#tepetongo

El sábado 7 de marzo abrimos Tepetongo. Balneario Crítico, aunque en realidad comenzamos a planearlo por ahí de octubre de 2014 y lo empezamos a socializar en los últimos días de aquel año. Ahora ya juntamos una semana “al aire” y ha sido todo un placer. 

Primero abrir el espacio a la fiesta y convivencia a lado de Habitaciones de Servicio, un gran proyecto de Daniela Ortiz (Cusco, 1985) que  “otorga visualidad a una relación de opresión (trabajadora del hogar / empleador) y confirma el componente necesariamente estético del poder” y que ya lleva unos 60 visitantes. 

Y luego con el arranque de Necrocanibal Zero el viernes 13 con la proyección de El Sicario en Cráter Invertido.  

Y con el gusto de ya tener más de 200 seguidores en la página del facedruck, para tener ya un mini giño de comunidad, tener muy buena retroalimentación de muchas de ustedes, salir publicados en la página del Museu D’Art Contemporani de Barcelona... y bueno eso fue la primer semana. 

Tepetongo está abierto y 

By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, November 22, 2014

TEPETONGO, Mexico--To Sinforiano Armenta, the mayor of a disappearing Mexican town set on sweeping plains of cactus and brush, President Obama’s immigration plan means paved roads.

It means drainage systems, covered basketball courts, clinics, and a welcome arch to greet visitors to his town of 7,000 people, which has lost three-quarters of its population since the 1970s. Just this year, the diaspora from this town in the northern state of Zacatecas has sent home $80,000 to put toward such projects. And the way Armenta sees it, if those people have legal documents, better jobs and higher incomes, they will send back even more.

“This will help our families have a better quality of life,” he said.

Political leaders in Mexico and Central America, which account for most of the undocumented immigrants in the United States, have praised Obama’s unilateral push to defer the deportation of millions of people. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto hailed the plan as the “most important measures taken in several decades.” Among undocumented immigrants, feels are more mixed. The experience of tiny Tepetongo shows some of the reasons why.

The town has a quiet, desolate feeling: empty chairs in the restaurants, houses locked and abandoned. Armenta is a family doctor whose office is across the street from city hall. He was named mayor after his predecessor shot himself. Armenta tries to stay positive, but he knows it’s a losing battle to get residents to stay.

“People had to emigrate. They could not provide education or basic needs for their children here. There were no jobs,” he said.

Those who come back often do so against their will, as deportees, or as they call them here, the “repatriated.” Last year, Armenta welcomed back 35 of them. Each one is offered a government stipend of about $1,000 to ease their transition: to buy a cow, or open a tortilla shop, learn carpentry or rent farm tools.

The amount of money Zacatecans living in the United States have sent home reached $671.4 million last year, up from $402.4 million in 2003.

Armenta wants to use that cash to make Tepetongo a livable place.

“People need to have something here so they don’t have to return to the United States,” he said.

“The streets are prettier now,” Arnulfo Rosales said, looking out at the paved main road from the lobby of the police station where he works as a receptionist. “When I left it was just rocks.”

Rosales was 23 years old in 1996, when he took off for San Francisco.

“We were really poor. My mom didn’t have a house,” he said. “We went to improve our lives. Here there aren’t jobs. The salaries don’t cover your needs.”

For more than 15 years, he worked at a Denny’s in Richmond, California, as a dishwasher, busboy and cook, while his wife waited tables. He registered his Nissan Sentra in his brother-in-law’s name and another relative signed for the loan for their house. His envied his colleagues who were legal residents who would get $7,000 or $8,000 back on their tax returns. He said he only got about $1,500, because of the one American citizen in his family, his son Luis.

“I was reading about Obama’s law yesterday, it seems good to me,” Rosales said. “But it’s not like they’re going to give you a green card or benefits.”

He noted that it would provide protection from deportation to illegal immigrants whose children were U.S. citizens. “That’s the only thing that’s going to change: you can walk around without fear. That’s good, at least.”

Rosales returned by bus to Tepetongo in June of his own accord, because he got depressed after his divorce. He had not been home in 18 years. “No visits,” he said. “It’s too many years not to see your parents. I didn’t want them to die before I could see them.”

Many Mexicans hope the reforms will alleviate such separations. Residents in Tepetongo say that their undocumented relatives in America pay as much as $10,000 to smugglers to enable them to come back for visits.

For Juan Antonio Garcia it was 28 years. He left behind his whole life in Los Angeles. He owned two houses. He ran a backyard car repair shop. His wife is an American citizen, as are his three children. His eldest son serves in the U.S. military. But police found him raising fighting cocks in his yard and discovered a bag of cocaine in one of the cars in his shop. (He says it was not his). So after a $5,000 fine and 18 months in prison he was deported back to Mexico in February.

“It’s been horrible,” he said. “I’m alone here.”

Garcia, one of the 4,257 Zacatecans deported this year, now lives in his mother’s one-story concrete home on a rise above a lake. There isn’t much furniture inside. His parents reside in Los Angeles. To pass the time, he painted the walls of the house blue. To earn a few pesos, he does ranch work as a cowboy, riding horses in leather chaps and spurs. But his wife and son send him money because he can’t get by on the pay. “The money doesn’t last,” he said.

When Garcia heard Obama’s announcement he was doubtful at first. He had been deported so many times that immigration officials had told him he would have to stay in Mexico for 20 years before he could apply to return.

“Twenty years is too much,” he said. “I have a family there. Here, there’s nothing.

“I feel like I’m a good father. My kids are not involved in gangs, drugs. They do well in school.”

He sat at the kitchen table in his mother’s silent house twisting his wedding ring.

If the Obama measure is what it claims, he said, he might have a good shot at residing again in the United States, with four American citizens in his family, including one U.S. soldier. He just needed to get back to Los Angeles.