Seized by a ceaseless meanwhile

Mexico City’s memory trap

Featured in

  • Published 20240507
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-95-5
  • Extent: 203pp
  • Paperback, ePub, PDF, Kindle compatible

LEOPOLDO IS AT least three tacos in before I start talking with him. Mouth full, he tells me, ‘El de huazontle es exquisito,’ raising his hand to the taquero for another.

It’s a little before 8 am, 19 September 2019. I’m sitting on a broken plastic chair, having just returned from watching the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, hold the annual minute’s silence to honour those killed by the earthquakes that have struck the city over the years. I try the huazontle. It is exquisite. I throw back a few, because I’ll be attending protests and memorial services all day and won’t get another chance to eat until dinner (too busy commemorating events I never experienced). Leopoldo, who has endured all the city’s recent major earthquakes, tells me he’ll participate in the commemorations, particularly the yearly evacuation drill – that it’s an obligation, like a civil duty. Now in his fifties, he has participated in these events since they began after the city’s devastating 1985 earthquake. But, as if memory alone were insufficient for reminding him of the past, he blows cigarette smoke towards the traffic alongside us and says, ‘It’s not that I just want to remember. I want to not forget.’

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Five million years on the right side of history

Whether ‘Anthropocene’ is confirmed as the title of our present remains to be seen. And yet, while few agree on what defines our epoch, there is a general sense that it should be defined; that correct periodisation will help us fix the mess we’re in; that even if those with power aren’t listening to the scientists and the critics, someone else is.

More from this edition

Origin stories

Non-fictionI CAN MAP your life by what was lost. History (personal and other). Culture. Language. Identity. Home, and all the references to you that it could have held. The very idea of home. The streets you would have walked down, streets that know the history of your family, of those who came before you. The chance to be the version of yourself who grew up with your biological family. The stories that should have been your birthright.

The comfort of objects

In Conversation Anne Zahalka has been making viewers look twice for nearly four decades. One of Australia’s most respected photo-­media artists, her practice explores shifting notions...

Bringing up Baby

Non-fictionMy husband, the softer touch with Baby, couldn’t get the leash on him so I took over. I had a handful of food to placate Baby, and he seemed to relax as I held it slightly away from his snout and went to attach the leash with my other hand. But when Baby realised what was happening, he went stiff, then bit my hands eight times like he wanted to kill me.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.