Christian Scott, Pyrrhic Victory

Yesterday was a bittersweet moment. After months and months of research, prototyping and pushing the boundaries of our students, the radio show our college was part of, came to an end. Our students, were announced as winners at the San Carlos Academy in Mexico's convoluted center of the city.

Behind our seats sat the artisans. Two of them and one of their kids. Shielded on both sides, the women that believe the talent of the artisans belong to them. I wish things would be different. That when they realized we won, we all came together with an embrace, finally making them connect the dots, finally making them understand we were all working for the same cause.

Nope. That's where the bittersweet part comes in. We were kind of awkwardly trying to hug these women who were really looking at their "handlers" faces with certain fear of doing something that could mean betrayal to them.

The project that led people to believe our students should win this contest due to feasibility was Luzänä, the one that meant "moonlight" in otomí dialect.

I was terribly saddened and hurt by the fact that we were not even finished celebrating or trying to explain the artisans where did we have to go from there, when handlers were already making it impossible to get to agreements that worked on their behalf. They were already talking about their schedules and what they had sacrificed to make it to this point.

It was ugly. It was ugly because I was told that to make these projects happen, some chiefdoms had to be broken down. That advice given by Eufrocina Cruz, gave me an unconscious license to speak my mind in front of the artisans and their handlers. 

Bottom line, politicians never cesase to be politicians, and as much as I would have liked some of my students get some recognition from these women, they were treated as shit because "we" the college, didn't provide a way for the artisans to get to the event that day. Because "we" the college, didn't care enough for them.

After so many hours dedicated to this project, to the artisans, these words felt like a slap on the face of my students and I snapped. "Stop acting like victims", I said to the so-called coordinators. "As far as I know, we are all here because we want to, not because we are sacrificing our lives, we have worked our asses off because that was our job, that was our compromise, period."

This just escalated the argument until I was told to back down from one of the coordinators of my college. Students were listening, one of the handlers kept yapping endlessly, but the artisans, the artisans, were pleading for us to stop fighting.

Damn it Mexico. I thought to myself. Why is it so frustrating to help you? Why have these structures of politics and power have kept our indigenous people thinking they "need" the help of people that only benefit from them? Why can't we just take them away from these women, provide them with the tools to reinforce their self-esteem and decision making, so they can be whatever they choose to be?

[The Mermaid's House]

Teachers and coordinators from our college sort of celebrated later but it felt like a hollow victory. As I came out from the restaurant, I took a real good look to whatever is left of the Zócalo now that informal economies have taken over it.

[Templo Mayor]

We are such a multidimensional and intricate nation: pyramids hide underneath our cathedrals, buildings are buried behind "tianguis". Carts going on the wrong way of the street, cheap Christmas lights flashing in spirals along a cumbia song, signs of chaos all around while policemen were all together, chatting, (supervising actually) things were running smoothly in their corrupt ways. All this happening behind the National Palace, nonethless.

Damn it Mexico, where has our splendor gone? How can we get some sense back? How did we get to be this way? Why is change so difficult to achieve on these nocive ways we have made our own?