A personal reflection on the disapperance of the 43 Mexican students by Katie Geluso, a Salter currently serving in Mexico City. This post was adapted from her personal blog.
In late September, the mayor of Iguala’s wife was about to take the stage for a campaign speech. At the same time, 100 university student teachers from Ayotzinapa were on their way to protest her candidacy for her husband’s title. When the couple heard of their impending arrival, they ordered for the students to be “taught a lesson.” Police officers shot at the bus full of students. Some students were tortured so badly they were only recognizable by the clothes they were wearing. Another 43 disappeared all together.
Now, a month and a half later, the mayor and his wife have been arrested, some of the bodies have been recovered from plastic bags in a river, and it is known that the police handed over the students to a drug cartel, Guerreros Unidos.
The citizens of Mexico are rightly outraged and grieved over this entire ordeal. Chilpancingo, the capital of the state of Guerrero (where Ayotzinapa and Iguala are) has been the cite of violent protests and attacks on government buildings and there have been several marches to the presidential palace in Mexico City as well as all over the country.
Since my arrival in August I’ve witnessed a few marches in D.F. I can’t help but get choked up as I read powerful statements on cardstock and unified voices of university students chanting loudly for justice and peace. It’s quite the experience to watch thousands of people unite in person to grieve transgressions and demand justice from the government.
I cried as I watched hundreds of college students lay down on the street for a “die in” as they counted to 43, to represent the 43 missing students. Counting to 43 takes an awful lot of time. 43 missing students is an awful lot of pain for families, friends, and an entire country. Keep in mind: this is on top of 22,000 other “missing” people under the current and previous president.
A friend from home has been trying to read up on the situation from Seattle. She asked me on Monday, “What’s going on from a local’s view?” I couldn’t tell her. I’m not a local, nor can I speak for them.
It’s been my experience that living in a culture where you have a loose grasp of the language feels like there’s a thin curtain between you and everyone else. I think I understand a coworker when they give me instructions for an assignment, but maybe I missed a key phrase and they’re really telling me something completely different. When anyone talks for more than 30 seconds or so, I get totally lost. So in work meetings, at conferences, or when someone is explaining something to me without checking in on my comprehension, I have no idea what’s going on right in front of me. When paired with not knowing much about a country’s history, especially when it comes to politics, I have a hard time grasping the events in Iguala and the heartache of Mexicans, which goes much deeper than this one incidence.
When reflecting on my inability to connect and grieve with my Mexican friends, I was reminded of my reaction to the shooting this spring at my alma mater, Seattle Pacific University. I wrote about my reaction to the tragic event on my blog, which you can read here.
After the event at SPU, I had a desire to feel connected to my friends who had not yet graduated, my professors, and even the students I didn’t know. SPU, a place that meant so much to me a year previously, felt incredibly distant and close at the same time. I wanted to feel my community’s pain and walk alongside them, but I did not share their experience.
Nothing in my power could help me understand their hurt, their fear, their anger. I didn’t belong – It wasn’t my pain.
I’m struggling the same way in Mexico. How do I comprehend and connect with the pain of a people whose history of political violence I know so little about? How ignorant would I be to assume I might be able to understand their outrage and utter despair? My coworkers and host family care deeply about seeking peace and justice. They’re hurting right next to me, but I feel so far away, hidden behind my curtain of language and cultural illiteracy. I don’t belong – this isn’t my pain.
I was hoping that writing this would sort my thoughts and end in a nice conclusion. It succeeded in helping me connect my SPU story to Ayoztinapa, but I guess the latter goal will be a work-in-progress.
What have been your struggles and successes with accompaniment and fitting in where you don’t belong?
For more context and analysis about what is currently taking place:
Mexico reels, and the U.S. looks away
To understand the historical significance — and the moral and political gravity — of what is occurring, think of 9/11, of Sandy Hook, of the day JFK was assassinated. Mexico is a nation in shock — horrified, pained, bewildered.
Crisis in Mexico: The Protests for the Missing Forty-Three
Father Solalinde believes that the movement that emerges from the tragedy of Ayotzinapa will discredit the traditional parties and bring about a regeneration of civil society, with new leaders. Others predict—and this does not necessarily contradict Solalinde’s view—that the outraged protesters in Guerrero and other states will soon fill the streets of Mexico City to demand real change. Others have been focussing on a clause in the Mexican Constitution that may offer a legal way to force the President to step down, clearing the way for new elections. Indeed, there are elections in Mexico next June. Five hundred seats of the lower house of the Federal Congress will be up for grabs, which means that there is opportunity for change in Mexico, both through civil disobedience and through the ballot box. On Sunday, a young protester from the Ayotzinapa Normal School told a newspaper reporter, “This is just beginning.” He may be right.
Thank you for sharing.