Happy Mexican Independence Day!

The catalyst for the successful Mexican independence movement was Father Hidalgo's call to arms. This bell in Guanajuato is supposed to be an exact replica of the one he rang to summon the peasants to overthrow the Spaniards. ¡Viva Mexico!

Instead of finding random droolworthy accessories on the Internet and posting pictures of them, I thought I'd share some of the photos and treasures from my travels in Mexico. Enjoy!

I bought these silver filigree blossom earrings, the pendant, and the brooch in Taxco. Taxco is a small colonial town about an hour's bus ride outside of Mexico City and is famous for its cheap sterling silver jewelry. The town used to be prosperous because of its proximity to the silver mines, but like most mining towns, after the ore ran out, the town hit a slump. The twentieth century saw the revival of Taxco as jewellers and artisans moved there and reinvented the town as a mecca for silver products. Even though I missed the open-air market which supposedly has the best bargains, there was still plenty there to tempt me. The delicacy of the silver filigree and those coiled silver threads took my breath away. "Hecho por mano," the sales assistants told me--all done by hand.

Two silver pendants from Taxco: the Aztec calendar stone and a silver sombrero. Note that this is the only sombrero I brought back with me.

The Aztec calendar stone in the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City

I bought the trinket box on the left from an artisanal market in San Miguel de Allende. On the lid is an adorable cartoonish representation of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is regarded as Mexico's patron saint even though she's not officially canonized. According to legend, the Virgin appeared to a peasant named Juan Diego and asked him to have a church erected in her honour. Juan Diego described his miraculous apparition to a local priest; the priest asked him for proof. Juan Diego unfolded his cloak, which had been filled with roses the Virgin had given him, and imprinted on the cloak was an image of the Virgin. The original image from almost four centuries ago hangs in a basilica in Mexico City today. Its brilliance has not faded.

Guanajuato. Click to enlarge.

Guanajuato was where I bought the other trinket box. It's a bit off the typical beaten tourist path but well worth going to. This colonial town is famous for its naturally preserved mummies (yes, you read that correctly...I said "mummies"), UNESCO heritage site status, and within Mexico, its performing arts festival. By the way, the big yellow building is the Basilica; its interior puts St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York to shame. Imagine having a wedding there, as one lucky couple was doing when I popped inside to admire the architecture.

This lace shawl depicts Juan Diego unfurling his cloak to reveal the Virgin of Guadalupe's image. This amazing find was from an open-air market set up near the boats of Xochimilco. Agriculture proved to be a problem in the mountainous region where Mexico City is situated. The Xochimilca peoples (who pre-date the Aztec civilization) solved this dilemma by bringing the land to the water: they daubed dirt together into elaborate floating gardens resting on top of the shallow parts of the lake. Xochimilco is what remains of the floating gardens today. Here you can hire a pleasure boat with your friends or family to traverse the centuries-old irrigation canals, and just sit for the afternoon picnicking and drinking cheap litre cups of micheladas (beers with hot sauce, chili powder, lime juice, and salt mixed in). Food vendors and mariachi bands float by offering to sell you hot corn or a song for a few pesos. The district is notorious for lively parties thanks to the cheap alcohol and the local flavour.

Xochimilco's boats

Update: I just came across this article about a bombing in Morelia during el grito yesterday that killed 7 people and injured about 100. What a horrible occurrence in a small colonial town when the public square is filled with families celebrating. My condolences go out to the victims.

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Eye Candy: Pull and Bear

The last time I was in Mexico City, I fell hard for a store I'd never heard of before and stumbled upon in El Centro Historico, Pull and Bear. According to Wikipedia, Pull and Bear is a Spanish chain that was founded in 1991 and first opened stores in Portugal, Greece, and Malta. Today it seems as if Pull and Bear has stores all over the world except Canada and the United States (which needless to say, makes me more than a little sad!). Their clothes combine American casualness with a postmodern aesthetic and a dash of European polish, and they're definitely aimed at young style-conscious but casual urbanites who like to party. Their latest ad campaign features young partygoers dancing in head-to-toe Pull and Bear garb to electronica beats, and pithy quotes in Spanish about the nature of celebrity and the rise of the celebutante.

But it's not their latest ad campaign that interests me: what caught my eye were the black and white photographs in their 2007/2008 catalogue, the most striking examples of black and white fashion photography I've seen since I developed a brief but acute Rodney Smith obsession in my teens. I'm posting them here for you to enjoy. You can find the full catalogue at http://www.pullbear.com/.

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The Mexican Other

A couple of nights ago, I went to a house party where a drunken "friend of a friend" gave me his loud, somewhat misguided perspective on Mexico. His monologues about Mexico were based on Denzel Washington's film Man on Fire ("If Denzel couldn't survive Mexico City, no way a white boy like me could!"), several documentaries about illegal immigration to El Norte, and a trip to Cancun that left him with the unpleasant impression of a corrupt and out-of-control military and police force. He seemed genuinely taken aback when I informed him that Mexico was home to a thriving middle class, of which my ex-boyfriend and his family are an example. He was also surprised when I said that the National Autonomous University of Mexico was the oldest university in North America, older than Harvard even, and was much more enlightened than many Canadian and American universities because its admission policy is purely merit-based: Once students pass the rigorous entrance exam, they have free tuition at a world-class university, thus making a quality university education more accessible to students from poor backgrounds.

Sadly, I suspect this guy's opinion of Mexico is not out of the ordinary compared to the opinions of most North Americans. It is amazing that a country that comprises the third largest state in North America should be so "othered" by its northern counterparts. In an age where we like to think we're past colonialist prejudices, in reality we've just shifted them to a neighbour closer to home. Don't get me wrong. Mexico has many problems compared to other states, of which poverty, inequality, air and water pollution, state corruption, and conflicts with its indigenous peoples are just a few. Also, I acknowledge that I'm speaking from a fairly privileged perspective in that I know a middle-class family in Mexico City that took me in as a traveller, acted as the most informed and protective of tour guides, and showed me the most gracious hospitality ever. Not everybody's experience of Mexico is that positive.

However, the tendency of popular media to depict Mexico as an impoverished, monolithic, dangerous other striving to get into El Norte and stealing the jobs of white Americans and Canadians is problematic, to say the least. It ignores the diversity of class and culture that exists within Mexico. The media's negative focus on murdered Canadian tourists downplays the reasons why millions of Canadians and Americans flock to Mexico in the first place: a cheap vacation, amazing beaches, and a rich cultural tradition that comprises indigenous civilizations, Spanish colonization, and impressive archaeological artifacts. It also overlooks the fact that many tourists return home with only positive impressions of their stay in Mexico.

As for this guy's assertion that even Cancun, whitewashed and touristic as it was, felt unsafe, I can only say that few places in the world often feel "safe" according to the standards of sheltered Canadians. Indeed, I often think that people who go on resort vacations endanger themselves to some extent by thinking that they are protected from outside danger and not doing enough real research about their destination. When tourists book an all-inclusive resort package in Puerto Vallarta, they think about the beaches and partying and shopping, and sadly enough, often do not consider that they are entering a foreign country with its own culture and own way of doing things. An all-inclusive vacation at a resort is not a bubble enclave and a fail-safe promise of safety. Any country can be unsafe if you go without knowing enough about it.

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