Lagrimas Del Maguey

El maguey lloro.

When my mother recalls her childhood years in Zacatecas where she harvested the natural sweet candy from the maguey's pencas, she calls them "lagrimas." She never refers that the maguey cried and she does not personify the agave plant either. For the maguey was a life sustaining plant that offered nourishment, medecine, and fibers; however after the aguamiel or juice of the maguey was removed, the drops left behind were described as lagrimas or teardrops. Just as the aguamiel, the lagrimas were sweet and delicious.

In "Lagrimas Del Maguey," I explore the connection of my mother's relationship with the maguey as protection and sustinance against the violence of the U.S./Mexican border cities of El Paso and Cd. Juarez. Just as the maguey grows in my mother's home town, the maguey extends to the border cities of El Paso and Cd. Juarez; however the U.S. is constructing a wall from Fort Hancock, Texas to Santa Teresa, New Mexico with the intention of blocking Native people without documentation to cross the border while at Cd. Juarez, an affluent family has terrorized the community of Lomas De Poleo by making them hostages and with the intention of expropriating the residents' lands.

If the Lagrimas for my mother is the maguey's candy, Lagrimas are now the personification of grief and lucha rising between the militarized fences. These tears arise between a contested site of greed and human rights abuses, Lomas de Poleo and where the dissappeared women of Juarez were found murdered. Lagrimas Del Maguey is my grief toward the injustices suffered on both sides of the border, my home, my chante, and they are also the call for justice.

Lagrimas Del Maguey

My mother as a growing child would go to her aunt's huerta and pick the lagrimas or tears of the maguey and eat them as candy but before she ate the maguey's nectar that had coalesced in some gooy substance, for breakfast she drank agua miel. Every morning in her hometown of Zacatecas, my grandfather brought jicaras of agua miel which is the juice of the maguey and my mother drank the juice with a sense of reverence. For not only was the agua miel delicious but it could not be kept beyond a day because it would ferment as pulque. As aqua miel my mother savored every drop without knowing if my grandfather would go the following morning to milk a maguey.

My mother was born in Zacatecas, and she has a wealth of memories over her village that she along with her family left due to a drought. Her family had a farm from which they were self reliant but once that drought hit, they lost their lifelihood. What sustained them was sharing whatever resources the extented family had and the nopales and magueys. Although it no longer rained for the fields to produce beans, squash, corn, chile and lentils, every morning my grandfather went to the llano and picked tunas from the cactus and milked the magueys. The tunas did not grow year around; however the magueys constantly gave agua miel. Before the drought, my grandfather claimed that agua miel replaced milk because it was healthier. Once the crops dried and the animals began to die, my mother's family survived through the magueys. Eventually the family emigrated from Troncoso in 1949 when my mother was seven years old.

My mother has not returned to her village which is now said to be a growing municipio but she vividly remembers the town of her of childhood years. She remembers the beautiful and the traumatic of her village life. When the drought hit, there was hardly any water to cure and she was dying from a stomach infection but she survived. In relation to the maguey she narrates how my grandfather would cut a vein to siphen the agua miel; however he would do special cuts so that the maguey would not die or become sterile. My grandfather avoided to castrar or castrate the maguey.

Whenever my mother talks of the maguey, the plant is a lost but cherished relative that she yearns to see. As a young woman in her thirties, she recalls a hole in the wall of a cantina in downtown Juarez which sold pulque. Since she came to Juarez, aqua miel and pulque were unknown. She had never tasted pulque but since it came from the aqua miel, she wanted to experience her memories of a child. My father and she ordered the drinks in a pair of jarritos and thinking that she would taste the morning harvested juice of earthiness, she spat something that tasted like processed pee. My father finished her pulque as she just sat there dissappointed.

My mother is in her mid sixties and everytime she sees a maquey, she recalls that drink which she has not had since she was a child. Whenever I ask her if she desires to visit Zacaecas, her answer is always no but she laments that agua miel could not be transported without becoming liquor. For her, the maguey is not a decorative plant that at some time will blossom a flower to then die, but that she is a generous plant who nurtures, feeds, cures and has the potential to clothe as well. She wonders if these border magueys that grow in the cities of El Paso and Juarez offer agua miel: for the magueys of her memories are giant and voluminous in comparison to the compact ones that grow in the border.

I do not know if my mother will travel to her village for a morning drink of aqua miel and harvest the lagrimas after the maguey has been cut. I do not know if her village now a municipio still grows the nurturing plant with odd words like castrar to explain the process of milking the maguey. Interersting the Nahuatls saw the maguey as female while in my mother's village, the maguey has a male personification. All I know is that my mother has never lost that yearning.

As for me, I'm curious.

Margarito Cervantes' Home IIlegally Being Razed by Grupo Zaragoza

The Guardias Blancas, a paramilitary group hired by Pedro Zaragoza to terrorize the families from abandoning their homes from Granjas De Lomas De Poleo, these hired thugs are illegally bulldozing the home of Guadalupe Pineda's son, Margarito Cervantes. I hope there is news coverage without censorship and that the Mexican government stops this atrocity. If anything happens to Guadalupe Pineda, her son, and anyone who is helping them to resist such a crime, the culprits are the Guardias Blancas and Pedro Zaragoza

The Response to Glass Beach

At El Centro De Mujeres Tonantzin was an old man sitting among a circle of residents from Lomas De Poleo and activists and students from the border cities of El Paso and Cd. Juarez and beyond. The residents of Lomas and some who came from Yale were all taking notes or videotaping the testimony of Guadalupe Pineda. As I was taking photographs of Ms. Pineda and the participants of the meeting, I noticed this viejito who was writing fervently in his notebook. Hunched over the chair with a bolsa de mandado, the extremely old man was attentive to Ms. Pineda and the congregation.

Before I pressed the shutter, an ad from Glass Beach flooded my mind. I could see the snapshot of an elderly man who might be Mexican or Anglo walking along a blurry strip of shops. The photo exhibits an exterior space as the perspective has a distant feel: for the features of the man are fuzzy, almost abstract. He might not have been aware that someone photographed him and dehumanized his image for the purpose of justifying eminent domain with the attempt to dispossess a working class and immigrant neighborhood from their homes and businesses.

On the summer of 2006, the ad agency Glass Beach describes a historically Mexican barrio, El Segundo Barrio as an Old Cowboy who is gritty, dirty, lazy, Spanish speaker and uneducated. I wonder if this consulting firm asked this elderly stranger if he wanted his image to be slandered or they just stole his image to sell the potential demolition of people's neighborhood for national chain stores and expensive condominiums? Would he sue a city council that not only applauds the racial slurs but utilize his image unknown to him and the El Pasoan public to a minority of investors called Paso Del Norte and decide over the fate of residents living in El Segundo Barrio? The presentation of Glass Beach was given by the city manager Joyce Wilson and the objections that Robert O'Rourke, the representative of the Segundo Barrio had toward the slide show were the grammatical errors. Robert O'Rourke who is the son-in-law of the leader of Paso Del Norte Bill Sanders has yet to denounce the plan to raze the Segundo Barrio as being racist and illegal.

Glass Beach which is a consulting firm founded by Will Sander's father already has a name for the Segundo Barrio as the Golden Horseshoe that will consist of national chain stores, restaurants, garages, expensive apartments, and a mercado. In a Town Hall Meeting, a consultant from Glass Beach presented the Golden Horseshoe as a board game and asked the audience to pretend that they were pilgrims. As settlers or pilgrims they could select what new item to keep over the dispossession of peoples lives and memories. Where would they like to have a bike route over the erasure of the barrio continual historical sites? The Segundo Barrio was once a refuge for Mexican artists, intellectuals, curanderas and activists fleeing Porfirio's Diaz regime but for Will Sander's who is the driving force behind demolishing and evicting people from El 2ndo, the Segundo Barrio is empty land waiting to be exploited and colonized while evicting our histories and Mexican presence. Unfortunetly city council supports Bill Sanders delusional dream of being a psychopath conquistador.

The following link is a video produced by Paso Del Sur where residents of Segundo Barrio confront Robert O'Rourke over the City's plan to demolish the resident's homes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgv_aDrsOcg

Looking at the photograph of Glass Beach's racist ad, I do not know who that individual might be and if he is aware that his image has been manipulated. I also ignore the identity of the old man who sat diligently writing while at El Centro De Mujeres Tonanztin; however he lives in a community where developers are illegally bulldozing homes and terrorizing those who resist to relocate. That old man might have been documenting the attack that Guadalupe Pineda and Antonio Gonzalez suffered from Fernando Carrillo, a Guardia Blanca.

Alerta: A War Without Uniforms

On January the 4th of 2008, I received a phone call informing me that the Guardias Blancas were demolishing the homes of Lomas De Poleo's residents and that they had also attacked Guadalupe Pineda and Antonio Gonzalez. The Guardias Blancas who are a para-military group hired by an affluent family of Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua the Zaragozas, with the intention to evict residents from Lomas De Poleo have been terrorizing the community since 2004 to abandon their homes. On the night of January the 4th, the hired thugs of the Zaragozas attacked people that resist relocation by not only destroying and stealing their possessions but torturing individuals and threatening them with imprisonment for defending their community.


On November 19 of 2007 a binational forum was held at UTEP where testimonies of human rights violations were heard from the residents and panelists from Lomas De Poleo on WHAT SIDE OF THE FENCE ARE YOU ON? One of the panelist was Petra Medrano who gave a traumatic account of the community living under siege by an illegal war declared by the Zaragozas. Since 2004, the Zaragozas fenced the community and with the Guardias Blancas controls who goes in and when and they also attempt to prohibit any activistism. This paramilitary group has been responsible for cutting off utilities; closing down grocery stores and attempting to close down schools and a church within the community. They have also demolished homes that when the resident return from work, they found their homes gone. Since 2004, these hired thugs have killed residents: was bludgeoned to death and two children were burned inside their home as the fire is suspected as arson. For the families that resist relocation, the Zaragozas have continually harrassed and terrorized them with the support of the municipal government as the city government refuses to bring justice to the residents of Lomas De Poleo.

Before the binational forum was made at UTEP, the residents from Lomas De Poleo would have denounced the human right violations at the high school Alta Vista in Cd. Juarez to an audience of activists from both sides of the border; however on October, 20, 2007, the Guardia Blancas ilegally prohibited the passage of the residents. They did not let the people leave the gated community but the hired thugs could not stop the forum. Through the barbed wire, activists met with the residents and witnessed the human abuse.

The public denunciations made at the binantional forum at UTEP did not stop the Zaragozas' from stopping their assaults against the residents from Lomas De Poleo. A second forum was scheduled inside Las Granjas de Lomas De Poleo but on December 1, 2007, activist and concerned people were prohibited from entering the gated fence as the Guardias Blancas with pitbulls, chains, and relocated people with mispelled, nonsensical banners and baseball bats blocked the entry. One of the signs read "asosiasiones demasiado tarde- - Dividieron a la gente (asociations too late, you divided the community)." Not only was the sign misspelled but it had a design conveying barb wire and the woman who held that sign stood next to the guarded fence.

Inspite of the display of violence by the hired thugs and the relocated people, the forum was held outside the fence as activists and poets read their works. Eventually the forum was moved away from the extremely hostile melee to a safer ground at the Centro De Mujeres Tonantzin. The cultural event of poetry, art, and testimonies occurred undisturbed while up the hill, the guards paid the relocated people with a free bag of groceries.



When I heard that the Granjas De Lomas De Poleo has been made into a concentration camp by powerful capitalist families with the intention to evict families who refuse to relocate, I found it impossible to believe. What is even shocking is that the government has refused to protect the families from the daily terror suffered at the hands of the Guardias Blancas. Although the families may not have the protection of the government, they have the support of each other and with the help of activists from both sides of the border and beyond, the community from Lomas De Poleo are speaking against the human abuses.



The following video is an interview of Petra Medrano and it was produced by Paso Del Sur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHvE7VxXCA0

The Guardias Blancas along with relocated people were harrassing demonstrators from the second forum and they prohibited the entry into Lomas De Poleo

The woman standing next to the thug with a pitbull taunted a resident and activist with racial slurs

Silent Picture: Lomas De Poleo

On December 1, 2007, a cultural event was to be held at La Granja de Lomas del Poleo where residents from Poleo were to meet with activists, students, artists and concerned citizens from both side of the Border to denounce and raise consciousness over the terror that the Zaragosa family have inflicted on the residents of Lomas De Poleo.  The cultural event did occur but it was moved to Mujeres Tonantzin because the hired thugs of the Zaragosas forbade the entry to Lomas De Poleo.  

With the use of the Guardia Blancas or the hired thugs the Zaragosas have illegally fenced the community of Lomas del Poleo with the intention of dispossessing their homes.  Lomas Del Poleo now looks as a concentration camp with a watch tower and thugs patroling who can get in and terrorizing the residents.  These thugs control what items the residents can bring to their homes and sometimes when they get to their homes, they discover that their houses has been demolished.  The Zaragosas have acted with impunity as the municipal government has yet to protect the residents from the human violations that these family have inflicted.

When we travelled up to Lomas, we were stopped by the thugs and a counterprotest.  With chains, pitbulls, bats, fowl language, and loud music, the thugs threatened us.  With them were people with badly written signs who also shouted obscenities to us and the woman standing next to the pointman with a pitbull shouted a racial slur to one of the residents of Lomas.  The resident who has been fighting against the continual assault and forced relocation responded to the assailant that she may be "Negra" but she was not....  As I was photographing the clash between a nonviolent protest and the violent melee, the offended resident was crying as activist from Mujeres Tonantzin comforted her.  Since the thugs and hired people tried to provoke us, we left before they could harm us.  

Before we left to Mujeres Tonantzin, I photographed the thugs and the counter demonstraters as they let go of the chained dogs and everyone began to laugh.  At the art event, I learned that the counter demonstrators were paid with a bag of groceries to provoke confusion and violence.  

At Mujeres Tonantzin the cultural event occurred where people testified through art and speeches.  Residents voiced their continual injuries against a municipal government that has not protected them and poetry, songs and installation art dealt against these abuses.  Although the Second Forum for Lomas Del Poleo was illegally blocked by the thugs of Zaragosa, they could not destroy the community of Poleo who kept denouncing the abuses of this affluent family.