Columns

A number of readers, here from the United States, have recently had the same rare impulse: cutting their daily electronic intake of what one reader calls “idiotic political developments” north of the border.

The passion of Jesus Christ is the central event that divides Western civilization for both believers and non-believers.

When Lena Curiel’s kidnapped young mother, Chela, was found, it was said she refused to come home.  Several members of the extended Curiel family, plus three armed family friends, were sent to bring the stolen young mother home. They were led by the family doctor and a bruja. (In the 1960s, brujos, male and female, rural and city, were popular.)   

Last week’s column here snagged some readers’ curiosity.  Campesino vocabulary –1950s, ‘60s – changed a lot, courtesy of U.S. war vets.  They migrated to Mexico, bringing a fresh Spanish vocabulary to rural Mexico.  Example: Lysander Kemp’s essay regarding Jocotepec/Nextipac appeared in Issue Six, 1955, of the much applauded “Discovery” literary magazine.  Kemp also was the unparalleled translator of Octavio Paz’s ground-breaking biography of Mexico, “The Labyrinth of Solitude.”  Meanwhile …

The “jefe” of the Curiel family took away the pistol twelve-year-old Lena Curiel was carrying.  Toño Curiel wasn’t surprised his adopted daughter had the weapon.  He wasn’t angry at her.  But he quietly swore at whoever gave the loaded weapon to her.  Lena wasn’t careless with firearms. She’d been taught to take care with weapons early on. But accidents happened.  Lena and her kin were brutal proof of that.

Even some of her relatives called her La Huerfana – the orphan – at first.  Some said her young mother had “run off,” others said vandals had taken her before she had given her daughter a name.