Cuando Mexico Se (Apropia) de Texas: Ensayos/ When Mexico Recaptures Texas: Essays by Carmen Boullosa

Roberto Bolao
En esta coleccin de 29 ensayos de temas variados, la internacionalmente reconocida

escritora explora los puntos de convergencia y separacin de Mxico y Estados Unidos,
desde el siglo XIX hasta la actualidad.
Los temas elaborados en estos ensayos provocativos tratan asuntos tan diversos
como el movimiento de Occupy Wall Street y el frente poltico contra inmigrantes
en Arizona. Siempre la portavoz del feminsimo, Boullosa aboga por los derechos de
la mujer, enfocndose en la represin de las artistas y el escaso reconocimiento de su
obra. As mismo escribe de mujeres guerreras e insurgencias olvidadas, reflexionando
sobre cunto nos lastima a todos cuando se borran de la historia.
Esta edicin bilinge incluye las versiones originales en espaol traducidas por Nicols Kanellos.
La luminosa escritora . . . Boullosa magistralmente elabora lo fantstico.
Miami Herald
CARMEN BOULLOSA es autora de numerosas obras que la proyectan como una

de las escritoras ms distinguidas de Mxico. Divide su residencia entre Mxico, DF y la
ciudad de Nueva York.
Mexicos greatest woman writer.
Roberto Bolao
In this wide-ranging collection of 29 essays, internationally renowned Mexican novelist

and essayist Carmen Boullosa explores issues that unite and separate Americans and
Mexicans, from the nineteenth century to the present.
These thought-provoking essays delve into a variety of subjects, including Occupy Wall Street
and Arizonas political offensive against immigrants. Long a feminist, Boullosa also shares her
perspective on womens rights, musing on the repression of women artists and the lack of
recognition for their work. Similarly, women who participated in wars and rebellions have been
forgotten, and the author asserts that erasing them from our memory hurts us all.
Containing the authors original Spanish and Nicols Kanellos English translation, these are
absorbing reflections on Texas-Mexico border history, womens issues, art and literature.
Miami Herald
CARMEN BOULLOSA is one of Mexicos leading novelists, poets and playwrights.

She is the author of numerous works, including Texas: The Great Theft (Deep Vellum
Publishing, 2014), Texas (Alfaguara, 2013) and Las paredes hablan (Siruela, 2010). She
divides her time between Mexico City and New York City.
Arte Pblico Press

University of Houston
4902 Gulf Freeway, Bldg. 19, Rm 100
Houston, Texas 77204-2004
www.artepublicopress.com
Order by phone: 800-633-ARTE
Cover photograph by Elosa Prez-Lozano
Cover design by John-Michael Perkins
ISBN 978-1-55885-806-0
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Carmen Boullosa
A luminous writer . . . Boullosa is a masterful spinner of the fantastic.
Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas

When Mexico Recaptures Texas
La mejor escritora de Mxico.
Carmen Boullosa
Cuando Mxico
se (re)apropia de Texas:
Ensayos
When Mexico
Recaptures Texas:
Essays
Cuando Mxico
Ensayos
When Mexico
Recaptures Texas:
Essays
Carmen Boullosa
Cuando Mxico
Ensayos
Traduccin al ingls de Nicols Kanellos
Arte Pblico Press

Houston, Texas
Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos / When Mexico

Recaptures Texas: Essays is funded in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.
Recovering the past, creating the future
Arte Pblico Press
University of Houston
4902 Gulf Fwy, Bldg 19, Rm 100
Houston, Texas 77204-2004
Cover design by John-Michael Perkins
Cover photo by Eloisa Prez-Lozano
Boullosa, Carmen.
[Essays. Selections. English]
When Mexico recaptures Texas : essays / by Carmen
Boullosa ; English translation by Nicols Kanellos = Cuando
Mexico se (re)apropia de Texas : ensayos / por Carmen
Boullosa ; traduccion al ingles de Nicols Kanellos.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-55885-806-0 (alk. paper)
1. Mexican-American Border Region. I. Kanellos, Nicols,
translator. II. Title.
PQ7298.12.O76A2 2015
864'.64dc23
2015025478
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the
American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos
When Mexico Recaptures Texas: Essays Carmen Boullosa
2015 by Arte Pblico Press
Printed in the United States of America
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contenido / Table of Contents

Secuestros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Linchamientos y mexicanos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Violencias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
El oro blanco de Tamaulipas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Se vende un gallego, se matan mexicanos . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
La manca de Jurez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Evas texanas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Wall Street, la estrella cercana de Bettina . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Cuando Texas se (re)apropia de Mxico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
El sueo mexicano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
El motn de los chamacos de Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
Cabellos comanches de Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45
El francs que defendi Mxico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Sueos de chicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Lgrimas y combate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
Curacin a balazos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
Espuelas y guayaberas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
Glorias (y penas) nacionales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
Dos para un duelo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Cuatro poetas solteros guadalupanos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Bolvar y Sor Juana, tal vez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81
Mary Cassatt y Edgar Degas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

La batalla de las vrgenes (la Guadalupana contra
Remedios) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89
La pintora y el fotgrafo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93
Papeles quemados . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97
Tortillas envenenadas y barcos insurgentes . . . . . . . . . . . .101
La cangrejo sufragista y su Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105
La amante ms dulce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107
La autora de la Odisea, y las olvidadas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
lll
When Mexico Recaptures Texas: Essays

Kidnapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117
Lynching and Mexicans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
Types of Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125
The White Gold in Tamaulipas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Sell the Galicians, Kill the Mexicans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
The One-Armed Woman of Jurez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137
Texan Eves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141
Wall Street, the Star Nearby Bettina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145
When Mexico Recaptures Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
The Mexican Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153
A Childrens Riot in Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157
Comanche Hairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161
The Frenchman Who Defended Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . .165
Dreams of Gum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .169
Tears and Combat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173
Healing with Bullet Wounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177
Spurs and Guayaberas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181

National Glories (and Pain) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
Two for a Duel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189
Four Bachelor Poets Devoted to the Virgin of
Guadalupe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193
Bolvar and Sor Juana, Perhaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197
Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201
The Battle of the Virgins: Guadalupe versus Remedios . . . .205
The Painter and the Photographer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
Burnt Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .213
Poisoned Tortillas and Rebel Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .217
The Suffragette Crab and Her Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221
The Sweetest Lover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223
The Female Author of the Odyssey, and the
Other Forgotten Ones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227
Secuestros
Cuando el territorio de Texas estaba en veremos entre
indios, mexicanos y gringos (y es un decir entre indios,
porque el poder comanche controlaba en gran medida a los
nativos), miles de personas pasaron por el horror de ser
cautivos, o, se dira hoy, secuestrados. Como en los tiempos del
autor de El Quijote (y como le pas a el mismo Cervantes) los
cautivos eran canjeados por dinero o por bienes, si no
esclavizados o asesinados.
El caso de la cautiva Cynthia Ann Parker no se olvida. Su
familia, de bautistas o baptistas radicales un to de Cynthia
Ann fund la primera iglesia protestante en Texas, muy
conectados con las castas polticas, haba fundado Fort Parker en
un lugar idlico, al lado del ro Navasota. Aunque pareciera ideal,
tena problemas: estaba retirado de las dems fundaciones
gringas, y quedaba en la frontera de la Comanchera.
En 1836, cuando Cynthia Ann tena nueve aos, los
atacaron los comanches. Como los Parkers se crean los
legtimos dueos del territorio, las puertas de Fort Parker se
encontraban abiertas de par en par, atendan sus cultivos, no
portaban armas. Su indefensin pareci un signo de desprecio
por el poder comanche. Los detalles se conocen al dedillo
porque otra cautiva, tambin del clan Parker, Raquel Plummer,
1
Carmen Boullosa
escribi y public su recuento: la tcnica fue la comanche que

haban padecido los espaoles, los mexicanos, y tambin los
apaches, osages, tonkawas y otros pueblos. Los atacaron sin
desmontar sus caballos, empalaron a las vctimas, les quitaron
el cuero cabelludo, los castraron. La violacin era una ms de
sus estrategias guerreras. Deseaban aterrorizar, y vaya que lo
conseguan.
Actuaban como narcos vengativos.
Se llevaron consigo cinco cautivos, nios y adultas.
Cuando ya estaban lejos de Fort Parker (las partidas
comanches cubran distancias enormes), violaron a las adultas
repetidas veces, enfrente de los nios.
Los comanches conservaron a Cynthia Ann, y la adoptaron
en toda forma. La llamaron Nauda Cosa Encontrada.
Cuando tuvo edad, se cas con el Jefe de los noconi, que haba
participado en el ataque a Fort Parker. Tuvo con l tres hijos
uno es muy famoso, Quanah, el ltimo Gran Jefe del
territorio libre de la Comanchera.
Dos dcadas despus de este ataque, los Texas Rangers
atacaron a los noconi; stos, vindose perdidos, huyeron. Uno
de los jinetes fugitivos llevaba en la cabeza un infante. Los
Rangers lo cercan. Es una sorpresa descubrir que el jinete es
una mujer, Nauda Cosa Encontrada, nuestra Cynthia Ann
Parker. Lleva a cuestas a su hija, Flor de la Pradera.
Haba olvidado el ingls, pero reconoci su nombre cuando
lo pronunciaron. Balbuce torpemente: yo Chintia An. La
regresaron a la familia Parker, le otorgaron tierras y una
pensin anual. La pusieron bajo la tutela de sus primos. La
cautiva vivi con sus hermanos.
Hay bautizos ms fuertes que el de agua: as el de la
violencia. Cynthia Ann no quera vivir entre los gringos.
Imaginarse el sanquintn que eran las comidas familiares:
el odio de los Parker hacia los indios, azuzado por el desprecio
que sentan por ellos desde antes de aquel ataque, y por el

deseo de Cynthia Ann de volver a los comanches.
Cuando Flor de la Pradera, su hija, muri de enfermedad,
Cynthia Ann se neg a comer. Falleci sin volver a ver a sus
otros hijos.
Fue un caso entre miles. En 1840, mil mexicanos vivan
cautivos de los comanches. Los varones eran peones que
cuidaban del ganado y los caballos, las mujeres curaban las
pieles de las piezas de cacera. Muchos fueron mercados,
vendidos como esclavos o cobrados el rescate a sus familias.
Un ejemplo: los hermanos Torrey, que comerciaban con los
comanches lo que stos robaban en Mxico, adquirieron una
mexicana, Rosita Rodrguez, secuestrada en el norte de
Chihuahua en 1845, y a quien compraron tras un ao de
cautiva por 100 dlares, pero no a su hijo, Encarnacin,
tornado ya en un comanche). Se conoce el caso de Cynthia
Ann por los detallados recuentos escritos, pero ms por la
notoriedad de su familia. Como sigue ocurriendo hoy da.
Linchamientos y mexicanos
a John Oakes
Parecera que, muy a su pesar, Billie Holiday (19151959)
y Xavier Villaurrutia (19031950) cantaron una a do.
Billie Holiday conoca en carne propia la condena a la marginacin y a la pobreza que impona el racismo. Su mam se
embaraz a los 13 aos. Al descubrirlo, sus abuelos la echaron
de casa. La adolescente da a luz, deja a su beb en manos ajenas, se va a otra ciudad y sobrevive como puede. La nia sale
(por primera vez) del reformatorio a los 10 aos. Cuando Billie
est por cumplir los 11, su mam presencia su violacin, la
regresa al reformatorio, denuncia al muchacho, y ste acaba tras
las rejas. A los 12, nuestra nia vive de vuelta con su mam, trabajan las dos para la misma Madame en Harlem. Por ese entonces, conoce a su pap, que es msico, y toma de l su apellido.
En menos de un ao, Billie Holiday ya canta en pblico. Ser la
primera cantante negra que interpreta en una orquesta de blancos.
En 1939, cuando no tena mucho de haber renunciado a la Banda
de Artie Shaw porque en algn concierto no le permitieron usar
el elevador reservado a los blancos, incluye en su repertorio
Strange Fruit. La letra y la msica de esta cancin son de un
maestro de escuela, un judo del Bronx, Abel Meeropol
(19031986), comunista de clset que aos despus, en 1959,
adopt con su mujer a los hijos de los Rosenberg, la pareja que
5
Carmen Boullosa
muri ejecutada, acusada de espionaje. Strange Fruit denuncia

los linchamientos en Estados Unidos como una accin racista.
Entre 1848 y 1928, miles fueron linchados, la mayora negros,
pero tambin cientos de mexicanos, proporcionalmente ms que
los afroamericanos. La multitud haca justicia por propia
mano, sin pasar por el aparato judicial, dando rienda suelta al
odio racial, semidisfrazado de ngel Vengativo.
La cancin precipita una verdadera revuelta, es un arma
muy eficaz en la batalla por los derechos civiles:
Los rboles del sur dan frutas extraas,
sangre en las hojas y sangre en la raz.
Un cuerpo negro se mece en la brisa surea,
cuelgan frutas extraas de los lamos.
Escena pastoril del galante Sur
los ojos hinchados y la boca torcida
el aroma de la magnolia dulce y fresca
y el sbito hedor de la carne quemada.
Estas son sus frutas, para que las piquen los cuervos,
para que las riegue la lluvia, para que las chupe el viento.
Para que el sol las pudra, para que se caigan de los rboles.
La extraa y amarga cosecha surea.
La otra mitad de la pareja que form, Xavier Villaurrutia,
no pas penurias y nunca escribi sus poemas con el nimo de
crear conciencia pblica hacia un problema social. Nada ms
lejos de su intencin. En el entorno postrevolucionario, l y los
otros escritores de su grupo, los Contemporneos, son, a su
manera, marginales. Aqu el Estado requera del arte para
forjar una idea de Nacin. Pues bien: ellos buscaban liberar su
trabajo de esa cadena.
En 1937, Strange Fruit se convirti en un xito, Villaurrutia

publica el poema North Carolina Blues que recopilar en
Nostalgia de la muerte dedicado al poeta afroamericano y
activista Langston Hugues, a quien l haba traducido en 1931:
En North Carolina
el aire nocturno es de piel humana
cuando lo acaricio
me deja, de pronto,
en los dedos,
el sudor de una gota de agua.
En North Carolina
meciendo el tronco vertical,
desde las plantas de los pies
hasta las palmas de las manos
el hombre es rbol otra vez.
en North Carolina.
En North Carolina, donde el aire nocturno, 86 afroamericanos
fueron linchados entre 1882 y 1968. El asunto no era cosa del
pasado cuando Villaurrutia escribe el poema. Cerca de la fecha
de la publicacin de su North Carolina Blues, el New York
Times reporta que 125 hombres blancos circundan una crcel en
North Carolina, exigiendo la entrega de un prisionero negro. En
una entrevista, Billie Holliday se queja de que a veces me
pedan les cantara esa cancin ertica sobre gente mecindose.
As es como se interpreta el poema de Villaurrutia, como un
poema ertico. Lo es? No habla ms bien de nosotros esta
lectura? Era una broma de la poca decir que la diferencia entre
un cretino y alguien que no lo era, consista en comprender la
letra de esta cancin.
Ser por el mismo motivo que no recordamos a los
mexicanos linchados del otro lado?
Violencias
Una ola de violencia se desat en la frontera norte hace
poco ms de 170 aos, cuando estaba fresquita la guerra
Mxico-Estados Unidos.
Dependiendo de quin cuente la historia, la violencia se
ensa contra los de origen mexicano, o la violencia provino
de stos.
En la versin que explica que vena de los mexicanos, stos
eran bandidos y robavacas, de raza sin remedio o malos
mexicanos, burladores de la ley y el orden.
Si la versin cuenta que las violencias provenan de los
anglos, hombres viles en cnclaves secretos que tramaban
cmo despojar a los mexicanos de sus tierras o propiedades, y
ponan manos a la obra. Por ejemplo, durante los aos 50 de
ese siglo, grupos de hombres armados en Texas se agruparon
con el nico propsito de cazar a mexicanos en la carretera,
despojndolos de sus propiedades y asesinndolos.
Sea cual fuere la versin (si anglos o si mexicanos), la
violencia era indudable: robos y asesinatos, usurpamientos de
propiedades de los mexicanos y actos atrabiliarios y racismo
de los gringos.
Y est la saa. De los 597 mexicanos que fueron linchados
entre 1848 y 1928, en Estados Unidos, un ejemplo: en julio de
9
10
Carmen Boullosa
1851, Josefa Segovia, en prisin acusada de asesinar a Frederik

Canon (el hombre haba irrumpido borracho en su casa e
intentado violarla), fue extrada de la crcel por la turba
enfurecida, y ahorcada.
Las violencias de los americanos eran estrategias para
amedrentar a los mexicanos, con el claro objetivo de que
perdieran todo derecho y propiedad. Las que perpetraban los
mexicanos podran ser hurtos o robos (o recuperacin de lo
arrebatado por la mala), pero los corridos se encargaron de
llenar sus hazaas de un aliento legendario, convirtindolos en
hroes populares.
Era una batalla campal por los privilegios y los derechos.
Traa cola: antes los indios brbaros haban sido despojados
con ttulos emitidos por la Colonia Espaola. Los indios
tambin respondan con ataques de vez en vez, a gringos y
mexicanos. A Mara Jos Cavazos le tocaron embates de los
dos frentes, los americanos y los indios. Era mexicana por
nacimiento, haba adquirido la nacionalidad americana porque
la mayor parte de sus tierras y su rancho quedaron de aquel
lado. Sufri el despojo de manos de un honorable
neoyorkino, el seor Charles Stillman. Stillman era, digamos,
muy emprendedor. Se invent un negociazo: apropiarse de
unas tierras de la Cavazos, situadas en donde se levantaba la
ciudad de Brownsville, y mercar los terrenos. Se las aganday
con ttulos de propiedad patito, y cuando un juzgado decret
que haba que pagarle algo a la seora Cavazos, y se le firm
un pagar oficial, Stillman enfund en su bolsa la cantidad
asignada. Despus, Stillman le pag, no dos, sino un peso
(literal) por sus tierras. No me cabe duda de que habr quien
cuente distinto esta historia, como los jueces de la Suprema
Corte americana que, aos despus, en 1879, declararon a
Stillman legtimo poseedor de los terrenos.
Tambin le tocaron a la Cavazos los embates de los indios
a quien los ancestros Cavazos, con ttulos dizque legtimos,
11
haban arrebatado sus tierras. En 1858, los indios

Karankawa atacaron su rancho, y muri uno de los hijos de la
Cavazos. Los indios lo pagaron caro: un comando de vaqueros
armados hasta los dientes, al mando de un sobrino de la
Cavazos, los barri, no dejando ninguno vivo. Traigo a cuento
a Mara Jos Cavazos por la coincidencia del apellido con el
Alcalde de Santiago en Nuevo Len, Edelmiro Cavazos,
ejecutado en medio de una ola de violencia que, como la de
aquel tiempo, traspone nuestras fronteras, y que tambin tiene
que ver con avaricias que no son de factura nacional exclusiva.
Pero el principal frente de batalla no es ahora entre anglos,
indios y los nuestros, sino entre mexicanos y mexicanos,
llmense Zetas, La Familia, La Compaa o etctera. Qu
traza las fronteras ardientes de los varios frentes? Es mero
canibalismo. Una violencia con saa que no es, evidentemente,
por la defensa de los derechos civiles o el bien colectivo, y que
nos lleva entre los pies a todos.
El oro blanco de Tamaulipas

La Bagdad mexicana tuvo sus mil y una noches, pero no
muchas ms, le toc en suerte una vida mucho ms corta que
la de su mtica homloga, y le falt Scherezada pero no
historias. Naci cuando perdimos la mitad del territorio
nacional, cerca de 1847, como un pueblecillo de pescadores en
la boca del Ro Bravo, fronterizo desde su nacimiento. Su
poca de gloria coincidi con la Guerra Civil del vecino del
norte. El Presidente Lincoln decret (en 1861) el bloqueo
comercial de todos los puertos de las fuerzas del sur, para
tronar los bolsillos de los esclavistas. stos no se quedaron con
los brazos cruzados, tenan que mercar el algodn que
cultivaban con sus esclavos para abastecerse de armas. Bagdad
era un puerto natural y por estar del otro lado del ro quedaba
fuera del bloqueo. Slo haba que transportar el oro blanco, el
algodn esclavista, por tierra hacia el Ro Bravo. Bandas de
bandidos fronterizos (o vaqueros y aventureros que operaban
al margen de la ley) custodiaban el transporte, protegindolo
de otras bandas y bandidos (y cuidando no los vieran los
federales, los yankees). Baada por la riqueza generada por el
trfico del algodn, en menos de tres aos, Bagdad se convirti
en un rico puerto de intensa vida comercial, con 15 mil
habitantes comerciantes y aventureros llegados de todo el
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Carmen Boullosa
mundo. De Bagdad, los barcos de vapor salan cargados de

algodn hacia Nueva Orlens, La Habana, Nueva York,
Boston, Barcelona, Hamburgo, Bremen y Liverpool.
El Presidente Jurez entendi la importancia estratgica de
Bagdad. Tambin Maximiliano y los franceses invasores, de
ah la Batalla de Bagdad del 4 de enero de 1866 que ganaron
las fuerzas juaristas. (El Daily Ranchero, peridico fronterizo
promaxiliano, antijuarista, antiwashington, muy antiafroamericano publicaba diatribas denostando a tirios y troyanos, sobre
todo si no eran esclavistas. Los soldados negros estacionados
en las inmediaciones del Ro Bravo enrolados al norte en el
ejrcito yankee, o voluntarios al sur en las fuerzas juaristas,
odiaban el Daily Ranchero, lo mismo que los cimarrones escapados de amos sureos. Pero sa es otra historia, y ya no
cabe aqu). Cuando se acaba la Guerra Civil del norte, el trnsito de algodn a Bagdad se esfuma, por qu iban a repartir
sus ganancias con los greasers del sur? La tirria antimexicana, el racismo, est a peso. Los Texas Rangers incursionan de
vez en vez. La gloria de nuestra Bagdad se desvanece. En
1867, el ao en que Maximiliano es fusilado en Mxico, un
huracn golpea Bagdad: la tormenta, de 80 millas de ancho,
pega en Mxico despus de haber visitado las costas de Texas.
El agua entra tierra adentro, arrastrando consigo las embarcaciones, destrozando las ms. Noventa habitantes de Bagdad se
haban refugiado en el barco de vapor Antonia, la tormenta
los arrastra cinco millas tierra adentro; cuando amaina el huracn, estn del lado tejano del Ro Bravo, y bien lejos de la ribera. Todo se perdi, nada se salv, ni siquiera nuestras provisiones, escribi un bagdeo. Tras el huracn, el hambre asol
el puerto. El barco Tamaulipas no. 2 transport a 140 residentes, posiblemente anglos, de Bagdad hacia Brownsville
para salvar sus vidas. Bagdad se declar poblado inexistente en
1880. Otros huracanes haban golpeado el rea, pero sobre
todo el mercantil: haca dcadas que haba dicho adis al oro
15
blanco. El huracn de 1889 dej inhabilitado del todo al puerto. Hoy se ha fundado una Bagdad nueva, una playa tambin
tamaulipeca, para recordar el puerto antiguo. La arena es blanca, como un oro blanco, pero lo que se trafica al margen de la
ley en sus inmediaciones (y en gran parte del territorio del continente) no son pacas de algodn. Tambin requiere esclavos,
atropella los derechos de la ciudadana y genera desbocada
violencia; vuelve a las personas desechables; ha desatado una
guerra. Custodian su camino bandas de forajidos, lo trafican
ambiciosos atrabiliarios armados con armas extranjeras, forrados de la proteccin de fortunas que se reproducen mientras
van corrompiendo y asesinando.
Se vende un gallego, se matan

mexicanos
. . . slo los escriba para aliviar . . .
penas reales o imaginarias
Versos de los primeros poemas de Rosala de Castro,
autora romntica gallega y una de las ms importantes de
nuestra lengua. Nacida, segn su acta de bautizo, de padres
desconocidos un cura y una soltera, creci los primeros
aos de su vida con las tas paternas. Cas joven, con su primer
crtico literario, que a su muerte se convertira tambin en su
censor quema sus cartas, consciente de que son la prueba
ms viva (segn sus propias palabras) de la singularidad de la
persona de Rosala.
El libro Cantares gallegos, escrito en gallego pero con
ttulo en castellano, le gan a Rosala el amor de su gente; otras
lneas le atrajeron la ira popular (en stas hablaba de la
costumbre, en algunos pueblos gallegos, de recibir a los
viajeros ofrecindoles una mujer para alegrar sus lechos, as
fuera la esposa o la hija).
Estos primeros poemas gallegos son una delicia; sus
subsiguientes escritos en espaol tienen un poder doloroso y
reflexivo. Cantares gallegos contiene la memoria popular, y
tiene un dios. Sus castellanos cuestionan la existencia misma
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18
Carmen Boullosa
de Dios corresponden a un mundo donde ste ha muerto.

La lengua, en sus poemas gallegos, es dulce y mudable, como
barro en manos de un nio. Su castellano, arrojado en sus
experimentos mtricos, tiene filo y movimiento.
La prosa rosaliana enfada a ratos, empalagosa y torpe, otros
asombra al odo y alegra la imaginacin con su irreverencia casi
infantil. Ella describe a la musa (en el prlogo de su novela El
caballero de las botas azules) no como una mujer, sino como un
ser bisexual. Pide al lector considerar su gnero, no neutro,
como escribe Sor Juana, sino masculino: olvide entre otras
cosas que su autor es una mujer. Porque todava no les es
permitido a las mujeres escribir lo que sienten y lo que saben.
Muy a su pesar, se gan la fama de dulce y llorosa, y
no slo por los prejuicios hacia una mujer, sino por la grata
calidad reidora de la lengua en su primer libro en gallego,
donde el pesar y el dolor parecen no haber entrado sino como
visitantes temporales. No est ah impreso el paso de las
hordas de hambrientos que Rosala vio invadir Santiago
cuando tena 15 aos: La multitud, siempre creciente, siempre
harapienta y esculida que vena del medio rural huyendo del
hambre. Porque la Galicia de Rosala es la de la emigracin
masiva (de la que yo soy hija, tal vez, porque Boullosa es
apellido gallego). Rosala escribira de esto.
En aquellos aos, en Argentina, se reporta exista un letrero
con la leyenda Se vende un gallego. En Cuba, en 1854:
junto al esclavo africano, el esclavo gallego El tristsimo
espectculo de las cuadrillas de gallegos, medio desnudos,
itinerantes perpetuos en busca de limosna y de cobijo por los
caminos de la isla, envidiando la suerte del esclavo negro.
Estoy citando del libro Estacin martima, crnicas del poeta
Luis Tosar. De ah tomo tambin esta cita de E. Calvet: la
exportacin tiene que ser de productos, nunca de hombres, si
se busca el enriquecimiento de un pas. Como dice Tosar,
19
pases que reciban gallegos, pasaron a convertirse en

expulsores de sus nativos. Tal es el caso mexicano.
Es en los poemas recopilados en En las orillas del Sar
(escritos por Rosala en espaol), donde el dolor de su tiempo
y de su gente queda impreso en toda su dimensin, tomando la
potencia de una bomba que altera la misma forma clsica de
los versos:
Como a impulsos de lenta
enfermedad, hoy cien, y cien maana,
hasta perder la cuenta,
racimo tras racimo se desgrana.
Palomas que la zorra y el milano
a ahuyentar van, del palomar nativo
parten con el afn del fugitivo,
y parten quiz en vano.
Pues al posar el fatigado vuelo
acaso en el confn de otra llanura,
ven agotarse el fruto que madura,
y el guila cernindose en el cielo.
Vale recordar a Rosala ahora. En la frontera mexicoestadounidense, las patrullas fronterizas asesinan a mansalva
mexicanos . . .
La manca de Jurez
Sangre incomprensible gira
Tomo este verso del blog literario de Susana Chvez donde
la poeta y activista tambin se presenta brevemente. Dice que
particip de modelo en la portada de la pelcula 16 en la lista
dedicada a los feminicidios de Jurez. De modelo, pas a ser
vctima. La asesinaron hace unos das.
Asista regularmente a las manifestaciones contra los
asesinatos de mujeres en Jurez. Se dice que ella fue quien
acu la frase Ni una ms. Termin su vida como una ms.
El prlogo de su libro de poemas, Canto a una ciudad en
el desierto, explica que ste: representa un grito de fuego
desde el corazn de la poesa contra la violencia que adquiere
mltiples formas, entre ellas las ms inadmisibles: los
asesinatos de cientos de mujeres. La frontera del norte
mexicano es una vieja cicatriz y no sanar hasta que no haya
una muerta ms. De ser la voz de las muertas en sus poemas,
Susana Chvez pas a ser otra silenciada.
Sus huesos no estn en el desierto. La encontraron poco
despus del asesinato a unas cuadras de su casa. A la poeta le
cortaron la mano, grotesca referencia al oficio cervantino. La
manca de Jurez entra a nuestro panten literario con su voztestimonio, encarnando en su vida y muerte el horror de la poca.
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22
Carmen Boullosa
Cuando las autoridades recuperaron la mano cercenada, la

funeraria acomod el miembro en su lugar, y enlaz las dos
manos con un rosario, como el que, cuenta la leyenda, se rez
en la Batalla de Lepanto para obtener la victoria sobre los
infieles por intervencin divina.
Lo rez entonces el Papa, lo rez el rey, lo rezaron en
muchos conventos, iglesias, pueblos, ciudades. Ahora las
autoridades, en cambio, salen con un rosario que parece estar
diciendo eso le pasa por andar paseando sola en la noche,
hablando quin sabe con quin. Eso, seores, no es rezo
aceptable. No pueden dejar de enmarcar su asesinato con los
otros feminicidios. Estn enlazados. Son parte de un mismo
horror.
La Batalla de Lepanto dio la victoria a los cristianos. En la
muerte de Susana Chvez no hay ninguna victoria. Aqu la
poeta muri, no sobrevivi para contar su historia, para hacerlo
parte de la literatura. Tampoco hubo intervencin divina. La
poeta escribi: en la mano de Dios se retuerce de risa
contigo.
Los fantasmas sollozan es otro verso del blog de Susana
Chvez. Naci en la ciudad en la que muri, el 4 de noviembre
de 1974. Empez a escribir a los once aos. Viva con su
mam. Haba dirigido algunos cortometrajes.
Hablo del corazn frente a la muerte,
con el rbol de la voz,
con un labio de tierra y otro
de noche.
No podemos escucharla, leerla, saber de ella, sin enlazar
nuestras manos con las de ella, con la mano cercenada, con la
que qued adherida a su lacerado cuerpo.
En un poema a un rbol, escribi:
23
Siempre en tu sombra
comprendo un poco ms a la palabra.
Ay, mi rbol de muones blancos.
La versin de las autoridades fue que la asesinaron tres
menores de edad, tres ninis que no tenan historial criminal. No
les hizo falta ningn entrenamiento: simplemente se acogieron
a la tica ambiente. Uno de ellos, el Balatas, viva en un cuarto
que le prestaba un maestro jubilado. l y su familia, al
enterarse, sorprendidos por el crimen, conmocionados y
conmovidos, fueron a dejar una veladora a la iglesia, por
Susana Chvez.
Tienen que hacer justicia, dijo en entrevista la mam de la
poeta muerta. La comprendo y exijo con ella que haya justicia,
pero de dnde podemos sacar la confianza? Hace un mes fue
asesinada Marisela Escobedo, la mam de Rub, por reclamar
justicia para el asesino confeso de su hija. Ni una ms. No
debiera morir ni una ms. Otro poema de Susana Chvez:
Qu le puedo decir a los dems
de mi embalsamada palabra si poco s de ella.
Mucho nos dicen hoy sus versos. No podemos abandonar
en el olvido a la Manca de Jurez. De su blog cito por ltimo
dos versos que debiramos tomar de rosario y de veladora para
hacer el reclamo universal:
mi boca suspendida
en la fijeza de su fuerza.
Evas texanas
Todo empieza con una mujer, Bettina Brentano von Arnim
la romntica, escritora (Mi alma es una bailarina
apasionada; danza para una msica secreta que slo yo puedo
escuchar), compositora, editora, artista y activista social,
amiga de Goethe y de Marx, de Beethoven y Franz Liszt,
adorada por los jvenes revolucionarios, en especial por su
libro, Este libro es del rey, en el que reprocha al monarca, y lo
apela a combatir las injusticias cometidas bajo su manto.
Ella fue la razn del nombre de esta comuna: Bettina se llam
la fundacin que jovencsimos inmigrantes enclavaron en 1847
sobre tres piedras de toque: amistad, igualdad y libertad.
Para los 40 muchachos radicales fundadores, que trocaron
el Ro Rhin por el Ro Llano (subsidiario del Ro Colorado) en
Texas, el amor fraterno y la buena fe suplantaran a la Ley. Los
bienes, incluida la vivienda, seran comunitarios; los 40
bettinenses dormiran en una misma habitacin, en una cabaa
levantada con sus propias manos. Entre ellos hablaban alemn,
y no manejaban el ingls.
Estos 40 eran varones, y a Bettina Brentano von Arnim, su
homenajeada, se le llama feminista, pero hagamos ese detalle
a un lado, junto con otro igualmente grandote: la frontera en
conflicto. Cuando pocos aos despus (en 1859) y unos
25
26
Carmen Boullosa
kilmetros al sureste, el rebelde Juan Nepomuceno Cortina se

alz en armas junto al Ro Bravo, deca: vmonos pa matar
al hombre blanco y a reconquistar nuestro pas, de aqu pa
arriba hasta el Ro Colorado!.
Si hubieran llegado a Bettina, respetaran los alzados
cortinistas a los Cuarenta? No lo creo. Era un territorio
minado, no slo por gringos y mexicanos. Ah estaban los
indios. Por esto, cuando los Cuarenta dejaron Indianpolis, se
sospech que ni uno sobrevivira a la aventura.
Se equivocaban.
Apodaron a los utopistas La fraternidad de Cuarenta. La
mayora fue reclutada en la Universidad de Darmstadt,
arquitectos, ingenieros, mdicos (el doctor Herff el ms
sobresaliente), intelectuales, un telogo, filsofos. Al primer
puo se haba unido variedad de librepensadores, el carnicero
(que preparara el jabal para la mesa comn), el hotelero, el
molinero, el carpintero de barcos. Parecan capacitados para
enfrentar los problemas del pionero.
Tal vez no lo estaban tanto. Por las noches, los bettinenses
beban whisky de las barricas que traan de Hamburgo, tocaban
los instrumentos de su arcn viajero, cantaban mucho y se
entregaban a disquisiciones filosficas que, para algunos,
pronto se convirtieron en su actividad nica.
Se firm un acuerdo territorial con los comanches. Fue el
nico entre el hombre blanco y estos indios que jams se
trampe. Las relaciones de los Cuarenta con los indios fueron
amistosas, Bettina acoga sus visitas, traan pieles de venado y
nueces, Tomen lo que quieran, y en reciprocidad los indios
reciban lecciones de alemn. Algunas palabras, como pferd,
les eran irremontables, otras les daban risa.
Bettina pareca ir viento en popa aunque slo se
cosecharan 200 mazorcas de maz, pero naufrag al cumplir
un ao de existencia, se rompi como una burbuja. O bien,
la fundacin dur lo que un subsidio, o bien, como cuenta una
27
leyenda, fue por culpa de una india que los comanches

regalaron al doctor Herff.
Lleg la Bella, y a los Cuarenta les sali lo bestia.
O no fue as, y la leyenda naci para el desbettinazo,
pegarle a las mujeres, las muy evas, fuentes del Mal. Cul
serpiente ni qu ocho cuartos!
Los dispersados Cuarenta se integraron con los otros
alemanes en las vecindades, algunos de los cuales queran
implantar el latn como lengua oficial. Alguien escribi que la
gente era feliz, y cit: Si nos viera aqu alguno de los tiranos
alemanes, el coraje que les dara. Casi todos tenemos una
orden de arresto pendiente, o la pena de muerte esperando.
Ms de uno ingres al ejrcito confederado (bettinenses
luchando con esclavistas!, ay!), otro fue senador por Texas, y
el doctor Herff (el de la supuesta Bella), fue el primero en
practicar una ciruga con anestesia en Texas.
Wall Street, la estrella cercana

de Bettina
Bettina von Armin, la estrella de su generacin, la bella
escritora, escribi a Goethe, el Poeta: En mi cuna alguien
cant que yo amara una estrella que siempre estara distante.
Pero t, Goethe, me cantaste otra cancin de cuna que me lleva
a soar la suerte de mis das.
El amor de Bettina por el Poeta fue una estrella poderosa
que calent e ilumin a muchos. Es diferente tener una estrella
distante, slo para adorarla; lo radical es que sta sea una
realidad posible. Las distantes, lo saba Roberto Bolao, son de
mierda.
Goethe cant a la Bella la certeza de que los sueos no son
algo inaccesible sino una luz factible. Fue lo que arrop y gui
a muchos utopistas hacedores de realidades, como los que
fundaron la comunidad socialista Bettina en Texas. Bettina dio
a una generacin de alemanes la conviccin de que los sueos
son posibles. Por enamorarse de Goethe, las estrellas bajaron a
la tierra. El amor hace milagros.
Los seguidores de Bettina alentaron luchas sociales,
pelearon por la igualdad de las mujeres, fundaron comunidades
socialistas del otro lado del ocano, levantaron a las masas,
desafiaron la injusticia o retaron los encajes mismos de la
belleza, sin abandonarla. Dieron sentido a la vida humana.
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30
Carmen Boullosa
Nadie ha afirmado que la influencia de Bettina alcanz a

golpear a los que se rebelaron contra la tirana del dinero en
1857 en Nueva York. Estoy convencida de que as fue. Cuando
miles de desempleados se rebelaron contra esta condicin y
armaron una memorable, Bettina estuvo presente. Tomo de
Mike Wallace (www.gothamcenter.org), de la corta historia de
las manifestaciones contra Wall Street en Nueva York: . . . un
grupo alemn, La liga de trabajadores americanos, convoc a
una manifestacin por Trabajo y pan. Marcharon hacia City
Hall Park donde entregaron al alcalde Fernando Wood una
peticin de los desempleados.
La manifestacin de 1847 contena frases que huelen muy
a Bettina y su generacin: Todo humano tiene derecho a vivir;
no es un asunto de caridad, es un derecho, y los gobiernos,
sean monrquicos o republicanos, deben encontrar trabajo para
aquellos individuos cuyos esfuerzos individuales no lo
consigan por su cuenta.
Una de las peticiones especficas de los desempleados
manifestantes fue que se construyera Central Park (el diseo
estaba haban ganado el concurso Frederick Law Olmsted y
Calvert Vaux, el espacio tambin tras compras y desalojos,
entre ellos el de Sneca, el pueblo fundado por negros libres,
los recortes al presupuesto de la ciudad lo tenan en espera).
Esta peticin tena dos filos. Por una parte queran hacer ms
vivible la ciudad, una que fuera para todos, con espacios
comunitarios, que beneficiara a los ciudadanos sin importar su
condicin social. Por otra, saban que construir el parque sera
fuente de empleos. Los rebeldes forzaron a las autoridades de
Nueva York a hacer real el hermoso Central Park. En el
proceso, se provey de trabajo a muchos, gracias a la presin
de los indignados de su momento, los que se rebelaron contra
la tirana no humanista del poder financiero, contra un orden
social que dejaba a miles sin techo, comida y trabajo.
31
Cuando el consejo de la ciudad (el city council) vot por

otorgar una cantidad de dinero considerable para construir
Central Park, lo hicieron empujados por la presin de las masas
acampadas en Tompkins Square. El 6 de noviembre, stas se
enfilaron a Wall Street. Una manifestacin de cinco mil
personas camin tras una nica manta, Queremos trabajo, y
se congreg a los pies de las escaleras del Merchants Exchange.
En palabras de un herrero manifestante: Vamos a hacerlo
en paz, pero vamos a mostrar a los mercaderes y los ricos que
nos estamos muriendo de hambre, como nuestras mujeres y
nuestros hijos, y que requerimos de manera urgente un alivio a
nuestra situacin . . . Cada da vamos a ser ms, nuestra
cantidad nos va a hacer indestructibles, vamos a marchar por las
calles . . . vamos a llegar a Wall Street, y vamos a explicarles
que necesitamos tener trabajo . . .
La estrella cercana de Bettina hoy vuelve a caminar las
calles.
Cuando Texas se (re)apropia de Mxico

Corre 1841. La joven repblica independiente de Texas
apenas est por cumplir cinco aos de vida, y ya est en
bancarrota. Buscando soluciones, Lamar, su presidente, enva
una expedicin de 320 hombres hacia el noroeste, convencido
de que los habitantes de la regin de Santa Fe desean
independizarse de Mxico y de que aceptarn la oferta de
anexarse a Texas. Quiere ganar as el acceso a una ruta
comercial que se ha comprobado fuente de grandes ingresos, y
que ayudara a la repblica independiente a salir de sus serios
aprietos financieros.
El trayecto de la expedicin resulta desastroso. Hoy
habran hecho el recorrido en automvil de Austin a la ciudad
de Santa Fe en un peln ms de 12 horas, pero en ese entonces,
conducidos por un gua despistado y mal abastecidos, los
expedicionarios pasan meses de penurias, cruzan la
Comanchera atacados repetidas veces por los indios. Algunos
expedicionarios mueren. Estn perdidos. Improvisan un
campamento.
En diciembre de ese mismo 1841, termina la presidencia de
Lamar. Toma posesin Sam Houston, el victorioso de la batalla
con la que Texas se separ de Mxico. Del otro lado del
desierto, los expedicionarios, rescatados por unos mexicanos,
33
34
Carmen Boullosa
por fin han vislumbrado la ciudad de Santa Fe. Muertos de

hambre y de sed, descubren ensombrecidos que los
santafesinos no tienen el menor inters en volverse texanos, y
se rinden ante el ejrcito mexicano sin disparar una bala.
Hechos prisioneros, sufren humillaciones y tormentos
mientras los llevan al sur. Los que se van rezagando o caen de
agotamiento, son acribillados sin misericordia. El capitn
mexicano a cargo de los expedicionarios (Damaso Salazar)
ordena cortar con un machete las orejas de los cados, las lleva
colgadas de un collar al cuello antecediendo historias que
hemos odo de Vietnam y Centroamrica.
De dnde brota el sadismo de este oficial? Es hijo del
odio? Naci cuando su gente fue maltratada por los texanos,
despreciada, linchada, las mujeres violadas, los pueblos saqueados? O es locura no ligada a un afn consciente vengativo,
una enfermedad mental?
Los expedicionarios texanos y la partida de militares
mexicanos cruzan el Ro Bravo, donde las autoridades
militares los estn esperando. Al reportarse el comportamiento
del Capitn Salazar con los prisioneros texanos, y ste exhibir
cndidamente su collar con cinco pares de orejas, lo condenan
a prisin.
En el Mxico al que han llegado, hay un buen nmero de
esclavos negros escapados de la joven repblica texana
(esclavista, algodonera) que han buscado refugio en territorio
libre. Ah forman alianzas para fortalecer a Mxico contra las
invasiones extranjeras y en un tiempo algunos se aliarn a
los bandidos mexicanos que resistirn de una u otra manera
a los texanos y que combatirn en la Guerra Civil Americana
por la causa antiesclavista. Lo que no puedo afirmar sin caer
en la especulacin es que los expedicionarios y los esclavos
huidos tuvieran en territorio nacional algn encuentro.
Los expedicionarios texanos son enviados a la ciudad de
Mxico, y ah refundidos en la crcel de Santiago Tlatelolco.
35
Cuando las nuevas de lo que ha ocurrido a la Expedicin a

Santa Fe llegan al Congreso texano regido por aventureros
ms prestos a tirar balas que a debatir leyes, el pleno decreta
la anexin de todo el territorio mexicano que est al norte del
Ro Grande para nosotros Bravo, ms buena parte de
Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Durango y Sinaloa de pasadita.
Texas se autodeclara legalmente duea de las dos
terceras partes de Mxico. Sam Houston intenta el veto, sin
suerte.
Qu pensaran entonces hacer con nosotros, los
mexicanos? Decan sin tapujos que ramos una raza inferior
(la dbil, imbcil y nigger repblica de Mxico debe resentir
la venganza, coreaban en las calles). Creyeron por momentos
que nos decretaran en esclavitud? Pensaban eliminarnos?
Para vengarse tramaban collares de orejas en su fantasa?
Coreaban para sus adentros: Lleve lleveeee, lleve lleve, su
collar de oreeejas!
El sueo mexicano
Imaginemos que los miles que cruzan la frontera norte de
Mxico van en sentido opuesto, buscando ilegalmente entrar
a nuestro pas, que las autoridades del norte intentan impedir la
fuga, y que las del sur, las mexicanas, auxilian a los huidos.
Un cuento de hadas? No: ocurri durante algunas dcadas del
siglo XIX.
Los desesperados no eran latinoamericanos tras el Sueo
Americano, sino esclavos huyendo por alcanzar su libertad,
por acceder a la solidaridad y la proteccin (fsica y legal) de
una nacin hermana. Mxico era la Tierra Prometida.
Los esclavos huan del norte arriesgando el pellejo la
frontera era hostil y estaba sembrada de peligros; podan
perderse, morir de hambre y sed, o caer en manos de cruentos
desalmados que pediran por ellos rescate a sus amos,
violaran a las mujeres, los someteran a todo tipo de ultrajes y
torturas, y los asesinaran si no conseguan los pagos exigidos;
podan topar con cazadores profesionales de esclavos, o se
enfrentaran a pares que permanecan leales a sus amos y que
deseaban impedir su huida; podran caer en manos de
polleros que los exportaban para venderlos como sirvientes
bajo contratos de condiciones leoninas. Pero muchos
afroamericanos conseguan cruzar la frontera, y encontraban
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en Mxico libertad y benevolencia, tantas que algn texano se

quej de que los esclavos son tratados con respeto y con ms
consideracin que si fueran americanos o europeos.
El presidente gringo trat de pactar un Convenio de
Extradicin con Mxico, que no lo llev a ningn lado, el
presidente texano redobl el intento, convencido de que la
economa de la repblica independiente dependa de la mano
de obra de los esclavos. La respuesta mexicana fue
contundente: no se permitira a ningn gobierno extranjero
poner las manos encima de algn esclavo que hubiera
encontrado refugio en nuestro territorio. La posicin de
Mxico no era una de brazos cruzados, el esclavo que llegaba
s encontraba su libertad y la proteccin para conservarla.
En 1830 y 1840 muchos consiguieron escapar. En el
verano de 1850, un hecho escandaliz a la opinin pblica
esclavista: cientos de indios seminolas cruzaron nuestra
frontera, dejando atrs la reservacin (la prisin india) a que
los haban confinado. Que los indios se fueran, no era prdida
que les tuviera en mucho, pero venan acompaados de unos
200 negros, escapados de la esclavitud o hijos de cimarrones.
El gobernador texano contrat a Warren Adams, famoso
cazador de esclavos, para rescatar las prendas hurtadas por el
Jefe Gato Salvaje, ese ladrn de negros. Las autoridades
mexicanas espiaban los movimientos de Warren Adams y
alertaban a los refugiados, pero algo fall y el cazador prendi
a Juan Caballo, el lder de los negros seminolas (los
mascongos).
El 12 de noviembre de 1850, los gringos expidieron una ley
que permita tomar preso a cualquier esclavo que intentara
cruzar el Ro Grande que para nosotros fue y sigue siendo
el Ro Bravo. Pero de poco les sirvi, las tropas en la
frontera no daban abasto, se les escurran como el agua entre
las manos.
39
En 1854, el Austin State Times calculaba en ms de 200 mil

los negros que haban huido de Estados Unidos a Mxico un
nmero inflado, pero que refleja la dimensin del fenmeno.
Se ofrecieron altos rescates por los fugitivos, y ms de un
cazador de esclavos se entremezcl con las tropas liberales
mexicanas fingiendo apoyarlas, cuando lo nico que perseguan
era poner las garras sobre sus presas.
Los afroamericanos tenan a Mxico en mente
expresin de un esclavista cuando declin la compra de un
esclavo por or decir que soaba con venirse al sur.
Confiaban en el Sueo Mexicano. Por l arriesgaban la vida.
Quin lo creyera, que pasado un siglo y medio no fuera sta
la tierra prometida, ni el sueo de libertad y dignidad de
muchos, sino un escena de negros!
El motn de los chamacos de Arizona

La ancdota parece ficticia, pero dicen que es cierta.
As la veo yo:
El maestro de Historia y Lengua de una secundaria pblica
en Arizona no puede asistir a sus clases. Lo reemplaza un
suplente. Despus de escuchar los (dicen que rutinarios)
anuncios en la televisin (que a m me llaman a sorpresa), los
chamacos se niegan a repetir con la pantalla las (rutinarias)
frases de lealtad a los Estados Unidos de Amrica.
Somos mexicanos! le gritan al suplente, ste es
territorio que los gringos nos birlaron!
El suplente les exige que hablen en ingls, Estamos en
los Estados Unidos de Amrica!
Pues le contesta un alumno en perfecto ingls sureo,
sin pice de acento extranjero ms te vale que aprendas
espaol y los modos mexicanos, porque a fin de cuentas estas
tierras son de Mxico.
Al suplente le disgusta sobremanera la respuesta. Con su
enfado, trasluce vulnerabilidad a los alumnos, las palabras lo
han hollado. Fingiendo control, intenta ponerlos en orden y
hacerlos cumplir con la agenda que dej el ausente.
Vamos a leer unas pginas de Mark Twain. Abran sus
libros de texto.
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Carmen Boullosa
Los chamacos no quieren abrir los libros. Cuando por fin

acceden, les arrancan hojas y las convierten en objetos
arrojadizos que proceden a aventarse los unos a los otros.
Me parece que su gua aqu es el Tom Sawyer de Mark
Twain, otro de trece aos, que con pies desnudos deambula a
lo salvaje.
El suplente los llama al orden. Los muchachos estn
decididos a almorzrselo, y siguen adelante con su estrategia.
Le sorrajan:
Aqu todos somos ilegales.
Los gringos son unos racistas.
Nos quitaron a la mala el territorio.
Nos tomaron el pelo.
Etctera.
El suplente vuelve a su casa desmoralizado. Saca fuerzas
de flaquezas y escribe a su Senador, resendole la turbulenta
experiencia. Est, sobre todo, frustrado. Espera algn da
conseguir un puesto de maestro, o mejor todava, de profesor.
Pero ahora no tiene sino migajas, cobra por hora lo que otros
dejan de hacer. Es un bateador de reemplazo, y cuando lo
invitan a la cancha . . . topa con puros Tom Sawyers!
Pero tiene fe en s mismo. Est convencido de que l puede
lanzar un homerun. Si le dieran una oportunidad . . . En la carta
que escribe a su Senador, lo intenta. Empieza: Estimado
Senador Russell Pearce. Le cuenta, de manera sobria,
contenida, sin explayarse, cmo fueron los sinsabores del da
laboral. La chamacada malportada. No se le ocurre anotar la
similitud que hay entre estos rebeldes y Tom Sawyer, el
supuesto objeto de estudio.
Termina escuetamente la narracin, y anota sus
reflexiones: Como maestro sustituto, he aprendido que los
estudiantes en esta rea no quieren recibir educacin sino ms
bien pertenecer a una pandilla y ser gangsters. De nuevo: no
se le ocurre pensar en Mark Twain, no piensa en la rapidez de
43
la inteligencia de este autor, ni lo cita: La educacin consiste

sobre todo en lo que hemos desaprendido.
El sustituto sigue en su carta: Los estudiantes odian a los
Estados Unidos, y estn decididos a reclamar esta rea para
Mxico. Si furamos capaces de echar fuera a los ilegales de
nuestras escuelas, los tamaos de los grupos se reduciran.
Ms agua para su molino. Termina con: Aplaudo y apoyo sus
esfuerzos por detener esta invasin. Cuando los ciudadanos de
un pas son forzados a hablar la lengua de los invasores,
obligados a adoptar sus costumbres, orillados a apoyarlos, no
se convierten de hecho en conquistados? Explica lo fatal, que
esta invasin torne a su patria en un pas del Tercer Mundo.
Y de nuevo, aplaude al Senador.
Y s que pega un homerun. Su carta es un hit cuando es
leda ante el Senado de Arizona el 21 de marzo. La ola
antiinmigrante la abraza y difunde con jbilo.
La cito yo aqu con otro nimo, para subrayar el timn
desgobernado de su aula, el alebreste de los chamacos . . . y
recordar al autor de Tom Sawyer, que bien deca: Cada escuela
que se cierra, es a futuro una crcel que se abre. Cada
estudiante que echen fuera, ser un peligro social.
Los chamacos no lo son ahora. No parecen estar pidiendo
ser parte de una pandilla, sino un buen maestro, con inteligente
timn.
Cabellos comanches de Arizona

Montados en los mustangos (caballos cimarrones) los
comanches fueron un tiempo los amos imbatibles de los
Grandes Llanos, imponiendo su rgimen de miedo, o de terror,
sobre las otras naciones indios, mexicanos, gringos e
inmigrantes europeos.
Los comanches tenan varias esposas. Ellas eran la mano
de obra que curta las pieles (de bfalo y vacuno) que
mercaban a cambio de armas de fuego, con las que eran
tambin muy duchos. Tener varias esposas era, al menos en
parte, un asunto laboral, un recurso para obtener mano de obra
como pasa en otras culturas con las instituciones
matrimoniales.
Las mujeres tambin eran esplndidas jinetes, y
participaban en los ataques. De una mujer se cuenta que (en un
enfrentamiento con los Texas Rangers del que los comanches
salieron muy mal parados), a la hora de la batalla, llevaba a un
hijo pequeo subido en la cabeza, como un sombrero,
cabalgaba con maestra, manejaba un arma de fuego; vindola
perdida, se dio a la fuga, pero cay en manos de los gringos,
con todo y su vstago. Fue ah que supieron que era mujer, lo
mismo que su pequea hija (Flor de la Pradera), y que haba
nacido de una familia anglosajona, los Parker influyentes en
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Carmen Boullosa
la poltica, la economa, y el mundo religioso (un to suyo

haba fundado la primera Iglesia Protestante en Texas); los
comanches la haban tomado por primera vez cautiva cuando
tena nueve aos en un ataque cuyas crueldades espeluznantes
fueron reseadas con todo detalle por una ta suya; haba
prcticamente olvidado el ingls pero reconoci su nombre y
pudo repetirlo, Cynthia Ann Parker. Pas el resto de su vida
suspirando por volver con los comanches, y de plano se neg
a comer desde el momento en que muri su hija en una
epidemia, muriendo ella poco despus.
Cynthia Ann Parker, o Naduah, aparece en las fotografas
con el cabello corto, mochado a lo prncipe valiente, como las
otras mujeres comanches: era costumbre mochar el cabello a
las seoras para que lo usaran los varones, como extensiones.
El cabello largo era cosa viril.
Era ese cabello largo una manera de apoderarse del poder
generador de vida de las mujeres, una manera de imitar al hijo
montado a cuestas de la cabeza de la madre que llevaba en el
ataque como un sombrero? Se ponan los varones comanches
las extensiones de cabellos para remediar su envidia de la
matriz como hoy los hombres occidentales se dejan crecer la
panza, imitando a las mujeres embarazadas?
Crean, en efecto, que las mujeres generaban vida, o estoy
echndole a su imaginario demonios de nuestra cosecha?
Haba alguna especie de castigo en este arrancar el cabello a
sus mujeres? Era pura mala onda, celo de quitar? O era una
manera de hermanarse? Era una figura metafrica con la que
sus parejas de muchos se convertan en uno?
Valen las mismas preguntas hoy, cuando el cabello de las
mujeres se merca, viaja procedente de Tailandia o la India u
otros pases, hacia todos los rincones del mundo con mayor
poder econmico, para servir de extensiones?
Cabe imaginar que un marido, en aquel hemisferio de la
tierra, pasa la mano por la cabeza recin podada de su mujer,
47
suspirando tal vez por la humillacin de haber perdido por la

pobreza un bien tan preciado. Otro pasa la suya por la hermosa
cabellera natural, ahora teida de rubio y rizada, y siente en
sta las grapas que la sujetan.
Cmo se sujetaran los comanches las extensiones de
cabello? Las trenzaban nada ms o, preparndose para su
agitada vida recorran grandes extensiones a diario,
cabalgando a velocidades formidables echaban mano de
gomas y resinas? Y cules eran esas gomas y resinas? Los
comanches tenan cierto espritu cientfico: otras cautivas
rescatadas, de raza negra, retornaron con espantosas cicatrices:
los comanches escarbaron su piel con cuchillos, intrigados por
saber hasta dnde llegaba su negritud. Tal vez con su espritu
cientfico descubrieron un pegamento perfecto, que ahorrara
las grapas que recuerdan el trfico de cabellos en este mundo
tambin cruel.
El francs que defendi Mxico

El caso de este juicio es en verdad muy notorio se
puede decir que es algo indito: los piratas quedaron en
libertad, mientras que los abogados fueron puestos tras las
rejas. La frase que cito queda hoy muy chica, porque, como
bien elabora el esplndido documental Presunto culpable, por
norma los inocentes van a dar tras las rejas y los criminales
quedan libres (el lente de la cmara de filmacin fue clave en
el rescate del presunto culpable del documental, pero la
videograbacin no ayud nada en el caso trgico de Marisela
Escobedo).
La cita con que empiezo estas lneas es del Courier de
Nueva Orlens, del 18 de junio de 1835. El pirata a que hacen
referencia (los piratas quedaron libres, los abogados tras las
rejas) no era un corsario o filibustero, sino un oficial de la marina mexicana en servicio, el capitn del buque de guerra Correo
Mejicano, a quien el gobierno central haba enviado a las costas texanas a contener nuestro territorio de contrabandistas y
piratas, y a perseguir el comercio de esclavos, ilegal para Mxico y contrario al derecho internacional. Tanto el contrabando,
como los piratas y negreros, eran cobijados por los texianos (los
anglosajones que vivan en aquel Texas mexicano).
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Carmen Boullosa
El capitn del Correo Mejicano, hay que aclararlo, era un

ingls, comnmente llamado Mxico Thompson. Mxico lo
contrat por su experiencia en el mar y por su eficacia. Era, en
efecto, un marino muy hbil. Sus victorias sobre los piratas y
contrabandistas no se hicieron esperar. Pero no era el hombre
ideal para lidiar con la situacin texana, era impulsivo e
iracundo. Los texianos se haban levantado ya, haban sido
reprimidos; no tenan ninguna intencin de pagar impuestos, y
la esclavitud, para ellos, no estaba a discusin. Le agarraron
tirria al capitn Thompson desde el principio. En parte s
tenan motivo. Apenas llegar, Mexico Thomson declar la ley
marcial y el bloqueo comercial en toda el rea, y anunci que
confiscara todos los esclavos que encontrara y los dejara
libres pero, eso s, despus de un ao de servidumbre a su
servicio. Captur una balandra (y la regres al dueo a cambio
de 100 dlares), y se apropi de otra, sin drsela de vuelta.
En una de sas, acercndose a Puerto Velasco, Mxico
Thompson usa el altavoz para pedir sus papeles a un buque
mercante americano, el Tremont, cuando ste transfera
madera al vapor Laura. Mxico Thompson sospech que
transportaba esclavos. El Tremont no tir por la borda los
insumos prohibidos, o aquellos para los que no traa
documentacin, como se sola hacer en esas situaciones porque
era mejor perder una parte y no el todo. Simplemente se neg
a obedecer las rdenes de Mxico Thompson. ste envi
hombres en un barco de remos a exigir la entrega de
documentos. Los texianos que estaban en tierra abordaron el
vapor Laura fuertemente armados, y se enfilaron hacia el
Tremont. Al llegar, atacaron, tambin dispararon el can
desde tierra. Por azar, lleg a puerto el San Felipe (que
llevaba slo un pasajero, Sam Houston), y se uni al ataque
contra el Correo Mejicano. Resumo: los texianos vencieron
a Mxico Thomson, lo tomaron prisionero, y se lo llevaron,
51
con barco y toda su tripulacin, a Nueva Orlens donde lo

sometieron a juicio.
El caso United States v. Thompson fue sonadsimo. Mxico
extern su inconformidad con la situacin. Se desat una
tormenta diplomtica. Que los americanos hubieran tomado
prisioneros marinos mexicanos era un atropello, y sea
evidente de que apoyaban a los rebeldes texianos Mxico
Thompson estaba en misin oficial y estaba en todo su derecho
de exigir ver papeles.
Dos clebres abogados tomaron los dos lados del
banquillo. Un francs, Soul, represent los intereses
mexicanos, defendi a Mxico Thompson. El defensor y el
fiscal perdieron en algn momento la paciencia, se insultaron
a gritos, se arrojaron libros y tinteros. El juez los castig por
desacato a la corte con seis horas tras las rejas a esto hace
referencia la frase citada.
Tan buena labor hizo el abogado francs en pro de Mxico,
que Thompson sali libre, y no lo volvieron a juzgar.
Sueos de chicle
Mi reino por un mango de Manila! Por un taquito al
pastor. Por una pia de buen sabor. Despus del verano en
Mxico, me pesa estar lejos de los hijos y amigos, aqu en
Brooklyn.
Salgo de casa sintindome como perro apaleado, con la
mirada fija al piso. En la banqueta, las marcas de los cientos,
miles de chicles que caracterizan el pavimento neoyorkino.
Comienzo a contar las manchas, pero imposible.
Por cada neoyorkino, cuntos chicles hay embarrados en
sus banquetas? En esta ciudad, mascar, y escupir son un
distintivo vernculo . . . Si me permiten la adaptacin, Una
bola de chiclets en cada hijo te dio! . . . Manchas negras,
redondas, incontables en la esquina, a la entrada del metro,
enfrente de las puertas de los edificios pblicos, y, en resumen,
en cualquier lugar donde hay un trnsito humano intenso.
De dnde esta costumbre? Es difcil encontrar en Nueva
York un trecho de banqueta libre de las negras manchas
redondas. Segn el New York Times, los chicles escupidos
deben ser considerados parte esencial de la infraestructura de
la ciudad. Nada nuevo, en un artculo de 1939, Hundida en
Chicle, est una queja: Nueva York podra terminar envuelta
en chicle mascado.
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Carmen Boullosa
Declaran as que los chicles son un producto de origen

neoyorkino? Un seor Adams fabric los primeros chiclets
con goma de Yucatn, y sin sabor, en 1871. La primera
compaa chiclera se llam Adams New York Chewing
Gum, Snapping and Stretching. En 1884 se empezaron a
fabricar con sabor.
Pensar que se la deben a (nuestro) Santa Anna, quien viejo
y exiliado languideca aqu, en Staten Island . . . Fue l, segn
cuenta la leyenda (o la historia), quien puso en 1869 el chicle
en las manos del seor Adams. Santa Anna, que tena la
costumbre de mascar chicle, soaba que con este producto
podra reunir fondos para reclutar un ejrcito y retomar la
presidencia. Propuso la goma a Adams, el seor Adams intent
hacer un material resistente como el caucho, fracas, y su hijo
tuvo la idea de venderlo como lo usara el mexicano Santa
Anna, que ya para entonces estaba de vuelta en Mxico, sin el
ejrcito de mercenarios que imaginara financiar con el chicle.
El Traidor de la Patria ahij un producto que conquistara al
mundo, pero no para l.
Fue en la Segunda Guerra cuando otro empresario,
Wrigley, convenci al ejrcito norteamericano de que la racin
de los soldados deba incluir chicles para liberar la tensin
de los combatientes y hacerles menos engorrosa la boca seca
en las largas caminatas. Los soldados diseminaron el hbito
as como los murcilagos las semillas del chicozapote,
ayudando a la reproduccin de los rboles de donde
originalmente se sacaba el chicle, antes de hacerlo con
suplentes industriales.
Entre los mayas, slo los nios y las mujeres masticaban
chicle. No era elegante, y en las mujeres, dicen algunos, era
declaratoria de malas costumbres. Cuando, en la boca de Santa
Anna la moda traspuso las fronteras, mascar chicle fue visto
desde el principio como una costumbre no elegante, e incluso
inmoral. Dicen que Leon Trotsky deca que mascar chicle es
55
una argucia del capitalismo para que los trabajadores no

piensen demasiado. En las pelis clsicas, el villano masca
chicle y el hroe fuma. Hoy, quienes dejan de fumar, mastican
chicles con nicotina. Lo que es regla general, es que masticar
chicle es percibido an como algo poco elegante. Y como algo
gringo.
Tan bien que me caera al nimo un mango de Manila,
todava pensaba yo, como les confesaba, cuando ya vena de
regreso a casa, an la vista pegada al piso, mirando obsesiva
las manchas negras. En el tercer escaln de la entrada, advierto
un chicle ya encarnado en el piso, negro y redondo. Si Santa
Anna hubiera hecho el negocio, si hubiera regresado a la
presidencia por ensima vez en su trono de chicle, si con las
ganancias del emporio chiclero mexicano hubiese recuperado
(por pago o por batallas) el territorio perdido, si con ste
hubiramos demostrado al mundo nuestras habilidades de
administradores y dems . . .
Lgrimas y combate
Haba de chile y de manteca, pero lo que tenan en comn
los poetas hispanoamericanos que vivieron en Nueva York en
el siglo XIX, fue la voluntad de ser, adems de escritores,
hroes. Algunos acabaron sus das en el patbulo o en el frente
de batalla, como el ms clebre de todos, Jos Mart, que
regres a morir en una escaramuza insurgente de un tiro en el
pecho en 1895, y como Juan Clemente Zenea, que cay en
1871 en un paredn espaol en Cuba.
La antologa El lad del desterrado, editada en la Imprenta
de la Revolucin en Nueva York en 1858 (en espaol) y
reeditada por Arte Pblico Press, rene algunos de estos poetas,
slo a cubanos. Dice el prlogo: Algunos de los autores que
aqu aparecen descansan ya en su sepulcro de las persecuciones
al despotismo; otros continan en su peregrinacin heroica bajo
cielos extranjeros. Un cadver nada ms tiene de su parte el
Gobierno espaol en Cuba: el de Miguel T. Toln, pero qu
triunfo! Apenas pis las playas nativas donde slo le haba
llevado el deseo de abrazar a su madre anciana y el doble
sentimiento de besar una tierra por cuya independencia se haba
sacrificado, apenas las musas patriticas salieron a su encuentro
y le oyeron decir que volva a morir a Norte Amrica, cuando
cubrieron de eterna palidez aquella frente donde arda la llama
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Carmen Boullosa
del genio. Cito a Toln: Las lgrimas detn, calla el gemido, /

Levanta al cielo la mirada hermosa; / Y al retumbar del trueno
repetido / Del mortfero bronce en la sabana, / Canta el himno
de guerra, mi cubana!
La pgina legal de la antologa dice que se vende en las
principales libreras de Nueva York, pero tambin circul en
Cuba, contrabandeada como muchas otras publicaciones que
se impriman en espaol en esa ciudad. Los poetas y otros
activistas buscaban en la ciudad apoyo econmico y moral, y
tambin un espacio editorial. Como la antologa, en esas
dcadas aparecieron cientos de peridicos, revistas y libros
neoyorkinohispanoamericanos en espaol, muchos de stos
editados por los mismos poetas slo el ya mencionado
Miguel T. Toln, quien fuera presidente de la Sociedad Cubana
Anexionista, escribe poemas en ingls y es editor en un
peridico anglosajn. Lgrimas y combate, pero tambin
prensa y organizacin. La verdad es que estaban gruesos, es
admirable su devocin y capacidad de trabajo. Que si son
todava legibles, se es otro tema, que aqu no voy a tocar. La
sensibilidad del lector ha cambiado, no hay duda.
Encabeza la antologa Jos Mara Heredia, profeta de
nuestra revolucin y Homero de nuestra poesa. Lleg a Nueva
York en 1823, se mud pronto a Mxico y muri en Toluca, a
los 36 aos. Lo cito: Tu amigo, Emilia, de hierro fiero y de
venganza armado / a verte volver y en voz sublime / entonar
el triunfo el himno bello.
Otros s vivieron largos aos, como la puertorriquea Lola
Rodrguez de Ti, poeta, abolicionista y defensora de los derechos de las mujeres. Desde muy joven rompi con la convencin
y llev el cabello muy corto. Mi estrofa, dura y desigual /, rebota como el corcel del gaucho en la vertiente; / anso recobrarla y
est rota, / y surge a chorros su perfume ardiente. (Aos despus, en 1912, y no poeta sino escritora de teatro, llega a Nueva
York por una corta estancia la escritora y activista Luisa Capeti-
59
llo 1879-1922, la primera puertorriquea que usara en

pblico pantalones).
Pedro Santacilia, tambin incluido en la antologa, exilado en
Nueva Orlens conoci a Benito Jurez, se hicieron amigos y termin casndose con su hija. Durante el gobierno de Maximiliano de Hapsburgo, comparti en Nueva York el exilio con la familia Jurez y otros liberales mexicanos, as fue cmo se incorpor
a ese momento de oro de las letras hispanoamericanas.
Si era la esperanza lo que los mova a entregar sus vidas a
su causa y dedicrselas con tal fervor, se cumple en ellos un
enigma de Sor Juana y la resolucin que se le ha atribuido:
Cul es aquella homicida que, piadosamente ingrata, siempre
en cuanto vive mata y muere cuando da vida?: La esperanza.
Curacin a balazos
La situacin creada por la institucional Guerra mexicana
Contra las Drogas cobra vctimas en todos los sectores: el
periodista, el alcalde, el estudiante, el que ni estudia ni trabaja,
el que s trabaja, el viejo, el gobernador electo, los
adolescentes que iban camino a una fiesta, la familia que
pasaba, por no hablar de militares y policas, y todos los que
los acompaen.
Dicho en corto, la guerra se lleva a mucha gente que ni las
debe ni las teme entre las patas y a los que s tienen cuentas
con la justicia, los elimina sin darles un juicio justo. Los
mexicanos nos hemos vuelto desechables. Formas de
resistencia? Si acaso, los universitarios twittean alertando de
balaceras en su campus, y los oficinistas envan emailes
previniendo a sus conciudadanos no pasar por tal colonia,
porque han detectado granadas.
Los muertos no han sido blancos aislados. Partes de
Mxico estn en verdadero pie de guerra. El himno nacional
mexicano habla de un soldado en cada hijo te dio. Antes
esto, no un soldado en cada hijo, sino una vctima posible
(porque aqu no estamos hablando del secuestrador, el sicario,
traficante violento y sin escrpulos, el decapitador, o el que
noms mutila dedos). Que retiemble en sus centros la
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tierra comienza el dicho himno. Qu retiembla ahora en

las entraas? El sonoro rugir de los huesos de los inocentes, o
las instituciones resquebrajndose?
Valga una fbula que encuentro en Edith Sitwell, en su
recopilacin de seres extraos de otros tiempos, para pensar en
esta guerra. Un hombre, en el siglo XVII, sufra ventosidades,
llammoslo seor Piedra. Crey dar con un remedio eficaz,
llevaba algn tiempo practicando el hbito, sugerido por unos
amigos, de tragar piedrecillas redondas y blancas a fin de
remediar ese trastorno. Al principio la prescripcin actu
admirablemente y, al cabo del ciclo natural elimin las piedrecillas y el aire; pero algn tiempo despus el aire regres a las
entraas. Recurri de nuevo a las piedrecillas y uno y otras se
aferraron a l y no quisieron abandonarle. Buscando una cura
para su redoblado malestar, el seor Piedra se trag 200 piedrecitas . . . y las guard en su cuerpo dos aos y medio. Entonces perdi por completo el apetito y sufri espantosas indigestiones, por no hablar de las dichas flatulencias. Fue a ver al
mdico. ste dijo que poda or el ruido de las piedras como
si estuvieran en una bolsa. Sali al aire libre, amarr al seor
Piedra patas arriba, y lo agit con violencia. La gente se haba
congregado a ver la escena: las piedras hicieron un viaje breve,
lento y ruidoso en direccin a la boca del seor Piedra. Entonces, el mdico lo puso de pie de nuevo, y el sonido de las 200
piedras que caan una tras otra en su lugar de descanso original alegr a la multitud. El mdico dej al seor Piedra en paz
con sus piedrecillas, su falta de apetito, sus indigestiones, sus
flatulencias.
Estar enfermo en aquellos aos, explica Edith Sitwell,
poda ser bastante peligroso y hasta inducido: se descubran nuevas enfermedades, las cuales era preciso curar aunque
no estaban en evidencia. Los remedios podan ser mortales,
y en muchos casos eran repugnantes: piojos de cerdo vivos,
lombrices de tierra recin cogidas, sapos vivos, crneo huma-
63
no, huesos humanos calcinados, estircol de ganso recogido en

primavera y secado al sol . . . Alguno serva para algo? Por lo
menos no eran rfagas disparadas por las fuerzas federales o
estatales. Ni las (tambin criminales) justificaciones en boca
de las autoridades (tenan antecedentes penales, eso les da
permiso de andar matando gente a mansalva?). Ni tampoco la
falta de alerta egosta en la poblacin: No vendrn contra m,
o Algo habrn hecho, las (apestosas) frasecitas suenan a las
usuales complicidades con los horrores de las guerras sucias.
Sobra decir que mucho ms difcil de tragar que las
piedrecillas blancas del seor Piedra son las cifras oficiales:
van ms de 28 mil muertos. Cuntos ms caeremos? Y,
suponiendo que adems de las vctimas inocentes el
remedio expulse las flatulencias, qu haremos despus con las
piedras metidas en el cuerpo?
Espuelas y guayaberas
Naci en una encomienda en Yucatn. Su vida tuvo ms
pliegues que una guayabera, y termin donde se portaban
espuelas, en Texas. Particip activamente en tres movimientos
de Independencia nacional: el espaol contra la invasin
napolenica, el mexicano, y el texano frente a Mxico. No
como uno de la bola, en Madrid fue diputado en las Cortes de
Cdiz (haba sido funcionario en Yucatn de la Corona
espaola), de vuelta a Mxico diputado y presidente de la
Asamblea Constituyente que redact la nueva Constitucin, y
en la Repblica de Texas fue uno de los firmantes de la
declaracin de Independencia que los liber de Mxico. Tres
enlaces algo cmicos: cada amiga se le volvi su enemiga.
Como le pas con naciones, le pas con personas. Con
Santa Anna, por ejemplo. Fue su aliado en varias, lo ayud a
recuperar su puesto de gobernador del Estado de Mxico del
que lo haban despojado y juntos apoyaron a Vicente Guerrero
hasta sentarlo en la presidencia. Como Octavio Paz por la
Matanza de Tlatelolco cuando Embajador en la India, Zavala
renunci a su cargo de Ministro Plenipotenciario en Pars
cuando Santa Ana se atribuy poderes tirnicos. Y tras
presentar la renuncia, Zavala (como hizo Paz con Daz Ordaz)
denunci a Santa Ana internacionalmente.
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Vivi en Nueva York, en la Texas mexicana posey tierras

otorgadas por el gobierno mexicano, las mismas con las que se
fue a ser parte de la nacin del norte y apareci otro pliegue
en su vida: Zavala, autor de un libro en que analiza a los
estadounidenses, se volvi uno ms de los que haban sido su
objeto de estudio, otro americano.
La pradera y los ros texanos prometan vacada, algodn o
azcar. Esta ilusin circulaba por el mundo, en peridicos alemanes se describa a Texas como el lugar del futuro, territorio
de clima perfecto y de posibilidades, una especie de tierra prometida, fueron miles los alemanes que emigraron a Texas.
Tolstoi empieza Anna Karenina presentndonos a un despreciable marido calzonrpido soando con esa tierra apetecible
para el aventurero: estaba cenando en Darmstadt; no, no era
Darmstadt sino algn lugar norteamericano. S, pero entonces
Darmstadt estaba en Amrica. S, estaba ofreciendo una cena
en mesas de vidrio, y estas mesas cantaban Il mio tesoro, o
no Il mio tesoro sino algo mejor, y haba unas especies de
licoreras en las mesas y stas tambin eran mujeres. Dos
dcadas atrs, la Sociedad de los Cuarenta de Darmstadt negoci la emigracin de 200 familias que arribaran a colonizar
tierras texanas con apoyo econmico, cabezas de ganado y
provisiones por un ao. Se fundaron por lo menos once colonias germanotexanas variopintas, con profesionistas, artesanos, trabajadores, empresarios y soadores, utopistas socialistas o aristcratas con ideas esclavistas.
No extraa que Lorenzo de Zavala, el insurgente y liberal,
sintiera deseos de usar las espuelas texanas. Ah estaba el
futuro, la aventura, la pasin; era lo contrario de volver al
pasado, mientras que el honesto Levi de Anna Karenina
(personaje que es la contraparte moral del marido disipado), se
siente feliz y en paz al descender del tren en que regresa de la
moderna urbe al entorno rural, y an ms feliz y sereno al ver
a su cochero tuerto vestido a la vieja usanza y montar al trineo
67
que lo lleva a su casa, alejndose de las mesas con vajillas,

licoreras y mujeres que le repugnan, Ces entonces de desear
ser otro.
Para Lorenzo de Zavala, adems del futuro y la aventura,
hubo mucho de casa en las espuelas de Texas: Yucatn no era
ajeno al universo vaquero, la ganadera fue el primer negocio
de los novohispanos. Pero la Texas que Zavala termin por
apoyar ira en contra de Mxico, doblando el pliegue mayor de
la historia del yucateco.
Zavala se retira de la vida pblica por motivos de salud. Es
noviembre, hace fro. Sale a remar y su barca se embroca (preciosa palabra) en el riachuelo (un bayou) donde se libr la
batalla final de San Jacinto en la que Zavala haba participado, mojndose en las aguas heladas, y a resultas de esto contrae pulmona y muere.
Glorias (y penas) nacionales

El mejor ejrcito del mundo, como llaman en la poca al
francs, llega a Mxico en 1862 a cobrarse a lo jarocho la deuda
exterior que el pas tiene pendiente. Los mexicanos reaccionan
contra los invasores con las armas y con las artes. Los
peridicos tienen pocos suscriptores, la manera prctica de
difundir las representaciones de las batallas es la publicacin de
lbumes de litografas y textos. Aparece Las glorias nacionales,
lbum de la guerra. Tras haber sufrido censura con la victoria
francesa, y el entierro por el ms persistente olvido nacional,
por primera vez se reedita reunido en un libro (publicado por El
Colegio de Puebla) con las reproducciones de las litografas,
textos de la poca, fotografas y otras ilustraciones.
Las litografas son de Constantino Escalante y Hesiquio
Iriarte, fueron acompaadas por textos de escritores que, como
Altamirano, se sumaron al ejrcito para resistir la invasin y
para poder narrar los hechos con testimonios de primera mano.
La fuerza y esplendor de las ilustraciones tiene respaldo en los
escritores/soldados: la Intervencin Francesa, escriben, es el
Gran drama que se representa y que tiene como espectadores
al Nuevo y al Viejo Mundo. Drama gigantesco, que apasiona
y conmueve profundamente los nimos, porque en el fondo es
la lucha sublime y fatal entra la idea antigua y la idea nueva!
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Carmen Boullosa
La idea antigua y la idea nueva, el viejo y el nuevo mundo,

quedan confrontados en las representaciones geniales de estos
artistas. Es el Sur contra el Norte, la Libertad contra el
Imperio, la ilusin contra la avaricia, la nobleza contra el
abuso, lo autntico frente a la imposicin. Otra cita del lbum:
A Mxico ha tocado ser el teatro de este drama. Si sus
resultados han de ser grandiosos para el mundo porque es
necesario, preciso, inevitable, que la idea nueva, la idea
civilizadora, la idea de libertad e independencia, triunfe al fin,
sean cuales fueren las peripecias y los episodios del drama,
sobre la idea antigua y dominadora es un deber nuestro, un
deber de mexicanos, recoger y consignar los hechos de esta
lucha gloriosa y escribir las pginas . . . de inters vital para
todas las Amricas.
Las litografas de las Glorias nacionales son de primer
orden. Por su composicin, hechura, detalles, fuerza expresiva.
Como el arte visual, los textos que lo acompaan dan prueba
de la honorabilidad, entereza, valor y noble comportamiento de
los mexicanos. La altura moral de su comportamiento est no
slo en la altura de los textos y las fuerza de las ilustraciones,
los mexicanos perdonan, cuidan, amparan. En nada son
crueles. La victoria de la Batalla de Puebla no es slo blica.
Es el triunfo del Bien sobre el Mal. Lo Nueva gana sobre la
vscera podrida del Viejo Mundo.
El artista Constantino Escalante (ms conocido por sus
caricaturas, el Padre de la Caricatura mexicana) tambin
pint un leo enorme sobre la invasin norteamericana, aunque
en este caso su obra no se realiz simultneamente a los
hechos, porque slo tena 11 aos cuando ocurri. Representa
el bosque de Chapultepec, Molino del Rey y el Castillo de
Chapultepec. La pintura an no da muestras de la maestra que
alcanzara el artista, pero ms que la ausencia de madurez
podramos adjudicar su ausencia de fuerza a la falla en el
drama escenificado. En la Batalla de Chapultepec, dos pases
71
nuevos se enfrentan, no el Viejo Mundo contra el Nuevo. Los

dos pases son la idea nueva. Cmo se puede resolver imaginariamente este dilema? Bastara decir que es de catlicos
contra los protestantes? Eso puede dar sustento legtimo al
alma nacional? No. Servira para consuelo de mochos y para
imn de diezmos, pero no dara para justificar el pleito entre
dos naciones nuevas. Lo cierto era que Mxico era un pas
an ms nuevo.
Resolvimos el conflicto creando la figura de los Nios
Hroes: el drama se torna algo ms trgico aunque menos
legtimo. El joven invasor ve cometer suicidio patritico al ms
nio.
Hay mitos nacionales que dan alas al respetable colectivo,
pero otros son lastres simblicos. Uno de los ms pesados de
cargar, desde esta ptica, es el de los Nios Hroes.
Dos para un duelo

La verdad es que no dan ganas de fabular sino de cerrar la
boca en seal de duelo. No hay nada peor que la prdida de un
hijo. Mi solidaridad con Javier Sicilia y todos los que han
perdido un familiar en estos aciagos aos.
Pero es en nombre de los jvenes que se quedaron absurdamente sin vida, por la defensa de nuestro espacio colectivo, por
la bsqueda de alguna salida para este desespero, que cada
quien debe hacer su trabajo, aunque sea un trabajito pequeo
(cito al Diablo de Ramuz, en La historia del soldado). Lo mo
es esto, escribir. En ltimo caso, para esto fabulamos los de mi
oficio: las narraciones retan al sinsentido y a la muerte.
Traigo aqu a cuento parte de la historia de las dos
hermanas que vivieron en tierras (entonces) fronterizas:
Firmaron los dos libros de poemas que escribieron a cuatro
manos como Las Hermanas del Oeste. En algn poema
aludan a la reencarnacin, como si hubieran tenido una vida
anterior. Lo cierto es que nacieron bajo una sombra. Su abuelo,
Charles, pretenda pertenecer a la Casa Percy, de gran alcurnia,
cuando no era sino un soldado raso que, sonsacado por la
miseria, abandon en Inglaterra a su esposa y dos hijos, y
escap a probar suerte. Puso sus armas al servicio de los
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espaoles, se llam Carlos, se volvi a casar, y enviud. En

pago por sus servicios, los espaoles le otorgaron tierras a un
costado del Mississippi. El territorio pas a manos
anglosajonas. Carlos, otra vez Charles Percy, se cas con una
muy joven heredera. Tuvieron descendencia. El hijo de su
primer (y legtimo) matrimonio lleg a reclamarle lo suyo
un Pedro Pramo del Mississippi, y ante el rechazo de
Charles, se instal un poco ms arriba de la rivera del ro, a
tramar la revancha. Padre e hijo, compitiendo, rivales,
ayudaron a convertir la cuenca del ro en el centro de la riqueza
algodonera mundial.
Las fortunas de los Percy crecan sobre una cama de
cadveres, los enterrados en un forzado olvido, los esclavos
que eran el secreto de su riqueza y los indios, a quienes
haban robado tierras de caza.
En 1794, con una depresin marca diablo, Charles o Carlos
Percy se amarr al cuello una cazuela de hierro, y se avent a
un brazo del Mississippi, el Bfalo (de aguas profundas y
negras) que desde ese da se llamara como l, Percy. Su hija
menor, Sara, tena diez aos.
Con el tiempo, Sara se cas dos veces, la segunda con un
hombre peculiar, el Teniente Ware, de buenos bigotes, letrado,
de gestos grandilocuentes y elegancias estrambticas, dado a
los viajes y las aventuras explor el norte del frica.
Tendran dos hijas, las futuras Hermanas del Oeste. Primero
naci Catherine. Cuando Sara, a los 39, dio a luz a Eleanor,
cay en una depresin que se la llev de la mano a la locura.
Perdi el piso. El Teniente Ware la intern en una institucin
para dementes. En su encierro, Sara Percy Ware pasaba los das
suspirando por su marido, lamentando su abandono. Cuando el
teniente la visitaba, Sara no lo reconoca. Lloraba por sus hijas,
en especial por su bebita, Eleanor. Cuando las nias llegaban a
visitarla, tampoco las reconoca, le repugnaban sus llantos y
reclamos de cario.
75
Sara conservaba su belleza y su hermoso y espeso cabello.

El teniente Ware la mud a la casa de uno de los hijos de su
anterior matrimonio, la encerraron en la parte ms alta, una
Rapunzel.
Aos despus, en 1860, Catherine, firmando Una seorita
surea, public una novela gtica exitossima, en la que no
hay huella alguna de esclavos, pero s un traficante de negros,
el maldito Urzus. Otro de los personajes (malos) sorraja
electroshocks y aplica anestesias caseras, busca la frmula de
la eterna juventud, quiere mezclar la sangre de la virgen
protagonista con oro . . . Est encerrado en el ltimo piso de
una casa (como Sara), sin escalera de acceso . . . Es una
novela mala? En su tiempo, compararon a Catherine Warfield
con George Sand y George Eliot. A la distancia, el afn
esclavista de la regin algodonera tiene en The Household of
Bouverie, y en la vida de su autora, la parodia de un mundo.
Cuatro poetas solteros guadalupanos

Acaba de salir a la venta la cerveza Lupe Reyes (un aire a
diva, referencia al largo puente). No soy bebedora de cerveza
(prefiero el vino, no por sangrona o malinchista, es gusto y
algunos finos tintos mexicanos visitan mi mesa cuando me
alcanza el gasto yo s soy la seora de mi casa), pero con
un nombre as no resistir la tentacin de probar la chela y, por
supuesto, de festejar su llegada al mundo.
Como estamos cerca del santo de las Lupes, van en honor
al nombre estas lneas de cuatro poetas solteros y guadalupanos.
Mi amigo adorado, el inmenso poeta y buensimo hombre
Amado Nervo, muri hace cinco das en Montevideo,
Uruguay, escribe Carlos Pellicer en carta a su mam en mayo
de 1919. Su muerte me tiene sumamente abatido. Te juro que
yo habra dado mi pobre existencia por retardar la de l
algunos aos ms. Parece que ha muerto alguien de nuestra
familia, as est mi corazn de tristeza. Estoy de luto y estar
un mes cuando menos. Nervo tena 49 aos. Te acuerdas
cuando lo vimos arrodillado en la baslica de Guadalupe el da
en que me llevaste a despedirme de la santsima virgen?
Estos dos primeros poetas solteros guadalupanos, el consagrado en vida Amado Nervo hincado en la baslica, fervoro77
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Carmen Boullosa
so de la virgencita y Carlos Pellicer, entonces de 22 aos

del brazo de su mam, tambin afectos a los bares frecuentados por marineros, segn podemos conjeturar leyendo
entre lneas en el siguiente prrafo de la misma carta: Ya
nunca volver a estrechar la mano del artista que para m tuvo
atenciones reveladoras de verdadero afecto. En Nueva York
pase con l algunas veces y la ltima vez que nos vimos al pie
del puente de Brooklyn, me desped de l dicindole: Hasta
pronto don Amado! Y l me contest abrazndome: Usted y
yo, hasta siempre. Parece que algo terrible presenta.
Al pie del puente de Brooklyn no haba capillas guadalupanas, pero s bares de mala muerte repletos de muchachos
o seores buscando muchachos.
El tercer poeta soltero guadalupano es Ramn Lpez Velarde. Su cronologa est plagada de Guadalupes. Guadalupe se
llama su pap, Jos Guadalupe Lpez Velarde, abogado jalisciense; Guadalupe es su primera escuela (Colegio Particular de
Nias de Nuestra Seora de Guadalupe); Guadalupe donde
estudi de joven (Seminario Conciliar de Santa Mara de Guadalupe) y Guadalupe otro en el que no s cunto pensara l,
pero que nosotros asociamos con su nombre, un artista popular de su tiempo, Jos Guadalupe Posada. El nombre Guadalupe estaba en el candelero: en 1895, cuando Lpez Velarde tena
siete aos, fue la Coronacin Pontificia de la Virgen de Guadalupe. Entre abogados, nias, seminaristas y calaveras, el
poeta nacional.
Es de Lpez Velarde la afirmacin: La mdula de la patria
es guadalupana. En esto va con los dos primeros solterones
guadalupanos que traje a cuento. Nunca pase al pie del puente de Brooklyn, en las cercanas de los bares de tan dudosa
reputacin, porque el poeta no conoci el mar (como tampoco
Sor Juana), ni viaj fuera de Mxico, ni le interesaban los
muchachos o seores.
79
El cuarto soltero guadalupano es Renato Leduc. Cito de su

clebre poema guadalupano:
Adorable candor el de la joven
que un pintor holands puso en el burdo
ayate de Juan Diego.
El sex-appeal har que se la roben
en plena misa y a la voz de fuego.
Adoracin, aunque no aparicionista. Habr paseado Renato Leduc bajo el Puente de Brooklyn, all por los tiempos en
que se cas brevemente con Leonora Carrington para ayudarla
a encontrar refugio del nazismo en Mxico? Probablemente. l
saba bien de pasiones. Del mismo poema:
Trrido amor,
amor no franciscano el que le brinda
ao por ao turbulenta plebe
mientras pulque y fervor
en frescos jarros de Oaxaca, bebe.
A la salud de Renato Leduc, Lpez Velarde, Pellicer y
Nervo, los cuatro solterones guadalupanos, reto al lector (y me
reto) a probar la Lupe Reyes, por ese otro culto restaurador
mexicano, el de la fiesta, al que tambin hace mencin Leduc:
Anhelantes de sed y de impotencia
En turbias fuentes beberemos ciencia . . .
Bolvar y Sor Juana, tal vez

Cuando Simn Bolvar viene a Mxico en 1799, tal vez
recorre las calles de la Ciudad con la Gera Rodrguez, y visita
la Piedra de Sol (o Calendario Azteca) que reposa en un
costado de la Catedral desde su hallazgo en 1790.
Bolvar tiene 16 aos, la Gera Rodrguez 22, y segn
Artemio de Valle-Arizpe hay romance, Se junt llama con
flama.
Un escribano de cuyo nombre nadie puede acordarse (un
muerto de hambre de la misma edad que la bella), al atisbarlos
frente el enorme crculo de piedra, se les acerca y se suelta a
hablar de la Piedra de Sol y de la Coatlicue, otra escultura
prehispnica, encontrada 4 meses antes que sta, recin se ha
vuelto a enterrar porque los indios le llevaban ofrendas, el
Virrey crey ver en esto un gesto subversivo y tena razn,
no era un acto inocente, mandaban un mensaje que escuch.
El escribano escucha con placer las frases con que
responde Bolvar, y por sostener con ellos otro poco la
conversacin, se saca de la manga una carta, entonces no muy
conocida, recitndoles versos que, con un murmullo, llama
independentistas; les explica que describen los despojos de la
Corona, el saqueo de nuestras riquezas: nac en la Amrica
abundante, compatriota del oro, paisana de los metales, adonde
el comn sustento se da casi tan de balde, que en ninguna parte
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Carmen Boullosa
ms se ostenta la tierra Madre. De la comn maldicin libres

parece que nacen sus hijos, segn el pan no cuesta al sudor
afanes. Europa mejor lo diga, pues ha tanto que, insaciable, de
sus abundantes venas desangra los minerales. El escribano
especifica: Son de la primera Insurgenta, y que no le digan
espaola porque ella crea en la existencia de Mxico, como
nacin, y se llamaba y dejaba la llamaran Mejicana, y repite
para ellos lo que se dice entonces de la gran musa mexicana, el
Fnix sin barbas, Juana Ins de la Cruz (se entiende porque no
est de moda el barroco): La verdad es que lo menos
interesante de sus escritos son sus poemas . . . ella es de los que
saben contar slabas para hacer versos, pero no hacer poemas.
Viendo el escribano que la Gera Rodrguez est a punto
de aburrirse con sus disquisiciones sobre el gusto literario, les
cuenta que la poeta era monja porque le repugnaba el matrimonio, citndola: Gracias a Dios, que ya no he de moler chocolate, ni me ha de moler a m, quien viniere a visitarme. La
Gera sonre, Simn quiere or ms versos insurgentes de la
dicha poeta desconocida; el escribano cita unos escritos al primognito de la Virreina: Levante Amrica ufana la coronada
cabeza, y el guila Mexicana el imperial vuelo tienda.
Otro?, pide Simn. El escribano le explica que cuando
poda echaba flores a los criollos, y cita otro poco del mismo
poema: coronista de s mismo, escribir sus proezas; aqu s
que se ha de ver una maravilla nueva: de aadir ms a lo ms,
de que el Mejicano crezca. Simn Bolvar quiere todava ms,
e invita al escribano a que los acompae. Pero ste, viendo sus
puos gastados y comparando su deteriorado y pobre atuendo
con los trajes de sus nuevos amigos, ah, de pie, frente a la Piedra de Sol, les recita: los arroyos nuestros convocan a desafo
al Danubio y al ufrates, al Ganges, al Tigris y al Nilo . . . vencen nuestros montes al Etna, al Atlante y al Olimpo . . . nuestros campos y bosques son ms animados y floridos y ms
amenos que el Elseo . . . la Amrica ufana, de Asia marchita
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los lirios, de frica quita las palmas, de Europa el laurel invicto. Les explica que Sor Juana dijo que nuestra laguna aventajaba al Estigio aquel ro que, segn los griegos, volva invulnerable a quien se mojara en l, y Simn decide ir a baarse
en sus aguas. Cudese de entrar desnudo, le dice la Gera,
mirndolo a los ojos, no le vaya a pasar lo que a Aquiles. A
modo de despedida, el escribano cita otro verso de la monja:
yo dependo de nadie.
No s si existi aquel pobretn escribano de cuyo nombre
nadie se acuerda, ni si la Gera Rodrguez y Simn Bolvar
visitaron la Piedra de Sol. Lo cierto: a Sor Juana (gran poeta)
corresponde el honor de ser la primera Insurgenta.
Mary Cassatt y Edgar Degas

La amistad entre los solterones impresionistas Edgar
Degas y Mary Cassatt ha dado lugar a muchas conjeturas. De
qu tipo era precisamente su relacin, no lo sabremos con certeza, porque los dos artistas destruyeron la copiosa correspondencia que intercambiaron durante dcadas. La informacin
que tenemos es de segunda mano, y no consigue desdecir que
fueran amantes, ni verificar su liga amorosa. Yo la descarto, no
lo veo en su obra ni en sus personas, pero acepto que hay en su
amistad algo ms que admiracin, respeto y cario.
Los dos sobrepasaron los ochenta aos. Degas era diez aos
mayor, muri en 1917, casi ciego. Cassatt falleci nueve aos
despus, ciega por completo. Los dos vivieron de ambos lados
del ocano, el parisino en Nueva Orlens, la Cassatt la mayor
parte de su vida adulta en Francia. Los dos nacieron de familias
acomodadas, aunque la Degas se fue a la bancarrota, hered slo
deudas. Los dos se volvieron pintores en contra de la voluntad
de sus familias. Los dos apostaron por un arte nuevo, y al
trmino de su vida se colocaron del lado viejo de la historia,
Degas con su antisemitismo galopante, Cassatt despreciando el
arte nuevo le desagradaban Picasso y Matisse.
Cassatt le abri a Degas las puertas al mercado del arte
neoyorkino, le present coleccionistas y dealers, como a otros
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impresionistas. Ella inici la fortuna econmica de Degas.

Pero su amistad fue ms all de la conveniencia financiera o el
inters comercial. Descubrir la pintura de Degas fue para
Cassatt una revelacin artstica. Su obra cambi al verla. La
admiracin artstica fue recproca, Degas invit a Cassatt a
exponer con los impresionistas. Poco despus, Degas la invit
a participar con grabados en una revista, a los que la Cassatt
aport una mezcla de medios y recursos tcnicos que a su vez
enriquecieron la obra de Degas. En ese perodo estaban juntos
el da completo. Pronto Degas abandon el proyecto de la
revista, y dejaron de procurarse a diario.
Cassatt deca que una mujer artista no poda tener hijos
(Slo hay una cosa en la vida para una mujer, ser mam . . .
Una mujer artista tiene que ser capaz de hacer sacrificios);
Degas, que el artista debe vivir solo, y su vida privada permanecer desconocida.
El respeto profesional recproco no fue sin asegunes.
Degas dijo de Cassatt pinta como si estuviera armando
sombreros (en la red lo encuentro corregido: que la mayora
de las mujeres pintan como si estuvieran haciendo sombreros.
T no, me atengo al que vi impreso). Otra frase: No admito
que una mujer pinte tan bien. Degas la retrat varias veces,
entre otras en escenas donde se venden sombreros, a veces con
actitud de sombrerera. El retrato que irritaba a Cassatt era otro
pintado en 1880 (su propiedad hasta 1912) porque Tiene
algunas cualidades artsticas, pero es tan doloroso y me
representa como una persona tan repugnante, que no me
gustara se supiera que yo pos para esa pintura.
Comprendo menos el arte de Cassatt que el de Degas. La
idealizacin que ella hace de la maternidad (y otras) excluye a
los demonios y borra los matices, paraliza esos territorios, los
sita adentro de un cubo de hielo, los cita alejndolos, los mira
con ojos de hombre, o con ojos de mujer que dicen lo que un
hombre espera que diga una mujer. Su dulzura me empalaga, o
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refrigera. Degas, aunque a veces tambin peca de azuqutar,

captura bien las tensiones, incluso en escenas mitificadoras,
como sus incontables bailarinas. A la ternura aade otros
tonos. Si Balzac apreci su obra y le hizo homenajes, Degas
tambin lo ley y reinterpret varias de sus escenas, como en
Interior (o Violacin). En Degas el impresionismo s imprimi
la vida cotidiana. Cassatt no llega a esa modernidad, su pulsin
de idealizar es religiosidad profana.
Aunque sin el filo que anoto, me gustan mucho las
xilografas japonesas de Cassatt, sus grabados y algunos leos
excepcionales. Y jams me parece que pinte como si estuviese
tejiendo o probndose sombreros.
La batalla de las vrgenes

(la Guadalupana contra Remedios)
Corre el pnico en la ciudad de Mxico por el inminente
ataque de las fuerzas del Cura Hidalgo, las precede la mala fama
de sus desmanes en el Bajo. Est por llegar el Da de Muertos
de 1810, cien mil insurgentes esperan la orden de ataque.
Un grupo de mujeres citadinas de familias bien
acomodadas se organiza para resistir el embate, encabezadas
por Ana Mara Iraeta. Se hacen llamar las Patriotas
Marianas, publican panfletos promulgando su lealtad a
Espaa y al rey, juntan fondos para socorrer familias de
soldados realistas en problemas y estn decididas a proteger a
la Virgen de los Remedios, se cree es la primera imagen
religiosa catlica importada a estas tierras, llegada en las
manos de un hombre de Corts cuando entraron a Tenochtitln
sali de la ciudad cuando la derrota de la Noche Triste. Es
una virgen blanca, y milagrosa.
Las Patriotas Marianas hacen guardia para custodiarla,
bordan y cosen su imagen en los estandartes y uniformes del
ejrcito realista con la intencin de defender a la tropa de los
alzados, portan estandartes con la Guadalupana.
La lder de las Patriotas Marianas, Ana Mara Iraeta, es una
reconocida filntropa, la hija menor de un almacenero
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adinerado espaol, viuda de D. Cosme de Mier y

Trespalacios, del Consejo de S. M. Honorario en el Supremo
de Indias, Regente Provisto, y Oidor Decano de esta Real
Audiencia. Salvar a la patria y al rey es su lema por patria
ella piensa en Espaa. Antes de la fundicin de El Caballito
la estatua de Carlos IV, Ana Mara Iraeta regal a su
creador, Manuel Tols, el Fidias valenciano, un lingote de
oro de tres kilos y medio, dando con prueba ms convincente
de su amor al rey. En 1809 haba organizado un novenario
para juntar limosnas para auxiliar a la corona espaola contra
el embate de la invasin napolenica, asisti el virrey
Branciforte con la virreina hermana, sea dicho de paso, de
Godoy. Tambin encabez la firma de una carta instando a
las mujeres a contribuir financieramente con la resistencia
contra los herejes franceses, como hacan sus compaeras
realistas de todo el pas (las americanas, nuevas amazonas que
destruyan con sus donativos, ya que no pueden hacerlo con sus
manos, a esos abortos de la naturaleza, escribieron las
veracruzanas). Por estas mociones de la Iraeta previas se
explica el xito de las Patriotas Marianas: llegaron a ser 2,500.
Los insurgentes llevan consigo a la Guadalupana, la virgen
morena. Los realistas cuentan en su bando con la Virgen de los
Remedios, la virgen blanca. El virrey la muda a la Catedral de
la ciudad, y le da el rango de Generala.
Las dos vrgenes tienen que enfrentarse. Se dice que las
fuerzas insurgentes fusilan a cualquier imagen que encuentren
de la Virgen de los Remedios, y que los realistas hacen lo
mismo con las de Guadalupe.
Inexplicablemente, Hidalgo no da la orden y los
independentistas se repliegan sin atacar. Gana la partida la
Virgen de los Remedios. Las Patriotas Marianas no se
desbandan. Un ao despus, en 1811, la Iraeta pide al cabildo
se conmemore la victoria. Se canta misa de gracias en San
Francisco. Sesenta y cuatro seoras, de las ms principales,
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todas vestidas de blanco, acompaadas de muchos caballeros,

sacan a la calle el retrato del rey y lo vitorean hasta la alameda.
La Iraeta pide a las autoridades eclesiales que declaren a la
victoria un milagro, segn consta en las 282 pginas del
expediente formado a pedimento de la Sra. D. Ana Mara de
Iraeta y Mier: sobre que se declare milagrosa la retirada de los
insurgentes que estaban a la vista de Mxico el da 30 de
octubre de 1810.
El que re al ltimo re mejor? Como es sabido, la
Guadalupana fue la ganadora de la Independencia. Aunque,
hay que recordar, al coronarse Iturbide, tras las victorias de los
guadalupanos, la Iraeta, realista de hueso colorado y
remediosana, fue nombrada Dama Primera y Guarda Mayor,
segunda en rango en la Corte del Emperador de Mxico, para
nada una posicin de vencida.
La pintora y el fotgrafo
El fotgrafo era hijo de un enriquecido comerciante de
telas de lana, como Miguel ngel. Ella, la pintora, como Juana
de Asbaje, de una familia que trabajaba en el campo.
La pintora vena de la provincia, naci cerca de Sun Prairie
en Wisconsin, sa era mi tierra: vientos terribles y un
maravilloso vaco. El fotgrafo era un neoyorkino muy bien
establecido, dueo de la galera ms influyente de la ciudad y
tal vez del mundo. El fotgrafo haba nacido a tiro de piedra de
Nueva York, del otro lado del Ro Hudson, en Hoboken, en
Nueva Jersey como Frank Sinatra, hijo de inmigrantes
alemanes judos. Pronto la familia se mud a Manhattan. Su
pap lo envi a estudiar a Alemania.
Adems de ser fotgrafo, l era galerista, con el
veracruzano Marius de Zayas llev a Nueva York el arte nuevo
del siglo XX. De Zayas le descubri, entre otros, a Picasso. El
fotgrafo proyect en la ciudad e internacionalmente a los
nuevos creadores. Con su propia lente, fotografi el urinal de
Duchamp (firm R. Mutt).
Por la vista nace el amor. El artista y la pintora se
conocieron por los ojos, aunque no en persona. Ella visit la
imprescindible galera, fue fundamental para su formacin.
Saba de sobra quin era l. No hubiera podido perdrselo en
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Nueva York. De nuevo fuera de la ciudad, en el Southwest, la

pintora confes a una compaera de estudios, la fotgrafa
Anita Pollitzer, que a nadie deseaba impresionar ms con su
trabajo que a l. Entenda que l era una figura clave para
hacerse de un nombre.
La noche del Ao Nuevo de 1916, Anita Pollitzer le mostr
al galerista y fotgrafo dibujos en carbn de la pintora. l no
la haba odo siquiera nombrar. El Ao Nuevo le lleg a ella
con premio: a l le interes sobremanera su trabajo. Cuenta la
leyenda que dijo Por fin, una mujer en papel!. Pintora y
fotgrafo comenzaron una intensa correspondencia que con los
aos llegara a sumar veinticinco mil folios (un primer
volumen con una seleccin de cartas acaba de ser publicado
por la Yale University Press). Te escribo porque tengo miedo
de irme a dormir . . .
l tena 23 aos ms que ella. Sus vidas y sus obras dieron
un vuelco. El sentido comn dira que el fotgrafo e influyente
galerista, con su poder, dinero y experiencia, se habra comido
a la pintora. Pero no fue as. El encuentro fue tan importante
para l, que ya pasaba de los cincuentas, como para ella. El
mundo se sacudi para los dos. Fueron sus respectivos
terremotos. La pintora se mud a Nueva York.
Empezaron a vivir juntos. La fotografa de l cambi.
Retrat a la pintora obsesivamente, todos los rincones de su
cuerpo. La gloria de la Noche y la gloria del Medioda
combinadas en tu matriz, le escribi el fotgrafo. Como si la
convivencia con la pintora alterara su percepcin de su propio
oficio, sus fotografas se fueron volviendo ms abstractas.
Lleg a decir he retratado a Dios.
l le dio la plataforma para que se convirtiera en uno de los
o las artistas americanos ms reconocidos del siglo XX.
Adems, la pintora se volvi millonaria desde 1929.
l, Alfred Steiglitz, ella, Georgia OKeeffe, vivieron una
historia de amor frtil y complicada. Formaron una pareja
95
abierta, que significaba algo muy distinto para l que para ella.
Como escribi la OKeefe: La diferencia es que cuando me
siento atrada por alguien reconozco que debo hacer una
eleccin y yo la hice por ti. Pero t no pareces sentir la
necesidad de escoger. Las turbulencias eran lo suyo. Me
robaste el corazn dira ella y me lo regresaste convertido
en un objeto intil. El corazn del fotgrafo, en cambio,
pareca muy dispuesto a sentir, segua al trote cualquier mujer
que se le pusiera cerca.
Georgia OKeeffe dej Nueva York. En Nuevo Mxico,
volvi a gozar del contacto con la naturaleza. El fotgrafo y la
pintora se distanciaron. Al empezar los treintas, Steiglitz
comenz a fotografiar obsesivamente a otra mujer, la poeta y
fotgrafa Dorothy Norman. El hechizo se haba roto. Pero la
correspondencia continu.
Papeles quemados
Manuela Senz (17971856) y Dolores Veintimilla
(18291857), dos hermosas quiteas: la mujer de accin, al
lado de la poeta romntica; la patriota y amante de usted, al
lado de la que levant su frente pura ante todos los hombres
sin temor de que haya uno que tenga la facultad de hacerla
doblar ruborizada; la libertadora del Libertador (salv la vida
de Bolvar, ste le puso el sobrenombre), frente a la escritora:
la humana turba revoltosa / Mi corazn hiri con su
injusticia. Dos caras de la revuelta romntica del XIX: la que
se vesta de varn para combatir al lado de su amante, y la de
quien se disfraz de india, de chola, para ir a la fiesta a casa
del Gobernador de Cuenca a celebrar el da de los Santos
Inocentes, causando escndalo con tan inapropiado atuendo
y enorme irritacin cuando se neg a quitrselo. Las dos
se dieron el lujo romntico de elegir a sus amados: la Senz, ya
casada, escogi a Bolvar; la Veintimilla a un doctorsucho
colombiano de mala fortuna para casarse. La Enciclopedia
Espasa-Calpe resume el final de la poeta Veintimilla con tono
acusatorio: se suicid a los veintiocho aos, alimentada una
pasin en ausencia de su esposo, engrosando las filas de la
turba que la orill en Cuenca al trgico desenlace, y me parece
que se equivoca.
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Dejo de lado a Manuelita Senz, de quien ms se sabe, y

voy a los detractores y defensores de la Veintimilla. La defendi Ricardo Palma: de cuerpo era alta, de frente espaciosa, de
ojos bellsimos, de boca fresca y pequea, de cabellos castaos, noble y majestuoso el porte. Lo de que fue bella no fue
negado ni por sus ms furiosos retractores, que usaron el atributo para cebarse contra ella. Como sus costumbres y su virtud se debate, algunos de sus defensores la dan por frgida
para garantizar que, an abandonada por el marido, se preserv impecable. Atrevida por no decir otra cosa?
Adltera?, seguidora de Safo?, licenciosa?.
Su mayor enemigo fue Fray Vicente Solano, su coetneo en
la ciudad de Cuenca, influyente columnista del peridico La
escoba. ste le espet al tropezar un da en la calle con ella:
Ah va la boda de todo perro!. Ella contest: Y usted es
perro de todas las bodas!.
Dolores Veintimilla caus escndalo desde su llegada a
Cuenca: cmo que quera tener bao en la casa?, un piano?,
hacer veladas literarias?, recibir hombres en casa para las
charlas literarias del chocolate de los jueves?, criticar a los
bados del pueblo?, hacer migas con otros poetas no
cuenqueos, como el chileno Guillermo Blest Gana, uno de los
llamados atrasados romnticos? Conque poeta? Ya
sembrada la inquietud contra su persona, para hacer las cosas
ms difciles, el marido la abandon, emprendi camino hacia
el Panam.
El 20 de abril de 1857, la Veintimilla presenci la ejecucin
de un indio, Tiburcio Lucero, acusado de parricidio y
condenado a muerte por ejecucin en la Plazuela de San
Francisco. Oy los gritos de la chusma: Vamos a gustar la
muerte del indio!. Veintimilla public una nota necrolgica:
No es sobre la tumba de un grande, no es sobre la
tumba de un poderoso, no es sobre la de un aristcrata que
99
derramo mis lgrimas. No! Las vierto sobre la de un

hombre, sobre la de un esposo, sobre la de un padre de
cinco hijos, que no tena para stos ms patrimonio que el
trabajo de sus brazos.
Terminaba con una peticin al Gran Todo:
que pronto una generacin ms civilizada y
humanitaria que la actual venga a borrar del cdigo de la
patria de sus antepasados la pena de muerte.
El fraile Solano contest defendiendo la legitimidad de la
pena de muerte y la atac en repetidos panfletos annimos,
llamara a la Veintimilla azota-calles, U. es un pecador
pblico, en el concepto pblico. Ella escribi al margen de
alguno, cuando an conservaba buen humor: Me ha hecho rer
la bulla que ha causado aqu mi pobre papel, por ser escrito de
una mujer, es decir de un semi-animal, que es lo que piensan
que somos.
Una coincidencia de las dos quiteas: a su muerte, sus
papeles fueron quemados.
Tortillas envenenadas y barcos

insurgentes
Dos mujeres mueren fusiladas por vender tortillas
envenenadas. Corre 1819, las aguas estn revueltas, las
insurgentas andan muy alborotadas, echan mano de todas sus
artes para jalar agua a su molino, manejan armas, forman
regimientos, a veces los comandan, hacen alianzas, espan,
escriben cartas o consignas, son mensajeras, o financian si
tienen medios. La represin virreinal contra ellas se haba
llevado entre los pies a algunas inocentes. Iturbide antes de
cambiar de bando carga parejo: cualquier mujer o hijo de
rebeldes, ser tomado prisionero, tenga o no vela en el entierro,
un golpe bajo a los rebeldes.
Centenas de insurgentas han quedado en el olvido. Si slo
se reconoce a un par, casualmente esposas de Leona
Vicario de Quintana Roo, Josefa Ortiz de Domnguez del
Corregidor, es porque nuestra memoria parece preferir los
pantalones (y eso que algunas insurgentas vistieron pantalones
durante la lucha, como doa Mara Josefa Martnez, al frente
de un batalln de insurgentes, poco les valieron para ingresar
al Panten de nuestro hroes.)
No sabramos de las tortilleras envenenadoras, ni de
muchas otras insurgentas, si no fuera por Genaro Garca: apa101
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recen mencionadas en uno de los volmenes que en 1910 l

escribiera y editara con motivo del Centenario de la Independencia, uno dedicado especficamente a estas heronas. Originario de Fresnillo, Zacatecas (18671920), naci en una familia que amas una fortuna con la minera, hijo de Trinidad
Garca, Secretario de Finanzas de Porfirio Daz. Estudi Leyes
su tesis Apuntes sobre la condicin de la mujer sera su primer libro feminista (entre otros que publicara ms adelante,
como Los derechos de la mujer), y dedic gran parte de su
vida a la investigacin histrica y a la edicin (a l se debe la
primera aparicin de la obra de Bernal Daz del Castillo). Fue
director del Museo Nacional de Arqueologa y varias veces
diputado en su paso por la Cmara fund la biblioteca y la
editorial. Muri sin dinero, descuidados sus asuntos personales en beneficio de su trabajo intelectual, segn explica en
su obituario el fundador del Museo del Hombre en Pars, Paul
Rivet, etnlogo y luchador contra el nazismo en su momento.
Genaro Garca se enter del caso de las tortilleras fusiladas
durante la Guerra de la Independencia, gracias al Sargento
Mayor Don Theodoro Chichery, que las menciona en un oficio
dirigido al Excelentsimo Seor Virrey Gobernador y Capitn
General de Nueva Espaa, en que solicita le nombre un nuevo
secretario para continuar la sumaria instruida contra un capitn
acusado de haber fusilado indebidamente en Teotitln del
Camino a Juana Feliciana y Juana, por sospechosas en la
construccin y despacho de unas tortillas envenenadas. Se
explica la mocin porque el Virrey Apodaca haba prohibido
terminantemente las ejecuciones sumarias. Tambin haba
declarado el indulto a los insurgentes a pesar de lo cual
Iturbide continuaba cosechando prisioneras, vejadas y
maltratadas por las tropas realistas.
Theodoro Chichery, militar realista, qued al mando de un
batalln de granaderos ese mismo 1919, cuando su jefe perdi
la vida durante un ataque rebelde contra el correo que iba de
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Jalapa al puerto con varios pasajeros y algunas cargas que

terminaron en manos de los alzados. Los tomaron por sorpresa,
cuando se dirigan al puerto, de ah a las barras de Nautla y
Tecolutla a atacar a los insurgentes, que haban armado una
pequea escuadra naval con buques comprados en Estados
Unidos (tal vez en Nueva York, como aquellos independistas
chilenos que en 1817 llevaron a Valparaso La Araucana, el
Independencia y otras creaciones de los astilleros del East
River, maniobradas por oficiales y marineros neoyorkinos?,
o, ms probablemente, como Francisco Javier Mina, con
voluntarios y naves de Nueva Orlens y Londres?). Imagino la
vida de estos insurgentes marineros en Veracruz, como
utopistas romnticos, entre los que, tal vez, alguna mujer, en
lugar de recurrir a la misa y sus palmas, empantalonada us el
mosquete y la astucia . . .
La cangrejo sufragista y su Virginia

Ethel Smyth, Dame Ethel Smyth porque en 1922 el Rey
Jorge V le otorg el ttulo equivalente a Sir para el varn, se
enamor de Virginia Woolf a los setenta y un aos. La Woolf
describi su afecto como caer en manos de un cangrejo
gigante.
Ethel Smyth cangrejo naci en 1858 en Woking parte
del gran Londres, el mismo lugar donde H. G. Wells hizo
aterrizar a los marcianos en su La guerra de los mundos
Spielberg los visualiza precisamente parecidos a cangrejos
gigantes.
Lo de Dame Smyth no fue viajar en el espacio exterior para
venir a aterrorizarnos, ni mucho menos caminar hacia el lado.
Fue compositora de renombre. En Leipzig, estudi en el
Conservatorio, donde conoci a Tchaikovsky, Dvork y Grieg.
Abandon los estudios porque no le alcanzaba para la
colegiatura era una de ocho hermanos y su familia, de clase
media apretadita, no estaba nada contenta con su vocacin,
se amist con sus colegas Clara Schumann y Brahms.
Adems de compositora, fue escritora. Cuando apareci
publicada su autobiografa, la crtica la calific como una de
las mejores seis memorias jams escritas en lengua inglesa.
Se llama Impresiones que perduran, est en Kindle, las estoy
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leyendo, la introduccin comprende una buena biografa. Fue

ntima de la Emperatriz Eugenia de Francia, conoci a la Reina
Victoria y fue muy cercana a Emmeline Pankhurst.
Desde 1910 se entreg a la lucha sufragista. Estuvo presa.
Que las mujeres no podan votar? Menos iban a poder escribir
partituras, ver su msica representada, tener una vida como la
que tenemos hoy tantas creadoras. No contenta con ser una
excepcin, pele como un buen cangrejo para sacarnos a todas
de una bestia canasta.
En 1906, compuso su tercera pera, The Wreckers
Saqueadores de naufragios (dos trgicos amantes, el pueblo en su contra), cuyo preludio se acaba de interpretar en
Bellas Artes, en la inauguracin del Segundo Congreso intelectual de las mujeres en el siglo XXI. Yo no soy quin para decirlo, pero esa porcin de la msica de Smyth tiene su no s qu
de cangrejo terrcola. Bien armada, eficaz, se le escucha el duro
caparazn, se le advierte el deseo de pescarnos con pinzas. Slo
fue el preludio, puede que puesta entera en el plato, y bien guisada, Saqueadores de nufragios deje escapar un olor fuerte,
como aquellos cangrejos azules de la costa tropical.
La amante ms dulce
Un dios salvaje, la obra de teatro de Yasmina Reza, se ceba
con un tema gordo como un lechn: las rencillas conyugales.
La comedia es desternillante en la versin de Broadway que vi
hace un par de das, con James Gandolfini-Soprano y Marcia
Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels y Hope Davis, en un impecable
montaje. Debi ser hilarante tambin en el teatro madrileo
con Maribel Verd. Eficaz, no demasiado precisa (los
personajes se embriagan de sbito, casi por acto de magia, y
sus reacciones en ms de una ocasin brotan de la nada), no
ejemplarmente profunda (no es Albee), la obra funciona para
lo que es: hacer pasar al espectador un buen rato a costa de la
(supuesta) miseria ajena. En la obra, Gandolfini (el que menos
brilla en escena de los cuatro) espeta: no hay desgracia mayor
que el matrimonio, y peor an si hay hijos. El auditorio se
carcajea con su gracejada (que no sabidura), pero parece decir
No estoy de acuerdo con su tesis, pues ms o menos un 75
por ciento de los asistentes al teatro son parejas a las que la
catarsis-Reza regala una velada agradable, la ilusin de alegra
y un sabor dulce que en nada se acerca a Quien teme a Virginia
Woolf (as las dos obras compartan la misma situacin). Un
dios salvaje no hace quedar mal a la sagrada (o no) institucin
del matrimonio, es un placebo de crtica. Ms que tirarle al
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blanco siempre seguro de la vida marital, la farsa usa al tema

como decorado. Salvando las distancias, como las lanzas del
pintor florentino del Quatrocento Paolo Uccello, pretextos para
un ensayo de perspectiva.
Adems de las distancias, hay que recordar que para
Uccello esto de la perspectiva era la obsesin de su vida. Fue
por esto que Paolo Uccello vivi como un alquimista en el
fondo de su pequea casa. Crey que podra convertir todas las
lneas en un solo aspecto ideal. Quiso concebir el universo
creado tal como se reflejaba en el ojo de Dios, que ve surgir
todas las figuras de un centro complejo, dice Marcel Schwob.
Cuenta Lezama Lima en sus diarios que un da la esposa de
Paolo Uccello le reclam su excesiva dedicacin a las figuras
geomtricas, a lo que l contest: es algo muy dulce la
perspectiva. En versin de otros, cuando la esposa, Tommassa
Malifici (con la que Paolo se haba casado en 1453), lo llamaba
a dormir, Uccello se negaba a acudir al lecho conyugal,
diciendo: qu suave cosa es esta perspectiva!. En otra
versin, a mis ojos ms dramtica, cuando Tommassa le pide a
Paolo que deje su estudio, l confiesa: la perspectiva es la
amante ms dulce. sa, si ocurri, debi arderle a Tommassa.
Un varn encerrado pintando obsesivo puntos de fuga, es una
cosa. Otra, que se diga acompaado de la amante ms dulce.
Los personajes de Un dios salvaje jams descienden hasta ah.
En ningn momento se acusan de ponerse los cuernos, ni
metafrica, ni simblica, ni prcticamente. Ninguno de ellos
cita a Flaubert, que en su diccionario de lugares comunes
anota: Toda mujer debe volver cornudo a su marido. En un
momento, Hope Davis evoca a un hombre que en el pasado le
pareci sexy. Sorraja unos lugares comunes tan grandes como
los que la obra nos dice sobre la horrendez del matrimonio
nada le parece ms sexy que una pistola, y ah acaba la
cosa, pero no llega a cuernos, ni a dulzuras.
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Como en la obra de Yasmina Reza, en las descripciones de

la escena de los Uccellos no aparece el vstago de la pareja
sino de odas: la de los Uccello es Antonia, tambin pintora
como su pap, quien no anda golpeando con un palo al
gandalla de una pandilla que le dice sopln, como el de los
Gandolfini, sino que vive enclaustrada en un convento
carmelita. Antonia tuvo su perra suerte, peor que perder en una
paliza dos dientes: no se conoce una sola de sus pinturas, y no
se la recuerda por ellas, sino slo por ser la hija de el primero
que gan renombre entre los viejos modernos de hacer
paisajes, y hacerlos bien (Vasari).
La autora de la Odisea, y las olvidadas

El calendario dedicado A las seoritas americanas,
especialmente patriotas (que recopila vidas de heronas de
nuestra Independencia, Mariana Rodrguez de Lazarn,
Manuela Herrera, Fermina Rivera, Leona Vicario), publicado
en 1825 por Jos Joaqun Fernndez de Lizardi (El periquillo
sarniento) dice al final: En una palabra: es imposible reducir
a nmero las heroicas americanas que se distinguieron en la
pasada insurreccin. Llama la atencin que la mayor parte de
las mujeres que menciona Lizardi han cado en el completo
olvido, y que la ms recordada sea la Corregidora golpeando el
piso con su zapatito (su memoria arranca una sospecha: ser
que la grabamos porque el marido era un seor importante,
y en el fondo se le recuerda como su seora?). Dnde
quedaron las otras?
No son las nicas protagonistas olvidadas. Podar o mochar
grandes mujeres de nuestra memoria, nos mutila a todos. Qu
hubiera pasado, por ejemplo, si Manuel Felgurez hubiera
deseado borrar a Lilia Carrillo, con quien estuvo casado desde
1960 hasta su muerte en 1974? Qu tal que hubiera optado
por la postura de Edward Hopper? Qu se siente estar casado
con una pintora, le pregunt Josephine, su mujer, y le contest
Edward: Francamente apesta!.
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Felgurez, y nuestra querida Mercedes Oteyza, han

convertido a Lilia Carrillo en una presencia capital en el
Museo Manuel Felgurez de Zacatecas. En la sala dedicada a
los murales de Osaka, al entrar, el de Lilia Carrillo es el
primero, y me permito decir que se exhibe como el central.
(Comparo con Hopper: no hay manera de ver hoy una sola
obra de Josephine Hopper, antes de casarse era considerada
uno de los ms importantes artistas de la poca, expona al lado
de Picasso, la OKeeffe y Modigliani, pero su relacin con
Hopper, a quien ella consigui galerista, y por cuya carrera
trabaj con ahnco, la anul).
En 1970, los artistas de la Ruptura pintaron en un gnero
que perteneca a los muralistas: precisamente el mural. Realizaron una serie (esplndida, excepcional) para la Exposicin
de Osaka. Despus, los murales de Osaka permanecieron en el
olvido, guardados enrollados, en una bodega, hasta que los
Felgurez los arroparon en su Museo.
Lo usual es lo contrario a lo que han hecho ellos. Para
muestra, otro botn: a fines del siglo XIX, el erudito Samuel
Butler, traductor de la Iliada y la Odisea a buena prosa inglesa,
public La autora de la Odisea. De ah lo cito: No me
importa si fue escrita por una mujer o por un hombre, tampoco
dnde vivi ese poeta o esa poetisa. Lo nico que me interesa
es saber lo ms que pueda sobre el poema. Concluye que la
autora fue una poeta siciliana, joven, empecinada y soltera,
quien con su puo y letra escribi el poema entre el 1050 el
ao 1000 A.C.
Cmo pudo olvidarse?
Butler, erudito y lector, explica cmo lleg a esto. Se
pregunt por qu los dilogos de las mujeres suenan tan
espontneos, mientras que los de los varones se oyen rgidos,
y los personajes masculinos son descritos con ojo distante, sin
importar su papel o clase social. Rastre errores que no
quitan encanto y poder a la obra, pero s delatan el gnero de
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su autor. Explica que la autora misma se presenta en el poema:

es Nausicaa, a quien Odiseo relata gran parte del cuerpo de la
Odisea. (Detalle sin desperdicio: nufrago, llega Odiseo, y se
acerca su autora . . . desnudo!).
Butler responde a las objeciones: se dice que es muy
improbable que una mujer de cualquier poca haya sido capaz
de escribir una obra maestra como la Odisea. A esto contesto
que es igual de improbable que la escriba un varn, y el hecho
es que nadie lo repiti. Transcurridos siglos desde que se
escribi la Odisea, no ha habido nadie capaz de equipararla . . .
es igualmente improbable que el hijo de un comerciante de
lanas de Bedfordshire escriba el Hamlet (o, si me permite la
adicin, que una provinciana y bastarda creara las genialidades
de Sor Juana) . . . Trabajos fenomenales implican un creador
fenomenal, y hay tantas mujeres fenomenales como los hay
hombres.
When Mexico
Recaptures Texas:
Essays
Translated by Nicols Kanellos
Kidnapping
When the ownership of Texas was still in question
among Indians, Mexicans and Gringos (and among Indians
is just a figure of speech, because the Comanche Nation was
mostly in control)thousands of people suffered the horror of
captivity, or, as we say today, they were kidnapped. As in the
life and times of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, the captives were traded for money or property, if not enslaved or
assassinated.
The case of the captive Cynthia Ann Parker comes to mind.
Her family was Baptist, or rather staunchly Baptist and connected to the ruling class in Texasone of Cynthia Anns
uncles founded the first Protestant church in Texas. They had
built Fort Parker in an idyllic location, on the banks of the
Navasota River. Although the place seemed ideal, it had problems: it was too far from the other Gringo settlements and bordered the Comanche Nation.
In 1836, when Cynthia Ann was nine years old, the
Comanches attacked. Confident they were the legitimate owners of the land, the Parkers would leave the gates to the fort
wide open; theyd tend to their crops and not even carry
firearms. Their lack of defenses seemed like a challenge to the
Comanches. The details of this story are well known because
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Rachel Plummer, another captive from the Parker clan, wrote

and published her account; she described the usual Comanche
strategy that had been deployed against Spaniards and Mexicans, as well as the Apaches, Osages, Tonkawas and other peoples. They raided without dismounting their horses, speared
their victims, scalped them and castrated them. This was just
one of their war tactics. They sought to terrorize, and, sure
enough, they accomplished it.
They acted like vengeful drug dealers.
They took with them five captives, children and adults.
Once they were finally far from Fort Parker (the Comanche
bands covered huge distances), they raped the adult women
several times in front of the children.
The Comanches saved Cynthia Ann, and they adopted her
in every way. They named her NaudaFound Thing. When
she came of age, she married the chief of the Noconi, who had
participated in the Fort Parker raid. She had three children by
himone quite famous, Quanah, the last great chief of the free
Comanche territory.
Two decades after that raid, the Texas Rangers attacked the
Noconi. Realizing their imminent defeat, the Naconi fled. One
of the fugitive horsemen was carrying an infant slung behind
his head when the Rangers surrounded him. To their astonishment the Rangers discovered the horseman was a woman,
NaudaFound Thingnone other than our Cynthia Ann
Parker. On her back she was carrying her daughter Prairie
Flower.
She had forgotten the English language, but she recognized
her name when they pronounced it. She stammered clumsily:
I, Chintia An. They returned her to the Parker family, and
she was granted some land and a yearly stipend. The excaptive lived with her siblings and was tutored by her cousins.
There are baptisms more intense than by water: baptism by
violence. Cynthia Ann did not want to live among the Gringos.
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Imagine the Cain raised at family meals: the Parkers had

hated the Indians since even before the raid, and Cynthia Ann
longed to return to the Comanches.
When her daughter Prairie Flower died from an illness,
Cynthia Ann refused to eat. She passed away without ever seeing her other children again.
This was just one of thousands of such cases. In 1840, a
thousand Mexicans lived as Comanche captives. The males
worked as peons caring for the livestock and horses; the
women tanned the hides of game caught by the hunters. Many
of the Mexican captives were sold like slaves or returned to
their families for a ransom (an example: the Torrey brothers,
who traded with the Comanches for whatever they stole in
Mexico, purchased Rosita Rodrguez, a Mexican woman who
had been kidnapped from northern Chihuahua in 1845 and
who was ransomed after a year as captive for $100, but without to her son, Encarnacin, who had already become a
Comanche). The case of Cynthia Ann is renowned not only
because of the existence of documented accounts, but also
because of the notoriety of her family. The same is true today.
Lynching and Mexicans

for John Oakes
It seems that, much to their regret, Billie Holiday (19151958)
and Xavier Villaurrutia (19031950) once sang a duet.
Billie Holiday had personally experienced the marginalization
and poverty caused by racism. Her mom became pregnant at age
thirteen, and when her grandparents found out, they kicked her out
of the house. After the teenager gave birth, she left her baby with
someone else, moved to the city and did whatever it took to survive. Billie made her first escape from reform school at the age of
ten. When Billie was about to turn eleven, her mother witnessed
her rape and returned her to reform school. She then filed a police
report against the young man, who ended up behind bars. Billie
was back living again with her mother at twelve, working for the
same madam as her mother in Harlem. When she finally met her
father, a musician, she changed her surname to his. Within less
than a year, Billie Holiday was singing in public, and she became
the first black singer to perform with a white band. In 1939, not
long after she quit the Artie Shaw Orchestra because at a concert
she was stopped from using an elevator reserved for whites, she
included Strange Fruit in her repertoire. The songs lyrics and
music were composed by a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx,
Abel Meeropol (19031986), a closeted communist who, years
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later, in 1959, adopted, along with his wife, the children of the
Rosenbergs, a couple who were executed for espionage. Strange
Fruit condemns lynching in the United States as an act of
racism. Between 1848 and 1928, thousands were lynched, the
majority blacks, but so were hundreds of Mexicans, at a proportionally higher rate than African Americans. Mobs were exercising vigilante justice outside the judicial system, venting their
racial hatred under the guise of Angels of Vengeance.
The song encourages a real revolt; it was an effective
weapon in the struggle for civil rights:
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood on the root
Black bodies swingin in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the charming South
Swollen eyes and crooked mouth
The scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden stench of burning flesh.
Here is a fruit for crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
The other half of the duo, Xavier Villaurrutia, was a stranger
to privation, and he never wrote poems to raise the publics
awareness of social problems. Nothing could have been farther
from his intentions. In post-Revolutionary Mexico, he and other
writers in his circle, the Contemporaries, were in their own way
marginalized. The State demanded an art to help forge the
Nation. Well, they sought to free themselves from that restraint.
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In 1937, Strange Fruit became a hit. Villaurrutia published his poem North Carolina Blues, which was to be
included in Nostalgia de la muertededicated to the African
American poet and activist Langston Hughes, whose work he
had translated in 1931.
In North Carolina
The night airs made of human skin
When I caress it
It suddenly leaves
In my fingers
A droplet of sweat
In North Carolina
The swaying of a tree trunk
From the soles of the feet
To the palms of the hands
The man once agains a tree
In North Carolina
In North Carolinas nocturnal air, 86 African Americans
were lynched between 1882 and 1968. The issue was not a thing
of the past when Villaurrutia wrote his poem. Around the time of
its publication, the New York Times reported that 125 white men
had surrounded a jail in North Carolina to demand the handover
of a black prisoner. In an interview, Billie Holiday complained
that sometimes people requested that I sing that erotic song
about people swaying back and forth. Thats how Villaurrutias
poem is often interpreted, as erotic. Is it? Does it not tell us
more about ourselves? It was a joke of that time period to say
that the difference between a fool and someone who wasnt lay
in whether he or she understood the lyrics of this song.
Is it for this same reason that we dont remember the
lynched Mexicans north of the border?
Types of Violence
A wave of violence was unleashed at the border a little over
170 years ago, shortly after the U.S.-Mexico War.
Depending on who tells the story, the violence was merciless against those of Mexican origin, or the violence was
caused by them.
According to the version that blames the Mexicans, they
were bandits and rustlers, an unredeemable breed, just evil
Mexicans, disrupters of law and order.
The version that blames the violence on the Anglos says
they were, vile men in secret conclaves who plotted to pillage the Mexicans for their land and property, which they
accomplished. For instance, during the 1850s, bands of armed
men in Texas gathered with the sole purpose of hunting down
Mexicans on the roads, stealing their possessions and assassinating them.
Whichever version one believes (that of the Anglos or of
the Mexicans), the violence is evident: robberies and assassinations, misappropriation of Mexican property and hateful
deeds and Gringo racism.
And there was rage. Of the 597 Mexicans who were
lynched in the United States between 1848 and 1928, just one
example: in July of 1851, Josefa Segovia, in prison accused of
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assassinating Frederick Cannon (the drunkard had barged into

her home and tried to rape her), was extracted from her cell by
an angry mob and hanged.
The violence perpetrated by the Americans was aimed at
intimidating the Mexicans, with the clear objective that they
lose all rights and property. The violence of the Mexicans was
probably motivated by thievery or robbery (or taking back
what had been stolen), but the Mexican ballads cast their
actions as great deeds, elevating the perpetrators into legendary
heroes.
It was open warfare for privileges and rights. There was a
precedent: earlier, the savage Indians had been pillaged by
the Spanish colonizers. The Indians had also responded with
raids from time to time, against Gringos and Mexicans. Mara
Jos Cavazos was subjected to onslaughts on two fronts: from
the Gringos and from the Indians. She was Mexican by birth,
but became a naturalized American because most of her land
tracts and ranches were located north of the border. She was
stripped of her lands at the hands of an honorable New Yorker, Mr. Charles Stillman. Stillman was, lets say, very enterprising. He came up with a great business plan: to appropriate some
of the Cavazos land where the City of Brownsville was being
built and to resell it. He cheated her with knockoff property
deeds, and when the court ruled that he had to pay Mrs. Cavazos something, he signed an official promissory note. Then
Stillman stuffed that earmarked sum into a sack and paid her,
not two, but rather one peso (literally) for her lots. I dont have
the slightest doubt that therell be someone wholl tell a different version of this tale, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, which,
years later, in 1879, declared Stillman to be the lawful owner of
the land.
Cavazos also was subjected to onslaughts by the lndians,
from whom the Cavazos ancestors, with so-called lawful titles,
had seized their lands. In 1858, the Karankawa Indians attacked
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their ranch, and one of the Cavazos sons died. The Indians paid
for it dearly: A squad of cowboys, armed to the teeth, under the
command of Cavazos nephew, swept them away, none left
alive. I mention Mara Jos Cavazos because its the same surname as that of the mayor of Santiago, Nuevo Len: Edelmiro
Cavazos, who was executed during a wave of violence, like the
kind in these days that crosses our borders and is related to the
greed that cannot be blamed on one nation or the other. But the
main battlefront today is not between Anglos and Indians nor
either of these and our people, but rather between Mexicans and
Mexicans, whether they are called Zetas, La Familia, La Compaa or whatever. What makes the border burn among these
battle lines? Pure cannibalism. It is a type of violence with
indignation that is not, apparently, for the protection of human
rights or collective well-being, and it cripples us all.
The White Gold in Tamaulipas

The Mexican Bagdad had its one thousand and one nights,
but not much else. Its good fortune had a much shorter lifespan
than its legendary counterpart, and there was no Scheherazade,
but there were many stories. Bagdad was born as a small fishing village at the mouth of the Rio Grande at the time when we
lost half of our national territory, around 1847. The border,
thus, was part of its genesis. Its period of glory coincided with
our northern neighbors Civil War. In 1861, President Lincoln
ordered a blockade of Southern seaports in order to cut off the
slave owners purse strings. They, in turn, did not stand by with
their arms crossed; they had to sell the cotton their slaves had
picked in order to buy weapons. Bagdad was a natural port,
and by being on the other side of the river, it was out of reach
of the blockade. The only thing the slave owners needed was
to transport the white gold by land to the Rio Grande. Bands
of border bandits (or cowboys and daredevils who operated
on the fringes of the law) would guard the shipments, protecting them from other outlawsand hiding them from the Yankees. Bathed in the wealth produced by trafficking cotton, in
less than three years Bagdad had become a powerful commercial center, with fifteen thousand residentsbusinessmen and
adventurers from around the globe. From Bagdad, steamboats
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would set off loaded with cotton toward New Orleans, Havana,
New York, Boston, Barcelona, Hamburg, Bremen and Liverpool.
President Benito Jurez understood the strategic significance of Bagdad. The Emperor Maximilian and the French
invaders did too. Hence, the Battle of Bagdad, on January 4,
1866, in which the Jurez forces prevailed. (The Daily
Ranchero, a pro-Maximilian, anti-Jurez, anti-Washington,
very anti-African American border newspaper, would publish
diatribes insulting all sides, but especially if they werent slave
owners.) Black soldiers who had enlisted in the Yankee army
and were stationed just north of the Rio Grande, or who had
volunteered to serve in Jurezs army, hated the Daily
Ranchero, just like the slaves who had escaped from their
Southern masters. (But thats another story, and it no longer fits
here.) When the Civil War ended, the trafficking of cotton to
Bagdad also ended; why would they share their profits with the
Greasers from the south? Anti-Mexican sentiment and
racism were everywhere. The Texas Rangers made incursions
from time to time. The glory of our Bagdad vanished. In 1867,
the year when Maximilian was executed in Mexico, a hurricane hit Bagdad: a storm, eighty miles wide struck Mexico
after it tracked across the Texas coasts. The floodwaters
reached far inland, dragging in ships and damaging them further. Ninety Bagdad residents had found refuge on the steamboat Antonia, and the storm swept them five miles inland.
When the hurricane finally weakened, the passengers found
themselves on the Texas side of the Rio Grande and very far
from the riverbank. Everything was lost; nothing was
sparednot even our provisions, wrote a Bagdadi. After the
hurricane, hunger devastated the port city. The Taumalipas No.
2 transported 140 residents, possibly Anglos, from Bagdad to
Brownsville to save their lives. Bagdad was declared nonexistent in 1880. Other hurricanes had hit the area, but the worst hit
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had been taken by the commercial sector, which decades earlier had said goodbye to white gold. A hurricane in 1889 had
disabled the entire port. Today, a new Bagdad has been created; its a beach in the state of Tamaulipas commemorating the
old port. The sand is white, like white gold, but what is trafficked by skirting local law enforcement (and to a great extent
that of the entire continent) is no longer bales of cotton. It too
requires slaves and tramples citizen rights and produces unbridled violence. It again creates throwaway people; it has
unleashed a war. Bands of outlaws guard the shipments greedily and warily armed with foreign weapons, protected by the
vast fortunes created through corruption and murder.
Sell the Galicians, Kill the Mexicans

I only wrote these verses to ease
troubles, real or imaginary
These are verses from the first poems by Rosala de Castro,
the Galician Romantic author and one of the most significant
writers of Spanish. According to her baptismal certificate, she
was born to parents unknowna priest and a single woman.
Rosala spent her earliest years with her paternal aunts. She
married young, to her first literary critic, who upon her death
would also turn into her censor, incinerating her letters, conscious that they were the brightest proof (according to his own
words) of Rosalas uniqueness.
The book Cantares gallegos (Galician Songs), written in
galician but under a Spanish title, won Rosala the love of her
people; some of the verses attracted peoples wrathin these,
she discusses the custom in some Galician towns of welcoming travelers by offering them a woman to warm their beds,
even the wife or the daughter of the family.
These early Galician poems are a delight; her subsequent
works in Spanish have a contemplative and aching power.
Galician Songs include folk memory and have a god. Her
Spanish ones challenge the very existence of God; they reflect
on a world where God is dead. The language in her galician
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poems is sweet and malleable, like clay in the hands of a child.

Her Spanish ones are daring in her experiments with meter;
they have an edge and movement.
Rosalas prose is annoying at times, cloying and heavy; at
other times, she astonishes the ear and sparks the imagination
with her almost childish sass. She describes the muse (in the
preface of her novel El caballero de las botas azules [The Gentleman in Blue Boots]), not like a woman, but rather as a bisexual being. She asks the reader to evaluate her gender, not as
neutral, the way Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz describes her own,
but rather as masculine: Forget, among other things, that your
author is a woman. Because women are still not allowed to
write what they feel and know.
Much to her dismay, she earned the reputation for being
sweet and weepy, and not just because of prejudices
against women, but rather because of the pleasing, merry quality of the language in her first book in Galician, where regret
and pain seem not to have surfaced except as temporary visitors. Not included there is the horde of starving people Rosala
saw overwhelm her hometown of Santiago de Compostela
when she was fifteen years oldThe crowd, always growing,
always shabby and squalidwho came from rural areas, fleeing from hunger. Because Rosalas Galicia is one of mass
migration (of which I am a daughter, perhaps, because Boullosa is a Galician surname), Rosala would write about this.
In those days in Argentina, there was reported to be a sign
that read, A Galician for Sale. In 1854 in Cuba: Alongside
the African slave, a Galician slave. The sad sight of a crew of
Galicians, half naked, lifetime wanderers in search of alms and
shelter throughout the streets of the island, jealous of the luck
of the black slave. Im quoting the book Estacin martima
(Maritime Terminal), by the poet Luis Tosar. From there, I also
use this quotation by E. Calvet: Exports need to be products,
not mankind, if a nation seeks prosperity. As Tosar states,
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colonies that received Gallegos became expellers of its natives.

Such is the case of Mexico.
It is in the collection of poems in Spanish, En las orillas
del Sar (On the Banks of the Sar River), where the pain of her
times and of her people is expressed to its fullest extent, like
the power of a bomb exploding its own classical verse form:
Like the pulse of a prolonged
illness, today a hundred, and a hundred tomorrow,
til I lose count,
bunches and bunches of pitted grapes.
Doves that a vixen and an eagle
scare away; from the native roost
they depart with the effort of fugitives,
and they leave perhaps in vain.
But, upon resting from the fatigue of flight,
perhaps in the space of another meadow,
they see mature fruit rotting unpicked,
and the eagle looming above them.
Its worth remembering Rosala today. At the U.S.-Mexico
border, the Border Patrol murders Mexicans in cold blood.
The One-Armed Woman of Jurez

Unfathomable blood spins
I cite this verse from Susana Chvezs literary blog, in
which the poet and activist also introduces herself briefly. She
states that she served as a model for the movie poster of 16 en
la lista (16 on the List), dedicated to the feminicides in Ciudad
Jurez. She passed from being a model to being a victim. She
was murdered a few days ago.
She regularly attended protests against the killing of
women in Jurez. It is believed that she coined the phrase Not
one more! Her life ended as one more.
The preface of her book of poems Canto a una ciudad en
el desierto (Hymn to a City in the Desert) explains the volume
represents a cry of fire from the heart of poetry against the
violence that takes many forms, among them the most
unspeakable: the murders of hundreds of women. Mexicos
northern border is an old scar, and it will not heal until theres
not one more death. From being the voice for the dead women
in her poems, Susana Chvez became one more silenced
woman.
Her bones are not in the desert. They found her shortly
after her murder, a few blocks from her home. They had cut off
the poets hand in a grotesque reference to the one-armed Cer137
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Carmen Boullosa
vantes. The maimed woman of Jurez thus enters our literary

pantheon giving voiceher testimony fleshing out the horrific
history of her life and death.
When the police recovered her amputated hand, the funeral parlor positioned the member in its place and looped a
rosary around both hands; as in the legend of the Battle of Lepanto, hands wrapped in rosaries prayed to God for victory over
the infidels.
Back then, the pope prayed. The king prayed. Many
monasteries, churches, towns, cities prayed. Nowadays,
instead, the authorities come up with a rosary that appears to
say, Thats what she gets for being out at night alone, speaking with who knows who. That, my friends, is not an acceptable prayer. You have to consider her murder another feminicide. They are tied to each other, part of the same horror.
The Christians were victorious at the Battle of Lepanto.
There is no victory in the death of Susana Chvez. Here, the poet
died; she did not survive to tell her story, to make it part of the
literary canon. Nor was there divine intervention. The poet
wrote, In the hand of God, he writhes with laughter with you.
Los fantasmas sollozan (The Ghosts Sob) is another
poem from Susana Chvezs blog. She died in the same city
where she had been born on November 4, 1974. She began
writing at age eleven. She lived with her mom. She had directed some short films.
I speak from the heart in front of death,
with the tree of my voice,
with one lip of earth and the other
of night.
We cannot listen to her, read her, know her without joining
our hands with hers, with the amputated hand, the one that was
later attached to her lacerated body.
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In a poem to a tree, she wrote:

Always under your shade
I understand a bit more about words.
Oh, my tree of white stumps.
The police said that three minors killed her, three kids
without a criminal record. They didnt have any training; they
simply embraced the law of the land. One of them, Balatas,
lived in a room lent by his retired teacher. The teacher and his
family, once they found out, were surprised by the crime; upset
and sympathetic, they went to the church and lit a votive candle for Susana Chvez.
Justice has to be delivered, said the poets mother in an
interview. I agree with her and demand justice with her, but
whom can we trust? A month ago, Marisela Escobedo was
assassinated because of her pursuit of justice to be applied to
the confessed murderer of her daughter. Not one more. Not one
more must to die. Another Susana Chvez poem:
What can I tell others
about my embalmed word if I know so little about it.
Today, her verses speak volumes. We cannot neglect into
oblivion the maimed woman of Jurez. From her blog I quote
two final lines of poetry, so that we feel obligated to take hold
of the rosary and votive candle and file a universal complaint:
my mouth suspended
in the firmness of its strength.
Texan Eves
It all started with one woman, Bettina Brentano von
Arnimthe Romantic writer (My soul is a passionate dancer;
she dances to hidden music that only I can hear), composer,
editor, artist and social activist, friend of Goethe and Marx,
Beethoven and Franz Liszt, adored by revolutionary youth,
especially because of her book Dies Buch gehrt dem Knig
(This Book Belongs to the King), in which she criticizes the
monarch and pleads with him to fight the injustices committed
under his command. A commune was named in her honor. Bettina, founded in 1847 for very young immigrant girls, centered
on three principles: friendship, equality and freedom.
For the forty radical founding youngsters who traded the
Rhine River for the Llano River (tributary of the Colorado
River), brotherly love and faith superseded the law. Their properties, including their homes, belonged to the community; the
forty Bettinans all slept in the same room of a cabin built with
their own hands. Among themselves they spoke German; they
did not speak English.
These forty were male, though their honoree, Bettina von
Arnim, is known today as a feminist, but lets set that tidbit
aside, along with another equally as large: conflict on the border. When a few years later (in 1859) and a few miles to the
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southeast the rebel Juan Nepomuceno Cortina took up arms

along the Rio Grande, he proclaimed, Lets kill the white man
n reconquer our country from here up to the Colorado River!
If they would have reached Bettina, would these armed Cortinistas have respected those forty? I dont think so. It was an
explosive region, not just because of Gringos and Mexicans.
There also were Indians. This is why, when the forty left Indianapolis, it was suspected that none would survive the adventure.
They were wrong.
They nicknamed these utopians the Society of Forty. The
majority were recruited at the University Darmstadt: architects, engineers, physicians (a Dr. Herff the most renowned),
intellectuals, a theologian, philosophers. After the first handful, a diverse group of freethinkers joined: a butcher (who prepared wild boar for the dinner table), an innkeeper, a milliner,
a boatwright. They seemed trained to confront the problems of
pioneers.
Maybe they werent really. At night, the Bettinans drank
whiskey from barrels they had brought from Hamburg, they
played musical instruments brought in their steamer trunks,
they sang often and theyd get into philosophical discussions
that, for some, promptly turned into their sole duty.
A territorial treaty was signed with the Comanches. It was
the only one between the white man and these Indians that was
never double-crossed. The relationship between the Forty and
the Indians was friendly. The Bettinans welcomed their guests,
who brought deerskins and pecans. Take what you want
and in return the Indians received German lessons. Some
words, like Pferd, were insurmountable; others would make
them laugh.
The Bettinans seemed to be on a rolleven though they
harvested only 200 ears of cornbut the colony crashed after
just one year of existence, bursting like a bubble. Or else, the
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commune was as short-lived as a subsidy, or, according to a

legend, at fault was the Indian woman given as a gift to Dr.
Herff.
The Beauty came in, and out came the Fortys Beast.
Or it wasnt like that, and the legend surfaced to undo Bettinas, to punish women, the super Eves, sources of evil. Serpent, my foot!
The dispersed Forty joined other Germans in the nearby
area, some of whom wanted to institutionalize Latin as their
official language. Someone wrote that the folks were happy,
and I quote, If one of the brute Germans were to see us, hed
be furious. Almost all of us have an arrest warrant pending or
a death penalty awaiting.
More than one enlisted in the Confederate Army (Bettinans
fighting alongside enslavers! Wow!), another became a Texas
senator, and Dr. Herff (the one with the so-called Beauty) was
the first to perform a surgery with anesthesia in Texas.
Wall Street, the Star Nearby Bettina

Bettina von Armin, the star of her generation, the beautiful
writer, wrote to the poet Goethe: In my cradle, someone sang
that I would love a star that would always be afar. But you,
Goethe, sang a different lullaby that leads me to dream my
future.
Bettinas love for the poet was a potent star that heated and
shined on many people. Its not unusual to have a far-off star,
just to cherish; whats so different is it being a possible reality.
Distant stars, Roberto Bolao knew, are shitty.
Goethe sang to the beauty confidently that dreams are not
something unreachable but rather a feasible light source. It was
what enveloped and guided many utopians, makers of realities,
like the ones who founded the Bettina socialist community in
Texas. Bettina gave a whole generation of German dreamers
the conviction that dreams are possible. By her falling in love
with Goethe, stars came down to earth. Love creates miracles.
The followers of Bettina energized social struggles, fought
for the equality of women, established socialist communities
on the other side of the ocean, empowered the masses, defied
injustice and challenged the very design of beauty, without
deserting it. They gave meaning to human life.
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Carmen Boullosa
No one has confirmed that Bettinas influence reached and

struck those who rebelled against the financial tyranny in New
York in 1857. I am convinced such was the case. In that memorable rebellion of thousands of unemployed workers, Bettina was
there. I cite Mike Wallaces brief history of the protests against
Wall Street: A German group, the American Workers League,
called for a demonstration for work and bread. They marched to
City Hall Park and presented Mayor Ferdinand Wood a petition
from the unemployed (www.gothamcenter.org).
The demonstration of 1857 was empowered by themes
reminiscent of Bettina and her generation: Every human
being has a right to live, not as a mere charity, but as [a] right,
and governments, monarchical or republican, must find work
for the people if individual exertion prove not sufficient.
One of the specific petitions of the unemployed protesters
was to build Central Park. The design already existed, since
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux had been awarded
the bid. So too did the space, after purchases and evictions,
among them Seneca Village, a town settled by free blacks. And
budgeting by the city was pending. This petition was doubleedged. On one hand, they wanted to make the city more livable
for everyone, with community spaces that would benefit all of
the citizens regardless of their social status. On the other, they
knew that building a new park would be a source of employment. The rebels forced the New York authorities to make
beautiful Central Park a reality. In the process, it provided jobs
to a multitude, thanks to the pressure from those outraged protesters, those who rebelled against the inhumane tyranny of the
financially powerful, against a social order that left thousands
without a roof, food and work.
When the city council voted to earmark a considerable
amount of money to build Central Park, they did so because of
the pressure by the masses camping at Tompkins Square. On
November 6, they marched to Wall Street. A demonstration of
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five thousand people marched behind a single banner, We

Want Work, and rallied at the bottom of the steps of the Merchants Exchange Building.
In the words of a protesting blacksmith, We will keep the
peace, but we will show the merchants and wealthy classes
here before us that we are starving, with our wives and children, and that we must have relief. And they would, he
warned, keep on demonstrating: We will increase in numbers
every day, in numbers irresistible in strength, and we will
march through the streets with these increased numbers, day
after day. We will go to Wall Street, and show those who had
their pockets lined, that we must have work.
The star nearby Bettina today returns to march on the
streets.
When Mexico Recaptures Texas

Its 1841. The young, independent Republic of Texas is
barely five years old, and its bankrupt. Seeking solutions,
President Lamar sends an expedition of 320 men toward the
northeast, convinced that the residents of the Santa Fe region
long to secede from Mexico and that they will accept the offer
of annexation to Texas. Thats how he wants to gain access to
a commercial route that has proved lucrative. And that will
allow the independent republic to exit its financial straits.
The fate of the expedition turns out disastrous. Today, they
would have driven that same route from Austin to the City of
Santa Fe in a tad more than twelve hours, but back then, poorly provisioned and led by a disoriented guide, the members of
the expedition endure months of privation while repeatedly
attacked by Comanches as they cross through their territory.
Theyre lost. Members of the expedition die. They improvise a
camp.
In December of that same 1841, Lamars presidency ends.
The hero of the battle separating Texas from Mexico, Sam
Houston, takes office. On the other side of the desert, some
Mexicans rescue the surviving members of the expedition, who
finally catch sight of the city Santa Fe. Wretched, famished and
parched, they discover that the Santa Feans do not have the
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Carmen Boullosa
slightest interest in becoming Texans. The members surrender

to the Mexican military without shooting a single bullet. Taken
as prisoners, they are subjected to humiliation and torment
while they are taken south. The ones who lag behind or collapse out of exhaustion are mercilessly riddled with bullets.
Damaso Salazar, the Mexican captain in charge, orders the ears
of the fallen cut off with a machete; he wears them strung on a
necklaceforeshadowing the stories weve heard about Vietnam and Central America.
Where does this officers sadism spring from? Is he a child
of hatred? Was he born when Texans abused his people, insulted them, lynched them, raped their women, sacked their
towns? Or is it an insanity not linked to a purposeful zealous
vengeance, a mental illness?
The members of the Texan expedition and the Mexican
military contingent cross the Rio Grande, where Mexican army
officers await them. When Captain Salazars mistreatment of
the Texan prisoners is reported, he audaciously shows off his
necklace with five pairs of ears; he is sentenced to prison.
The Mexico that theyve entered has a good number of
black slaves who have escaped and taken refuge from the
young Texan republic (slave-owning cotton country). In this
free land, the former slaves form alliances to strengthen Mexico against foreign invasionsand eventually some will
become allies with the Mexican bandits who will resist the
Texans in one way or another and who will fight in the U.S.
Civil War for the abolitionist cause. What I cannot confirm
without falling into speculation is whether the members of the
expedition and the escaped slaves encounter one another in
Mexico.
The members of the Texan expedition are sent to Mexico
City, and there they are locked up in the Santiago Tlatelolco
prison.
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When news of what has happened to the Santa Fe expedition reaches the Texas Congressgoverned by adventurers
more inclined to shoot bullets than to debate lawsthe plenary
declares the annexation of all the Mexican territory north of the
Rio Grandefor us the Ro Bravo plus a large portion of
Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Durango and Sinaloa for good measure.
Texas legally self-declares ownership of two-thirds of
Mexico. Sam Houston attempts a veto, with no luck.
What would they have thought to do with us, the Mexicans? They openly said we were an inferior race (the weak,
imbecile, nigger Republic of Mexico will resent the
vengeance, they chorused on the streets). Did they at times
believe that theyd pronounce us slaves? Did they think to
eliminate us? To avenge themselves did they fantasize stringing ears into necklaces? They chorused to themselves: Flaunt
them, flaunt theeeem, flaunt your necklaces of eeeeaars!
The Mexican Dream

Lets imagine that the thousands who cross the northern border of Mexico are going in the opposite direction, seeking illegally to come into our country, that the authorities in the north
are attempting to prevent the getaway and that the ones in the
south, the Mexican ones, are aiding the fugitives. A fairy tale?
No: it happened for decades during the nineteenth century.
The desperate runaways were not Latin Americans seeking
the American Dream, but rather slaves fleeing toward their
freedom and protection (physical and legal) in a sister nation.
Mexico was the promised land.
The slaves fled from the north risking their skinsthe border was hostile and dangerous: they could get lost, perish of
hunger and thirst or fall into the hands of cruel and soulless
men whod turn them in for ransom to their masters, or
whod rape their women, subject them to all kinds of depravity and tortures, and theyd kill them if they couldnt obtain the
demanded pay. They could run into official bounty hunters of
slaves, or fellow slaves who remained loyal to their masters
and sought to block their escape; they could fall into the hands
of human traffickers whod export them to be sold as servants
under inhuman conditions. But many Afro-Americans did
cross the border, and in Mexico they found freedom and benev153
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Carmen Boullosa
olence, to the point that a Texan complained, The slaves are

treated with respect and more esteem than if they were Americans or Europeans.
The Gringo president proposed an extradition treaty with
Mexico, which led nowhere; the Texan president tried again,
convinced that the economy of his independent republic
depended on slave labor. The Mexican response was definitive:
foreign governments would be prohibited from laying their
hands on any slave whod take refuge in our territory. Mexicos
position was not impartial; whatever slave arrived would find
his or her freedom and the protection to retain it.
In the 1830s and 40s, many managed to escape. In the
summer of 1850, an incident shocked public opinion among
slave owners: hundreds of Seminole Indians crossed our border, leaving behind the reservation (the Indian prison camp)
that had confined them. That the Indians left wasnt much of a
loss to them, but they came with two hundred blacks, escaped
slaves and children of the runaways. The Texan governor
charged Warren Adams, a famous slave bounty hunter, with
rescuing the goods stolen by Chief Wild Cat, that thief of
blacks. The Mexican authorities had spied on Warren Adams
and warned the refugees, but something went wrong and he
captured John Horse, the leader of the Black Seminoles (the
Maroons).
On November 12, 1850, the Gringos passed a law allowing
the imprisonment of any slave attempting to cross the Rio
Grandewhich for us was and still is the Ro Bravo. But it
did not work; there werent enough American troops on the
border, and the slaves poured through like water between their
fingers.
In 1854, the Austin State Times estimated that more than
two hundred thousand blacks had fled from the United States
to Mexicoan inflated number, yet it reflects the scope of the
phenomenon. High ransoms for the fugitives were pledged,
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and more than one slave catcher mixed in with liberal Mexican
troops, pretending to support them when the only thing they
wanted was to sink their claws into their prey.
African Americans kept Mexico in mind, an expression
from a slaver owner when he declined the purchase of a slave
after overhearing his dream of going south. The slaves trusted
the Mexican Dream, and they risked their lives to achieve it.
Who wouldve thought that, after a century and a half, Mexico
would no longer be the promised land, nor the dream of freedom and dignity for many, but rather a feast with blacks!
A Childrens Riot in Arizona

The story seems bogus, but they say its true.
This is my point of view:
A teacher of history and language arts in an Arizona public middle school cannot go to his classes. He is replaced by a
substitute. After listening to (so-called routine) TV reports
(which are somewhat surprising), the kids refuse to repeat with
the TV screen the (routine) pledge of allegiance to the flag of
the United States of America.
We are Mexicans! they scream to the substitute. This is
the land the Gringos stole from us!
The substitute demands that they speak English: We are in
the United States of America!
Well, a student answers in perfect Southern English,
without the slightest trace of a foreign accent, you better learn
the Spanish language and Mexican customs because this is,
after all, Mexican land.
The sub is very annoyed by the answer. Exasperated, he
reveals his vulnerability to the students; their words have pummeled him. Faking control, he tries to settle them down and
make them follow the schedule left by the regular teacher.
Lets read a passage by Mark Twain. Open your textbooks.
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The kids dont want to open their books. When they finally comply, they tear out pages and turn them into projectiles
that they proceed to throw at each other.
It strikes me that their guide here is Mark Twains Tom
Sawyer, another thirteen-year-old who walks around barefoot
like a little savage.
The substitute calls them to order. The youngsters are
determined to eat him alive, and they go on with their tactics.
Then the students hit him with:
We are all illegal here.
Gringos are racists.
The crooks took our land.
They tricked us.
Et cetera.
The sub returns home demoralized. He digs deep into himself and writes to his senator, outlining the troubling experience. He is, more than anything, frustrated. He hopes to one
day get a position as a teacher or, even better, as a professor.
Yet right now, he earns nothing but crumbs; he gets paid for
what others dont do. Hes a pinch hitter, and when he finally
gets to bat, he stumbles upon nothing but Tom Sawyers!
But he has faith in himself. Hes convinced that he can hit
a home run. If only he were given a chance. In the letter he
writes to his senator, he tries. He begins, Dear Senator Russell Pearce. He narrates in plain style, restrained, without
elaborating, the unsavory events of his workday. Misbehaving
kids. It didnt dawn on him to remark on the similarity between
these rebels and Tom Sawyer, the intended subject of their lesson.
His story ends plainly enough with his conclusions: I have
found that substitute teaching in these areas most of the Hispanic students do not want to be educated but rather be gang
members and gangsters. Again: Mark Twain does not cross
his mind; the sub does not think of the immediacy of this
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authors intelligencenor does the sub cite him: Education

consists in what we have unlearned.
The sub continues in his letter: [The students] hate America and are determined to reclaim this area for Mexico. If we
are able to remove the illegals out of our schools, the class
sizes would be reduced. . . . More grist for his mill. He ends
with: I applaud and support your efforts to stop this invasion
into our state and country. When the citizens of a country are
forced to speak the invaders language, adopt their customs and
are forced to support them, are we not in fact a conquered
nation?
He sees as fatal that this invasion is turning his homeland into a third-world country. And once again, he applauds
the senator.
And he does hit a home run. His letter is a hit when it is
read in the Arizona Senate on March 21. An anti-immigrant
wave embraces it and spreads it with joy.
I quote him with a different emotion to underscore his mismanagement of the classroom, the kids agitation, and to call
to mind the author of Tom Sawyer, who well said: Each school
that closes is a future prison that opens. Each student cast out
will be a danger to society.
The kids are not that now. They do not seem to be requesting gang membership, only the need for a good teacher, an
intelligent guide.
Comanche Hairs
Mounted on their mustangs, the Comanches were once the
undefeatable masters of the Great Plains, imposing a regime of
fear or terror on the other nations: Indians, Mexicans, Gringos
and European immigrants.
The Comanches had several wives each. These were laborers who tanned hides (buffalo and bovine) to trade for firearms,
with which they were also expert. To have several wives was at
least partially a labor issue, to create a workforceas also happens in other cultures with marriage institutions.
The women were also magnificent horsewomen, and they
took part in the attacks. It is said that one woman, during a confrontation when Texas Rangers had crushed the Comanches,
wore a small child on her head like a hat during the battle. She
was a master rider and handled a firearm well. Seeing the battle lost, she fled, but nevertheless fell into the hands of the
Gringos, with her child and everything. It was then that they
realized she was a female, as well as her little daughter (Prairie
Flower), and that she had been born to an Anglo-Saxon family, the Parkersinfluential in politics and in economic and
religious circles (one of her uncles founded the first Protestant
church in Texas). The Comanches had initially taken her captive when she was nine years old, during an attack whose
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spine-tingling atrocities were narrated in detail by one of her

aunts. She had practically lost her English, but she recognized
her name and was able to repeat it: Cynthia Ann Parker. She
spent the rest of her life longing to return to the Comanches.
And she boycotted food from the moment her daughter died in
an epidemic, she herself dying shortly thereafter.
Cynthia Ann Parker, or Nadua, appears in photographs
with short hair, chopped Prince Valiant style like that of the
other Comanche womenit was a custom to chop off the
womens hair so that the males could use it as extensions to
their own. Long hair was a manly thing.
Did they use that long hair as a means of appropriating the
power of women to generate life, a way of mimicking the
mounted child weighing down on her mothers head like a hat
during the attack? Would the Comanche males attach hair
extensions to remedy their jealousy of the womblike western men today who let their bellies grow, mimicking pregnant
women?
Did they actually believe that women created life, or am I
judging them by todays standards? Was there some sort of
punishment in this ripping out of their womens hair? Or was
it just meanness, removal envy? Or was it a way of being a sister? Was it a metaphorical means by which they became one
with their various wives?
Are these questions valid today, when womens hair is merchandised, originating in Thailand or India or other countries,
and traveling to all corners of the world with greater economic power, to function as hair extensions?
Its fitting to imagine a husband, in that hemisphere of the
earth, passes his hand through his wifes newly trimmed head,
sighing, perhaps, at the indignity of having lost a prized possession because of his poverty. Another passes his hand
through the gorgeous natural head of hair, now dyed blond
and made curly, and feels the clips that hold it in place.
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How did the Comanches fasten the hair extensions? Did

they only braid them, or, preparing for their agitated lives traveling far each day and riding horseback at high speeds, did they
use glues and resins? What were those glues and resins?
Maybe the Comanches had a certain scientific curiosity. Other
rescued captives, racially black, came back with frightening
scars. The Comanches had dug into their skin with knives,
intrigued to find out how deep was their blackness. Maybe
their scientific spirit had led them to discover the perfect glue,
thereby sparing the clips used in trafficking of hair in todays
equally cruel world.
The Frenchman Who Defended Mexico

The case of this trial is in actuality quite noteworthyit
can be said that it is unprecedentedthe pirates stayed free,
while the lawyers were put behind bars. The phrase I quote
doesnt quite cover the ground today, because as the splendid
documentary, Presumed Guilty, demonstrates so well, usually
the innocent go behind bars and the criminals remain free (the
video camera was key to the rescue of the presumed guilty in
the documentary, yet the videotaping did not help at all in the
tragic case of Marisela Escobedo).
The quote with which I start is from the June18, 1835, edition of the New Orleans Courier. The pirate referenced (the
pirates stayed free, while the lawyers were put behind bars)
was neither a buccaneer nor a filibusterer, but rather a Mexican
navy officer on duty, the captain of the warship Correo Mejicano, which the national government had sent to the Texan
coast to protect our territory against smugglers and pirates and
to prosecute the slave trade, illegal in Mexico and contrary to
international human rights. The smugglers, pirates and the
slavers were protected by the Texicans (Anglo-Saxons who
lived in what was then Mexicos Texas).
The captain of the Correo Mejicano, I should clarify, was a
British man commonly called Mexico Thompson. The govern165
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ment had employed him for his experience and ability on the
high seas. He was indeed a skillful naval officer. His victories
over the pirates and smugglers were propitious. But he wasnt
the ideal person to deal with the Texas situation; he was impulsive and irritable. The Texicans had already revolted and had
been defeated, but they had been oppressed and had no intention
of paying their taxes, and slavery to them was not up for discussion. They had it in for Captain Thompson from the beginning. To a degree, they did have a reason. Right after arriving,
Mexico Thompson issued a decree of martial law and instituted
a blockade of the whole area, and he proclaimed that he would
confiscate all the slaves he could find and set them freesure,
but only after a year of serfdom at his service. He seized a small
boat (and returned it to its owner in exchange for a hundred dollars), and he took over another, without returning it.
On one occasion, while approaching the port of Velasco,
Mexico, Mexico Thompson used his bullhorn to demand
papers from an American merchant ship, the Tremont, when it
was off-loading wood onto the steamship Laura. Mexico
Thompson suspected that the Tremont transported slaves. The
Tremont did not throw overboard any illegal supplies or those
without documentation, as was usual in those situations
because it was better to lose part but not all. He simply refused
to obey Mexico Thompsons orders. Thompson then sent men
in a rowboat to force them to turn over the documents. The
heavily armed Texicans on land boarded the steamer Laura and
headed it toward the Tremont, which they attacked. They also
fired a cannon from land. As luck would have it, the San Felipe
arrived at port (with only one passenger: Sam Houston) and
joined in the attack on the Correo Mejicano. I summarize: the
Texicans defeated Mexico Thompson; they took him and his
crew prisoner to New Orleans, where he was put on trial.
The case of United States v. Thompson was very high profile. Mexico expressed its opposition to the trial and unleashed
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a diplomatic storm. That the Americans should arrest Mexican

naval personnel was an abuse and a blatant sign that they supported the Texican rebels. Mexico Thompson was on official
business and had every right to demand to see papers.
Famous lawyers represented each side of the bench. A
Frenchman, Soul, represented the Mexican interests and
defended Mexico Thompson. The defense and the district
attorney, at one point, lost their patience and insulted each
other, screaming, tossing books and inkwells at each other. The
judge punished them for contempt of court with six hours
behind barsthis is what the above quote refers to. The French
lawyer did such a good job in representing Mexico that
Thompson was released and no longer subject to trial.
Dreams of Gum
My kingdom for a Manila mango! For a little taco pastor
style. For a pineapple with great flavor. After a summer in
Mexico, it weighs heavily on me to be here in Brooklyn and
away from my children and friends.
I leave home feeling like a beaten dog, with my gaze fixed
on the ground. This typical New York sidewalk is pocked with
hundreds, thousands of pieces of gum that characterize New
Yorker pavement. I start to count the spots, but its impossible.
For every New Yorker, how many pieces of gum are
smashed onto the sidewalks? In this city, to chew and spit is a
distinctive vernacular. Let me improvise: One Chiclets tablet
for each child you were given! Black spots, round, countless on
the corner, at the subway entrance, in front of the doors of government buildings and, in brief, wherever theres foot traffic.
How did this custom come about? Its difficult to find a
stretch of New York sidewalk free of round black spots.
According to the New York Times, These days, discarded gum
is practically part of the citys infrastructure. Nothing new; in
an article from 1939, Sunken in Gum, there is a complaint:
The city of New York may become totally enveloped in refuse
chewing gum.
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Are they saying that gum is a product of New York origin?

In 1871, Mr. Adams manufactured the first chiclets without
any flavor added from gum imported from the Yucatan. The
first chewing gum company was called Adams New York
Chewing Gum, Snapping and Stretching. In 1884, they started manufacturing flavored gum.
To think that this is due to (our) Santa Anna, who, old and
exiled, withered away here, in Staten Island. It was he, according to legend (or history), who put gum in the hands of Mr.
Adams. Santa Anna, who had the habit of chewing gum,
dreamed of raising the money necessary to recruit an army and
retake the presidency. He proposed the gum to Adams; Mr.
Adams tried to make a durable substance like latex and failed.
It was his son who had the idea of using it as did Santa Anna,
who was already back in Mexico without the army of mercenaries he had imagined financing with gum. The Traitor of the
Homeland godfathered a product that would conquer the
world, but not for him.
It was during World War II that the businessman William
Wrigley Jr. convinced the U.S. Army that soldier rations
should include gumto lessen the combatants stress and
relieve their dry mouths during long hikes. Soldiers spread the
habit, just like the bats spread the sapodilla seeds, aiding in the
germination of the trees from which chicle was originally
extracted, before it was replaced with industrial substitutes.
Among the Mayans, only children and women chewed
gum. It lacked elegance, and among the women, some say, it
was an indication of bad habits. When the trend crossed the
border in the mouth of Santa Anna, chewing gum was seen as
inelegant, even immoral. Word is that Leon Trotsky used to say
that chewing gum is a capitalist ploy to keep workers from
thinking too much. In classic movies, the villain chewed gum,
and the hero smoked. Today, those who quit smoking chew
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gum with nicotine. The rule of thumb is that chewing gum is

still perceived as less than elegant. Like something Gringo.
A Manila mango would hit the spot for me, I still think
with my eyes glued to the ground on my way home, as I confessed earlier. I was still gazing obsessively at the black spots.
On the third step up to my door, I spied a round black spot of
gum. If Santa Anna would have created that business, he could
have returned to the presidency on a throne of gum, for the
umpteenth time, and perhaps with that Mexican gum enterprise he could have recovered our lost lands (either bought or
reconquered) and could have demonstrated to the world our
administrative ability and other . . .
Tears and Combat

They were made of pepper and lard, but what the Hispanic
American poets who lived in New York in the nineteenth century really had in common was their desire, in addition to
being poets, to be heroes. Some of them ended their days on
the gallows or on the frontline of a battle, like the most famous,
Jos Mart, who returned to Cuba to die of a bullet in the chest
after an insurgent skirmish in 1895, and like Juan Clemente
Zenea, who was executed by a Spanish firing squad in Cuba in
1871.
The anthology El lad del desterrado (The Lyre of Exile),
published in Spanish by the Revolution Press in New York in
1858 and reissued by Arte Pblico Press, reunites some of these
poets, only Cubans. The prolog states, Some of the authors
who appear here already rest in the peace of their graves, safe
from persecutions by despots; others continue on the their heroic pilgrimage under foreign skies. Only one corpse belongs to
the Spanish government in Cuba, Miguel Teurbe Tolns, but
what a triumph! He barely set foot on his native beaches with
his desire to embrace his aging mother and the dual emotion of
kissing the land for whose independence he had sacrificed himself; when the patriotic muses had barely come out to greet him
and heard him say that he was returning to the United States to
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die, when his brow became eternally pale, that site where the
flame of genius had burned. I quote Toln: Hold back the
tears, hush that groan / Lift to heavens that lovely glance / And
to the echoing of thunder / of lethal bronze on the savannah /
sing our battle hymn, my Cuban girl!
The anthologys copyright page states that it is sold in
major bookstores in New York but that it also circulates as
contraband in Cuba, like many other publications printed in
Spanish in New York City. The poets and other activists sought
moral and economic support in the city, as well a place to publish. During those decades, hundreds of New York Hispanic
newspapers, magazines and books appeared in Spanish, just
like the anthology; many were published by the poets themselves. Only the aforementioned M. T. Toln, who was president of the Cuban Annexationist Society, wrote poems in English and was editor at an Anglo-Saxon newpaper. Tears and
combat, but also the press and organizing. The truth is that they
were tough; their devotion and capacity for work are
admirable. Whether their works are still readable is another
story, which I will not discuss. Readers tastes have changed,
without a doubt.
Opening the anthology are poems by Jos Mara Heredia,
prophet of our revolution and Homer of our poetry. He
arrived in New York in 1823, soon moved to Mexico and died
in Toluca at age thirty-six. I quote him: Your friend, Emilia,
of fierce iron and of armed vengeance / when envisioning you,
hell return with a sublime voice / hell sing the triumphant
hymn so beautiful.
Others did live long years, such as the Puerto Rican Lola
Rodrguez de Ti, a poet abolitionist and proponent of
womens rights. At a young age, she broke with convention and
wore her hair short. My stanza, stern and uneven, / bounces
like a machos steed on a steep descent; / I hope to control it
but it tears away, / and its fervent perfume emerges in gusts.
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(Years later, in 1912, not a poet but a playwright and activist,

Luisa Capetillo [18791922] reached New York for a brief
stay; she was the first Puerto Rican woman to wear pants in
public.)
Also included in the anthology was Pedro Santacilia, who
while exiled in New Orleans met Benito Jurez. They befriended each other, and Santacilia ended up marrying his daughter.
During the rule of Maximilian von Habsburg, he shared his
exile in New York with the Jurez family and other liberal
Mexican families; and thats how he became part of that golden age of Hispanic American literature.
If it was hope that moved them to offer their lives to their
cause and dedicate themselves with such zeal to it, they incarnated one of Sor Juanas enigmas and the solution thats been
attributed to her: What deity murders in living, dies giving
life? Hope.
Healing with Bullet Wounds

The situation created by the institutionalized Mexican War
on Drugs has created victims everywhere: journalists; mayors;
students; people neither employed, studying nor training; the
rightly employed; the elderly; the governor-elect; teens who
were on their way to a party; a family passing by; not to mention soldiers and policemen and all who accompany them.
In short, the war claims many people who have nothing to
do with drug traffickingand those who do are eliminated
without a fair trial. We Mexicans have become disposable.
Examples of resistance? Perhaps the academics tweeting alerts
of shootouts on campus and office workers e-mailing their
friends to avoid a certain neighborhood where grenades have
been detected.
The dead have not been the only targets. Parts of Mexico
are in a state of war. The Mexican national anthem talks about
a soldier in each son given to you. That was then; now, not
one soldier in each son, but rather a possible victim (because
here we are not talking about the kidnapper, assassin, beheader, violent trafficker without principles or the guy who only
cuts fingers off). May the land quake at its center begins the
anthem. What quakes now, entrails? The resounding snap of
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the bones of the innocent or the crumbling of the establishment?

In thinking about this war, I remember a fable from Edith
Sitwell, in her collection of eccentrics from other time periods.
A man, in the seventeenth century, suffered from flatulence
lets call him Mr. Stone. He thought he had found the effective
remedy: . . . for some time past, been in the habiton the
advice of a friendof swallowing round white pebbles, in
order to quell this disorder. At first, the prescription acted
admirably, and [he] was, in the due course of nature, delivered
of both pebbles and wind; but some time afterwards the wind
returned to him, and [he] returned to the pebbles, and both
wind and pebbles clung to [him] and would not be parted from
him. Seeking a cure for his intensified malady, Mr. Stone
swallowed 200 pebbles and stored them in his body for two
and a half years. So then he lost his appetite absolutely and suffered from terrible heartburn, not to mention his flatulence. He
went to see a doctor. The latter said that he could hear rattling
as if they were in a bag. He went outside and tied Mr. Stone
upside down and shook him violently. People assembled to see
what was going on. The pebbles made a brief but slow and
noisy trip toward Mr. Stones mouth. Then, the doctor turned
him right-side up, the sound of the two hundred stones falling,
one after another, into their original resting place, with which
the surrounding multitude were gratified. The doctor left Mr.
Stone peacefully regarding his pebbles, his lack of appetite, his
heartburn, his flatulence.
To be ill in those days, Edith Sitwell explains, could be
quite dangerous and could even be invented. New diseases
were discovered that had exact cures even though they lacked
proof. Remedies could be fatal, and in many cases they were
disgusting: live pig lice, freshly picked earthworms, live toads,
human skulls, charred human bones, goose droppings collected in the spring and sun dried . . . Did any of them work? At
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least they werent federal soldiers or state police strafing people. Nor the excuses (also criminal) out of the mouths of dignitaries (They had a criminal record, which shouldnt permit
them to go around scot-free killing people). Nor the self-centered attitude that It cant happen to me or They must have
done something wrongthe sort of sick phrases that abet
atrocities in a dirty war.
Suffice it to say, whats much harder to swallow than Mr.
Stones pebbles is the official death toll: more than 28,000
dead. How many more of us will fall? And supposing that, in
addition to innocent victims, the remedy succeeds in expelling
the farts, whatll we do thereafter with the stones that have
been stuck in the body?
Spurs and Guayaberas

He was born on a land grant in the Yucatan. His life had
more creases than a guayabera shirt, and he ended up where
they wear spurs, in Texas. He was active in three national independence movements: the Spanish resistance to the Napoleonic invasion, the Mexican rebellion and Texan separation from
Mexico. Not one to be among the masses of insurgents, he had
been elected to the Spanish congress in exile in Cadiz (in the
Yucatan he had served as a Spanish government official); on
his return to Mexico he served in the constitutional congress
and drafted the new constitution; and in Texas he was a signer
of the Texan Declaration of Independence that would free it
from Mexico. Theres something comic about these three relationships: each of his girlfriends became his enemy.
Whats good for nations is also good for individuals. Like
Santa Anna, for instance. He was his ally various times, helping him to recover his governorship of the State of Mexico
from which he had been deposed, and they both supported
Vicente Guerreros successful pursuit of the presidency. Like
Octavio Paz resigning as ambassador to India in protest of the
Tlatelolco massacre, Lorenzo de Zavala resigned his commission as minister plenipotentiary in Paris when Santa Anna
assumed tyrannical powers. And after tendering his resigna181
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tion, Zavala (like Paz with Daz Ordaz) denounced Santa Anna
internationally.
He lived in New York, and in Mexican Texas he lived on
lands granted to him by the Mexican government, the same
lands that would become part of the United States. Then there
appeared another wrinkle in his life: Zavala, the author of a
book that analyzed the United States, became one more of
those people where he had studied, another American.
Texas prairies and rivers were promising for cattle, cotton
and sugar. Such was the dream that circulated throughout the
world; German newspapers described Texas as the land of the
future, with a perfect climate and great potential, a type of
promised land; thousands of Germans immigrated to Texas.
Tolstoy begins his Anna Karenina introducing to us an unlikable fast talker dreaming of the land so tempting for an adventurer: Alabin was giving a dinner-party in Darmstadtno, not
in Darmstadt but somewhere in America. Oh yes, Darmstadt
was in Americaand Alabin was giving the party. The dinner
was served on glass tablesyes, and the tables sang Il mio
tesoro . . . no, not exactly Il mio tesoro but something better
than that; and then there were some kind of little decanters that
were really women. Two decades earlier, the Darmstadt Society of Forty had negotiated for the emigration of 200 families
to colonize Texan lands with financial support, heads of cattle
and a years worth of provisions. They established some eleven
diverse Texas German colonies, with professionals, artisans,
workers, businessmen and dreamersutopian socialists or
aristocrats who believed in owning slaves.
It should be no surprise that Zavala, the insurgent and liberal, felt the need for Texas spurs. The future, adventure, passion awaited; it was the opposite of living in the past, while
honest Levi in Anna Karenina (the character who is the moral
opposite of the dissipated husband) feels content and at peace
upon stepping down from the train that has returned him from
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the modern city to the countryside and even happier to see his
one-eyed coachman dressed in the old style and getting aboard
the sled that will take him home and away from tables laden
with silverware, liquor servers and repugnant women: He
stopped wishing he was someone else.
For Lorenzo de Zavala, in addition to the future and adventure, there was much more that reminded him of home in those
Texan spurs: the Yucatan was not far afield from the cattlemans universe; livestock was the first enterprise of the settlers
of New Spain. But the Texas that Zavala chose to support
would go up against Mexico, making for the largest wrinkle in
the biography of this Yucatecan.
Zavala retired from public life for health reasons. It was
November, it was cold. He was rowing his boat, and it capsized
(a lovely word) in the narrow river (a bayou) where the Battle
of San Jacinto had been fought. After a good soaking in the
freezing water, Zavala contracted pneumonia and died.
National Glories (and Pain)

The best army in the world, they called the French force
that arrived in Mexico in 1862 to extort the foreign debt that
was owed by the country. Our countrymen resisted the invaders
with arms and the arts. Newspapers had few subscribers, and
so the practical way of getting the news of battles out was
through the publication of albums of lithographs and texts. Las
glorias nacionales: lbum de la guerra (National Glories: War
Album) appeared. After being censored by the victorious
French and buried by persistent national forgetfulness, it has
finally been reissued by the Colegio de Puebla with reproductions of the lithographs, texts of the period, photographs and
other illustrations.
Its illustrations by Constantino Escalante y Hesiquio Iriarte
were accompanied by texts from such writers as Altamirano,
who had enlisted in the army to fight the invasion and narrate
the events as an eye witness. The impact and splendor of the
illustrations is supported by the soldier-writers: the French
Intervention, they write, is the Grand drama playing out to the
New and Old World as spectators. A gigantic drama that
impassions and deeply moves our spirits, because basically it
is the fatal and sublime struggle between antiquated thought
and new thought!
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Antiquated ideas and new ideas, the Old World and the New
World were face to face in the illustrations of these artistic
geniuses. The south against the north, liberty against the empire,
idealism against greed, nobility against abuse, authenticity confronting imposture. Another quote from the album: Mexico has
been cast as the theater for this drama. If its outcome is to be
grand for the worldbecause its necessary, precise, inevitable
that the new, the civilizing idea, the idea of liberty and independence triumph over the old idea in the end, no matter the
struggles and episodes of the dramait is our responsibility, the
responsibility of us Mexicans, to record and register the facts of
this glorious struggle and write the pages . . . of vital interest for
all of the Americas.
The National Glories lithographs are top quality. Because
of their composition, execution, details, expressive force. Just
like the visual art, the accompanying texts confirm the honorable, wholesome, valorous and noble performance of the Mexicans. The moral height of their behavior is at the same level of
the texts and the power of the illustrations: the Mexicans forgive, care for, aid the fallen enemy. They are never cruel. The
victory on the Puebla battlefield is not just one of war. It is the
triumph of Good over Evil. The New wins over the rotten
entrails of the Old World.
Artist Constantino Escalante, better known as a cartoonist,
the Father of the Mexican Cartoon, also executed an enormous
oil painting depicting the United States invasion, although this
painting was not created at the time of the subject depicted
because he was then only eleven years old. The painting depicts
Chapultepec Park, Kings Mill and the Chapultepec Castle. The
painting does not yet reveal the mastery the artist would later
achieve, but more than faulting his immaturity, we can judge this
as showing insufficient drama in the scene depicted. At the Battle of Chapultepec, two new countries confront each other, not
the Old World and the New. Both countries represent the new
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idea. How could this dilemma be resolved creatively? Would it

be enough to say that it was Catholics against Protestants? Can
that provide legitimate strength for a nations soul? No. It would
console reactionaries and serve as a magnet for fund-raising but
not for justifying a conflict between two new nations. The
truth is that Mexico was the newer of the two.
We resolved the conflict by creating the image of the Child
Heroes: the drama becomes more tragic although less legitimate.
The young invader sees the younger child commit suicide.
There are national myths which create wings for the
respectable collective to soar, but others are burdensome symbols. One of the heaviest to bear, from this perspective, is that
of the Child Heroes.
Two for a Duel

The truth is that there is no urge to tell stories, just keep
quiet as a sign of mourning. There is nothing worse than the
loss of ones child. My sympathy to Javier Sicilia and to all
who have lost a family member during these fateful years.
But it is in the name of the young people whose lives were
so absurdly taken away in defense our homeland, in search of
an escape from this desperation, that each one must do his
work, even if it is a tiny little job (I quote Diablo de Ramuz in
The History of a Soldier). My little job is to write. In the last
analysis, people in my line of work tell stories to challenge
senselessness and death.
Heres an excerpt of the story of two sisters who lived back
then on the border:
They signed their two books of poetry created together as
the Sisters of the West. In one of the poems they alluded to
reincarnation, as if they had had former lives. Whats certain is
that they had lived under a shadow. Their grandfather, Charles,
claimed to belong to the House of Percy, of noble lineage,
when he was nothing but a buck private who, overcome with
poverty, had abandoned his wife and children and left England
to try his luck elsewhere. Calling himself Carlos, he joined the
Spanish army, remarried but became a widower. As payment
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for his service, the Spanish crown granted him land along the
Mississippi. That region passed into Anglo-Saxon hands.
Once again as Charles, no longer Carlos, he remarried, this
time to a young heiress. They had children. The son from his
first, legitimate, marriage showed up to claim what was his
a Pedro Pramo on the Mississippiand, rebuffed by Charles,
he settled a little further north on the river to plan his revenge.
Father and son became rivals, competing against each other in
the river basin in the worlds richest cotton-producing center.
The fortune of the Percys was growing on a bed of dead
bodies, buried and purposely forgotten, who had been the
secret for their wealth: slaves, as well as the Indians whose
hunting grounds they had stolen.
In 1794, a deeply depressed Charles, or Carlos, Percy tied
a heavy cast-iron cauldron to his neck and threw himself into a
branch of the Mississippi, the Buffalo, of dark deep waters,
which from then on would be known as the Percy. His
youngest daughter, Sarah, was ten years old.
After a while, Sarah married twice, the second time to a
strange man, a Lieutenant Ware, educated, sporting a fine mustache, grandiloquent manners and exaggerated elegance, given
to wandering and adventureshe even explored North Africa.
They had two daughters, the future Sisters of the West. Their
firstborn was Catherine. When Sarah was thirty-nine, she gave
birth to Eleanor, became depressed and then insane. Lieutenant
Ware committed her to a mental hospital. Locked up, Sarah
Percy Ware passed the days yearning for her husband, lamenting her abandonment. When the lieutenant would visit, Sarah
would not recognize him. She cried for her children, especially for her baby Eleanor. When the girls visited her, she would
not recognize them either, and their crying and complaints
were repugnant to her.
Sarah maintained her beauty and her gorgeous, thick hair.
Lieutenant Ware moved her in with one of the sons of his pre-
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vious marriage, who locked her away in the highest part of his
house, like Rapunzel.
Some years later, in 1860, Catherine published a very successful gothic novel, signing her name as A Southern Miss,
in which there is no trace of slaves except for a slave trader, the
evil Urzus. Another of the evil characters, who administers
electroshocks and improvised anesthesia in his search for eternal youth, plans to mix the blood of the virginal protagonist
with gold . . . She has been locked away on the top floor of a
house (like Sarah), inaccessible by stairs . . . Is this novel poorly written? At the time, they compared Catherine Warfield to
George Sand and George Eliot. From a distance, The Household of Bouverie seems to parody the zeal for slavery in cotton
country and in the life of the author.
Four Bachelor Poets Devoted to the

Virgin of Guadalupe
Lupe Rivas beer is now for sale, like a diva from long ago.
I dont drink beer, not because Im stuck-up or a cultural traitor, but because of its taste. I prefer Mexican fine red wines on
my table when I can afford themand I am the lady of the
house. However, with a name like that, I wont be able to resist
the temptation to try Lupita and, of course, to celebrate her
arrival into this world.
As we approach the saints day of those named Lupe, here
are some lines from four bachelor poets in honor of
Guadalupe.
My dear friend, grand poet and very good man, Amado
Nervo, died five days ago in Montevideo, Uruguay, writes
Carlos Pellicer in a letter to his mother in May 1919. His
death has greatly afflicted me. I swear that I would have given
up my own poor existence in order to delay his death a few
more years. Its as if someone in our family has died; my heart
is saddened. I am in mourning and will continue to be so for at
least a month. Nervo was forty-nine. Do you remember us seeing him kneeling in the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe the
day you took me there to take my leave of the most holy Virgin?
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Here, the first two bachelor poets devoted to Guadalupe,

the canonized Amado Nervo fervently kneeling in the basilica
of our beloved Virgin and the twenty-two year-old Carlos Pellicer gripping his mothers arm. Reading between the lines of
the same letters following paragraph, we can infer that both of
them also loved bars frequented by sailors: I will never again
be able to shake the hand of the artist who guided me and
showed me true affection. I spent some times with him in New
York, and when last we met at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge,
I said goodbye to him, See you soon, Don Amado! And he
replied, hugging me, You and I, forever. He must have foreseen something terrible.
At the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge there are no chapels for
Guadalupe, but there are seedy bars with boys or men looking
for boys.
The third bachelor poet devoted to Guadalupe is Ramn
Lpez Velarde. His biography is loaded with Guadalupes. His
father was named Guadalupe, Jos Guadalupe Lpez Velarde,
a lawyer in Jalisco; his first school was Guadalupe (Colegio
Particular de Nias de Nuestra Seora de Guadalupe); his secondary school was Guadalupe (Seminario Conciliar de Santa
Mara de Guadalupe); and there is another Guadalupe school
in which I dont know how long he studied but which is associated with a popular artist of that time, Jos Guadalupe Posada. The name of Guadalupe is on the calendar: in 1895, when
Lpez Velarde was seven years old, he attended the Papal
Coronation of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Among the lawyers,
young girls, seminarians and skulls of the dead, our future
national poet.
The statement that the essence of our homeland is
Guadalupe belongs to Lpez Velarde. With this he joins the
other two bachelor poets devoted to Guadalupe. He never
passed by the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, nor approached the
bars of doubtful reputation, because this poet never saw the
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seas (neither did Sor Juana), nor traveled outside of Mexico,

nor was he interested in boys or men.
The fourth bachelor poet devoted to Guadalupe is Renato
Leduc. I quote from his famous Guadalupe poem:
An adorable candor that of the young woman
that a Dutch painter placed upon the crude
maguey cloth worn by Juan Diego.
Its sex appeal will attract thieves
in the middle of Mass and fiery words.
Theres adoration, but no apparition. Had Renato Leduc
strolled under the Brooklyn Bridge, around the time that he
married Leonora Carrington to help her take refuge in Mexico
from the Nazis? Probably. How well he knew passion. From
the same poem:
Torrid love,
not a Franciscan love that she offers
the restless masses year after year
while drinking pulque and fervor
in new clay cups from Oaxaca.
A toast in honor of Renato Leduc, Lpez Velarde, Pellicer
and Nervo, the four bachelor poets devoted to Guadalupe. I
challenge the reader (and myself) to try the Lupe Rivas, in
honor of that other Mexican restorative cult, the fiesta, which
Leduc also mentions:
Desiring thirst and impotence
We shall drink science from muddy waters . . .
Bolvar and Sor Juana, Perhaps

When Simn Bolvar arrived in Mexico in 1799, perhaps
he traveled the streets of the city with that blonde Rodrguez
woman and visited the Piedra del Sol (Sun Stone or Aztec calendar) that had been leaning against a wall of the cathedral
since it was discovered in 1790.
Bolvar was sixteen, the Blonde Rodrguez twenty-two,
and, according to Artemio de Valle-Arizpe, there was romance:
Heat had joined flame.
A scribe whose name no one remembers (someone the
same age as the beauty and dying of hunger), on glimpsing
them close to the giant stone circle, approached them and
began speaking about the Sun Stone and the goddess
Coatlicue, another pre-Hispanic sculpture found four months
earlier than this one. The latter had recently been re-buried
because the Indians were bringing offerings to it, and the
Viceroy interpreted it as a subversive act . . . and he was right,
it was not an innocent gesture, they were sending a message
that he overheard.
Pleased to hear Bolvars response and hoping to continue
his conversation with them for a while, the scribe took a letter
out from his sleeve and recited a poem, not very well known at
the time, that he muttered was supporting independence; he
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explained that it described the crowns pillage, the sacking of

our riches: I was born in an abundant America, a compatriot
of gold, a countrywoman of metals, where ones daily bread is
gotten almost effortlessly, like nowhere else on Mother Earth.
Her children apparently are cursed from birth, because bread is
not earned with the sweat of their brows. Europe can best attest
to it, since for such a long time it has been insatiable in its
bleeding minerals from Americas abundant veins. The scribe
clarified: These words are by the First Insurgentand dont
call her Spanish, because she believed in the existence of Mexico as a nation, and her name was and she let people call her
Mexican. And he repeated for them what was said back then
about the Great Mexican Muse, the phoenix without a beard,
Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz (now we know why the Baroque is
not in fashion): The truth is that the least interesting of her
writings are her poems . . . shes the type who counted syllables in writing verses, but not for writing poems.
Noticing the Blonde Rodrguez was getting bored with his
lecture on literary taste, he stated that the poet was a nun
because she abjured marriage, and he quoted her: Thank God
that I no longer have to grind chocolate, nor can those who
visit give me a pounding. The Blonde smiled, and Simn
wanted to listen to more rebel verses by that unknown poet, so
the scribe quoted some verses to the viceroys firstborn:
Proud America, raise your crowned head; Mexican Eagle,
take imperial flight. Another, requested Simn. The scribe
explained that whenever he could, he praised Creoles, and continued to quote more verses from the same poem: chronicler
of your own life, you will write of your deeds, something new
to marvel at; little by little, whats Mexican will grow.
Simn Bolvar, still wanting to hear more, invited the
scribe to accompany them. But he, comparing his frayed cuffs
and his deteriorated and poor attire with the clothes of his new
friends, right there standing in front of the Sun Stone, recited,
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Our streams challenge the Danube and the Euphrates, the

Ganges, Tigris and Nile . . . our mountains diminish Aetna,
Atlantis and Olympus . . . our prairies and forests have more
animals and flowers and are more pleasing than the Elysian
Fields . . . a proud America wilts the lilies of Asia and the victory laurels of Europe, and denudes the palm trees of Africa.
He further explained to them that our Mexico City lagoon was
greater than the Styx, the great river that according to the
Greeks rendered invulnerable those who bathed in her waters.
And Simn decided to go bathe in the lagoon. Take care not
to go in nude, the blonde looks into his eyes and warns,
because you dont want to happen to you what happened to
Achilles. In a parting gesture, the scribe recited another verse
from Sor Juana: I dont depend on anyone.
I dont know if that poor scribe whom no one remembers
really existed, nor if the Blonde Rodrguez and Simn Bolvar
visited the Sun Stone. Whats certain: Sor Juana, the grand
poet, has the honor of being our First Insurgent.
Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas

About the friendship of the never married Mary Cassatt
and Edgar Degas there has been much speculation. We cannot
say with any certainty what exactly was their relationship,
because both artists destroyed their copious correspondence of
decades. We only have secondhand information, which does
not refute that they were lovers nor confirm their amorous
alliance. I dont believe it, I dont see it in their work or in their
personalities, but I accept that there was something more than
admiration, respect and affection in their friendship.
Both lived to be more than eighty years of age. Degas was
ten years her senior and died in 1917, almost blind. Cassatt
died nine years later, completely blind. Both lived on two sides
of the Atlantic: the Parisian in New Orleans, Cassatt most of
her adult life in France. Both were the scions of wealthy families, although Degas went bankrupt, and he only inherited
debt. Both pressed for a new art and ended their lives antiquated in history, Degas with his raging anti-Semitism, Cassatt
spurning new artshe disliked Picasso and Matisse.
Cassatt opened the door of the New York art market for
Degas, introducing him to collectors and dealers, as she did for
other Impressionists. She initiated Degas economic fortune.
But their friendship went beyond financial convenience or
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commercial profit. To discover Degass paintings was an artistic revelation for Cassatt. It changed her own work. The artistic admiration was reciprocated: Degas invited Cassatt to
exhibit with the Impressionists. A little later, Degas invited her
to provide engravings for his magazine, and these revealed a
combination of media and resources that in turn enriched
Degas work. During that period, they spent all their time
together. Soon, Degas abandoned the magazine project, and
they stopped seeing each other every day.
Cassatt used to say that a woman artist could not have children: There is only one thing in life for a woman, to be a
mother. . . . A woman artist must be able to make sacrifices.
Degas stated, An artist must be able to live alone, and his private life must remain unknown.
The mutual professional respect had its exceptions. Degas
said of Cassatt that she paints as if she were constructing a hat.
(On the Internet I find a corrected version: The majority of
women paint as if theyre constructing hats. But not you. I stick
with the one I found in print.) Another phrase: I cannot admit
that a woman paints so well. Degas painted her, among various
scenes where hats are being sold, as if she were a hatter. The portrait that irritated Cassatt was one painted in 1880 (her property
until 1912) because it has some artistic merit, but its so painful
and depicts me as such a repugnant person that I wouldnt like
anyone to know that I posed for that painting.
I understand Cassatts art less than Degas. Her idealization
of maternity excludes the demons and erases the nuances,
freezes the ambiance, places them within an ice cube, examining them at a distance, looking at them with male eyes or with
eyes that say what men want women to say. Her sweetness
nauseates me or freezes me. Degas, while at times committing
sins of sweetness, captures tension well, even in his legendary
scenes, like his innumerable ballerinas. If Balzac appreciated
his works and rendered him homage, Degas also read him and
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painted various of his scenes, as in Interior (or Violation). In

Degas, Impressionism captured daily life. Cassatt never
achieved that modernity; her idealizing impulse is profane religiosity.
However, without the edge I note above, I very much like
Cassatts Japanese woodblocks, her etchings and some exceptional oil paintings. And they never seem to me as if she were
weaving or trying on hats.
The Battle of the Virgins: Guadalupe

versus Remedios
Mexico City is in a panic at the imminent attack by Father
Hidalgos forces; they are preceded by the infamous reports of
his maneuvers in the Bajo region. The Day of the Dead is
approaching in 1810, and one hundred thousand rebels are
awaiting the order to attack.
A group of the citys well-healed women, headed by Ana
Mara Iraeta, is organizing to resist the onslaught. They call
themselves the Patriotas Marianas (Marian Patriots). They
publish pamphlets pledging their loyalty to Spain and the king,
they raise funds to aid the families of loyalists and are dedicated to protecting the Virgin of Remedios (Remedies), which is
believed to be the first Catholic religious image imported to
our lands, carried in the arms of one of Cortezs men when they
entered Tenochtitlnshe retreated from the city during the
defeat of the Sad Night battle. She is a white miracle-making
virgin.
The Marian Patriots pull guard duty to protect her; they
crochet and sew her image onto banners and royalist army uniforms in order to protect the troops from the insurgents, who
carry Guadalupe banners.
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The leader of the Marian Patriots, Ana Mara Iraeta, is a

well-known philanthropist, the youngest daughter of a wealthy
wholesaler, the widow of D. Cosme de Mier y Trespalacios,
of His Majestys Honorary Council on the Indies, Provisional
Regent and a Deacon of the Royal Court of Justice. Her motto
is to save the homeland and the kingshe thinks of her homeland as Spain. Before he sculpted the equestrian statue of
Charles IV (known as El Caballito), Ana Mara Iraeta awarded an ingot of three and a half kilos to its creator, Manuel
Tols, the Valencian Phidias, as convincing proof of her
loyalty to the king. In 1809, she organized a nine-day event to
raise alms to aid the Spanish crown against the Napoleonic
invasion, helped Viceroy Branciforte with his wifeGodoys
sister, let it be said. She also signed a letter exhorting women
to contribute funds toward resisting the French heretics, as
did her female colleagues throughout the country (women of
the Americas, Amazon women who destroy those abominations of nature with their donations because they cannot do it
with their own hands, wrote women from Veracruz). These
early actions of Iraeta explain her success with the Marian
Patriots, as many as 2,500 of them.
The insurgents carry the banner of the Virgin of
Guadalupe, the brown virgin. The royalists include in their
band the Virgin of Remedios, the white virgin. The viceroy
installs her in the citys cathedral and awards her the rank of
general.
The two virgins must confront each other. Its said that
insurgents execute anyone with an image of Remedios, and the
royalists do the same to those with Guadalupe.
Inexplicably, Hidalgo withholds the order to attack, and the
independence forces withdraw. The Virgin of Remedios has
won this episode. The Marian forces do not disband. A year
later, Iraeta petitions the authorities to commemorate the victory. A mass of thanksgiving is held in the church of San Fran-
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cisco. Sixty-four socialite seoras, each one dressed in white

and accompanied by her gentleman, parade down streets carrying a portrait of the king and shouting victoriously until they
reach the Alameda. Iraeta asks the religious authorities to
declare the victory a miracle, according to the 282 pages of the
dossier compiled in the petition of Mrs. Ana Mara de Iraeta
y Mier to declare as miraculous the retreat of the insurgents
who were in view of Mexico City on October 30, 1810.
He who laughs last laughs best. As is well known,
Guadalupe won our independence. Although we must remember, upon Iturbide crowning himself emperor after the
Guadalupan victories, Mrs. Iraeta, the royalist to the bone and
devotee of Remedios, was named first lady and major guard at
the court of the emperor of Mexico, in no way a consolation
prize.
The Painter and the Photographer

The photographer was a rich merchant in woolen cloth,
like Michelangelo. She was a painter from a farming family,
like Juana de Asbaje. The painter came from a rural region,
Wisconsins Sun PrairieThats my homeland: strong winds
and a marvelously empty expanse. The photographer was a
well-established New Yorker, owner of the most influential
gallery in the city and possibly the world. The photographer
had been born to German-Jewish immigrant parents a stones
throw from New York, on the other side of the Hudson, in
Hoboken, New Jerseylike Frank Sinatra. Soon after his
birth, the family moved to Manhattan. His father sent him to
study in Germany.
Besides being a photographer, he ran a gallery with Marius
de Zayas, from Veracruz, that introduced the new art of the
twentieth century to New York. The photographer projected the
new creators in the city and internationally. Through his own
lens, he photographed Duchamps urinal (he signed it R.
Mutt).
Love begins through the eyes. The photographer and the
painter met each other through sight, but not in person. She
visited the obligatory gallery, so important for her development. She knew very well who he was. There was no way she
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could miss him in New York. Once again far from the city, in
the Southwest, she confided in a fellow student, Anita Pollitzer, that she wanted to impress with her art no one more than
him. She understood that he was a key figure to establishing
her reputation.
On New Years Eve 1916, Anita Pollitzer showed some
charcoal drawings to the gallery owner and photographer. He
had never heard the name of the artist. The New Year arrived
for her like a prize: he was more than interested in her work.
According to the legend, he said, At last, a woman on paper!
The painter and the photographer started an intense correspondence that over the years would mount up to twenty-five thousand pages (the first volume of selected letters has just been
published by Yale University Press). I write to you because
Im afraid to go to sleep . . .
He was twenty-three years her senior. Their hearts and
their work skipped a beat. Common sense would dictate that
the influential photographer and gallery owner, with all his
power, money and experience, must have overwhelmed the
painter. But it wasnt like that. The encounter was as important
for him, who had already turned fifty, as it was for her. The
earth had moved for the both of them. The painter moved to
New York City.
They moved in together. His photos changed. He began to
photograph her obsessively, each and every part of her body.
The glory of Night and the glory of Noon combined in your
womb, the photographer wrote to here. As if living with the
painter had altered the concept of his photographic art, his photographs were becoming more abstract. He even said, I have
photographed God.
He gave her the platform on which she became one of the
most recognized American painters of the twentieth century.
More than that, after 1929, she became a millionaire.
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He, Alfred Stieglitz, she, Georgia OKeeffe, lived a fertile

but complicated love story. Their relationship was open, which
meant something quite different to him than to her. OKeefe
wrote, The difference is that when I feel attracted to someone,
I know I have to make a choiceand I chose you. But you
dont see the necessity of choosing. For her the relationship
was stormy. You stole my heart, she would say, and you
returned it to me like a useless thing. The photographers heart,
on the other hand, was always open to feelings, and he chased
any skirt that was nearby.
Georgia OKeeffe left New York. In New Mexico, she
returned to her joyful contact with nature. The photographer
and the painter became estranged. From the 1930s, Stieglitz
became obsessed in photographing another woman: the poet
and photographer Dorothy Norman. The spell had been broken. But the correspondence continued.
Burnt Papers
Manuela Senz (17971856) and Dolores Veintimilla
(18291857), two sisters from Quito, Bolivia: the woman of
action beside the romantic poet; the patriot and your lover
beside the one who dared look men in the eyes without fear
that one would make her blush and lower them; the Liberator of the Liberator (she saved Bolvars life, and he gave her
that nickname) beside the writer: the revolting human mass /
wounded my heart with its justice. Two faces of the romantic
revolt of the nineteenth century: one who dressed like a man in
order to fight alongside her lover and another who disguised
herself as an Indian, a Chola, to attend a party in the Governor of Cuencas mansion to celebrate Holy Innocents Day, thus
causing a scandal because of such inappropriate attireand
great commotion when she refused to take it off. Both had the
romantic luxury of choosing their lovers: the already married
Manuela Senz chose Bolvar; Dolores Veintimilla, some
Colombian doctor whose misfortune it was to marry her. The
Espasa-Calpe encyclopedia summarizes in accusatory tones
the death of poet Veintimilla: She committed suicide at the
age of twenty-eight, motivated by a passion during her husbands absence, joining the opinions about her tragic end held
by the majority of Cuencans. I believe them to be mistaken.
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Let me put aside Manuelita Senz, about whom much is

known, and concentrate on the detractors and defenders of
Veintimilla. Ricardo Palma defended her: She was tall in
stature, with a broad forehead, a small fresh mouth, brown hair,
and carried herself with nobility and majesty. That she was
beautiful no one could deny, not even her most furious detractors, who used her beauty against her. Given that her habits and
virtue were debated, some of her defenders considered her
frigid in order to make the case that even when she was
abandoned by her husband, she remained chaste. Daring, so
as not to say something else? Adulteress? A follower of
Sappho? Licentious?
Her greatest enemy was Friar Vicente Solano, her contemporary in the city of Cuenca and an influential columnist for
the newspaper La Escoba (The Broom). One day he ran into
her on the streets and blurted out, There goes the bitch for all
dogs! She replied, Youre the mutt for all bitches!
Dolores Veintimilla had caused a scandal on her arrival in
Cuenca: How can she want an indoor bathtub? A piano? Shes
hosting literary soires? Hosting men at home for literary discussion while serving hot chocolate, such as with the Chilean
Guillermo Blest Gana, known as one of the retarded romantics? Shes a poet? With the disquiet over her person already
well established, things became even more difficult when her
husband abandoned her and took off for Panama.
On April 20, 1857, Veintimilla witnessed the execution of
an Indian, Tiburcio Lucero, who was accused of patricide and
condemned to be killed at the little plaza of San Francisco. She
heard the onlookers cry out, Were going to enjoy the death of
the Indian. Veintimilla published an obituary:
It is not over the tomb of a grandee, it is not over the
tomb of the mighty, it is not
over the
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tomb of an aristocrat that I shed tears. No! I shed them

over a man, over a husband,
over the
father of five children whose only inheritance from
him will be to work with their
hands.
She ended with a prayer to the Great Everything:
that soon there be a more civilized and humanitarian
generation than the present
one to sweep
away the death penalty law inherited from their forebears.
Brother Solano answered, defending the legitimacy of the
death penalty, and attacked her in various anonymous pamphlets, calling Veintimilla a street walker, You are a sinner
in public as judged by the public. She wrote, glossing on one
of them when she still had a sense of humor: It makes me
laugh that my poor little note has caused such an uproar, having been written by a woman, that is, a semi-animal, for thats
what they think of us.
A coincidence about the sisters from Quito: at their deaths,
their papers were burned.
Poisoned Tortillas and Rebel Ships

Two women are executed by a firing squad for selling poisoned tortillas. It is a turbulent 1819, and the rebel women are
agitated and using any and all of the arts for their cause: they
pack firearms, organize themselves in regiments and at times
even command them, they forge alliances, spy, they write letters and consignments, they are messengers or even fund the
revolution if they have the means. Viceregal repression is acute
and produces collateral damage among some women. Iturbidebefore he changes sidesis firm: the women and children of the rebels will be taken prisoner, whether or not they
participate in the revolta low blow for the rebels.
Hundreds of female rebels have been forgotten about. If
only a couple of them are recognized today as wives of . . . ,
such as Leona Vicario of Quintana Roo and Josefa Ortiz de
Domnguez, its because our memory prefers pants. (Even if
some of the female insurgents wore pants during the struggle,
like Doa Mara Josefa Martnez leading a rebel battalion, it
wasnt enough to get them admitted to our pantheon of heroes.)
We wouldnt know about our tortilla poisoners if it were
not for Genaro Garca; they are mentioned in one of the volumes that he wrote and published in 1910 to commemorate the
centenary of our independence, in the volume specifically
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written about heroines. Born to a family of wealthy mine owners in Fresnillo, Zacatecas (18671920), he was the son of
Trinidad Garca, Porfirio Dazs secretary of finance. He had
studied lawhis thesis, Notes on the Condition of Women, was
his first feminist book, followed by others that he would publish, such as The Rights of Women. He dedicated a large part of
his life to historical research and publishingit was he who
issued the first edition of Bernal Daz del Castillos chronicle.
He served as director of the National Museum of Archeology
and a number of times as a congressman. In congress, he
founded the national library and publishing house. He died
penniless, with his personal business in disorder, sacrificed to
his intellectual work, according to the obituary written by
Paul Rivet, the ethnologist, founder of the Museum of Man and
adversary of Nazism.
Genaro Garca heard about the case of the executed tortilleras during the War for Independence, thanks to Sergeant
Major Theodoro Chichery, who mentions them in an official
correspondence sent to the Very Excellent Governor Viceroy
and Captain General of New Spain, in which he requests that
a new secretary be named to continue a judicial process initiated against a captain accused of shooting to death Juana Feliciana and Juana, suspected of owning the building where the
tortillas were poisoned. The petition is understandable, given
that Viceroy Apodaca had completely prohibited summary executions. He had also pardoned the insurgentsdespite the fact
that Iturbide was still rounding up female prisoners who had
been harassed and mistreated by the royalist troops.
Theodoro Chichery, a royalist soldier, became commander
of a battalion of grenadiers when his senior official lost his life
during a rebel attack on the mail shipment from Jalapa to the
port of Veracruz, along with various passengers and some
loads that ended up in the hands of the rebels. They took the
rebels by surprise on the way to the port and went on to attack
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the insurgents on the sand bars of Nautla and Tecolutla, who

had assembled a naval squadron made up of ships purchased in
the United States (perhaps in New York, like those Chilean
independence fighters who in 1817 took La araucana to Valparaiso, the vessel Independence and other creations of the
East River dockworkers, maneuvered by New York officials
and sailors? Or, most probably, as in the case of Francisco
Javier Minas expedition, with volunteers and ships from New
Orleans and London?). I can imagine the life of those rebel
sailors in Veracruz as romantic utopians, among whom perhaps
there was a woman who, instead of attending mass and tending
her garden, put on pants and picked up a musket and used her
brains . . .
The Suffragette Crab and Her Virginia

Ethel SmythDame Ethel Smyth, because in 1922 King
George bestowed on her the title equal to that of Sir for a
malefell in love with Virginia Woolf at the age of seventyone. Woolf described her love like falling into the claws of a
giant crab.
Ethel Smyth, the crab, was born in 1858 in Woking,
located in greater Londonthe same place where H. G. Wells
had Martians landing in his War of the Worlds. Spielberg envisioned them precisely as giant crabs.
Dame Smyths issue was not about traveling in outer space
and landing on earth to terrorize us, much less walking sideways. She was a renowned composer. She had studied in
Leipzigs conservatory, where she met Tchaikovsky, Dvork
and Grieg. She left her studies because she could not afford
themshe was one of eight children in a lower middle class
family not happy with her choice of career. She became friends
with Clara Schumann and Brahms.
In addition to being a composer, she was a writer. When
her autobiography was published, her reviewers classified it as
one of the six best memoirs ever written in the English language. Titled Impressions That Remained: Memoirs (1919), I
am reading it on Kindle, and it includes a good biography. She
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was a close friend of the Empress Eugnie of France, met

Queen Victoria and became close to Emmeline Pankhurst.
From 1910 on, she dedicated herself to womens suffrage.
She was jailed. What, women couldnt vote? Even worse, they
could not compose musical arrangements, witness their compositions performed, have a life like the ones we live today as
creative artists? Not content being an exception to the rule, she
fought like a real crab to climb us all out of that beastly basket.
In 1906, she composed her third opera, The Wreckers (two
tragic lovers and the town opposing them), whose prelude was
recently performed in our Palace of Fine Arts at the opening of
the Second International Congress of the Intellectual Experience of Women in the Twenty-First Century. Its not up to me
to say it, but theres something like a land crab in that part of
Smyths composition. Well constructed, efficient, you can hear
the hard shell and the snap of claws ready to grab us. And that
was just the prelude; its possible that served whole on your
plate, with sauce, The Wreckers will give off a strong fragrance, like those blue crabs from the tropical coast.
The Sweetest Lover

A Savage God, the play by Yasmina Reza, is nourished by
a theme as fat as a suckling pig: minor conjugal conflict. The
impeccable Broadway production of the play, which I saw a
few days ago, is hilarious, with Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis,
James Tony Soprano Gandolfino and Marcia Gay Harden.
The Madrid production must have been equally hilarious, with
Maribel Verd. Effective, not too precisethe characters get
drunk too quickly, almost magically; on various occasions
there is no motivation for their actions; its not very profound
(its not Albee); but the play works as it was intended: to let the
spectator have a good time at the expense of others (supposed)
misery. In the play, Gandolfino, outshining the other three
actors, blurts out: theres no greater disgrace than marriage,
and worse if there are children. The audience laughs out loud
at his funny statements (not his wisdom) but apparently is saying to itself, I dont agree with your conclusions. Thats
because for more than seventy-five percent of the audience
catharsis hits home. Reza provides a pleasant evenings entertainment with the illusion of happiness and a sweetness that is
very far, indeed, from Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?even
if both plays deal with the same theme. A Savage God, not
making ill of the sacred (or not) institution of marriage, is a
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placebo of criticism. Instead of aiming at the target of married

life straight on, this farce uses the theme as decoration. Despite
the removal of vast time and space, its like the canvases of the
fifteenth-century Florentine Paolo Uccello, who used themes
as pretexts for experiments with perspective.
Besides the separation by distance, one should remember
that Uccello was obsessed with perspective. That is why Paolo
Uccello lived like an alchemist, shut up in his little house. He
believed that he could blend all lines into a single, ideal form.
He wished to grasp the created Universe as it was reflected in
the eye of God, who sees all shapes spring from one complex
centre, wrote Marcel Schwob. Lezama Lima recounts in his
diaries that one day Paolo Uccellos wife complained about,
his excessive dedication to geometrical figures, to which he
replied, Perspective is a very sweet thing. In other versions,
when his wife, Tommassa Malifici (whom Paolo had married
in 1453), called to him to go to bed, Uccello refused, saying,
Oh what a lovely thing this perspective is! In yet other versions, to my eyes more dramatic, when Tommassa asks Paolo
to leave his studio, he confesses, Perspective is the sweetest
lover. If that really transpired, it must have hurt Tommassa.
Its really something for a male to be shut up painting vanishing points. Another version would call it being shut up with
the sweetest lover. The characters in A Savage God would
never stoop so low. It has never been suggested that he cuckolded her, not metaphorically nor symbolically nor in deed. No
versions cite Flaubert, who in his dictionary of commonplaces
notes, Every woman should betray her husband. At one
point, Hope Davis recalls a man from her past whom she
thought of as sexy, and she blurts out some of the biggest commonplaces in the play on the theme of loyalty in marriage
nothing is sexier than a pistoland thats the full extent of it,
never resulting in betrayal or sweet nothings.
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As in Yasmina Rezas play, in the descriptions of the scenes

of the Uccellos there is no mention of their offspring, except
through inferences: the Uccello daughter Antonia, a painter
like her father, who does not go around beating her suitor with
a stick, who is considered a snitch by his gang, as is the case
with the Gandolfinos. Antonia, by contrast, is cloistered in a
Carmelite convent; she has the bad luck thats worse than losing two teeth from a beating: not a single painting of hers is
known, and she is not known for her artwork, just as the daughter of the first painter to win fame among the first moderns for
painting landscapes and painting them well (Vasari).
The Female Author of the Odyssey, and

the Other Forgotten Ones
The calendar entitled A las seoritas americanas, especialmente patriotas (To the Hispanic American Women, Especially the Patriots), compiled in 1825 by Mariana Rodrguez de
Lazarn, Manuela Herrera, Fermina Rivera and Leona Vicario,
and published by Jos Joaqun Fernndez de Lizardi (El
periquillo sarniento), states at the end, in one word: it is
impossible to reduce the number of heroic (Hispano) Americans who distinguished themselves in the last insurrection. Its
interesting that most of the women mentioned by Lizardi have
been completely forgotten and that the best known is the Corregidora banging her shoe on the floor this anecdote leads
me to suspect: Do we know her because her husband was an
important figure and deep down we remember her as his
wife? Where are the others? The other women protagonists of
history?
By cutting or clipping off other great women from our
memory, we mutilate all of us. What would have happened, for
example, if Manuel Felgurez had decided to erase Lilia Carrillo, with whom he was married from 1960 to 1974? What if
he had adopted the same stance as Edward Hopper? Isnt it
227
228
Carmen Boullosa
nice to have a wife who paints? his wife, Josephine, asked

him, to which he answered, It stinks!
Felgurez and our beloved Mercedes Oteyza have converted Lilia Carrillo into a capital presence in the Manuel Felgurez Museum in Zacatecas. Upon entering the gallery dedicated to the Osaka murals, Lilia Carrillo is the first artist and,
allow me to say, is exhibited as the central one. I compare this
with Hopper: theres no way today to see any works by
Josephine Hopper; before she got married to Hopper, she was
considered one of the most important artists of her time, having exhibited alongside Picasso, OKeeffe and Modigliani. But
her relationship with Hopper, whose first showing she
arranged and for whose career she worked tirelessly, erased
her.
In 1970, the Rapture artists developed a genre related to
muralism, actually murals. They executed a splendid, exceptional series for the Osaka Exposition. After that, the Osaka
murals were forgotten about, rolled up and warehoused, until
the Felgurezes put them up at their museum.
The customary is exactly what they have not done. As an
example: At the end of the nineteenth century, the erudite
Samuel Butler, translator of the Illiad and the Odyssey into
good English prose, published The Female Author of the
Odyssey, from which I quote: Its not important to me whether
it was written by a woman or by a man, nor where that poet or
poetess lived. The only thing that interests me is learning as
much as I can about that poem. He concludes that the female
author was a young, unmarried Sicilian woman who composed
the poem by hand between 1000 and 1050 AD.
How could she have been forgotten?
The sophisticated reader Butler explains how. He asks himself why womens dialogues in the poem sound so spontaneous, while the mens seem rigid, and the male characters
seem to have been written from afar, regardless of their role or
229
social class. He studies the errors that do not detract from the
charm and impact of the work, but do in fact reveal the gender
of the author. He explains that the author presents herself in the
work: she is Nausicaa, to whom Odysseus tells a great part of
the corpus of the Odyssey. (She details efficiently how
Odysseus arrives and approaches his author . . . nude!)
Butler answers any objections this way: It is considered
very improbable that a woman of any time period would have
been capable of writing a masterpiece like the Odyssey. To this
I answer that it is equally improbable that a man wrote it, and
the fact is that no one has ever repeated it. With centuries transpired since the Odyssey was written, no one has been able to
equal it . . . it is also improbable that the son of a wool merchant from Bedfordshire could write Hamlet [or, if you permit
me another, that a provincial and bastard could create the
genial works of Sor Juana]. . . . Phenomenal works imply a
phenomenal creator, and there are as many phenomenal
women as there are men.

Cuando Mexico Se (Apropia) de Texas: Ensayos/ When Mexico Recaptures Texas: Essays by Carmen Boullosa

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Cuando Mexico Se (Apropia) de Texas: Ensayos/ When Mexico Recaptures Texas: Essays by Carmen Boullosa

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Roberto Bolao

En esta coleccin de 29 ensayos de temas variados, la internacionalmente reconocida

CARMEN BOULLOSA es autora de numerosas obras que la proyectan como una

Mexicos greatest woman writer.

In this wide-ranging collection of 29 essays, internationally renowned Mexican novelist

CARMEN BOULLOSA is one of Mexicos leading novelists, poets and playwrights.

Arte Pblico Press

A luminous writer . . . Boullosa is a masterful spinner of the fantastic.

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas

La mejor escritora de Mxico.

Arte Pblico Press

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos / When Mexico

Contenido / Table of Contents

Mary Cassatt y Edgar Degas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

When Mexico Recaptures Texas: Essays

Spurs and Guayaberas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181

escribi y public su recuento: la tcnica fue la comanche que

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

que sentan por ellos desde antes de aquel ataque, y por el

muri ejecutada, acusada de espionaje. Strange Fruit denuncia

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

En 1937, Strange Fruit se convirti en un xito, Villaurrutia

1851, Josefa Segovia, en prisin acusada de asesinar a Frederik

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

haban arrebatado sus tierras. En 1858, los indios

El oro blanco de Tamaulipas

mundo. De Bagdad, los barcos de vapor salan cargados de

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

Se vende un gallego, se matan

de Dios corresponden a un mundo donde ste ha muerto.

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

pases que reciban gallegos, pasaron a convertirse en

Cuando las autoridades recuperaron la mano cercenada, la

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

kilmetros al sureste, el rebelde Juan Nepomuceno Cortina se

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

leyenda, fue por culpa de una india que los comanches

Wall Street, la estrella cercana

Nadie ha afirmado que la influencia de Bettina alcanz a

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

Cuando el consejo de la ciudad (el city council) vot por

Cuando Texas se (re)apropia de Mxico

por fin han vislumbrado la ciudad de Santa Fe. Muertos de

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

Cuando las nuevas de lo que ha ocurrido a la Expedicin a

en Mxico libertad y benevolencia, tantas que algn texano se

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

En 1854, el Austin State Times calculaba en ms de 200 mil

El motn de los chamacos de Arizona

Los chamacos no quieren abrir los libros. Cuando por fin

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

la inteligencia de este autor, ni lo cita: La educacin consiste

Cabellos comanches de Arizona

la poltica, la economa, y el mundo religioso (un to suyo

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

suspirando tal vez por la humillacin de haber perdido por la

El francs que defendi Mxico

El capitn del Correo Mejicano, hay que aclararlo, era un

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

con barco y toda su tripulacin, a Nueva Orlens donde lo

Declaran as que los chicles son un producto de origen

Cuando Mxico se (re)apropia de Texas: Ensayos

una argucia del capitalismo para que los trabajadores no