Love, Power, and the Narcos:
A Mythology of Mexico
written by: Lasara Firefox Allen
On the taxi ride from León to San Miguel de Allende, the first thing I notice is that the poverty-forward Mexico of my youth is apparently a thing of the past––at least in Guanajuato. As the winter sun warms the arid high-desert landscape, we speed past outposts, homesteads, and small cities along the rugged highway. In comparison to Oakland, where I’ve been living for the past three years, it looks like the gulf between the haves and have-nots is immensely narrower here. From the road, I don’t see a single tent encampment or hobbled together assortment of plywood-and-plastic shacks. To my eyes, compared to the US at this point in history, Mexico appears to be an economic heaven.
Our driver races along the rural road in the midmorning sun, and we see few vehicles. This gives the armored police vehicle heading in the opposite direction a stark appearance. It’s a brash contrast to the few nondescript, older jalopies intermittently bouncing along the rough roadway. Sirens are off, but red and blue lights strobe aggressively from the mini-tank.
Immediately behind the imposing bulk of the vehicle boldly stating POLICIA on the sides rolls a nearly as massive, black, armored, open-top jeep. It looks kind of like a more elegant and understated Hummer, but built for intimidation–not gaudy American flash. There are two men, dressed in black from head to toe–including full-coverage face masks and gloves– standing in the back. Strapped with completely black assault rifles, hands on the roll-bar, they stand, faces braced against the wind and bodies on alert.
“Did you see that?” I turn and ask my travel partner, Mandy, my eyes a little bit wide. I need a reality check. She silently nods yes.
In my badly broken Spanish, I attempt to ask our driver who the men are. Saying something about the area we are entering into, he speaks literally not a word of English. “Policia,” he responds, appearing absolutely unphased.
Undeterred, I press the issue. “No, los hombres con…cómo se dice? Masks?” I signal to my face. “En la ropa negra?” I say, gesturing to my body.
“Es la seguridad,” he answers with a light tone, but one of finality, waving to the surrounding area with a flourish of his hand. He is obviously calling for an end to the conversation. Taking his unsubtle cue, I drop the matter. Existing in a not-too-uncomfortable silence, we drive on.
As we arrive in the colonial city of San Miguel de Allende, I’m stricken by how much the place reminds me of sweet days, years ago, in Palestine; the aesthetic is subtly similar to the places I spent time in while in the West Bank years ago. Even more than that, the gentle, slow, engaged bustle of the streets feels somehow akin to the tenor of that home of my heart. I immediately feel at once wistful and at home.
The second thing I notice about the city as we navigate down the cobbled streets is the garlanded doors; all manner of dried and plastic flowers and foliage are draped generously above various lintels. It’s obviously signaling something, but I’m not yet sure what. Is it leftover from the holidays? I wonder to myself.
“¿Por qué las flores?” I ask our long-suffering driver, again patching together my words as best I can with my California Spanish and gesturing toward the doors. He’s not from San Miguel, but Leon. “No sé,” he answers, shrugging as he looks at me, bemusement dancing across his wizened face.
He drops us at the door of the home we’re staying in–17 Mesones–and unloads our bags for us. Before he can drive off, we tip him generously in the pesos we exchanged American dollars for at the airport, and thank him for the ride. Then, we head into the cool embrace of the veritable palace that will be our home for the next week.
At the top of a narrow and long set of vividly painted, shallow stairs, the apartment is huge. There’s only the two of us, but the place was built to house many more. Friend after friend dropped out of the trip in the aftermath of the descent of the ‘States into chaos, post-election, and me and my travel buddy were left with this lavish home, nonrefundable since the time was so short upon the final resignations.
At the top of the stairs we step into a simple kitchen. Through the doors and off the adjoining veranda, there are five bedrooms and three baths. On the other side of the kitchen, through another door, is a grandly appointed terrazza–and we also have roof access! Leaving our bags in the kitchen, we climb the rickety, unsubstantial metal flight to the roof to survey the city. Below us the whole of San Miguel sprawls compactly. My eyes are hungry for the sight. Ravenous. As sunlight sparkles over their ornate spires and august rounded domes, the many cathedrals gracing El Centro–the district we’re in the thick of–appear to be ancient, living things, resting in the languid afternoon warmth.
Ready to shed the sweat and strain of our overly-long journey, my travel buddy and I head back down to the apartment’s main floor, open every room, survey the spaces, and choose our domiciles for the coming days. I take the bedroom overlooking the main street, wanting to feel the heartbeat of San Miguel even in my sleeping hours.
Too amped to really rest, I shower, change clothes, and get ready to hike up the hill to the retreat space where we’ll spend much of the next five days. We arrive just in time for the welcome comida, in advance of our first writing session of the week. The food is quite good, and the company is even better. We eat together, share stories of our varyingly arduous journeys down, and begin getting to know one another.
In the first writing session, the teacher, Ariel, introduces the theme; the myth of the descent of Persephone. Of course it is, I think. After decades of working with this myth as a framework for personal growth, and having crafted relationships with these archetypes and deities, I wonder what jewel the descent will hold for me this time.
As we dive deeper in the liminal space of the workshop, themes emerge; the deals we make in order to survive. Bargains. Agency, and arrangements. I tell the story about feeling protected by men who loved me in Palestine, and how I had never experienced such a thing before. (And how, partially, that was because I let them take that role while existing in that particular world, and those particular bargains.) About the deals made that landed Persephone in the underworld, and the deals she made there as well. About sex work, and survival. About doorways and portals and passageways and descents and ascents, liminality.
During my time in San Miguel, I ask anyone willing to bear with my terrible Spanish about the men in the jeep. Every time, an impervious and innocent mask descends over the face of the person I’m addressing. “Yo no sé,” the locals insist, telegraphing, I have no idea what you’re talking about. (These are not the droids you’re looking for.)
After days of asking locals about the men we had seen riding along in the wake of the police vehicle and hearing only denials, we finally find our Helios–Luis–in the airport while killing time awaiting our flight back to the U.S. Luis is a man who smiles easily. He has a self-assured, jovial, open countenance. Over the years, Luis has seen it all, and he doesn’t mind telling us everything he knows. Luis lives in the U.S. in one of the fly-over states, but comes from a ranching family in Jalisco. He spends part of the year in each place, and will retire to Jalisco once he reaches the age where he can draw on his retirement.
“Yes,” Luis acknowledges–without hesitation–upon my query about the men in the jeep. “That was the cartel.” I ask why they were rolling with the cops. “They’re like this,” Luis says in his lavishly accented English, weaving the fingers of his hands together in a tight embrace. “The cops do one part, the cartel does the other.” He talks about how the cartel finds empty homes and establishes themselves there when they’re moving into a territory, and how “most of the time, these guys are just the guy that lives next door.” They feed the chickens in the yard, chill on the steps, engage in friendly banter with the neighbors.
Until they pull on the uniform, grab the AK, don the ski mask, and jump into the jeep. “That’s when you know they’re ready to do business.”
Luis is no-nonsense about all of it. He isn’t scared to move back to Mexico; quite the opposite. He’s very ready to get away from the racism and down-hill slide toward fascism in the US.
While it goes against every thread of the stories we’re being told and upends the mythology of certainty, I start wondering whether the relationship between Mexicans and the cartels is not the stark black-and-white affair we’ve been fed. Maybe, unbeknownst to us Americans, the cartels are not all bad.
I feel wildly uncomfortable posing this query, even inside my own head.
I don’t want to appear insensitive or off-base, so I research my hypothesis. Using a simple search on Google, “Do people in Mexico hate the cartels?” I immediately find a Reddit thread titled, “Do many Mexicans support the cartels?” Stepping into the unique underworld that is this sordid and abased forum–and which seems to be the only space in which this conversation is apparently being had–I open my mind to this almost salacious seeming inquiry, attempting to suspend judgement about the deals we all make in order to make a life.
The conversation I take in here shows a much more complex and nuanced relationship between the people and the “narcocultura” than we from the US like to think about. The lack of government support, especially in the more outlying regions of Mexico, has left many without resources. In the embattled areas, the Narcos are known to step in and fill the gaps. In rural areas, the Narcos sometimes pave roads, and provide food and water. During peak COVID, they delivered care boxes to Mexican citizens who had been otherwise forgotten. And, on an even larger sociological level, the drug trafficking money made on the international market is what infuses even the legal segments of the Mexican economy with what wealth it has.
People are divided, but there is a very clear thread emerging as I read; the Narcos use community care and infrastructural building as a tactic to create support, alongside the terrorization tactics. At least–like in sex work, where you clearly negotiate the terms up front, and know exactly what’s on offer and what’s expected–you understand for the most part the ramifications of the deal you’re making. And, while it may not always work out in your favor, it usually does.
Sometimes the trades we make of certain freedoms for other freedoms is a bargain worth the balance we strike between light and dark. Because, in the gnarled and twisted worlds we inhabit, it is true that in some cases our rapists do become our lovers. Our oppressors become our protectors. Our jailers, our providers. The cartels, la seguridad.
In the shadowed world, light and dark play off each other and create the translational power of contrast, offering both obscurity and heightened points of focus. And, momentarily hidden from sight, the assorted liminal places–sometimes bedecked with flowers befitting a feast to Kore, Persephone, and Demeter–become our only truly sovereign spaces.
In the places in between, we exist.
Lasara Firefox Allen, MSW (they/them/Mx), is the author of Jailbreaking the Goddess (Llewellyn, 2016) and Sexy Witch (Llewellyn, 2005), as well as the chapbooks The Pussy Poems and Disjointed (as contributor and editor). They have four forthcoming prescriptive nonfiction titles, including Genderqueer Menopause, slated for release between 2025–2027. Enjoying a side-focus on micro-memoir and poetry, their work has appeared in Sledgehammer Lit, LiteraryKitchen, Spooky Gaze, Tangled Locks Journal, SpillWords, Mountain Bluebird Magazine, Guilt Scar Zine, and Pulp Lit Magazine. Lasara is a Witch, nonprofit CEO, menopause and life coach, and a co-conspirator for collective liberation.
Latest posts by Lasara Firefox Allen
(see all)
Love, Power, and the Narcos: A Mythology of Mexico
Love, Power, and the Narcos:
A Mythology of Mexico
written by: Lasara Firefox Allen
On the taxi ride from León to San Miguel de Allende, the first thing I notice is that the poverty-forward Mexico of my youth is apparently a thing of the past––at least in Guanajuato. As the winter sun warms the arid high-desert landscape, we speed past outposts, homesteads, and small cities along the rugged highway. In comparison to Oakland, where I’ve been living for the past three years, it looks like the gulf between the haves and have-nots is immensely narrower here. From the road, I don’t see a single tent encampment or hobbled together assortment of plywood-and-plastic shacks. To my eyes, compared to the US at this point in history, Mexico appears to be an economic heaven.
Our driver races along the rural road in the midmorning sun, and we see few vehicles. This gives the armored police vehicle heading in the opposite direction a stark appearance. It’s a brash contrast to the few nondescript, older jalopies intermittently bouncing along the rough roadway. Sirens are off, but red and blue lights strobe aggressively from the mini-tank.
Immediately behind the imposing bulk of the vehicle boldly stating POLICIA on the sides rolls a nearly as massive, black, armored, open-top jeep. It looks kind of like a more elegant and understated Hummer, but built for intimidation–not gaudy American flash. There are two men, dressed in black from head to toe–including full-coverage face masks and gloves– standing in the back. Strapped with completely black assault rifles, hands on the roll-bar, they stand, faces braced against the wind and bodies on alert.
“Did you see that?” I turn and ask my travel partner, Mandy, my eyes a little bit wide. I need a reality check. She silently nods yes.
In my badly broken Spanish, I attempt to ask our driver who the men are. Saying something about the area we are entering into, he speaks literally not a word of English. “Policia,” he responds, appearing absolutely unphased.
Undeterred, I press the issue. “No, los hombres con…cómo se dice? Masks?” I signal to my face. “En la ropa negra?” I say, gesturing to my body.
“Es la seguridad,” he answers with a light tone, but one of finality, waving to the surrounding area with a flourish of his hand. He is obviously calling for an end to the conversation. Taking his unsubtle cue, I drop the matter. Existing in a not-too-uncomfortable silence, we drive on.
As we arrive in the colonial city of San Miguel de Allende, I’m stricken by how much the place reminds me of sweet days, years ago, in Palestine; the aesthetic is subtly similar to the places I spent time in while in the West Bank years ago. Even more than that, the gentle, slow, engaged bustle of the streets feels somehow akin to the tenor of that home of my heart. I immediately feel at once wistful and at home.
The second thing I notice about the city as we navigate down the cobbled streets is the garlanded doors; all manner of dried and plastic flowers and foliage are draped generously above various lintels. It’s obviously signaling something, but I’m not yet sure what. Is it leftover from the holidays? I wonder to myself.
“¿Por qué las flores?” I ask our long-suffering driver, again patching together my words as best I can with my California Spanish and gesturing toward the doors. He’s not from San Miguel, but Leon. “No sé,” he answers, shrugging as he looks at me, bemusement dancing across his wizened face.
He drops us at the door of the home we’re staying in–17 Mesones–and unloads our bags for us. Before he can drive off, we tip him generously in the pesos we exchanged American dollars for at the airport, and thank him for the ride. Then, we head into the cool embrace of the veritable palace that will be our home for the next week.
At the top of a narrow and long set of vividly painted, shallow stairs, the apartment is huge. There’s only the two of us, but the place was built to house many more. Friend after friend dropped out of the trip in the aftermath of the descent of the ‘States into chaos, post-election, and me and my travel buddy were left with this lavish home, nonrefundable since the time was so short upon the final resignations.
At the top of the stairs we step into a simple kitchen. Through the doors and off the adjoining veranda, there are five bedrooms and three baths. On the other side of the kitchen, through another door, is a grandly appointed terrazza–and we also have roof access! Leaving our bags in the kitchen, we climb the rickety, unsubstantial metal flight to the roof to survey the city. Below us the whole of San Miguel sprawls compactly. My eyes are hungry for the sight. Ravenous. As sunlight sparkles over their ornate spires and august rounded domes, the many cathedrals gracing El Centro–the district we’re in the thick of–appear to be ancient, living things, resting in the languid afternoon warmth.
Ready to shed the sweat and strain of our overly-long journey, my travel buddy and I head back down to the apartment’s main floor, open every room, survey the spaces, and choose our domiciles for the coming days. I take the bedroom overlooking the main street, wanting to feel the heartbeat of San Miguel even in my sleeping hours.
Too amped to really rest, I shower, change clothes, and get ready to hike up the hill to the retreat space where we’ll spend much of the next five days. We arrive just in time for the welcome comida, in advance of our first writing session of the week. The food is quite good, and the company is even better. We eat together, share stories of our varyingly arduous journeys down, and begin getting to know one another.
In the first writing session, the teacher, Ariel, introduces the theme; the myth of the descent of Persephone. Of course it is, I think. After decades of working with this myth as a framework for personal growth, and having crafted relationships with these archetypes and deities, I wonder what jewel the descent will hold for me this time.
As we dive deeper in the liminal space of the workshop, themes emerge; the deals we make in order to survive. Bargains. Agency, and arrangements. I tell the story about feeling protected by men who loved me in Palestine, and how I had never experienced such a thing before. (And how, partially, that was because I let them take that role while existing in that particular world, and those particular bargains.) About the deals made that landed Persephone in the underworld, and the deals she made there as well. About sex work, and survival. About doorways and portals and passageways and descents and ascents, liminality.
During my time in San Miguel, I ask anyone willing to bear with my terrible Spanish about the men in the jeep. Every time, an impervious and innocent mask descends over the face of the person I’m addressing. “Yo no sé,” the locals insist, telegraphing, I have no idea what you’re talking about. (These are not the droids you’re looking for.)
After days of asking locals about the men we had seen riding along in the wake of the police vehicle and hearing only denials, we finally find our Helios–Luis–in the airport while killing time awaiting our flight back to the U.S. Luis is a man who smiles easily. He has a self-assured, jovial, open countenance. Over the years, Luis has seen it all, and he doesn’t mind telling us everything he knows. Luis lives in the U.S. in one of the fly-over states, but comes from a ranching family in Jalisco. He spends part of the year in each place, and will retire to Jalisco once he reaches the age where he can draw on his retirement.
“Yes,” Luis acknowledges–without hesitation–upon my query about the men in the jeep. “That was the cartel.” I ask why they were rolling with the cops. “They’re like this,” Luis says in his lavishly accented English, weaving the fingers of his hands together in a tight embrace. “The cops do one part, the cartel does the other.” He talks about how the cartel finds empty homes and establishes themselves there when they’re moving into a territory, and how “most of the time, these guys are just the guy that lives next door.” They feed the chickens in the yard, chill on the steps, engage in friendly banter with the neighbors.
Until they pull on the uniform, grab the AK, don the ski mask, and jump into the jeep. “That’s when you know they’re ready to do business.”
Luis is no-nonsense about all of it. He isn’t scared to move back to Mexico; quite the opposite. He’s very ready to get away from the racism and down-hill slide toward fascism in the US.
While it goes against every thread of the stories we’re being told and upends the mythology of certainty, I start wondering whether the relationship between Mexicans and the cartels is not the stark black-and-white affair we’ve been fed. Maybe, unbeknownst to us Americans, the cartels are not all bad.
I feel wildly uncomfortable posing this query, even inside my own head.
I don’t want to appear insensitive or off-base, so I research my hypothesis. Using a simple search on Google, “Do people in Mexico hate the cartels?” I immediately find a Reddit thread titled, “Do many Mexicans support the cartels?” Stepping into the unique underworld that is this sordid and abased forum–and which seems to be the only space in which this conversation is apparently being had–I open my mind to this almost salacious seeming inquiry, attempting to suspend judgement about the deals we all make in order to make a life.
The conversation I take in here shows a much more complex and nuanced relationship between the people and the “narcocultura” than we from the US like to think about. The lack of government support, especially in the more outlying regions of Mexico, has left many without resources. In the embattled areas, the Narcos are known to step in and fill the gaps. In rural areas, the Narcos sometimes pave roads, and provide food and water. During peak COVID, they delivered care boxes to Mexican citizens who had been otherwise forgotten. And, on an even larger sociological level, the drug trafficking money made on the international market is what infuses even the legal segments of the Mexican economy with what wealth it has.
People are divided, but there is a very clear thread emerging as I read; the Narcos use community care and infrastructural building as a tactic to create support, alongside the terrorization tactics. At least–like in sex work, where you clearly negotiate the terms up front, and know exactly what’s on offer and what’s expected–you understand for the most part the ramifications of the deal you’re making. And, while it may not always work out in your favor, it usually does.
Sometimes the trades we make of certain freedoms for other freedoms is a bargain worth the balance we strike between light and dark. Because, in the gnarled and twisted worlds we inhabit, it is true that in some cases our rapists do become our lovers. Our oppressors become our protectors. Our jailers, our providers. The cartels, la seguridad.
In the shadowed world, light and dark play off each other and create the translational power of contrast, offering both obscurity and heightened points of focus. And, momentarily hidden from sight, the assorted liminal places–sometimes bedecked with flowers befitting a feast to Kore, Persephone, and Demeter–become our only truly sovereign spaces.
In the places in between, we exist.