whose first edition unfor­

sign, proposing what we wanted. She’s the designer. We

tunately was not edited, and so it was up to us to fix a few

wanted beautiful books, worthy of the authors and the

75


Voices of Mexico 115

of both male and female published authors, and there was

Our publishing work is accompanied by activities like seminars and conferences that bring in the reflections of academia, that socialize other reading experiences and the knowledge of new readers.

a clear imbalance. So, when we redesigned the collection, of course, we’re not going to stop publishing male authors, but we will seek more balance, in this and all the collec­ tions. At first it was an interesting experience, and as an editor, you’ll understand perfectly. I ask the editors I col­ laborate with or the ones who propose projects to us, when we look at their tables of contents, I ask them if there were

works, because in many cases, the intent when you publish

no women specialists, since, in that list of ten authors we

them and re-publish them is to dignify the works. And when

could well incorporate some female writers’ viewpoints.

we were looking for a name for the collection, Ave Barrera,

And the first response can be very defensive, like, “I’m not

together with Lola Horner, who wrote the prologue for

a macho and I’m not excluding women authors.”

Marcela del Río’s novel, part of the first Vindictas series,

And we’ve never said that they were, but that “what

proposed the name in singular. And I loved that because

if” has led us to enrich various projects, and I have thanked

the first meaning of vindicta or vindictas is “vengeance,” and

these editor colleagues who have taken me at my word

we didn’t want to avoid that meaning. It didn’t seem to us

and have researched, and we have found —and therefore

that there was anything wrong with it or that we were do­

published— real gems in all our collections. That is to say,

ing something inappropriate if we consider how much

this point of view doesn’t exist only at Vindictas.

violence has been perpetrated against the women authors, a violence materialized in pushing their works to the mar­

av: How many titles does the Vindictas collection cur­

gins or justifying why they weren’t being published or why

rently have?

they’re not read. For example, to avoid publishing a work,

sv: There are ten, and I’ve slowed down a bit due to the

they argue that it’s very academic, that it’s incomprehen­

pandemic, but, for example, we’ve included works by Yo­

sible, and then it’s not published. That’s what I mean when

landa Oreamuno from Costa Rica and Vlady Kociancich

I talk about violence. But vindicta also has the other mean­

from Argentina; soon we’ll have Dulce María Loynaz’s work,

ing that involves keeping, protecting, and I like this very

from Cuba; and we’re continuing to explore this entire si­

much because that’s what we’re doing, and we’re going

lenced half of the region: fifteen novels plus this selection

further by leaving in the hands of the readers the possi­

of Latin American short story writers, which includes

bility of familiarizing themselves with the gazes of the

twenty authors representing the geography of Spanish.

other half of the authors on this planet.

We have a short story writer for each Spanish-speaking

The project’s aim is to vindicate, to reclaim, and there­

country. It’s also fundamental to point out that we don’t

fore we decided that its name should be in the plural,

see this book as an anthology: the criterion was that each

Vindictas. From the beginning, it has had a lot of impact;

author had published at least one book of stories, though,

it’s easy to remember and that’s been very good for the

for example, Susy Delgado from Paraguay, has only pub­

collection. For that reason, when Volpi proposed to Juan

lished one, and all the rest of her work is poetry. But this

Casamayor from the Páginas de Espuma publishing house

book of stories is exceptional, and, she also writes in Gua­

to go ahead, but that time with short stories, that selection

raní and Spanish. And that’s something we also want to

of short story writers should keep the name of the publish­

show: these rich underground rivers that are the original

ing house, the name Vindictas had to be kept, because it

languages of Latin America, which was also a criterion for

was not only the name of a collection, but a way of look­

including it in Vindictas. So, it’s not an anthology, but, rath­

ing, and I say that in all seriousness: in the Publications

er, a horizon for reading, an invitation to ask ourselves

Department, this has become a way of looking with which

whether we have already read the best narrative in Latin

we evaluate entire collections.

America if we haven’t read these women.

Now that we have recovered El ala del tigre (The Tiger’s Wing), the poetry collection, an important analysis that

av: What do you think has changed in the cultural and

we carried out beforehand was to review the proportion

publishing world so more women can be in print today?

76


Women

sv: There’s this idea out there that there’s a boom, and

the quality to be published, their work is not less than

that’s something we have to work against, because if you

that of a man, they don’t talk only about “women’s things,”

accept that, we’d be saying that before, women weren’t

and that’s where we have to start looking for their point

writing or that women writers hadn’t existed. And that’s

of view without prejudices or labels. Diamela Eltit said it

not true; precisely, these projects show that. It may be a

a while ago in her lecture “De-biologizing Literature”: a

matter of the existence of a special sensibility, a conviction

horizon is necessary where we don’t have to make women

on the part of publishers that we need to make a funda­

authors visible or defend them. A project like Vindictas

mental change and that this isn’t something temporary

has to be absolutely unnecessary in the coming century,

because now we’re talking more about demands or fem­

because right now, our endeavor has been like an authen­

inisms, because now the theses exist in Chile or the green

tic archaeological dig, where we recover everything we lost,

wave exists in Argentina. That is, this isn’t a fad: it’s a move­

and it was tragic to have to do it. I think about my years of

ment that had to happen and that humanity —not just

training, when I wanted to be a writer, at sixteen or sev­

half of it— had to take on board. I think it’s important to

enteen, and how I would have loved to have read Elena

value this era and what it brings us, and if there’s any per­

Garro then, and all the authors I’ve published now, and

manent job for those of us who work with books, for all of

those who, even if they had published something, I never

academia, bookstore owners, librarians, editors, I always

was able to read. That was terrible because we lost some­

say, we all have to maintain this world where —we know

thing essential in that era, but let’s also think about those

it, we’re now aware and we have evidence, and these books

who are being educated now, and that they shouldn’t have

are that evidence— women write and they do not lack

to think of literature as an exclusively male activity.

77


Sharon McCutcheon / Unsplash

Balazo

María Elena Olivera Córdova*

Wake up, my love! The Lesbian Stories of Victoria Enríquez and Elena Madrigal1 That general is a beast, coronel, sir. That’s how I

inappropriate topics was socio-sexuality and eroticism.

should address you, right?

These issues have been explored by women writers above

Or do you prefer to be called coronel, ma’am?

all since the 1950s, and we should emphasize that they

Victoria Enríquez, “De un pestañazo”

have received an interesting impetus and an unprecedent­

(While Napping)

ed direction with the arrival of the Sapphic theme through “the feminine pen,” as we will see later on, taking as a sam-

W

ple certain stories of openly lesbian authors: Victoria Enomen have made the long trek in Mexican

ríquez and Elena Madrigal.

narrative from their first incursions in writing

More than novels, what have proliferated in lesbian

until today. Along the way, they have not only

narrative are short stories; many are scattered in differ-

won the right to write, but also to touch on topics that did

ent feminist and homosexual periodicals, and others have

not seem appropriate to their femininity. One of those

been published in anthologies or in collections by a single author. Rosamaría Roffiel, the author of Mexico’s first lesbian novel, published a book of short stories titled El para

* Olivera works in the Social Sciences and Literature Program of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and the Humanities (ceiich), unam, and is an editor specialized in feminism and gender; you can contact her at olivera@unam.mx.

78

siempre dura una noche (Forever Lasts a Single Night) (2001), in which not all the stories are Sapphic. By contrast, in 1997, Victoria Enríquez published her book of lesbian short


Women

stories, Con fugitivo paso (With a Fugitive Stride);2 Elena Madrigal published Contarte en lésbico (Telling You in Lesbian) in 2010;3 and one of the youngest writers, Artemisa Téllez, published hers in 2005 (Un encuen­tro y otros [One Encounter and Others]). Among the authors whose stories have appeared in periodicals or anthologies are Ivonne

More than novels, what have proliferated in lesbian narrative are short stories; many are scattered in different feminist and homosexual periodicals, and others have been published in anthologies.

Cervantes (“Luz Bella” [Beautiful Light]) in 2000, and Kari­ na Vergara (“Dicen” [They Say]) in 2008, to mention just a

been shaken up. In the ensuing days, Carmelita plays old

few. Their work in configuring lesbian experiences tends

melodies on the piano, and Topilzin dreams of the mo-

increasingly toward the quest for freedom, the playful fic-

ments that he surely did not talk about: the story about

tionalization of the stories, and less and less toward de-

how he met and fell in love with Carmelita and the vicis-

nunciation and justification.

situdes they endured before they could finally join their

Perhaps as a corollary to the growing ideological at-

lives together.

omization of feminists and lesbians, since the 1990s, nov-

The story is told simply, and the dream happens “in

els of the dyke milieu emphasize the individual and not

the blink of an eye,” during a nap, an ellipsis in which the

the community, which had been a trend in the 1970s. How-

main story develops framed by a secondary story.

ever, in this period, writers like Rosamaría Roffiel and Vic-

The secondary story is that of the arrival of the re-

toria Enríquez have gone back to aspects of communities

searcher, whom Ansiedad Topilzin receives because she

of women in some of their stories.

has “clean thoughts.” By the way he tells the story of his

“El día en que quedaron mudas las estrellas” (The Day

dream, we later understand that the coronel has the gift

the Stars Were Struck Dumb) and “La canción de la luna

of hearing people’s thoughts. In the end, Elena’s return

sobre la barda” (Song of the Moon over the Wall), the first

to Topilzin’s house is one of the reasons Carmelita awak-

two stories of Con fugitive paso… are nostalgic looks back

ens the coronel:

at the ideals that gave cohesion to the feminist and lesbian movements of the 1970s. In them, Enríquez recreates the female community and solidarity. By contrast in her stories “No gracias, mi amor” (No Thank You, My

“Ansiedad, Ansiedad, wake up, my love.” “What? What’s happening? Why are you waking me up, Carmelita? Can’t you see I’m having a nap?”

Love) and “De un pestañazo” (While Napping), the author

“Because you suffer a great deal when you dream,

creates transvestite or transsexual characters who at

my love. And besides, Elena has come back with some

that time didn’t fit in the ranks of feminism.4 “No gracias,

men who have come to see you because they say the

mi amor” is a short tale of the misunderstanding that

government is going to give you justice; they want to

ensues when a lesbian girl tries to hook up in a club with

give you a medal.”

a very beautiful women who turns out to be trans. “De un pestañazo” situates the action during the Mex-

Topilzin does not accept; she sends Elena word that

ican Revolution. The main character, a cross-dressing

she should stop her tomfoolery and invites her to lunch

woman, is inspired by a real person: Coronel Amelio(a)

on Sunday.

Robles. In this story, the narrator —we never know if it is

The main story, contained in the dream, deals with the

a man or a woman— tells us about how, in his old age,

reflexive life dedicated to revolutionary strategies that

retired to a quiet life, Coronel Ansiedad Topilzin de Santia­

Topilzin is submerged in. The calm this gives her is bro-

go Apóstol surprisingly receives in his home a research-

ken when General Azoro arrives with his “blond wife” at

er named Elena who wants to interview him/her. S/he

the port where the coronel and his army are camped. He

had previously refused to speak to journalists and other

can hear the thoughts of “Blondie,” who is attracted by the

people interested in her/his revolutionary feats; how-

“coronel’s mad beauty,” and he/she, in turn, is dazzled be-

ever, he does allow Elena to stay in his house for two days

cause “he had never seen a woman like that.”

and he tells her part of his life story. After the visit, some-

Enríquez not only creates an ambiguous main char-

thing inside Topilzin and his life partner Carmelita has

acter in terms of its gender, but she also plays with sub-

79


Voices of Mexico 115

atole and heard again her mother’s voice: “She’s a

In configuring lesbian experiences, later works tend increasingly toward the quest for freedom, the playful fictionalization of the stories, and less and less toward denunciation and justification.

strange little girl.” She heard herself say “Why, mommy?” Her mother had looked at her, scared. “Why what?” “Why do you say I’m strange?” “I didn’t say anything.” . . . To cap it all off, besides always hearing what was none of her business, there was also that charm she

verting the roles of behavior expected according to

cast over women without trying, and that very thing

gender and by changing the characteristics of the char-

turned her into a dyke, butch, and that word that that

acters that Ansiedad and Carmelita are inspired by. Pho-

woman had thought, that woman in feathers and

tographs and descriptions of the real Amelia Robles exist

with the fruit on her hat who showed her legs in the

that describe her before her transformation as a white

cantina: lesbeen.5

woman with light colored eyes and hair; she was even

Nana Badass had laughed out loud at her . . . when

called “Blondie Amelia.” Her partner, by contrast, Ángela

she went looking for her . . . to cure her. . . . “Don’t

Torres, is said to have been dark. Contrary to the real

worry; with time, you’ll know how to live with yourself.”

people, then, Ansiedad (the ambiguous non-gender specific name Enríquez gives to Amelio) is dark and even

The general is aware of the love affair between An-

“Indian-like”; and Carmelita is blond. The result is a mas-

siedad and Carmelita. He accuses him of betrayal, but

culinized, cross-dressed woman with indigenous features

the Zapatista army he commands defends him: the cor-

and the middle name of Topilzin (the name given to the

onel’s behavior as a revolutionary strategist (and man)

god Quetzalcóatl when in human form), who neverthe-

is irreproachable and the problem between Azoro and

less does not fully cover the expectations about the be-

him/her is personal: “Just talk to her as God intended . .

havior of macho men, especially in the times of the

. she’s not missing an arm, you know.” With this phrase

Revolution. Ansiedad Topilzin is brave, tough; he knows

the author finally brings together the thing that makes

how to impose his will; he is a leader who teaches strat-

the coronel’s personality ambiguous: the figure denomi-

egies of war to men and women; he has hands roughened

nated in the feminine is attributed with the quality of

by heavy work and the struggle, but is respectful of wom-

facing down, fighting bare-fisted, head to head with a

en and defends Carmelita from the general’s violence. In

man . . . a revolutionary general.

the course of their falling in love, he does not take the

Azoro does not confront Topilzin; he assaults Carme­

initiative: Carmelita does. There is something in his per-

lita until he practically kills her. Topilzin’s special —even

sonality that makes his behavior fit together although it

magical— skills allow him to find her before it’s too late,

was supposedly contrasting.

and he calls upon the Dappled Cotton Nahual spirit (a ja­

The way Victoria Enríquez develops the story’s protagonist lets us know that no one is unaware that Ansie-

guar) to summon Nana Badass, the sorceress of her childhood, who manages to save her.6, 7

dad’s biological sex is feminine. The narrator and the characters closest to her/him sometimes speak in feminine and other times in masculine terms, and many oth-

Panthers and Pussycats8

er times she avoids the distinction with neutral nouns or adjectives. Only in the memories of her childhood do

Madrigal’s stories are charged with a sense of humor, iro-

her mother and her Nana Badass refer to her in the fem-

ny, and sometimes eroticism. In Contarte en lésbico (Telling

inine, but those memories —a flashback within a flash-

You in Lesbian), the female sexuality shown is so broad that

back— are just those of the doubt about his gender

sexual-loving desire between women is something that any

behavior and sexuality.

woman can access. Sexual-generic dissidents in these texts simply make use of their right to non-heteronormative erot-

80

She closed her eyes and felt herself once again in the

icism without any huge conflicts, without justification or

warm, dimly lit kitchen, seated in front of a mug of plum

victimization.


Women

appearance and the expected behaviors. In the same way,

Among her characters, Madrigal diversifies the behavior of masculinized women, like the way she presents the Purple Panther, a woman wrestler in the story “Two Out of Three Falls.”

she also situates her two protagonists in games of submi­s­ sion/domination, subverting the apparent relationships between these terms, making them correspond respectively with physical strength and the force of seduction —and probably of character, manifest in the narrator’s attitude.

Among her characters, Madrigal also diversifies the

In her story, Victoria Enríquez de-centers gender be-

behavior of masculinized women, like the way she pre­

havior by exchanging the roles between Carmelita and

sents the Purple Panther, a woman wrestler in the story

Ansiedad, and what is feminine by creating an ambigu-

“Two Out of Three Falls.” Here, the narrator/protagonist

ous character who combines in her/himself both behavior

tells us how she feels troubled by encountering what she

considered traditionally feminine and “how-masculinity-

thinks is a man with surprising biceps and a shiny head

should-be.” She upsets how-lesbians-should-be, which

of hair, and only accepts an invitation to a wrestling match

require androgynous characters, by constructing a cross-

when she realizes it is a woman (“You see, I don’t like

dressing masculine character, an imposition accepted and

guys.”). The narrative develops as she watches the fight

even highly valued by the rest of the characters.

between the Woman Warrior of the South and the Panther

There may be many lesbian short stories to analyze.

—in Mexican wrestling terms, mask against hair— with

But here I have only given a sample of two openly lesbian

her high-heeled blue shoes up on the seat in front of her,

writers with two different perspectives that deal with

mirror in hand to retouch her lipstick.

aspects of Mexican popular culture and its possibilities

Interspersed with the announcer’s patter and the audience’s screams is the description of the events showing

for fictionalization and a critique of traditional sociosexuality.

how Panther, when they were alone, was the submissive partner, “passive in sex,” who played the traditional feminine role: “Panther . . . Pussycat!” subject to the power of

 Notes

the narrator, whose name we don’t know. Fallible power because the narrator displays a certain degree of annoyance when she mentions that the night before the match, there had been no sex: Panther. . . Yesterday she said that she didn’t even want me to look at her. “It’s not like you were a matador or something, that with a little fuck you were gonna lose your strength or your luck.” This makes us think that she’s “won” each time, making the third encounter the one that will determine the domination: Panther, take care: I have your third and final fall perfectly planned.9 In this story, Madrigal once again exacerbates the stereotypes of feminine and masculine, situating them in two women to upset heteronormativity and concretely the linear relationship between masculine or feminine

1 Fragment of my doctoral tesis Narrativa sáfica latinoamericana: una lectura tortillera (Sapphic Latin American Narrative, a Dyke Reading) (Mexico City: uam-Iztapalapa, 2014). 2 Victoria Enríquez, Con fugitivo paso. . . (Mexico City: Lesvoz, 1997). 3 Elena Madrigal, Contarte en lésbico (Montreal: Éditions Alondra, 2010). 4 Some groups of feminists still do not accept transsexuals in their ranks. 5 The word is spelled like this in the story to show that Topilzin has very little knowledge of the topic. 6 In the story it says that the coronel sold herself to the Dappled Cotton Nahual; previously the author refers to Ansiedad’s ability to turn herself into a swallow. It may be that she has turned herself into a jaguar and thus went herself for Nana Badass. These details bring the story, whose reference point is real, close to the magical, perhaps attempting to refer to what, at one point, Amelio Robles says when he tells the story of a fortune-teller who told him that he would go to war and win, but he would have very bad luck; or perhaps it’s a way of bringing the story close to Mexico’s magical, indigenous, mestizo culture. 7 Up to this point, all the quotes from the story “De un pestañazo” are from Victoria Enríquez, Con fugitivo paso . . . (Mexico City: Lezvoz, 1997), pp. 80, 71, 74-75, and 79. 8 All quotes from here on are from the story “A dos de tres caídas” (Two Out of Three Falls), published in Elena Madrigal, Contarte en lésbico (Montreal: Éditions Alondras, 2010), pp. 110, 112, and 114. 9 This may be a small mistake by the author: it would be the third match but only the second fall, just as the title of the story indicates.

81


Artemisa Téllez*

Artemisa On Line*

S

he says that, yes, she’s a writer, the architect of eccentric literary workshops, and a bargain-basement diva. But Artemisa Téllez is also a lesbian activist who uses every means at her disposal to ensure that her actions to make visible the struggle

for this community’s rights leave a mark, from the ongoing workshop on erotic shortstory writing for women or her considerable literary output that takes the form of short stories and poems, to social media, where we tracked down the texts published here.

Just to Be Clear We lesbians don’t have to hide our preference, affections, relationships, or identity so our families can feel comfortable. We lesbians don’t have to hide our preference, affections, relationships, or identity so our teachers can feel comfortable. We lesbians don’t have to hide our preference, affections, relationships or identity so our neighbors can feel comfortable. We lesbians don’t have to hide our preference, affections, relationships, or identity so our ministers can feel comfortable. We lesbians don’t have to hide our preference, affections, relationships, or identity so our colleagues can feel comfortable. We lesbians don’t have to hide our preference, affections, relationships, or identity so health workers can feel comfortable. We lesbians don’t have to hide our preference, affections, relationships, or identity so government employees can feel comfortable.

* Artemisa is a fiction writer and poet; you can contact her at artemisatellez.com; @artemisa_tellez.

82


Women

Little Red Riding Hood Little girl coming toward me

Being a Lesbian

Looking for (old) advice.

It’s not a stage. It’s not a trauma. It’s not shyness. It isn’t fear of the opposite sex. It’s not confusion. It’s not because we were rejected. It’s not because we were overprotected. We don’t lack experience. We’re not mistaken. We don’t need help. It’s not rebellion. We’re not going to get over it!

Don’t come to my house alone. At night, grandmothers can still

sbia n; ha te

turn into wolves…

m

r being perfect o f e .

Don’t hate me for being a le

Sister, if you haven’t been a lesbian yet, you’re still in time! What would become of us without the love of lesbians? I came out of the closet twenty years ago; since then, every time I have to talk about some delicate issue, it seems like everything comes out really soon and really well… PORN: the biggest fans of heterosexual men are lesbians (and vice-versa). REALITY: the biggest detractors of lesbians are heterosexual men (and vice-versa). Feminism owes a great deal to lesbians, but they’re not ready for that conversation. The ultimate subversion: loving women in a world that hates them. 83


Voices of Mexico 115

“I Don’t Know Any Lesbians” (In commemoration of Lesbian Visibility Day) The two little old ladies, sisters with different last names, who never married Student roommates who take each other flowers almost every day Your old-maid aunt who looks like a man and smokes like a chimney The middle-school girls who are “going through a stage” The schoolteacher, serious as a nun, who would give her life for her girl students The married woman whose husband constantly screams that she prefers her girlfriend to him The activist with close-cropped hair and a labrys on her neck Those that “aren’t,” but fell in love Those who wrote thousands of verses and letters, but whom the literary establishment decides “shouldn’t be put in a box” Those who are frank, up front, shy, in the closet, undefined, queer; the ones who are experimenting; the ones you wouldn’t believe, but it’s rumored…

onaries

ix d Revolut Rebels an

in , as women bels because re e ar s en. n m ia t We lesb withou e dare to live w , ld or w al a patriarch e fuse to serv ecause we re b s el b re e s ar urse. We lesbian in our disco , in bed, or le b ta a at men s because volutionarie re e ar s n ia . e lesb her women Above all, w d care for ot an t, or p p we love, su

What We’ve Never Been Obliged to Do We lesbians don’t have to hide for your comfort. We lesbians don’t have to be quiet for your comfort. We lesbians don’t have to be feminine for your comfort. We lesbians don’t have to be mothers —or not— for your comfort. We lesbians don’t have to wear our hair long for your comfort. We lesbians don’t have to be discrete for your comfort. We lesbians don’t have to take care of other people’s children for your comfort. We lesbians don’t have to pretend we love men for your comfort. 84


Women

For a Non-Decaf Sor Juana

L

ittle by little, Sor Juana’s lesbian poems are compiled and commented on more. Little by little, the ardently affectionate letters she exchanged with the viceroy’s wife are coming out. Little by little, it’s believed and it’s brought out into the light in plays, theses, and novels. But it wasn’t Sor Juana who was in the closet. She wasn’t the one who hid her feelings or the very essence of her being. She wasn’t the one that “made us believe” that she was heterosexual as many lesbian and gay, male and female writers of other eras and contexts tried to do. Nor was she the one who built the severe, fixed image of our textbooks and the two-hundred-peso bills. It wasn’t Juana de Asbaje, the profound, intelligent, passionate, sarcastic author, who fooled us in any way, hiding in the darkness or showing herself to be different from what she was. It wasn’t she. The mask imposed on her is the product of censorship and that kind of misunderstood sanctity with which all authors —men and women— are treated when they come to be considered classics. The literary canon, mainly masculine, white, Eurocentric, capitalist, and heterosexual, has a great deal of difficulty, even today, to consider works produced by “minorities” —symbolic minorities, because, despite not being one, they are infra-represented in art, the media, and literature— as universal and transcendent. Sor Juana belonged for several reasons to a minority —even marginal— status: she was a woman, the daughter of an illiterate mother, born not only in a colony, but in an area labeled by the viceroy’s wife herself as “a hamlet of four wretched Indian huts.” And yes, she was also a lesbian. Her era treated her as an enigmatic portent and portrayed her in the only way it could stand her: cultured in the European style, white, purebred, androgynous, and, of course, asexual. The constant with regard to her image is that: her only, unrepeatable, unexplainable condition. Who are we, simple mortals, to question the almost mythological originality of the Tenth Muse? Situated there, in that place, nobody in the world could touch her; nobody in the world could give her a human dimension, and, of course, identify with such a personage: mestiza, marginalized, lesbian women on the outskirts are diametrically opposed to that elegant, ultra-cultured lady. The people who recovered Sor Juana for themselves were the refined intellectuals of the mid-century. Later, desk-bound feminists and academic lesbians. Today, blond faggots proclaim her as a reference point for a movement that continues segregating women like her: Sor Juana, the pawn of academic, political, proselytizing interests of decaffeinated minorities. We need mestizo readings of Sor Juana’s mestizo works; we need to analyze her Indian, black, female characters; to read and reread her popular poems, her Christmas carols scandalously written in Spanish, Latin, and Nahuatl; to read and study her from the margins, to recover her for the women who, from the periphery, struggle to make their voices heard and give shape to the forms of existence that the patriarchal culture, if it cannot silence, domesticates, reduces, dilutes, refines, whitens. We need a rebel, lesbian Sor Juana, because that’s the only way we’ll honor her as she really was. That way, and only that way, the day may come when those men and women who are waiting in the dusty bottom of the closet of history can have a turn. Sor Juana was never a hypocrite, hidden, fearful, a closet denizen, pretentious, fake. It was her pen, transgressor of the word and time, that said of herself and for all, “Neither being a woman, nor being absent is

an impediment to loving you; as you know, the soul ignores distance and sex.”

85


REVIEWS

 not be attributed solely to the conservative political cul­ ture of certain groups or their customs and traditions, or to the selfish interests of other groups who uncon­

Balazo

cernedly challenge the rule of law, but rather, these in­ stances of violence must also be studied from the stand­point of government responsibility. Among its many merits, this book by cisan research­ er Estefanía Cruz delves into the issue with methodolog­ ical rigor using an institutionalist theoretical approach to clarify and understand how U.S. minorities interact with the political system and its institutions. Her ultimate aim is to explain what kind and how much influence mino­r­ ities have and how different social and political move­ ments are born within them. Some of the latter have been determinant factors for the history of U.S. democracy, such as the struggles for civil rights in the 1960s, or more contemporary movements like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, or the concern of the very young about ensuring a future for the planet, focusing on the defense of the environ­

Minorías políticas en la agenda de Estados Unidos:

ment through the decid­ed fight against climate change,

representación y agenda de cambio

with movements, for example, like Sunrise, which was

(Political Minorities on the U.S. Agenda: Representation and Agenda for Change)

fundamental to Joe Biden’s victory. In this sense, Cruz Lera clearly conceives of minorities

Estefanía Cruz Lera

not only as groups of the population that share a history

Center for Research on North America, unam

and collective imaginaries, that is, that are joined togeth­

Mexico City, 2021, 253 pp.

er mainly because of identity, but also —and this is an­ other of her contributions— by an agenda, by political and

I

n the best democratic systems, minorities —social,

social objectives. These groups are heterogeneous inter­

economic, gender, racial, ethnic, cultural, and even

nally, but are based in shared struggles and concerns,

political minorities— play a fundamental role in de­

and manage their interests and demand their rights

termining the public policies that affect them, and in

both in the streets and from civic organizations as well

general their rights are respected. Today, this description

as through the tools that the system itself offers. These

might seem more like a fairy tale than an undeniable re­

tools include representation in federal and state con­

ality. In fact, very few modern states —if any— could

gresses, lobbying, and, above all, the strength of the alli­

presume to fully have a society of this type.

ances that their congressional caucuses build and their

The case of the United States is peculiar in that, while

relations with and parti­cipation in the two main —or prac­

it does have some of the most solid democratic institu­

tically only— political parties competing for public office

tions in the world, at least if we analyze them from the

in the United States.

point of view of a certain liberal conception of democ­

Cruz Lera’s focus, then, delves deeply into the very im­

racy, at the same time, the relations of most of them with

portant role of the state as a political mediator among

minorities, of the political system with the most margin­

different and sometimes counterposed interests, which

alized social groups, has almost always been questioned.

manages to resolve through democratic deliberation and

This is because a connection exists that includes, among

negotiation the inevitable conflicts to be expected to arise

other worrisome phenomena, discrimination, multiple

out of the paradox of respecting the desires and aims of

kinds of stigma, and no fewer examples of violence of all

the majority and at the same time guaranteeing justice

kinds, sadly including structural violence. The latter can­

and opportunities for minorities. This is an original ap­

86


Reviews

proach to the constitution and development of minorities

issue of migration and the existence of a growing mass

in the United States, which, through their historic strug­

of “illegals” subject to over-exploitation at work. “Here

gles have propitiated not only that the state and its in­

we’re going to stay!” shout the members of Latinx organ­

stitutions recognize them, but also weigh and accept the

izations of all times, from La Raza to the Chicano move­

validity of their causes. This is why this book also in­

ment, or, more recently, Unidos We Dream or the National

clu­des a review of the main figures and mechanisms that

Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials

the U.S. political system has imagined in order to con­

(Naleo). But, again, the Latinx minority is very far from

struct inclusive governance, with the participation of all

being coherent and homogeneous, and, as is demonstrat­

its actors, among them, of course, the minorities. The au­

ed, for example, by the political action of Cubans and

thor reviews, for example, the contribution to this cause

the “mixed status” of the population of Hispanic origin,

of the recognition of collective rights and not merely in­

which even includes, paradoxically, anti-immigrant groups.

dividual freedoms, the historic struggles for civil rights,

Some political thinkers would undoubtedly question

the impact of affirmative action in an attempt to em­

the decision to consider as minorities the “left” groups

power minority groups that were historically shunted to

that make up the progressive U.S. movement, whose unity

one side, and finally, the consolidation of concepts like re­

depends on Bernie Sanders’ ability to keep it together; or

distributive social and political justice in the tasks of de­

the linked political-social movements such as those that

signing and implementing public policies.

advocate for the Green New Deal; or even the very atom­

Perhaps the book’s greatest merit is the author’s sweep­

ized extreme right-wing groups, known as the Alt-right,

ing review of the many, differentiated motivations that

which defend causes like the expulsion of all undocumen­t­

many minorities have had for becoming political actors

ed immigrants, white supremacy, and a radical constitu­

and social movements. She does this by recognizing that

tionalism that would always put indivi­ dual freedoms

no minority is monolithic and that they all develop cur­

above social rights. The author does inter­pret them this way,

rents and factions, often even counterposed to each oth­

and with good reason: they are political positions that

er in different spheres of society. There are minorities

bring together the discontented, demands and aspira­

inside minorities, which can reproduce the very mecha­

tions not only from the territory of identity, but also from

nisms of the exercise of power that as a whole they crit­

the fields of ideologies and religious beliefs. In any case,

icize more widely in society. This complex reality pushes

the book could be a lever for opening up a debate on this

her to concentrate on the main aspects of each minority

issue.

analyzed, on those shared by all their members and rec­

On the other hand, the lack of analysis of groups that

ognized as fundamental positions. Thus, she deals with

have been either historic or unquestionable contempo­

movements that have emerged in the Afro-American com­

rary protagonists is noteworthy and even a bit disconcert­

munity in all their complexity. These cover the broad spec­

ing. This is the case of Native Americans or the lgbtti+

trum ranging from the pacifism and civil disobedience

community. But this comment is made in the spirit of

advocated by Martin Luther King and his followers, to the

constructive criticism and to motivate another book.

more radical positions to break with existing society of

Estefanía Cruz Lera’s work reviewed here contributes

Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, leading to what is pro­b­

to filling a void in the Spanish-language literature about

ably one of the most emblematic phenomena of social

minorities in the United States. Her aim is to understand

action in recent times: Black Lives Matter. She does the

them comprehensively and as a complex social phenom­

same with the women’s movement, whose battles are con­

enon whose analysis is indispensable for situating contem­

ceived of as a constant aspiration to equality, which in

porary governance of the United States. It undoubtedly

each era, in each generation, takes on different meanings:

constitutes an original approach among the multitude

the right to vote, equal wages for equal work, right up to the

of studies that have proliferated about specific minori­

demand for being able to live life without gender violence,

ties, especially Afro-Americans, Latinxs and women.

without feminicides, without sexual harassment, and which finds its most contemporary expression in #MeToo.

Diego Ignacio Bugeda Bernal

In the case of the Latinx minority, the author covers the

Editor of Voices of Mexico

87


NORTEAMÉRICA ACADEMIC JOURNAL OF CISAN-UNAM

An open forum to debate and exchange, from a multidiscipli­nary perspective, the­­oretical, methodological and current studies related to North America and its links to the world. Año 16, número 2, julio-diciembre de 2021 / Year 16, Issue 2, July-December 2021

NORTEAMÉRICA ACADEMIC JOURNAL OF CISAN-UNAM CISAN Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte (Center for Research on North America) Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Av. Universidad 3000, Torre II de Humanidades, piso 9 Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, 04510, México, D. F. Información general namerica@unam.mx www.cisan.unam.mx/Norteamerica Ventas voicesmx@unam.mx

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ENSAYOS / ESSAYS El origen de los mercados de emisiones. La mercantilización de la regulación ambiental para contaminantes aéreos en Estados Unidos The Origin of Emissions Markets The Commercialization of Environmental Regulation for Air Pollutants in the United States Ricardo Vega Ruiz Directrices de la reestructuración de la industria automotriz mundial y sus implicaciones para México Guidelines for Restructuring the World Auto Industry and Their Implications for Mexico Gilberto González Pérez Empresas multinacionales estadounidenses: efectos en la pobreza mundial U.S. Multinational Companies: Effects on World Poverty Omar Neme Castillo, Cesaire Chiatchoua, José Israel Briseño Perezyera Análisis espaciotemporal bayesiano de las remesas y la inclusión financiera en municipios de México A Bayesian Spatial-temporal Analysis Of Remittances and Financial Inclusion In Mexican Municipalities Gerardo Núñez Medina, Jorge Alberto López Arévalo La institucionalización de la ciencia política en Canadá: una breve exploración comparativa desde México The Institutionalization of Political Science in Canada: A Brief Comparative Exploration as Seen from Mexico Juan Roberto Joel Flores-Mariscal ANÁLISIS DE ACTUALIDAD / CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

The Origin of Crony Capitalism in Modern Mexico and Its Current Impact on Foreign Direct Investment El origen del capitalismo de amigos en el México moderno y su impacto actual en la inversión extranjera directa José Galindo Rodríguez Aspectos de cambio y reversión en la política de Estados Unidos hacia Irán durante las presidencias de Barack H. Obama y Donald J. Trump Aspects of Change and Reversal in U.S. Policy Toward Iran under the Presidencies Of Barack H. Obama and Donald J. Trump Jorge Alberto Ortíz Almanza DOSSIER Introducción: El Tratado de México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (t-mec) como sustituto del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (tlcan 1994-2019) The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (usmca) Replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta, 1994-2019) Pablo Ruiz Nápoles The Rebranded nafta: Will the usmca Achieve The Goals of the Trump Administration for North American Trade? El tlcan renombrado: ¿alcanzará el t-mec las metas de la administración de Trump para el comercio norteamericano? Robert A. Blecker From nafta to usmca: Can a Good Idea That Came Too Late Be Born Again? Del tlcan al t-mec: ¿puede renacer una buena idea que llegó muy tarde? Hubert Escaith Efectos potenciales de los cambios en el t-mec respecto al tlcan sobre la economía mexicana Potential Effects on Mexico’s Economy Of the Changes from nafta to usmca Rosa Gómez Tovar, Pablo Ruiz Nápoles

Justin Trudeau frente a los desafíos del populismo en América del Norte Justin Trudeau and the Challenges Of Populism in North America Oliver Santín Peña

Determinants of U.S.-Mexico Trade under the usmca Determinantes del comercio entre Estados Unidos y México bajo el t-mec Jorge Eduardo Mendoza Cota

Vidas rompibles en el vórtice de precarización: políticas de expulsión, procesos de exclusión y vida callejera en Tijuana, México Breakable Lives in the Vortex of Precariousness: Expulsion Policies, Exclusionary Processes, And Street Life in Tijuana, Mexico Juan Antonio del Monte Madrigal

Impact of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (usmca) Rules of Origin on The Automotive Sector in Mexico Impacto de las reglas de origen del Tratado México-Estados Unidos-Canadá (t-mec) sobre el sector automotriz en México María de Lourdes Álvarez Medina




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