Columns

“Caray, that’s a good one.”  Paco Ruiz Gonzales grinned as he squinted into the slip of early morning light.  It was a couple of days before a mountain Christmas cold enough to show your breath.  We turned to face a slice of the red disc growing above the distant southeastern horizon.  It was a chill morning, but as soon as the sun crested the far Michoacan peaks, it began to change.

“The book of books” is a newly re-discovered monicker for the Bible.  A lit instructor, in the early 1950s, a gaunt, knowing World War II vet, enthusiastically parsing John Steinbeck’s  rightfully famed “Grapes of Wrath” for a class of unread, if eager students, used the term referring to the King James Bible.

A quick flight to Houston last week was packed with complex news, most of it post-electoral, along with some hard words for the way that state and its communities have traditionally dealt with voters.  Austin (the fastest-growing city in the United States, and Texas’ most liberal), plus Dallas and Houston, traditionally rigid Republican enclaves, along with San Antonio, went for President Obama. These are the state’s largest cities. Still, Obama lost Texas, garnering just 41.38 percent to Mitt Romney’s 57.17 percent.

Heard it on the grapevine:  A continuing – and increasingly loud – unhappy reaction to Mexico’s new (and clearly complicated) federal laws and increased fees for foreigners wishing to visit or reside in this Republic temporarily or permanently.

A lot of Mexicans on both sides of the border have a new spring in their stride.  And after a multitude of threats and an avalanche of vilification that increased as the United States’ presidential election neared its culmination, they are beaming with unabashed self-confidence.  The rap on Mexican American voters has long been: They may have fervent political views, but they don’t vote.  Even though a vote might begin to ease their problems.  But their voting record showed an indifference that bruised their cause.

Most Mexicans were pleased – and puzzled – with the results of the United States election.  The seemingly growing acceptance of the legalization of marijuana gave them nightmares about the increasing power of drug cartels.  Almost every Mexican friend has relatives living, legally or illegally, north of the border.  The disaffinity for Hispanics, relentlessly declared during the seemingly endless Republican primary campaign process, all of it repeated again during the general election, put them energetically in Obama’s camp.  Relatives here wrote to family members in the States urging them to vote for the president.  Shyly, Mexicans here would ask U.S. citizens they knew well who they favored.