Christmas Without Borders
Four hours south of Albuquerque lies Ciudad Juarez, a town of lean-tos and tied-together-tiers orbiting the low income stratosphere. Row upon row of ramshackle shanties nestle the hills above the Rio Grande. To the north of Ciudad Juarez is El Paso, Texas and to the south is the rest of Mexico, land of salsa, siestas, and señoritas.
In my travels, I've visited Juarez six times. The first time was with my father and brother in '93 or '94. At age fourteen, I had never been outside of the United States and Mexico had an allure like no other country. Swimming in Lake Superior and gazing across the dark ripples in the direction of Canada was as close as I had come to gaining entry to a foreign land, and though I had grown up in states neighboring Canada, the names of places like Newfoundland and Nova Scotia didn't have the same ring as Puerto Peñasco or Chiapas. I thought of Mexico, from its portrayals in films, as a bastion of bordellos and a Mecca of mescal; a dangerous neighbor, like the kid down the block who has a pocket knife or hidden pornographic photos.
My impressions of Mejico were mainly influenced by three factors: 1) the anglocentric demonizing of all things dark, 2) the climate, and 3) the socioeconomic status of the nation as a whole. People in Mejico are darker than most Americans and presumably - using the twisted logic of a teenager - filled with sordid secrets and potential hazards. Mejico is warm, and the heat often maddens the sanest of men. Mejico is poor, and the shock of indigence further magnified my envisioning the country as a land so far removed from America to set foot on its soil would be as foreign to me as stepping on the moon was to Neil Armstrong.
The second time I visited Juarez was with both of my parents. We ate snails at Martino's and they bought me a ceramic mask of a demon with bulls horns and lizards crawling on his face. My father attempted to convince a bartender that I was of legal drinking age, but the bartender didn't believe him, so I surreptitiously took swigs off my father's beer.
My third trip to Juarez was after nerd camp in Las Cruces. My science teacher, another student from McCurdy High School and I crossed the border knowing that because we were technically on a "field trip" we could never tell anyone we had left the country.
The fourth time I visited Juarez I remember, more than anything, sleeping on a water bed with a broken heater the night before. My brother and I went to a concert in El Paso later went to Mexico and drank buckets of Coronas and ate tacos while the sun set.
The fifth time I went to Mexico was with a friend of mine. We were both lifting weights at the time, and the rapid growth of our own muscles (aided by legal steroids and creatine) had created hairline fissures in the skin around our shoulders and triceps. We purchased a tube of retinol, usually for the treatment of acne, which we had heard worked wonders on stretch marks. I remember buying the girl I was dating at the time a silver and turquoise bracelet and matching earrings, jewelry that I hope she still wears.
And finally, my most recent trip to Juarez was with my friend Amanda, and our aim was true: buy Christmas presents for our friends and family. Without the inflated prices and tariffs implemented by the American importer/exporters, we were certain we could find amazing gifts at one-third or one-fourth of the prices charged on the other side of the border. A working knowledge of Spanish and an ability to haggle will allow you to buy more art than you can possibly carry for under a hundred dollars.
While students at New Mexico State University travel to Juarez for the "drink till you drown" marathons at bottomless cup taverns, my aims in going to Mexico have always been less ordinary. Instilled with my mother's drive to find a bargain and my own fascination for Latin American cultures, I love seeing what novel type of indigenous art is being peddled at the market. Ironically, by stepping into the Juarez Mercado, the perceptive eye can portend what style of art the American "folk" artists will mimic, steal, and plagiarize in the upcoming decades. Mexican art that become readily available to the American market becomes the American market withing a brief period of time. The only difference is eventually you won't need to travel to Mexico to buy the country's pleasantries, because within five years uninspired American craftsmen will reproduce the art and claim the style as their own. (Don't believe me? Visit any gallery in the Nob Hill district of Albuquerque and tell me that a person with a name like Marion Smith or Susan Caruthers grew up carving Dia de Los Muertos figurines in an impoverished Mexican hamlet.)
On my prior visits to Juarez I had always encountered an infinite spectrum of alebrijes, which are wood carvings of animals - both mythical and factual - from the state of Oaxaca. The alebrijes are intricately carved and hand-painted in a psychotropic array of hues. Many of them are so ornately decorated they stand over a foot and come with a litany of detachable parts. Hummingbirds dart their syringe-like beaks into the blooming tuna flowers of a prickly pear. Needles to the nth degree jut out from the spine of a sly porcupine. Dragons with numerous sets of wings and appendages breath fire in colors apropos of blacklight posters. Snakes slither like tongues, or maybe tongues slither like snakes, depending on your interpretation of the carvings.
My biggest disappointment in entering the Juarez Mercado on Dec. 16, 2005 was finding only one vendor in the entire market with alebrijes. Marijuana leaf T-shirts, pocket knives, knock-off sun glasses, sarapes, panchos, stone chess sets, silver-plated rings and necklaces, and blown glass were all in abundance. But the alebrijes available were of poor quality and the selection was fair to say the least. I can only assume that American shops have snatched them all up and are charging outrageous prices for them. And when all the alebrijes have been bought and sold, American folk artists will start whittling mimetic counterfeits and selling them across the U.S. It's only a matter of time before alebrije-esque figurines are being sold over the counter at Walgreen's and K-Mart.
My only regret in my last trip to Mexico was not eating at one of the streetside taco stands. Over the years, Mexico has seemed less and less dangerous, though just as gritty. The smells have grown less offensive, the people less alien, and the alleys more familiar. Crossing the bridge to Juarez no longer has the same forbidden pleasure it did when I was fourteen; I no longer experience the momentary reward of feeling like I'm entering a land of iniquity and moral turpitude, things that both frightened and turned me on as a fourteen year-old. Because this sensation has waned, I generally make it a point to eat something suspect while in Mexico, something that may or may not kill me. The risk of eating something that could cause severe gastrointestinal pain is the last thrill that Juarez has to offer me. I no longer wonder how many bottles of booze or subscription pastillas I can smuggle through customs, or whether or not I can sneak contraband produce and animals by the noses of scrutinizing guards. No, the only thing that gives me a rush anymore is biting into a taco that may or may not have been barking the day before.
Even though the alebrijes are gone, I still have a reason to go back to Juarez. I have unfinished business with a taqueria. I can hear the tacos howling my name.
posted by Bizzle Fitz at 9:59 PM
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