Dr Gabriela Jauregui

Caitlin Morrissey

So, Gabriela, what is the DNA of Mexico City to you?

Gabriela Jauregui

I think the DNA of Mexico City to me is its multi-layered, sort of cake-like diversity of myth and reality and of different timeframes simultaneously coexisting. So I feel like the past is very much alive in the present, and it’s a city that lets you have glimpses of the future also from the present. Unlike other cities which have beautiful ruins but the past is the past and the present is the present or cities where you’re already living in the future, I feel like the DNA of Mexico City has to do with the intertwining of past, present and future in a very unique way.

Caitlin Morrissey

What a fabulous place to get us started. And I want to come back to the very first sentence that you said and to ask you more about the mythical quality of the city in relation to, or perhaps in contrast to, the realities of the city.

Gabriela Jauregui

I mean, it’s funny how actually the mythical has very much to do with the real, which is the fact that the city was founded, you know, in a legend that said that they should find the Aztecs, you know, the Mexica peoples would find an eagle eating a serpent on top of a cactus, which as you know is in the middle of the Mexican flag. It’s like, you know, the Mexican emblem. The cactus and the eagle and the serpent were in the middle of a lake, which is a very strange place to build a city. Usually, as we all know, cities are built next to rivers. Ancient cities and not-so-ancient cities are always strategically located next to a body of water. But this city is located on top of a body of water because of that myth or because of that legend. So it’s something that very much is part of, again, the DNA of the city. It’s not something that was like, you know, oh, yeah, Olympus over there. It was like, ‘no, right there in the middle of that lagoon, that’s where you will build the city.’ Which, you know, it’s also a feat of not only of the imagination but just of infrastructure and engineering.

Caitlin Morrissey

And what is it that makes Mexico City, Mexico City?

Gabriela Jauregui

In addition to all of this that I’ve just said, I think that there are many things that make it the vibrant sort of very much alive and intense city that it is. And to me, one of those is the markets. It’s a market city and it’s been since ancient times. Like, yeah, the amount of street vendors and small stalls and big markets and markets that take up entire streets or neighbourhoods once a week or twice a week or which are there all the time. It’s a city of markets and that’s something that I love.

So there’s the food market, the flower market, the magical potions markets for people to fall in love. I mean, there’s just so many different specialised-- you know, the markets for selling old car parts. So you name it, there’s a market for it. And so that, to me, is something that makes Mexico City, Mexico City.

And then something else is earthquakes. There’s something about the way the earth shifts and the fact that there’s a lake underneath the earth shifting or with the earth shifting that makes the topography but also the architecture and the feeling for better or worse of the city very much its own thing.

Caitlin Morrissey

How does the vulnerability of the earthquakes and knowing that this lake pre-exists the city, how does that shape mindsets? Because there’s a sense of jeopardy, or we heard the term survival a lot used in relation to Mexico City. But from your point of view, how does the ecological conditions of the city and the environmental conditions shape the way that lives are lived in Mexico City?

Gabriela Jauregui

I mean, on the one hand, I feel like we go back to the myth. It’s kind of a miracle that the city stands. It’s an everyday ongoing miracle. The fact that subways run, the fact that people move from-- it’s also a very immense city. So the fact that millions of people are moving around constantly every day, I mean, it makes you-- it’s no surprise to me that so many people believe in all kinds of saints and sort of, yeah, have faith in all kinds of things because it’s such a miracle that everything works.

Greg Clark

Gabriela, is it a superstitious city?

Gabriela Jauregui

I would say beyond superstitious. I would say there’s something religious about it. I mean, people have very serious commitments to anything from like Saint Jude, who as you know is the saint of lost causes. And I mean, Saint Jude is huge in Mexico City, but also Saint Death, la Santa Muerte, you know, who is obviously, you know, protecting people who are the most vulnerable who are risking it all. But also the Virgin of Guadalupe, which is a huge, you know, huge person in the Catholic Church, or not a person, a huge virgin, you know, one of the many virgins, but a huge one. Because she appeared in Mexico City on top of a mountain, or so, you know, legend has it. And she’s a virgin that incarnates sort of the mixing of races, the intermixing of not just Catholicism and Aztec, Mexica religion, but also she’s a half-moon because there had been so many Moors that had come with the Spaniards. So she has the half-moon to bring, you know, convert the Muslims, but there’s the stars to convert the Jewish people who had been expelled from Spain. So she’s like a very much a figure that was an amalgam of so many different things. And the fact that she appeared in Mexico City, I think is, you know, another one of these things. So I really do think-- and, you know, as you know, every December 12th, there are millions of people coming from all over the country, but also from all over the world to go on pilgrimage to that mountain where she appeared and to Basilica where the image, the alleged image of her is.

To me, it goes beyond superstition. It’s truly like a faithful thing to all these people. The Saint Death is also a very big faithful thing. And again, no surprise, I mean, everything’s held on by like, you know, strings and chewing gum and a lot of, you know, goodwill.

And I think that you guys mentioned the word survival and I’m also thinking of the word solidarity. When people think of big cities like Mexico City with so many millions of people, you know, I think the metaphor, cliché metaphor is like, yeah, it’s a jungle out there kind of thing. But at the worst times in the city’s history, which to me are earthquakes that have collapsed dozens of buildings, hundreds of victims, et cetera, people really come together. And it’s not the government, it’s not the army, it’s not the whatever, or big companies, nothing. It’s just regular people coming together to save other people, to help other people, to bring food. It’s just been really in the middle of a world that seems to be collapsing and a city that seems so chaotic and intense and at times also violent, also, that glimpse of hope of bringing people together in the midst of disaster is something that is part of the DNA of the city as well, I really do think.

Greg Clark

Brilliant Gabriella, thank you.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much. Everything you’re saying is so vivid. And I wanted to ask you about how many different Mexico cities there are. Is there one Mexico City? Are there many? And if there is indeed plurality, what is the tapestry that holds Mexico City together?

Gabriela Jauregui

Yeah, that’s a good and difficult question because, you know, it would be impossible to say there’s one Mexico City. And I want to say there’s as many Mexico City’s as there are Mexico City dwellers, you know, in the sense that we each, I think, have our own experience of the city because of the neighbourhood we grew up in, but then the neighbourhood that we have moved to if there’s been that movement. But because of the way we move around in the city, if you have to take the subway or the bus and how long and what for and-- so I feel like there are 20 million Mexico City’s which is, you know, yeah, okay, that sounds great, but what does that mean? I don’t know, that’s why I said the question is good but difficult. Because if there are 20 million Mexico City’s, then what is that tapestry and how is it held together? I’m not sure. It is a difficult thing to think about.

I think that part of it has to do with it’s a city where people really use public space. So it’s a city where you live outside a lot. And this happens, I guess, in some big metropolis of the world. But it’s not a big, let’s hang out indoors kind of place, perhaps because of what you were saying, the weather. You know, the weather permits that. If we were in Toronto, then, you know, half of the year, you really have no way to be outside and use public space in that way. So I think that part of what holds us together is the fact that all 20 million of us with our 20 million cities in our hearts and minds have to live sort of in friction or in contact, very close contact in the subway, with each other on the streets. And of course, this doesn’t erase the problematics of class, for instance, because it’s not the same for people who live in the sort of heart of the city than those who live on the periphery and have to literally travel for four hours in public transportation. That’s why I’m saying there’s so many different cities. But even that tapestry sometimes gets really frayed because of that. But at the same time, at the end of the day, we’re all sort of there pushing against each other or helping each other when the time comes and when it’s needed.

So I would say that, yeah, the uses, the different uses of public space and the fact that we are out there hustling, moving, buying, shopping, heckling, whatever, all of the above, honking horns or whatever, all of that is also what holds the tapestry together and what starts to fray it at the edges.

Caitlin Morrissey

When you think about the people who live in Mexico City and have chosen to call it home, who lives in Mexico City? I know it’s an impossible question to answer because as much as there are as many different cities as there are Mexico City dwellers, I think it would be difficult to summarise all of are the reasons for people living in Mexico City. But if you were to tell us about the promise of Mexico City, what is or what are the promises of the city or the opportunities of the city to those who live there?

Gabriela Jauregui

Well, I think that one, which is pretty obvious, but it’s true, is the economic promise. So of course, being a huge city, there’s always the promise of jobs. So there’s a lot of people who-- internal migration from different parts of the country to Mexico City in search of opportunities, work opportunities. But also I would say education. I have a lot of friends who come from different and from rural communities or Indigenous communities who come to Mexico City to go to university, for example. Because there’s the biggest public university in the Americas is the UNAM, which is a city inside the city. And that’s a huge draw, for instance. So I think that those things are obvious magnets of the city.

And then, yeah, that makes the city, I think, diverse, plural, chaotic. It’s also, for instance, to me, one of the-- something I love about the city is the subway system and how it all has very visual things. You know, every single subway stop has a visual thing that you can associate because so many people don’t necessarily read Spanish. So that tells you a lot about the inhabitants, like who lives in the city and who moves around the city. It’s all kinds of people, right, from all kinds of walks of life, including people who will be reading signs through, you know, little symbols rather than through words. And this, again, goes to say it’s a tough city in the sense that there are huge class differences and you have, you know, what do you call those, like, gated communities with people who have panic rooms and that kind of wealth. And then, you have people who can’t read and can’t speak Spanish because they come from a very distant community and are now faced with the reality of a huge metropolis, right? And who maybe didn’t have electricity or things like escalators. So that’s-- imagine escalators, you know, what a trip, and you know, to go in and out of the subway, you have tons of escalators. So yeah, the short and long answer to that is so many, so many different people.

And even in recent times, again, this has been a big debate for better or worse, there are lots of ‘digital nomads’, you know, who have arrived, which has, again, torn and frayed that fabric because of rent going up, because of then evictions, because then things like Airbnb. And as you know, because this has happened in many big cities around the world, then you have empty apartments, things that actually do tear at the fabric of a city. So there’s a lot of different problematics going on simultaneously.

And this also, again, goes to this idea of simultaneous times. I mean, you will see people who are still following Mexica cults who still speak Nahuatl and who are at the same time, you know, I don’t know, using a smartphone and doing this and that and the other. And then at the same time you have the big problems of the cities of the future and all of those implications.

So there’s also a big problem with water scarcity, which is a problem I think of, you know, that is pointing to the future of the world. So yeah, it’s a city that I think is also like, kind of like a lighthouse, you know, that shows you a way of where to go or where not to go. Don’t go and crash against those rocks or whatever. It’s a little like that. It’s also telling us, like, it speaks from the future and saying like these are going to be huge problems. What are we going to do about them? What are we imagining? Can we change this? And if you can change it in a massive city like that, maybe there’s hope, you know, or is there etc. So yeah, big questions.

Caitlin Morrissey

I wanted to ask you, you’ve mentioned over the interview that this is a place where people live outside and we have a question here about sort of physical, infrastructural or architectural features that shaped Mexico City. But perhaps we could add into that public spaces, and I was really interested in what you said at the beginning about markets. But what are some of the other sort of elements of Mexico City’s built form that shaped the character of the city?

Gabriela Jauregui

I wouldn’t stress enough the fact that it’s built on a lake and that the main avenues that still exist were traced by the Mexica, by the Aztecs. One of the big feats of engineering and one of their inventions for the world was the way they figured out how to build on water which had never been done in that way before. And so the fact that those still stand today and that we still, you know, we drive Teslas on them, but we also drive huge trucks, you know, that are exporting I don’t know what to the US and, you know, they’re leaving from the city there. The fact that, you know, all of that is still holding the basic infrastructure of what the city looks like.

And that the city is still traced, you know, albeit chaotically, you know, urban planning doesn’t work and, in certain neighbourhoods, especially in the periphery, they’ve just grown because of migration. But the fact that the heart of the city is still that  plan from before the Spaniards came and that it’s-- the main centre, the square, the big Zócalo at the heart of the city is right next to the temple, things like that. And that they build the main cathedral right there for many reasons, right? Political, religious and otherwise. You know, it organises the way people perceive the city. Even from the periphery or as a contrast, by contrast or by default, this is still very much how the city is structured.

And then of course, the fact that it’s surrounded by volcanoes and mountains. So it makes it a lake, built on lake, surrounded by very-- it’s also a high altitude city. So surrounded by volcanoes and that makes its own conditions also. And the fact that then there are certain limitations to where the city can grow, but also certain feats of human spirit, where people have built on the sides of, you know, yeah, of old craters of volcanoes. I mean, can you imagine? Or where people have built on, what do you call this, volcanic stone is a very important building element, right? But it’s also an element that if you’re coming into these-- especially in the ‘70s, where a lot of people migrated to the city to these areas that were completely rocky, full of rattlesnakes. I mean, can you imagine? And then they built their homes there and they figured out ways to bring water there where there was none. All kinds of things that have been done by the inhabitants to make the city liveable for them where it didn’t seem possible is also to me kind of astounding and has made the city what it is. You know, this big urban stain that grows and that again, defies the imagination really.

Greg Clark

May I just jump in, Gabriela? I think, in a brilliant way, two different things that I just want to know how you think they relate. So on the one hand, you’ve just made this series of points about it being a city on a lake surrounded by mountains, some of which are volcanic, at a high altitude and with this amazing environmental and climatic conditions that have given rise to all of these innovations in how the city is built and made and remade. There’s a physicality to this. And then you’ve also described a people who are devotional, vulnerable, miraculous, sacramental, culturally plural, and anthropologically coexisting in very different kinds of cycles. And what’s the relationship between this incredible physical and environmental phenomena and this very distinctive kind of manifestation of human spirit in the way that you’ve described it? How do these two things relate?

Gabriela Jauregui

That’s a good question. I feel like maybe the sort of improbable insanity of the city’s physical nature has brought the improbable insanity of the city’s dwellers, right? It’s like, you know, I feel like it’s almost the metaphor that comes to mind or the image that comes to mind is like the opposite of, you know, those monoculture fields where you just have endless rows of whatever wheat or corn. This is like you have wheat and you have corn and you have trees and some are tall and some are tiny and then you have bushes and then there’s raspberries and then there’s, you know, papaya and then there’s-- it’s like, what? All of these things together in one place? How is that possible?

So I think that even perhaps despite what one would think that such a potentially hostile place in the sense that, yeah, okay, volcanoes and lakes don’t sound like the ideal place to build a giant metropolis, which also, by the way, was a giant metropolis back in its day that had more inhabitants than Rome at some point, you know, it’s just a huge city back in the day and still today. I think that perhaps the sheer audacity of it calls people somehow.

As you know, the original name for it in Nahuatl and for the Mexicas was the ‘navel of the moon’. There’s also something, again, to go back to the idea of the mythical, the spiritual. I think that there really is something that calls people there and that keeps you there, despite the fact that you’re like, why? Why am I breathing all this crap or why? Why am I, you know, putting up with this, that or the other? And despite the fact that so many people are dreaming about going back to their little village up in the hills where they can be with their families, there’s something that keeps us there, that draws us to it and that even draws people from other places in the world, right? And yeah, I guess it might be, yeah, the sheer, like I said, audacity of the fact that it exists.

Greg Clark

I’m thinking that you’re describing now a kind of magnetic nature that it has a kind of a magnetic audacity to use your word.

Caitlin Morrissey

This has been truly fantastic. I wanted to ask you what you see as Mexico City’s distinctive role in Mexico and in the Spanish-speaking Americas and perhaps even the world more broadly. What is distinctive about Mexico City at these different scales?

Gabriela Jauregui

I think that, you know, we can’t-- I mean, despite everything sort of more-- this sort of magnetic mystical thing that I just said, I think that there’s actual socio-economic reasons for the fact that Mexico is such an important city in the Americas. Of course, it’s the northernmost metropolis. So if we have amazing places like Rio or São Paulo or Bogotá. I love Bogotá. But this is the city that is both looking north and south, right? It has a very direct line, for better or worse, with the United States, with the global north. And it has a very direct line because it is part of the global south. And it is one of these places where both the western world and the non-western world coexist in absolute chaos, in absolute harmony, like I said, in this really weird, magical way. But they’re both very present, right? There are cities that are huge, where one or the other is prevalent, and this is a city where both are very present. And so this creates, again, economic opportunities.

Of course, are huge transnational companies have their headquarters there. And what does that mean? Well, that means a bunch of CEOs and people are coming from abroad, but they’re employing a lot of people from there, or even from South America who come there, from Central America who come there. So there’s that aspect to it.

Then I also think that, yeah, the fact that it’s a market city. This again reflects the fact that all these people want to put their companies there. It’s a market city. It’s a city where things are exchanged constantly. Whether we call it market in the capitalist sense, but also in the most ground grassroots sense, like people literally putting their wares out on like a cloth in the ground, right, and bringing-- I don’t know, some people sell like the craziest stuff like, here’s an old, I don’t know, bathroom stopper. And that’s for sale. And you’re like, what? You know, the most important, it’s an old bathroom stopper, like who would? And it’s like, yeah. There’s someone out there who’s going to buy that next to like an old GI Joe figure next to a t-shirt that, you know-- I don’t know. It’s crazy. It’s amazing, I love it.

Greg Clark

Isn’t it surreal, Gabriela? It’s surreal, isn’t it?

Gabriela Jauregui

Yeah, I mean, no wonder, you know, when was it? Artaud or Breton and when they all came to visit, they were like, oh, surrealism is actually a real life thing and it lives well and prospers in Mexico, right? And I don’t want to romanticise the whole thing. There’s obviously a lot of hardship, a lot of colonial tensions that are still very much alive and that creates some of the surrealism and some of the amazing magic. But there’s also, of course, a legacy of violence and genocide and, you know, so I don’t want to only romanticise.

But I do have to say that to me, one of the things that make it such a special place is that despite all the horrors and pain and, you know, yeah, the colonial legacy of, you know, extermination, but also earthquakes, but also floods, but also blah, blah. Despite all of that, somehow we all manage to live there. That’s like what?

Greg Clark

Is there a moral meaning in that, Gabriela? Is it a message to people that actually the way to live is with imperfection and jeopardy and plurality and diversity and that actually if you’re going to live once, live here? I mean, is that the message?

Gabriela Jauregui

I mean, I don’t know. I certainly find that a beautiful message, despite, like I said, it’s darker implications or it’s more difficult implications. But I do find it an example of how to live messily and in most entangled, complicated ways and yet still live, right? And of course, you know, without forgetting that there are people who barely live, right, who are surviving and not living, which is a big problem in cities like Mexico City. So I wouldn’t-- like I said, I don’t want to over romanticise because it would be irresponsible and also like, just unhelpful and unreasonable really.

The politics are very frayed, right? But I also find it an interesting thing that despite all this chaotic thing and the religious aspects and so on, it’s also the first place in Mexico that had such a huge acceptance of now two women who were at the front of the city, one of which is now the president of the country. And we can think whatever of whether we’re liking or disliking or whatever, but it is a huge phenomenon in a country that has been traditionally very macho, like I said, very Catholic, etc. And the implications of that for women. I think it’s also a feat of the city itself that has allowed that plurality, that diversity, that complexity and messiness has allowed for space for two women to succeed politically in such a huge way in a place where there was not necessarily the space for that. And yeah, of course there’s a long history of how that was built and like, know, political movements and, you know, women’s movements, et cetera. But I really do think that it’s also the nature of the city that has bubbled and percolated that.

Caitlin Morrissey

I’m really pleased that you just said that because one of the reasons we were really looking forward to talking to you is partly because you’re a poet and you’re a writer but also because you’re involved in women’s movements. And I wanted to ask you about Mexico City as a platform or a place for both of those, for political movements and activism and particularly women’s activism but also as a place for creativity and literature and poetry. And two different questions, but what does Mexico City provide for these movements and that creativity to flourish?

Gabriela Jauregui

Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, for the women’s movement, there are certain things that I think are unequivocal victories, such as, for example, Mexico City was the first place where the right to decide for abortion was allowed in Mexico, or decriminalised and then allowed, years and years ago. And so that’s like undoubtfully a big victory.

At the same time, I think that part of the reason that these women’s movements are so strong is because there is a lot of violence. So there’s a lot to push back against and a lot to try to really solve. There’s huge amounts of femicide. There’s also lots of disappearance, forced disappearance. There’s, I can’t remember now, the rape-- the amounts of the rapes are also astounding. Really, so I just went into the sort of beautiful and celebrate, the aspects of the city that I celebrate. But there’s also, like I said, very much more sombre things that we can’t forget. We have to hold on to both of these things and their complexity. And so yeah, I think that part of the reason why the women’s movements have become so strong is because the violence has also become so intense. And so it’s become a matter of survival, right? Especially for women on the periphery of the city or the neighbourhoods at the outskirts. Of course, the more, like I said before, the more central neighbourhoods are more affluent. There’s more public lighting. There’s more public transportation at different hours. So just by nature of those things, women are a little safer. The more you move out, if you have to come back after four hours of public transportation to your house and there’s no public lighting, I mean, it just gets a little tricky or very tricky.

So the amount of violence against women is also, I think, at the root of the strength of women coming together as a movement to demand justice for all of this and to really organise and think about how we’re going to change this at the public policy level. But also on the grassroots level there’s beautiful things like women who take care of women coming back from the bus stop in neighbourhoods at the periphery, all kinds of things like that. I think that that’s also by nature of the size and intensity and class differences and racism in the city, the women’s movement has had to step up and really be a voice for justice, or hopefully, right? So that’s one, that side of things.

There’s also, for instance, in Mexico, this is another peculiar phenomenon of the city, I think. There’s a lot of anti-monuments. So you have monuments and then you have anti-monuments. And anti-monuments are markers or reminders or sort of sites to memorialise very painful things. And there’s a round-- do you call it a roundabout or I forget what it’s called, you know, like, yeah. And the women’s movement took it over despite the city government or against the city government, they had toppled-- if I’m not mistaken, they had toppled a Columbus statue there. This was during the pandemic. And so the government was like, ‘okay, what are we going to rename this roundabout? We’re going to put a statue and maybe it’ll be of, you know, a woman, Indigenous woman perhaps, da, da, da.’ And the women’s movement was just like, ‘forget about your official discourse, forget about this.’ And they just put up an anti-monument and it’s a little girl, you know, metal painted in purple, a little skirt with, you can see it’s just like the silhouette, it’s a flat metal sculpture that symbolises the struggle against femicide, against violence, gender-based violence. And it’s been an ongoing struggle, even with women in the government, but just a state versus people kind of struggle to really keep that place to-- then the government put a big fence around it. And so then the women went and painted all the names of victims of femicide or disappeared, or the names of women who have been justice fighters for the women’s movement, and so on around it. It’s a place where women go and meet and organise for marches and things. So that’s that particular anti monument. There are several others, each of one merits their own little history.

But in any case, this also exemplifies how the women’s movement is in constant sort of tension with the state. Right? It brings about changes, but it also keeps pushing against certain things and finds a lot of resistance within the state, even with, you know, women who are at the forefront of the city’s government and so on. It’s really, yeah, interesting, painful, all of the above.

Greg Clark

It occurs to us, Gabriela, that we’ve heard a few people, including Gabriella Gómez-Mont, say that the constitutionalising of Mexico City, the creation of this charter, this agreement, is not just, as it were, a legal mechanism. It’s actually the sort of the casting of a new social contract around diversity, equality, mutuality of respect, freedom of expression, freedom of identity. How important is that constitution from your point of view and what is important about it?

Gabriela Jauregui

I mean, I always think that the State is one step behind. So one thing I would like to underscore is that the Constitution is the result of grassroots movement, of people organising, and not the State being wonderfully open and forward-looking and saying like,’ oh, we are such a plural place. Let’s make this into a charter’ or whatever. It’s the result of years and years of all kinds of different groups struggling to enact laws to protect certain things, enact laws that will help to protect green spaces, all kinds of things, right? There’s all kinds of things in that Constitution. So I think that obviously it’s great that it exists, but, you know, I don’t feel like so excited about the fact that the government made it happen, but rather the people made it happen and how because of that, there’s also lots of things that are pending, right? And that, you know, I think the last reform happened last year. And there are a lot of people in grassroots movements, especially in the area, for example, of Xochimilco, which is another one of these amazing things in the city. It’s where there are these canals that sort of remain from the time before the Spaniards came. And it is where a lot of the city’s food has been historically, you know, that’s where people plant and sow a lot of the food that feeds the city, right? And it’s a lot of different constitutionally, it’s a lot of different sort of villages that come together. And then this new Constitution wanted to make a reform so that there are no longer these independent villages. So again, like anything that has to do with the State, lots to be celebrated, but also lots to be, let’s say, problematised or questioned because it can become a mechanism that erases precisely the difference in plurality that is to be celebrated and protected, right? So double-edged sword like a lot of things, right? But in any case, I think it’s an interesting document regardless and that not many cities have such a document, really. So that’s interesting in and of itself.

Greg Clark

Exactly.

Gabriela Jauregui

Yeah. And then, Caitlin, I didn’t answer the second part of your question, which was the more cultural arts thing that’s happened in the city. And I think that, again, if we think about the universities and the fact that it is an economic centre, etc. This has brought a lot of people, or the people who are already there, have the opportunity to really find ways to flourish. There’s so many, for instance, one thing that comes to mind, there’s so many independent bookstores in the city. It’s quite beautiful to witness how they’ve done well in a city where you would think, you know, maybe this is a very bad idea to open a small bookstore. And they actually work, and not just in affluent neighbourhoods. Also in different neighbourhoods. I think that’s really something to be celebrated. And that is a reflection of the fact that people enjoy culture in the city. People love going to concerts. There’s lots of massive outdoor concerts. There’s many plazas in different neighbourhoods where, like on Sundays, people play music and people come together to dance. Which is, I mean, beautiful.

I remember a friend visiting from abroad and she was shocked that older people were occupying public space and not just occupying it, they were making out, they were dancing and kissing and sort of, you know, touching each other in public space. She was mind blown. And I was like, wait, what? Obviously, I couldn’t see it because I had been seeing it my entire life. But it was in these Sunday dances that a lot of that happened. And I was like, oh, right, that’s pretty amazing and magical. It’s true that you don’t necessarily see a lot of older people hanging out and making out and being, you know, yeah-- being in their bodies and enjoying their bodies in public space alongside really young people or, you know, whatever. So anyway, that’s something that I love culturally.

And then, yeah, of course this has brought not just writers from Mexico City, but like I said, writers from different parts of the country or artists or painters or filmmakers. For instance, the big film school is in Mexico City, surprise, surprise. I mean, there is a problem that, you know, a lot of things are centralised there. But yeah, it has become a cultural capital or it has always been a cultural capital of the world, but now rediscovered by the global north or whatever where they’re like, ‘oh yeah’.

I remember, I distinctly remember in the 2000s there were so many art shows for contemporary art in like New York and London and Germany or whatever that was like up and coming, like Mexico, up and coming this or up and coming that, you know? And I was like, all right, sure. And then again, yeah, there’s a real thing where you have filmmakers like, I don’t know, Cuaron or Iñárritu who have made films about the city, very much in the city, and who have suddenly been, you know, awarded huge prizes, at whatever, Cannes, Venice, or the Oscars or whatever. And that, of course, disseminates in a worldwide way knowledge or feelings or a vision of Mexico City that perhaps wasn’t available to people before.

So there’s definitely a lot of work, you know, by artists of all kinds, visual arts, but theatre, film, poetry, etc emanating, let’s say, from Mexico City and going out into the world. I also think that there’s many more writers who are translated from Mexico, not just Mexico City, but of course, like I said, it is very centralised in that way. So yes, a lot from Mexico City who are being translated or, like I said, produced or, you know, who have galleries around the world, which wasn’t necessarily the case 25 years ago, right? It’s been in the last two decades that this really sort of, you know, grew.

And then I remember some article that was very much, you know, very problematic, but that said, ‘Mexico City is the new Berlin’ in terms of contemporary art or whatever. And people in Mexico City were like, ‘hell no, Mexico City is the new Mexico City’ you know? And I think that everything that we’ve been discussing goes to show that yes, Mexico City is the new Mexico City and the old Mexico City and the future Mexico City. But also yes, that there is some kind of way of looking at it from the outside. I mean, the fact that you have invited me to discuss this here goes to show that people are looking at Mexico City or paying attention or wanting to hear more about Mexico City from other places in the world.

Greg Clark

Gabriela, what you’ve just described is fascinating and compelling. And actually, it’s making me very happy just to hear everything you’ve said about Mexico City as a place of creative production. One thing we haven’t spoken about yet, but you started to say something about it when you said, you know, it’s the most northern of the great Latin metropolis. Yeah. You know, further north than São Paulo, Bogotá, Rio, Buenos Aires. It’s also very close to another country called the United States of America. And I suppose what I want to just invite you to talk about is how Mexico City’s self-promotion of this new, not new-- self-promotion of this cultural identity of-- as you said Mexico City is the new Mexico City. It’s the old Mexico City. It’s the future Mexico City. How is any of that conditioned by or a response to being so close to the USA?

Gabriela Jauregui

I think it’s both, right? It’s sometimes in contrast or in response or in resistance to. Other times or in many things also part of and very much, I mean, you people, yeah, you can feel, there’s something about it. The presence of the global north and specifically the US in Mexico that is pretty palpable, that isn’t at all palpable in the same way at all, let’s say in Argentina or in Colombia. That’s just, again, the idea even in the ‘90s that Mexico would enter ‘modernity’ by being a part of the North American Free Trade Agreement. And suddenly, by waving a magic wand, Mexico was now part of North America and not Central America or Latin America or whatever. I mean, there is both, I think, a resistance to and a real wanting to be a part of and a tension between the two. Constant tension between the two.

Greg Clark

So love and hate?

Gabriela Jauregui

Definitely love and hate. And you can really feel the aspirations of wanting to be a part of the so-called first world, you know? And also the sort of nationalism that sometimes just like pops up in reaction to the imperialism or the presence of the US in a very strong way, right? It’s, yeah, it’s hard. There’s a really famous saying by a horrible 19th Century Mexican dictator, Porfirio Díaz, who famously said, you know, ‘Poor Mexico, so close to the United States, so far away from God’. And it’s true.

Greg Clark

But what you’ve been telling us is very different. That Mexico is so close to God and in a funny way so far away from the United States despite being so close. And I think you’ve reversed that phrase.

Gabriela Jauregui

Yes, Greg, yes.

Greg Clark

By the way, I did live in Mexico City very briefly 40 years ago. And I remember the common phrase for Coca-Cola was ‘Las aguas negras del imperialismo yanqui’ which is very, you know, ‘the black waters of Yankee imperialism’ And I just thought it was so funny that I used to laugh every time I heard this phrase. But anyway, thank you so much, Gabriela for that.

Caitlin Morrissey

I thought we could end with the huge question of what does the future hold for Mexico City and how will its DNA shape that future?

Gabriela Jauregui

Keyword, I guess, is resilience, right? I mean Mexico City has survived and transformed itself for at least 500 years, if not longer, right? And so if that has been possible, I think anything’s possible. At the same time, as I mentioned before, there are huge daunting problems to be solved in order for that survival or resilience to be possible. Namely, I think the water, the issue of water. Paradoxically, in a city that was built on a lake, it’s mind-boggling and really frustrating and enraging, really.

But I really think that if there is a way toward the future, I think that there’s already small examples of it happening in very particular, quote unquote, ‘peripheral or marginalised neighbourhoods’ that have come up with insanely amazing and creative solutions to gather water, for example, to come together as neighbours. So again, let’s end on a hopeful note in the middle of the world burning and climate change and all and crazy oligarchs taking over.

I do think that to me at least, the hope lies in those small pockets of grassroots, people coming together, neighbours with neighbours to find creative solutions to the urgent problems of climate injustice or injustice in general and structural inequality. And I think that Mexico City has been historically very creative and good at that. And hopefully, if there is a future for the city, that is going to be the way to find it.

And it had and to look, to go back to that DNA where times coexist to look back into the past what has worked what hasn’t into the motley mix of the present to create and build that future. I mean, if that happens, we’re going to be okay. But you know, it’s also kind of a dream and a wishful thinking, but why not? It’s happening. It’s already happening in small pockets.