Juárez: Fourth Date: Dancers and Photographers

Dancing in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

February 2017


All of my dates with Juárez here. 


I tapped my toes to the tunes of the dancers in the zoot suits of the 1940s, pachucos.

Dancing in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

Dancing in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

You come, too:

Then from another era, another dancer:

Dancing in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

A continuation of my visit to the Museum of the Revolution on the Border

Museum of the Revolution on the Border, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

The museum devotes a room to photographers, both professional and amateur. When I use the word "amateur," I don't mean trifling; I mean a person who is serious about their photography, but does not derive their livelihood from it.

Museum of the Revolution on the Border, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

I like that the museum curators included a photojournalist who was a woman. 

Museum of the Revolution on the Border, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

Museum of the Revolution on the Border, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

A very young photographer also received recognition:

Museum of the Revolution on the Border, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

When you look at the bent heads of the photographers, their focus intent on a screen below them, does it remind you of any behavior in our current times?

Mexico: Juarez: Third Date

Municipal Palace, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

On the Friday after New Year's Day, Juarez going in and coming out was much speedier than pre-holidays.

Municipal Palace, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

The sun shined, but a brisk breeze blew. I wore my black hoodie jacket and gloves, but I wished I'd brought my wide black-and-gray winter scarf. 

Municipal Palace, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

On this visit, I covered some of the territory I've walked before. The photos above are of the Municipal Palace, the front exterior and the interior courtyard. On my first two visits to the city, the horses in front used to be on Calle 16 de Septiembre, near the Abrazo Monument. 

Statue of Vicente Guerrero on Calle Francisco Villa, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

Each time I go into Juarez, I try to explore new territory. So far, I've only entered the city by walking over the bridge on El Paso Street, but there are three other ways to Juarez from the El Paso metro area.

House-and-tree at 175 Amado Nervo Street, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

At 175 Amado Nervo Street is this unlikely marriage between an elderly house and tree. One wonders which is supporting the other? I think it must be a mutual partnership.

House-and-tree at 175 Amado Nervo Street, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

From Amado Nervo, I turned left onto Calle Miguel Ahumada. There's something about the lucha libre that charms me.

Lucha libre poster, Calle Miguel Ahumada, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

On Calle Miguel Ahumado, a number of motels intrigued me. Their upstairs flats with wrought-ironed balconies seemed a distant cousin of a New Orleans esthetic. Which is, of course, a derivative of its ancestral settlers' own designs from back home in Spain, the Canary Islands, the Caribbean, coastal Africa ... .

Calle Miguel Ahumada, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

Calle Miguel Ahumada, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

I captured a Juarense sidewalk tourist trap for my collection:

Tourist trap, Calle Miguel Ahumada, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

When I came across a pocket park, I took a sharp right onto Nicolas Bravo.

An apartment perched on the top of a corner building waved at me with her tattered black veil.

The music, sidewalk menu, and a red parking meter added flavor to the moment.

Juarez has a fascinating highway system that seems to live under the city. On my second visit to Juarez, in the Plaza de Armas, I heard a rapid whistling-rumbling noise. I looked all around me to catch where the sound came from. I asked a nearby man what it was, maybe a train? He said, no, and pointed to a raised cement platform with a grille over it. It was a highway.

The highway beneath Plaza de Armas, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

I stepped on top of the platform and peered through the grille. Well, hot damn, cars charging through on a two-lane highway tunnel below. Here's the video:

I'm trying to visualize how this all hangs together in Juarez.

As I ambled up Calle Santos Degollado (I think), a sorbet-and-white wall, shedding its skin, a-peeling:

Calle Santos Degollado, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

Unfortunately, an inebriated fellow chose that moment to try and shake me down for some change, and I pushed on without striving for a better shot. Maybe another day.

From this approach to the park that I think is called La Gran Plaza, I enjoyed a happy view of the lucha libre mural I'd seen on my first visit.

Murals on Calle Ignacio Mariscal, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

Two minutely different takes on the same scene. Just can't decide which I like better. 

Murals on Calle Ignacio Mariscal, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 2017.

It looked so grand against the backdrop of that dramatic sky.



Related posts

• Juarez: First Date: Introduction
• Juarez: First Date: Going and Coming
• Juarez: First Date: The Kentucky Club
• Juarez: First Date: Horses
• Juarez: Three Quarters
• El Paso Sister: Juarez: The Name of the City
• Juarez: Second Date

Mexico: Juarez: Second Date

Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. December 2016.

December 2016

I had my second date with Juarez a couple of days before Christmas.

On Fridays, there are food kiosks in the plaza in front of the old church. Smokes and smells and colors of delectables scintillate.

Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. December 2016.

Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. December 2016.

Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. December 2016.

A coffee shop has live inside entertainment by an accomplished singer.

Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. December 2016.

A parking lot's walls host disturbing, compelling art.

Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. December 2016.

Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. December 2016.

I don't know what the heck Don Quixote de la Mancha is doing there, but it's a tad curious, out in the open 'n all.

Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. December 2016.

A slide show below:

Related posts

• Juarez: First Date: Introduction
• Juarez: First Date: Going and Coming
• Juarez: First Date: The Kentucky Club
• Juarez: First Date: Horses
• Juarez: Three Quarters
• El Paso Sister: Juarez: The Name of the City

Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Going and Coming

Here, I explained you've got to have two quarters to enter Juárez and then one quarter to return to El Paso.

You've also got to have a passport or other documentation that will let you back into the United States.

I just realized that when you walk in to Juárez from El Paso, no one stops you to see if you're American versus, say, Canadian, Nigerian, Romanian, or Korean. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I never saw it happen.

Benjamin Alire Saenz, my literary cultural interpreter for El Paso, wrote about the fluidity between El Paso and Juárez. 

From Carry Me Like Water (1995): 

Driving down Interstate 10, Jake took the Juárez exit. He took his eyes off the road for a moment and stared down at Concordia Cemetery, the dead disturbed now by a freeway the locals called the spaghetti bowl. As the freeway curbed around, Juárez was straight ahead. It was so easy to get there, just get in the car, take an exit - Mexico - so easy, he thought. 

... He remembered how, sick as he was in his last days, Joaquin had been obsessed with denouncing the only two countries he'd ever known, ever lived in. "I hate Mexico," he mumbled. "I hate the United States. I hate - "

"What?" Eddie asked Jake. 

"Nothing, I was just talking to myself ... It's funny to live in a town where the other half of it is in another country."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Luz] thought of moving to El Paso - she could move there any time she wanted - it was her home, her country. Her mother had chosen her nationality for her. She had waited until she was about to deliver, then walked into a clinic. She had been born a U.S. citizen in an ambulance on the way to the county hospital. She wondered why she had to choose between Juárez and El Paso ... She could not relinquish her Juárez because her family had lived in this ragged city for generations; it was her blood, her history, her inheritance; but she could not relinquish El Paso because it was the piece of dirt her mother had bequeathed to her; it, too, was her blood; it, too, was her history ... she knew what everyone in Juárez knew, knew that El Paso belonged to them, belonged to the border, would never be like the rest of America because their faces were printed on its land as if it were a page in a book that could never be ton out by any known power, not by God, not by the Border Patrol, not by the president of either country, not by the purists who wanted to define Americans as something organic, as if they were indigenous plants ... Luz laughed. El Paso was hers and ... she would not relinquish it to any gringo or any Chicana - who was not intelligent enough to acknowledge that she was entitled to it poverty and its riches.

When I crossed back over to El Paso from Juárez on my first foray into Mexico, the United States greeted me with: a rainbow, twists of barbed wire, and two plastic trash bags.

Between Mexico and the US, November 2016.

Relevant posts

• Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Introduction
• Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Kentucky Club
• Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Murals
• Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Horses
• Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Going and Coming

Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Murals

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

On my way back to the border crossing, I passed through a vast, largely empty plaza. It had the look of a place that had been razed and that was in the process - currently suspended - of being formed into a park.

On one side were what I presumed to be the remains of the old neighborhood, bedraggled but still standing, and on the other side, the back walls of businesses that fronted Avenida Benito Juárez. 

On those walls were loud, splashy, wowza murals. A feast. 

 

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Within a parking lot and in another niche were other murals, grittier and darker. 

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

I wonder about that empty overall hung up on the barbed wire barrier in the mural above. Is that just a fateful place and position where an abandoned garment got thrown or blown? Or is it an intentional artistic statement of a struggle? Whether chance or deliberate, it speaks.

Mural in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

And with the above mural - an empty-eyed skull capped by an empty-eyed hull of a structure.

Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Horses

I've been to locations that featured art themes with:

• Burros
• Brains
• Fiddles
• Frogs

With Juárez, I add horses.

Horse art, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

The artsy fiberglass herd stood in the promenade in front of the Museum of the Revolution of the Border (neé Aduana Fronteriza when first the building was constructed).

Horse art, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

If I were a more museum-y kinda gal, I would have scrutinized the provenance of each horse and been able to share same with you. But I'm not, so all I've got are the photos.

Horse art, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

But there's this for information seekers.

Horse art, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

According to the article linked above, the horses are stallions. Please. Normally, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about this specificity, but I'm writing this post after my experience at the Fountain Theater and during the early days of an era in which my head of state can boast about how he grasps women's groins without their prior consent, with impunity. This is why I don't read the fine print of exhibits. I had been happy just thinking "horses."

Horse art, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Horse art, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Horse art, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Mexico: Juárez: First Date: Kentucky Club

The Kentucky Club, Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

It has become my custom to seek cultural interpretations from authors whose writing has a sense of the place where I live.

In South Louisiana, these writers were James Lee Burke and Ernest J. Gaines.

For El Paso, I identified a long list of literary cultural guides. I've started with Benjamin Alire Saenz.

The very first book of Mr. Saenz's that I read was a collection of stories called Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club. 

The Kentucky Club, Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

I read the first story, He Has Gone to be With the Women, while I reclined on my "couch," which is also my bed, in my studio-plus apartment.

All of a sudden, I gasped, then sat up straighter against the headboard. Wha?

Below is the passage I read, and I include some delicious wrap-around to the cause of my gasp because it is also so rich with cultural illumination in the short exchange. A bit of background: The story protagonist, Juan Carlos, has just met the story's other principal at the Kentucky Club. They are introducing themselves.

We found ourselves sitting outside. The morning was cold. The wind was back, the wind that was in love with El Paso, the wind that refused to leave us to enjoy the sun.  .... 

"Juan Carlos."
"Juan Carlos," he repeated "Where do you live?"
"Sunset Heights."

[And here is when I gaped - thinking, "that's where I live!!!!"]

He tapped his paper cup. "Interesting neighborhood." 
.... "It's a beautiful place," he said.
"It was built in 1900."
"Ten years before the Revolution."
"More than a hundred years ago."
"And here we are. One real Mexican and one Mexican who's American.""My grandfather was born here," I said."My grandfather was born in Israel," he said. 

"So I'm more Mexican than you are."
.... "Do you like to fight?" [he asked.]
"No, I don't like to fight," [I said.]
"Certainly you are not a Mexican," he said.

In The Art of Translation, another story of the book's collection, the protagonist and a woman walk over to the Kentucky Club from El Paso, via the same route I took in my first foray:

She held my hand as we walked over the Santa Fe Bridge. I found myself sitting at a booth in the Kentucky Club. It was strange. I should have felt drunker than I felt. She asked me questions. I answered them and I smiled to myself because I knew the answers weren't true. Men lied to women all the time. Normal. 

When I read the book, I kind of wondered if the Kentucky Club was a real or an imagined locale of Mr. Saenz's.

Not long after I finished the book, my landlords had a man come to ready my room's radiator for the coming winter. Somehow I learned that he lived in Juárez, and I asked him if there was a Kentucky Club there.

Not only was there a Kentucky Club, but he used to live in one of the rooms above the club many years ago! He told me that back in the day, women weren't allowed in the club, and that along the foot of the bar was a trough in which men would pee so they wouldn't have to leave their spots at the bar. Eucalyptus leaves were placed in the trough to dampen the odor, and as I think about it, probably to squelch some of the splashing that would likely occur. This story sounded apocryphal but he swore it was true. (But then see Mr. Saenz's story excerpt above.)

Of course, it became a destination goal to visit the Kentucky Club if for no other reason but to see this trough with my very own eyes. Because I'm lowbrow like that.

Foreshadowing:

The Kentucky Club, Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

The Kentucky Club, Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

So on my first date with Juárez, I visited the Kentucky Club. I sat at the bar. Placed my lady foot atop the trough. Asked the bartender about the trough; he confirmed the story. (But again, see the story excerpt above.)

By the time I went to Juárez, I'd learned that the Kentucky Club was actually damn famous. For one, it (allegedly) invented the margarita. Therefore, that's what I ordered when I visited.

The Kentucky Club, Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. November 2016.

Thousands of El Pasoan adolescents also patronized the Kentucky Club in decades past, as Mexican drinking laws were much more lax and what the hey, the club was so close to home for El Pasoans.

Cultural luminaries from both sides of the border visited the Kentucky Club.


But it's not all margaritas and sunshine at the Kentucky Club - the place got into trouble recently for discrimination.