Mural by Sam Kirk and Sandra Antongiorgi (2016) in Pilsen, home of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, courtesy of the author

On August 3, I was on a bus between Guanajuato and Mexico City, traveling with my family, when a 21-year-old American man opened fire in a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas, killing twenty-two people and injuring twenty-four. According to the Associated Press, he had published a screed online that referred to a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” ​The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, had previously sent out campaign literature which encouraged people to “defend” Texas and “take matters into our own hands.”

​In Mexico, the massacre dominated the news for days. The next Tuesday, as I rode to the National University in Mexico City with my friend, we listened to the radio as journalists pointed out the facts, which included Trump’s “criminals, drug dealers, rapists” invective against Mexican immigrants, the prevalence of guns in the United States, and America’s fraught relationship with the second amendment of our Constitution. (They didn’t mention, though it was pertinent, that El Paso has a Spanish name because much of the United States used to be Mexico, and that Mexican territory now called Texas was “claimed” by the United States in 1845, a move that was not recognized by the Mexican Government.)

One section of the exhibit focuses on the “Costa Chica” of Guerrero, where Afro-Mexican culture informs the costumes, dancing, and music that happen during the Día de Muertos celebration. The Danza de los Diablos, or Dance of the Devils, according to the curator’s notes, is influenced by Spanish tradition as well as African masks and images. In this tradition, men dressed as devils, with masks of hides and horsehair, escort the spirits of the dead from the cemetery on the nights of October 31 and November 1. One, the Major Devil, cracks a whip, and his “wife,” another man in costume as a woman, carries a plastic baby doll and also cracks a whip at spectators and other participants. The dancers are usually “younger men and boys,” the curator reports, “as it requires tremendous stamina to dance for 3 or 4 hours straight.”

photo courtesy of the author

Though dancing and performing in masks is a frequent component of Mexican rituals and holidays, these masks are influenced directly by the escaped slaves that settled in the “Black Towns” of Guerrero. The curator also notes that African instruments such as the “bote” (made from a calabash gourd) and an instrument made from a “horse’s jawbone” are played during the Dance of the Devils. In the gallery, a video runs continuously, showing the dancers in costume making their way through one of the towns, harmonica music accompanying their route. Two life-size mannequins wear the costumes of a devil and his wife. Horsehair masks hung high on the wall flank a large etching of the ritual, and the musical instruments—the jawbone, a bote—are also on display. The room also includes a typical Costa Chica ofrenda (or offering), an altar decorated with flowers, food, photographs, and personal mementos. Like all the ofrendas in the museum, it is dedicated to specific individuals. The names and dates attached to the ofrenda give us a sense of the long cultural memory—and gratitude—of those who erect such altars.

The exhibition also includes an ofrenda for a Chicago resident, Elisa, nicknamed “Mama Licha.” A floor-to-ceiling display of photographs, marigolds, sugar skulls, butterflies, and candles, it commemorates the life of a woman who married in Mexico at age 17, moved to Chicago from Durango in the 1970s, worked more than full-time to help buy a house for her family, and went on to parent “7 children, 25 grandchildren, and 19 great-grandchildren.” She naturalized in 1996 with several of her children, was a member of her local Catholic church, St. Agnes of Bohemia, and was a much-loved member of the community of Pilsen. Photographs of Elisa through the years are on display, from early black and white photos to the large central portrait ensconced in an ornate silver frame and surrounded by marigold blossoms. Marigolds are sacred to the Día de Muertos celebration: marigold petals are scattered to lead relatives home from the cemetery. Though Elisa’s last names are not given, her extraordinary story indicates the deep roots of the Mexican-American community in Pilsen, and the importance of elders in the creation of a family and a community.

Another impressive installation was created by fourth, fifth and sixth graders of Summit School District 104 to commemorate the deaths of children in ICE custody. Titled “The Golden Cage/La Jaula de Oro,” it displays photographs of children who died in ICE detention centers, plaster casts of faces, hands, and feet, and a large golden cage filled with Monarch butterflies (whose yearly pilgrimage ends in both Michoacan and Mexico states). Unlike the other ofrendas, it’s much more austere. Only a few marigolds ring the base of the cage, and one single white candle with one sugar skull is placed underneath each of the seven photographs of children. The  song “La Jaula del Oro,” by The Tigres del Norte, inspired the work.

According to the accompanying statement, the students read and discussed the song’s lyrics and then interviewed family members about what they lost or gained by moving:

“We discussed current politics, the recent mass ICE raids, and the anti-Latino sentiments expressed by our nation’s president. We talked about what it means to leave everything you have ever known in order to transition to a new place surrounded by constant uncertainty, loneliness, and even fear. Finally, we talked about how these ideas might be expressed visually or symbolically.”

For many of these children, these topics of discussion are not theoretical. Their own families may be living under the fear of deportation—or living with deportation as a reality. A sign in the museum lobby, which also appears in the windows of homes in the surrounding neighborhood, indicates that “the inhabitants of this home are aware of their rights.”

This exhibition extends beyond the pieces I have noted. (The anima sola–devotional images of “lonely souls” in purgatory or burning in the fires of hell–are particularly sobering.)

photo courtesy of the author