Mexico

I was vomiting and I hadn’t drunk the water. Worse yet, Allan and I had been dating less than a month and I had wanted to make a good impression during this young adult church camping trip to San Felipe, Mexico. He was holding my forehead and I was trying to wave him away because I didn’t want him to see this. Surprisingly, he continued to date me and I continued to vomit during every camping trip until we figured out that I shouldn’t eat the Big Franks, a type of vegetarian hot dogs different than the ones I grew up on.

Including San Felipe, the parts of Mexico I’ve visited are easy to reach from California. My first trip was with my parents and siblings to Tijuana where Carmyn found the blown glass topper for her wedding cake. Our daughters went with Allan and me when we crossed over from Yuma with Sylvia and Joilo. Allan and I enjoyed Val's wedding in Cabo San Lucas. So all of my in-person experience with Mexico is around the Baja peninsula.

I can get much deeper into Mexico with the food. I’m not talking about La Comida, the restaurant in my hometown of Paradise where I discovered tostadas. I’m not even talking about the Mexican potlucks where there are always at least four kinds of enchiladas. I’m talking about the twenty-three Los Angeles area Mexican restaurants which Jared Cohee has sorted into regions of Mexico. This categorized blog called Eat the World Los Angeles includes many backyard weekend restaurants and food trucks, as well as traditional restaurants. I love salbutes made with turkey, so I’m sharing the link to the page on the Yucatan. From there, select Mexico at the top right. The links to Mexican states that have representative restaurants in Los Angeles will drop down: http://www.eattheworldla.com/search/label/MX-Yucatan

For those who don’t eat tamales because they are avoiding the lard in the masa, try the delicious vegan tamales sold by The Tamale Guy at various SoCal Farmers Markets. I caught up with him on a Wednesday in Rialto. For more vegan options, try Luna Mexican Kitchen, a farm to table chain of Mexican restaurants in the San Jose area. When I ate there with Lillian, I had their vegan enchiladas which contain mashed sweet potato, sautéed spinach, calabacitas, and tomatillo salsa, served with arroz verde, epazote black beans, and chipotle cashew crema. I also enjoyed their fruta con chile with pineapple, jicama, cucumber, mango, chile, lime, house-made chamoy, and a tamarind straw: https://www.lunamexicankitchen.com/menus/

Just last week, Karina and I ate at Mariscos Kikas, a Mexican seafood restaurant in San Bernardino which represents Michoacán. I loved the super spicy fish soup and Karina enjoyed the campechana and the octopus tacos: https://www.mariscoskikas.com/

I also dove deep into Mexican and Mexican American literature, but I have a warning. Last May, Kaitlin and Andrea were looking for fun things to do around San Francisco as part of their girls’ road trip. Larry offered to take them sailing and they were willing to let me join them for the day along with Andrea’s mom Christine and Kaitlin’s friend Human. I wasn’t sure what the three of us would talk about during the six hour drive each way, so I picked up Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel on CD from the library. I should have known from the movie that this was a book to read on my own. The magical realism and the sexual descriptions were more than I normally would have wanted in mixed company. Thankfully Christine and Human both have a good sense of humor.

Safer bets among the books I have read would have been The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan, Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, or Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal. Additional works of literature from Mexican authors are listed and described here: https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/mexico/articles/an-introduction-to-mexican-literature-in-10-works/

Mexican art has a long celebrated history. The Khan Academy has modules on art from many important eras and cultures including:

· The Olmec: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/early-cultures/olmec/v/kunz-axe

· Teotihuacan: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/early-cultures/teotihuacan/v/teotihuacan-mexico

· Classic Veracruz:https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/early-cultures/classic-veracruz/v/the-mesoamerican-ballgame-and-a-classic-veracruz-yoke

· The Maya: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/early-cultures/maya/a/the-maya-an-introduction

· The Aztec: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/early-cultures/aztec-mexica/a/introduction-to-the-aztecs-mexica

· The 18th and 19th centuries: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/latin-america-after-independence/art-of-mexico-in-the-18th-and-19th-centuries/a/the-academy-of-san-carlos

· Mexican muralism including Diego Rivera: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/latin-america-modernism/mexican/a/mexican-muralism-los-tres-grandes-david-alfaro-siqueiros-diego-rivera-and-jos-clemente-orozco

· Frida Kahlo https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/latin-america-modernism/surrealism-latin-america/a/frida-kahlo-introduction

I wasn’t able to find the mockumentary A Day Without a Mexican free online or I would have shared it. In this film, California wakes up one morning to find all people of Mexican descent gone, which crashes California’s economy. The film illustrates that there are so many Mexican workers, including entertainers, so I’m choosing just a few of my favorites to highlight here:

· While I was growing up, I enjoyed watching Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban in Fantasy Island and Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Finding a clip of him in a much earlier film and playing the piano is an unexpected treat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Q49bIo1v4

· My mom didn’t let me watch Cheech and Chong back in the day, but recently I’ve learned about Cheech Marin's art collection as the City of Riverside will be opening the nation's first Chicano art museum on May 8 of this year. I’m planning to attend the festivities and here is a sneak peek of the art from when the museum was in the planning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPWJcBhmZtY

· Allan frequently played the music of Linda Ronstadt on cassette in the car when we were first dating. She discusses her Mexican heritage here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/20/linda-ronstadt-singer-documentary?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1

· I watched Coco with Vonnett a couple of weeks ago and with my mom last week. It’s such a sweet movie! DisneyPlus also has A Celebration of the Music of Coco at the Hollywood Bowl and Mexico Untamed, a series from National Geographic.

· I could practice my Spanish and be entertained all day watching Nailed It! Mexico on Netflix. The hosts and participants have such a great sense of humor. Here's my favorite quote: "If you add too much mole, then it's not dessert anymore."

· A series called Heavenly Bites Mexico was just placed on Netflix on Wednesday. It joins Taco Chronicles and The War Next Door on my to-watch list.

· Lorena, Light-Footed Woman is a short indigenous documentary on Netflix that I enjoyed.

· My favorite find this week is the comedian Gabriel Iglesias. After watching this clip, I watched at least five more of his shows. YouTube has many of them, but let’s start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTkxZ18yldc

There is something going on in California that shows its Mexican heritage year-round.

· Mariachi Festivals in the spring (Escondido and Sacramento)

· Taco Festivals in the summer (Fullerton, Los Angeles, and San Diego)

· Mexican Independence Day, also known as Fiestas Patrias or El Grito in September (I want to catch the one in Old Town San Diego and there are many more)

· Dia de Los Muertos Festivals in the fall (I’ve attended in San Bernardino and San Francisco, and again, there are more)

· La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles in December

· Las Posadas in December (Fremont, Solvang, and others)

· Something every day at Olvera Street in Los Angeles

To find these festivals for yourself, let me introduce you to my favorite webpage of all time, the California events calendar on seecalifornia.com. This is the answer to a question I am often asked, “How did you know about this?” http://www.seecalifornia.com/events/california-events.html

Some of the places in Mexico shown by The Crazy Tourist are already on my list to visit someday. Others are new to me: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-mexico/. Either way, I am looking forward to that time when we can travel broadly again and I am hoping for many more trips to Mexico. In the meantime, I’m hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in Mexico and throughout the world.

Photo credit: Rafael Cisneros Méndez https://unsplash.com/photos/28PdNL1PE9s