One point that I got from the La Frontera article, which is something we discussed in class last week, is how divided as a people those who we consider "Mexicans" and "Mexican Americans" are. While last week we were talking about the different gangs, their territories, and the power/money games that divide them, this week, these men and women are further divided by their language. It was striking to me that the author stated that "we use our language against each other" and that "we oppress each other trying to out-Chicano each other, vying to be real Chicanos... there is no one Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano experince."
I wanted to relate this article to the Latino Threat Narrative article. The Threat implies that the Latino threat is a unified nation that will come and "reconquer land formerly theirs." I feel as though the La Frontera article disproves the implication that Latinos are incapable of integrating as well as of being a unified force. It seems to me that their culture is so divided within themselves trying to define who they are in relation to each other and their northern neighbors that their goals and desires are not to recapture anything. I also note that their language is proof that they are capable of integrating. They have created a hybrid of English and Spanish, therefore incorporating parts of the American community into theirs. While this article discusses how further this Spanglish alienates the border crossers, the incorporation of English into their own language shows they do reject the American community all together.
However since the Latino Threat is alive and well, especially within border states like New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, Latinos continue to inherit an identity and a language that is a social stigma. Their identities and language divide them from Americans as well as divide their own people, fragmenting their culture. As their language keeps their culture fragmented, in what ways in our own culture do we find this same linguistic divide? For example, an "AR-ange" and an "OR-ange"?
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Language: A construct
Reading the chapter from Borderlands, it brought up a lot of questions regarding language as a standard of determining cultural and nationalist identity.
Should the United States demand that immigrants learn the English language. Wasn't the United States originally developed as a "melting pot" of sorts. Didn't most of our grand parents or great grandparents come to this country, unfamiliar or unpolished with the English language, speaking with accents.
I think if an immigrant wants to integrate themselves in the United States workforce, they should learn the language well enough to perform their job at a high level, but I don't think their accent or slight imperfections in their speech should be derided, as language is inherently a construct of internationalism.
I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, and while there, my Spanish was passable at best, hard to understand at worst. The Argentine citizens always seems willing to help me find my way around, find the right word to use in a conversation, and even very interested and impressed by the fact that I was a foreigner trying to learn their language. Next year, I'm moving to Spain, and I expect to become fluent over the next year, but I don't think I'll ever sound to a Spanish person like a true Spanish speaker.
The effort to learn someone's language should be praised, not ridiculed. And if our country is made up of people who don't speak English perfectly, I think that's fine. There are plenty of people born and raised in the United States who don't speak English perfectly (myself included). Language shouldn't determine a person's right to work or live comfortably in a nation, as long as he or she know enough to perform the job or task he or she has been given.
Should the United States demand that immigrants learn the English language. Wasn't the United States originally developed as a "melting pot" of sorts. Didn't most of our grand parents or great grandparents come to this country, unfamiliar or unpolished with the English language, speaking with accents.
I think if an immigrant wants to integrate themselves in the United States workforce, they should learn the language well enough to perform their job at a high level, but I don't think their accent or slight imperfections in their speech should be derided, as language is inherently a construct of internationalism.
I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, and while there, my Spanish was passable at best, hard to understand at worst. The Argentine citizens always seems willing to help me find my way around, find the right word to use in a conversation, and even very interested and impressed by the fact that I was a foreigner trying to learn their language. Next year, I'm moving to Spain, and I expect to become fluent over the next year, but I don't think I'll ever sound to a Spanish person like a true Spanish speaker.
The effort to learn someone's language should be praised, not ridiculed. And if our country is made up of people who don't speak English perfectly, I think that's fine. There are plenty of people born and raised in the United States who don't speak English perfectly (myself included). Language shouldn't determine a person's right to work or live comfortably in a nation, as long as he or she know enough to perform the job or task he or she has been given.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Week 5 Post(Feb 7)
Anzaldua's La Frontera ties in nicely with the sentiments expressed by Waller in "Border Boda or Divorce Fronterizo." Both women discussed the idea that communication leads to the feeling of community necessary for people to feel united and proud of their heritage. However, they took different stances on how that communication should occur. Anzaldua was very clear that it should be in the Chicano language and not English while Waller advocated whatever language made the speaker most comfortable so long as communication occurred. This seems much more reasonable. How, then, can Anzaldua reasonably ask that all Americans learn essentially Spanglish to welcome the immigrant populations?
In "The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea," Medea uses sex as a weapon to manipulate and use those around her. This behavior is usually seen as masculine as is the art of Teresa Margolles and her use of dead bodies. How do these artistic pieces advocate for a masculine femininity in Mexico or do they? Is it instead a call to feminize the usual masculine behaviors and soften the interactions of the Mexican people?
In "The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea," Medea uses sex as a weapon to manipulate and use those around her. This behavior is usually seen as masculine as is the art of Teresa Margolles and her use of dead bodies. How do these artistic pieces advocate for a masculine femininity in Mexico or do they? Is it instead a call to feminize the usual masculine behaviors and soften the interactions of the Mexican people?
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Week Five Questions
1. In response to Katie's question about tying old readings into the readings from this week: I was very struck by the sentiments that Anzaldua put forth in her chapter "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" regarding the chicana plight of language and how that is directly linked to identity. Not nationality, not even race, identity. How on both sides of the border, she is told to changed the way that she speaks and interacts with others purely due to her language. This sentiments seems to be stemming from what "The Latino Threat" talked about. It describes the Latino Threat Narrative as an attack on Latino immigrants because "[they are] unwilling or incapable of integrating, of becoming part ofthe national community" (Chavez 2). This is part of the reason and Latinos are not accepted in America, they speak a different language and want to hold onto that language.
2. My own question this week also comes from the Anzaldua chapter. If we are indeed living in a "globalized" world in which the economy, the neo-liberalist "race to the bottom", currency, travel, etc. are all unifying, where does that leave language? Why do most of us in America only speak one or two languages when many Europeans speak three or more (I understand that both of those statements are overgeneralizations, but I'll use them for the sake of argument)? Is it more efficient to continue to only speak English and push English as the language of the future, or adopt more languages into the fold and learn them?
Relatedly: is a person's identity really tied up in the language that they speak as Anzaldua argues? If so, is this true for all people groups? If not, are there exceptions (such as chicanos, who seem to be pulled between two different languages/nations/races) that have a right to hold onto their native (or even hybrid) tongue?
2. My own question this week also comes from the Anzaldua chapter. If we are indeed living in a "globalized" world in which the economy, the neo-liberalist "race to the bottom", currency, travel, etc. are all unifying, where does that leave language? Why do most of us in America only speak one or two languages when many Europeans speak three or more (I understand that both of those statements are overgeneralizations, but I'll use them for the sake of argument)? Is it more efficient to continue to only speak English and push English as the language of the future, or adopt more languages into the fold and learn them?
Relatedly: is a person's identity really tied up in the language that they speak as Anzaldua argues? If so, is this true for all people groups? If not, are there exceptions (such as chicanos, who seem to be pulled between two different languages/nations/races) that have a right to hold onto their native (or even hybrid) tongue?
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Week 5: Anzaldua-Waller, Valdez-Chavez
Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera Chapter 5, exploring questions of Chicana identity, reminded me of Marguerite Waller's "Border Boda or Divorce Fronterizo?" I didn't realize it until rereading most of Waller's essay, but it's probably due in large part to the fact that Waller is (or at least seems to be, through frequent mention and quotation) an Anzaldua fan.
Both Anzaldua and Waller write of identity and lack or loss of it. But what I found to be the most striking resemblance between the two pieces is the exploration of why Chicana feminists have trouble getting along with one another in conversational settings. Waller quotes Eve Sedgwick on her theory that feminist women become caught up in "a circuit of 'intimate denegation.'" Anzaldua touches on why this denegation happens:
Because Chicanas can see themselves in other Chicanas, they become scared and defensive and begin to deny (or denegate) their relation to one another and to doubt their own identities. This whole conflict is the reason, Waller suggests, Las Comadres, once they knew each other more intimately, could no longer be wholly civil as a group. It is also, perhaps, the reason none of the Comadres were willing to address the development of the role of granddaughter/niece. Seeing themselves in a role was too dangerous to their identity to attempt to grapple with the role on more than a surface level.
The main difference I saw between Anzaldua and Waller is that Waller and the other Comadres, while generally feeling the same ambiguity and sometimes shame Anzaldua feels in regards to her language, included the language barrier in their performance piece as "a rich communication resource, allowing the story to resonate differently in relation to the different linguistic and historical background of members of the audience." While Anzaldua equates language with self and feels her whole identity is attacked when she is made to feel alienated via language, Las Comadres' piece attempted to combat this and instead employ those differences toward empowering audience members of different background at various times throughout the piece.
------
Aside from my main posting on the similarities between Anzaldua/Waller on their dealings with identity, I found the use of the press in Luis Valdez's "Zoot Suit" to be aligned with Leo Chavez's commentary on the media the excerpts we read from his book on the Latino Threat Narrative. Chavez writes of the media as turning immigrants' lives into virtual lives, objectifying Latinos (much as the "Press" as prosecutor did in the court scene in "Zoot Suit"). According to Chavez, the media has the power to create a dialogue among the people through its spectacular representation of reality. Valdez, in "Zoot Suit," further comments on this. The Press (prosecutor) gives its concluding remarks, sensationalizing the danger of gangs as a whole rather than focusing on the trial at hand. George (defense) then gives his remarks, begging the jury not to widen the reach of racism in the country, not to convict the boys based on stereotype perpetuated by the press. Of course, the jury finds the boys guilty and they are sentenced to life in prison. In the 30s and 40s, when "Zoot Suit" is set, I can imagine the media would have had such a profound influence over the public and nobody could have done much to prevent it. Now, with the Internet and countless new methods and sources, are we so bound to the portrayal by the media as then, or has the ever-growing abundance of publications desensitized us and perhaps given us more agency to develop perceptions on these events on our own?
Both Anzaldua and Waller write of identity and lack or loss of it. But what I found to be the most striking resemblance between the two pieces is the exploration of why Chicana feminists have trouble getting along with one another in conversational settings. Waller quotes Eve Sedgwick on her theory that feminist women become caught up in "a circuit of 'intimate denegation.'" Anzaldua touches on why this denegation happens:
"Chicana feminists often skirt around each other with suspicion and hesitation. For the longest time I couldn't figure it out. Then it dawned on me. To be close to another Chicana is like looking into the mirror. We are afraid of what we'll see there."
Because Chicanas can see themselves in other Chicanas, they become scared and defensive and begin to deny (or denegate) their relation to one another and to doubt their own identities. This whole conflict is the reason, Waller suggests, Las Comadres, once they knew each other more intimately, could no longer be wholly civil as a group. It is also, perhaps, the reason none of the Comadres were willing to address the development of the role of granddaughter/niece. Seeing themselves in a role was too dangerous to their identity to attempt to grapple with the role on more than a surface level.
The main difference I saw between Anzaldua and Waller is that Waller and the other Comadres, while generally feeling the same ambiguity and sometimes shame Anzaldua feels in regards to her language, included the language barrier in their performance piece as "a rich communication resource, allowing the story to resonate differently in relation to the different linguistic and historical background of members of the audience." While Anzaldua equates language with self and feels her whole identity is attacked when she is made to feel alienated via language, Las Comadres' piece attempted to combat this and instead employ those differences toward empowering audience members of different background at various times throughout the piece.
------
Aside from my main posting on the similarities between Anzaldua/Waller on their dealings with identity, I found the use of the press in Luis Valdez's "Zoot Suit" to be aligned with Leo Chavez's commentary on the media the excerpts we read from his book on the Latino Threat Narrative. Chavez writes of the media as turning immigrants' lives into virtual lives, objectifying Latinos (much as the "Press" as prosecutor did in the court scene in "Zoot Suit"). According to Chavez, the media has the power to create a dialogue among the people through its spectacular representation of reality. Valdez, in "Zoot Suit," further comments on this. The Press (prosecutor) gives its concluding remarks, sensationalizing the danger of gangs as a whole rather than focusing on the trial at hand. George (defense) then gives his remarks, begging the jury not to widen the reach of racism in the country, not to convict the boys based on stereotype perpetuated by the press. Of course, the jury finds the boys guilty and they are sentenced to life in prison. In the 30s and 40s, when "Zoot Suit" is set, I can imagine the media would have had such a profound influence over the public and nobody could have done much to prevent it. Now, with the Internet and countless new methods and sources, are we so bound to the portrayal by the media as then, or has the ever-growing abundance of publications desensitized us and perhaps given us more agency to develop perceptions on these events on our own?
Week 5: Targeted Question
Dear all,
For your blogposts due before next Monday's class, I would like you to craft responses to the following question:
If you could bring back one text from Weeks 1-4 to put into dialogue with Week 5’s readings, which would it be, and why? How is that text connected to Week 5’s readings? How does it diverge?
Have a great week, and enjoy the snowfall.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
NYtimes: In Mexico, Massacres but Claims of Progress
In Mexico, Massacres but Claims of Progress
Bernandino Hernandez/Associated Press
A body that was hanging from a pedestrian bridge before the rope slipped loose was guarded by soldiers in Acapulco last month.
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: February 1, 2011
ACAPULCO, Mexico — Only a week into the new year, 15 human heads sat outside a gleaming shopping center on the other side of the lush hills that frame this seaside resort’s big tourist hotels. Within hours, several bodies turned up in a taxi and elsewhere, bringing the number of victims to 33 in a single weekend, scattered around a side of town few visitors see.
Multimedia
Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
Platoons of federal police officers are now being used to combat the rise of violence in Acapulco.
Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
President Felipe Calderón greeted Hillary Rodham Clinton in Mexico City last month.
Readers' Comments
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Then two weeks later, the government announced that it had captured the leader of a shadowy criminal organization believed to be responsible for the mayhem, as well as for the disappearance of 20 men who came here for vacation last fall.
The twin events — the shock of yet another massacre and the government’s ability to take down those it believes responsible — define the seesawing battle for the right to claim victory at a critical juncture in Mexico’s organized crime war.
The increase in violence is indisputable. The government says more than 34,600 have been killed in the four years since President Felipe Calderón took office and threw the federal police and military at the cartels, with last year’s toll, 15,273, the heaviest yet.
Mexican and American officials, crediting American training of the military and what they consider to be an increasingly professional federal police force, point out that more than half of the 37 most wanted crime bosses announced last year have been captured or killed. The government also maintains that the last quarter of 2010 showed a decline in the pace of killings.
But the public does not seem to believe it. A poll released Jan. 11 by Mexico’s national statistics institute found that more than 70 percent of respondents believed that the country’s security had worsened since 2009.
The findings mirrored similar research by pollsters showing that, for the first time in recent years, Mexicans are more worried about safety than the economy, a near reversal from the year before.
“There is a disconnect between what the government thinks it is achieving and what the public perceives as happening,” said Denise Dresser, a veteran political analyst in Mexico City. Because Mr. Calderón “made the war the center of gravity of his term, he is now being evaluated on whether he is winning it, and the public perception is he is not winning.”
Both Mexican and American officials, who say the two countries have never worked closer in fighting crime, are facing growing pressure to prove that their strategy is working. With Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives, the Obama administration will face renewed scrutiny to account for the $1.4 billion, multiyear Merida Initiative, the cornerstone of American aid in Mexico’s drug fight.
“Right now I am concerned whether the administration is focused on giving Merida a chance,” said Representative Connie Mack, the Florida Republican who is the new chairman of a House subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. He says that while he supports the initiative, he will call hearings over what he considers the slow pace in which it has been carried out.
“There is a lack of execution,” Mr. Mack said. “We are going to find out why this is.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a visit to Mexico last week to reiterate American support for the Mexican drug fight, said $500 million in Merida money would be allocated this year.
But unlike in the past year, when the emphasis was on delivering helicopters and other equipment, United States Embassy officials said the aid this year would focus on attacking the impunity that lets criminals get away with murder, by shoring up local and state police forces and the justice system. Only about 2 percent of those charged with organized-crime-related offenses face trial in Mexico, American officials have said.
Carlos Pascual, the United States ambassador, argued that the longstanding impunity, not Mr. Calderón’s offensive, should be blamed for the violence.
“The vast majority of the violence we’ve seen over the past decade in Mexico is not because it has arisen as a result of taking on organized crime,” he said, adding, “It’s that you’ve had impunity within the country because there has never been a legacy of investing in state and local police and in a judicial system that was able to crack down and contain it.”
Alarmed at the high death toll, the Mexican Congress summoned Mr. Calderón’s top police official, Genaro García Luna, to a hearing on Monday to explain the violence here and in several northern states. Mr. García Luna said a corner was being turned, but legislators, chiefly from opposition parties, did not appear convinced.
“The country is under a security crisis, a crisis without precedent in the history of the country, a systemic crisis that you guys, Mr. Secretary, appear to ignore,” said Senator Ricardo Monreal Ávila.
Mr. Calderón, who has struggled politically since narrowly winning office in 2006, has found his proposals to revamp local policing and prevent money laundering stalled in congress. At the same time, human rights groups and the State Department, concerned over accusations of abuse and unexplained disappearances and deaths, are pressing for civilian trials of military personnel.
The coming months may prove even more challenging for Mr. Calderón because his political opponents may be wary of handing him and his party any victories ahead of the presidential election next year, which is likely to focus on security, political analysts said.
The government responds to critics by citing the many kingpins it has killed or captured. “The major networks that kidnap, extort and smuggle drugs are being taken apart,” Alejandro Poiré, the government’s security spokesman, told reporters last week. “Through this, the federal government is building true, authentic security for our country.”
But Mr. Calderón has also tried to reassure tourists and investors that Mexico is about more than drugs and thugs. He urged government officials last week to emphasize the positive about Mexico and, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, he sought to do much the same.
That message is literally plastered on billboards here carrying the slogan, “Habla bien de Aca,” urging residents and visitors to “speak well” of the city.
Acapulco has long been two towns. Along the coast is the fading playland for celebrities, with towering hotels and resorts. Over the hills is a sprawl of slums and working-class neighborhoods housing the people who clean the rooms, serve the food and drive the taxis.
With at least three drug trafficking organizations vying for smuggling routes through here, violence has exploded in the last few years, occasionally coming close to tourist sites and ushering in platoons of federal police officers and the military.
“They have put all the focus on using the military and the federal police without nearly as much attention on the other pieces you need to fight organized crime, like attacking corruption and investing in social programs to prevent it in the first place,” said Edgardo Buscaglia, a former adviser to the United Nations on organized crime.
Tourism officials here say the hotels are three-quarters or more full, though a view on the streets finds many empty restaurant tables, few trinkets moving off shelves and the city’s famed cliff divers hurling into the sea for only a smattering of applause.
“It is clear the criminals did this to Acapulco, but we do not know why the police cannot control it,” said Alejandro, a candy vendor who declined to give his full name for fear of reprisals by the police or criminals. “I have to pay a bribe to the gangs every week or I will have trouble.”
Roving patrols of masked and heavily armed federal officers and soldiers caravan through traffic, at once reassuring and rattling visitors.
“It is unsettling,” said Katherine Williams, 67, a retired teacher from Toronto. “But,” she added, waiting for a truck with soldiers to pass as she headed to a Starbucks, “I have not had any problems, and if you stick to the beach area you would never know there were any troubles here.”
The twin events — the shock of yet another massacre and the government’s ability to take down those it believes responsible — define the seesawing battle for the right to claim victory at a critical juncture in Mexico’s organized crime war.
The increase in violence is indisputable. The government says more than 34,600 have been killed in the four years since President Felipe Calderón took office and threw the federal police and military at the cartels, with last year’s toll, 15,273, the heaviest yet.
Mexican and American officials, crediting American training of the military and what they consider to be an increasingly professional federal police force, point out that more than half of the 37 most wanted crime bosses announced last year have been captured or killed. The government also maintains that the last quarter of 2010 showed a decline in the pace of killings.
But the public does not seem to believe it. A poll released Jan. 11 by Mexico’s national statistics institute found that more than 70 percent of respondents believed that the country’s security had worsened since 2009.
The findings mirrored similar research by pollsters showing that, for the first time in recent years, Mexicans are more worried about safety than the economy, a near reversal from the year before.
“There is a disconnect between what the government thinks it is achieving and what the public perceives as happening,” said Denise Dresser, a veteran political analyst in Mexico City. Because Mr. Calderón “made the war the center of gravity of his term, he is now being evaluated on whether he is winning it, and the public perception is he is not winning.”
Both Mexican and American officials, who say the two countries have never worked closer in fighting crime, are facing growing pressure to prove that their strategy is working. With Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives, the Obama administration will face renewed scrutiny to account for the $1.4 billion, multiyear Merida Initiative, the cornerstone of American aid in Mexico’s drug fight.
“Right now I am concerned whether the administration is focused on giving Merida a chance,” said Representative Connie Mack, the Florida Republican who is the new chairman of a House subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. He says that while he supports the initiative, he will call hearings over what he considers the slow pace in which it has been carried out.
“There is a lack of execution,” Mr. Mack said. “We are going to find out why this is.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a visit to Mexico last week to reiterate American support for the Mexican drug fight, said $500 million in Merida money would be allocated this year.
But unlike in the past year, when the emphasis was on delivering helicopters and other equipment, United States Embassy officials said the aid this year would focus on attacking the impunity that lets criminals get away with murder, by shoring up local and state police forces and the justice system. Only about 2 percent of those charged with organized-crime-related offenses face trial in Mexico, American officials have said.
Carlos Pascual, the United States ambassador, argued that the longstanding impunity, not Mr. Calderón’s offensive, should be blamed for the violence.
“The vast majority of the violence we’ve seen over the past decade in Mexico is not because it has arisen as a result of taking on organized crime,” he said, adding, “It’s that you’ve had impunity within the country because there has never been a legacy of investing in state and local police and in a judicial system that was able to crack down and contain it.”
Alarmed at the high death toll, the Mexican Congress summoned Mr. Calderón’s top police official, Genaro García Luna, to a hearing on Monday to explain the violence here and in several northern states. Mr. García Luna said a corner was being turned, but legislators, chiefly from opposition parties, did not appear convinced.
“The country is under a security crisis, a crisis without precedent in the history of the country, a systemic crisis that you guys, Mr. Secretary, appear to ignore,” said Senator Ricardo Monreal Ávila.
Mr. Calderón, who has struggled politically since narrowly winning office in 2006, has found his proposals to revamp local policing and prevent money laundering stalled in congress. At the same time, human rights groups and the State Department, concerned over accusations of abuse and unexplained disappearances and deaths, are pressing for civilian trials of military personnel.
The coming months may prove even more challenging for Mr. Calderón because his political opponents may be wary of handing him and his party any victories ahead of the presidential election next year, which is likely to focus on security, political analysts said.
The government responds to critics by citing the many kingpins it has killed or captured. “The major networks that kidnap, extort and smuggle drugs are being taken apart,” Alejandro Poiré, the government’s security spokesman, told reporters last week. “Through this, the federal government is building true, authentic security for our country.”
But Mr. Calderón has also tried to reassure tourists and investors that Mexico is about more than drugs and thugs. He urged government officials last week to emphasize the positive about Mexico and, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, he sought to do much the same.
That message is literally plastered on billboards here carrying the slogan, “Habla bien de Aca,” urging residents and visitors to “speak well” of the city.
Acapulco has long been two towns. Along the coast is the fading playland for celebrities, with towering hotels and resorts. Over the hills is a sprawl of slums and working-class neighborhoods housing the people who clean the rooms, serve the food and drive the taxis.
With at least three drug trafficking organizations vying for smuggling routes through here, violence has exploded in the last few years, occasionally coming close to tourist sites and ushering in platoons of federal police officers and the military.
“They have put all the focus on using the military and the federal police without nearly as much attention on the other pieces you need to fight organized crime, like attacking corruption and investing in social programs to prevent it in the first place,” said Edgardo Buscaglia, a former adviser to the United Nations on organized crime.
Tourism officials here say the hotels are three-quarters or more full, though a view on the streets finds many empty restaurant tables, few trinkets moving off shelves and the city’s famed cliff divers hurling into the sea for only a smattering of applause.
“It is clear the criminals did this to Acapulco, but we do not know why the police cannot control it,” said Alejandro, a candy vendor who declined to give his full name for fear of reprisals by the police or criminals. “I have to pay a bribe to the gangs every week or I will have trouble.”
Roving patrols of masked and heavily armed federal officers and soldiers caravan through traffic, at once reassuring and rattling visitors.
“It is unsettling,” said Katherine Williams, 67, a retired teacher from Toronto. “But,” she added, waiting for a truck with soldiers to pass as she headed to a Starbucks, “I have not had any problems, and if you stick to the beach area you would never know there were any troubles here.”
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