The brand, your name, your last name or the place where you were born. Some of us, like the one in this voice, hesitate when answering the inevitable question: where are you from? I’m one of those who don’t answer the first time. If you were born in a different place than your parents, and the same thing happened with your siblings and cousins, the hesitation is justified.
“Demetrio Macías! – exclaimed the terrified sergeant, taking a few steps back”. The novel by Don Mariano Azuela: “Those from below”, a truth disguised as fiction or vice versa, is one of the most widely read revolutionary treatises in this country. The adventures of several of the characters in the novel have served as inspiration for writers, filmmakers, and even those who have sought to understand the events of the Mexican Revolution. Indeed, one of the now recognized transforming stages of the Mexico we inhabit, this “second transformation” that in terms of time had a short period, however, has occupied large spaces in the psyche of Mexicans. How many Zapatas and how many Villas have paraded in school events, theaters, cinemas, and images on murals, pamphlets, political parties and projects; It’s hard not to know about these “heroes”.
Perhaps, those born decades after this historical event are more revolutionary, the amount of information has managed to become an intangible asset of the “Mexican” identity. The versions about this fact vary little from each other; where we find notable differences could be in the interpretation of the facts. What is invariable is the identification of this stage throughout our geographical map, including a historical event that goes beyond borders, especially on the north side.
In my case, the revolution is reduced to the story of Professor Mariano Azuela, my ancestry has to do with a state in the north of the country, the state of Zacatecas is lived in each environment through narration. Almost every place that is described was part of my childhood and part of my youth, every vacation, every wedding, every town fair and of course, seeing the “Judas” botargas burned on the main avenue of the town. The anger at the repetitions during this stage made me value very little the land of my parents; land that I know much better than the one of my own birth. Every trip down to the Juchipila canyon, every brush with the Lerma-Santiago, shopping in the town of Fresnillo.
The addiction to the novel by M. Azuela will have little to do with the adventures of the men and women described in the story, what is verifiable are the number of scenarios described in it. I have fewer and fewer opportunities to cross those trails. I am sure that, at any moment, I will have the opportunity to step on the lower part of the Juchipila canyon, look up and imagine myself being one of “Those from below”. Perhaps our personal brand is built through what we have read; Or maybe we are just Mexicans, yes, some less revolutionary than others.