The horrors of mutilated dead bodies on display in a city are real and severe. I lived in Mexico though 2005-2016. Personally, I had never witnessed any of these bodies. However, some of my friends had. They never really explained it or spoke about it, but you could tell their demeanor had changed. Stories of children being kidnapped and ransomed by the cartel were also fairly common. No one I knew, but friends of friends of friends. The threat was real, but I never really understood the extent of it.
There were some moments in which it became clearer. I would see military vehicles often on my way to school. They served as a reminder of the war on drugs. Even 10-year-olds knew there was a high likely hood the government officials were on their payroll. Being a kid I didn’t pay much attention to it outside of when it directly affected me or those I knew. My parents did a good job of sheltering me from it.
Reading Rivera’s depiction of the horrors and terrorism of the cartel-run state, my perspective has been broadened. I haven’t really heard stories with any first-person perspective or with vivid imagery until this reading. To a degree, I resented the lack of freedom I had as a kid. It was difficult for me to understand why I couldn’t go to the Oxxo (the dominant corner store chain in the country) a few blocks away from my compound with my friends. The claimant open-end my eyes as to the fear my parents had given the situation. The poem oozes the sorrow and grief the mother must feel and I have grown thankful for my parent’s protection of me. Poems can help make sense of your own life.
Hi Griffin, thanks so much for sharing your personal experience living in Mexico. I’m not sure if you or your family is originally from Mexico, but I feel like your experience there really resonates with what happens to expats in Latin American countries or places that are in conflict.
I personally went to an International school for most of my life and I was able to see how my friends were a part of this bubble in Argentina that isolated them from any conflicts happening outside. Although we’re not in an internal conflict like Mexico, there is a lot of poverty and crime in the city. Growing up I was also not allowed to walk around by myself for the fear of something happening to me.
I find that stories like these are so important to open up the conversation and make the citizens aware that these things are happening in the country, whether they live next to it or not. It’s so easy for upper-class families to place themselves in the bubble and become ignorant of what is happening to the people that share the same identity as them.