Tag Mexico

Photo essay originally published online at Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University
Historically, Superbarrio has been strategic in promoting democratic electoral change. He first emerged in June, 1987 as representative of the Neighborhood Assembly; but in order to win, Superbarrio and the Assembly understood they had to create an alternative political imaginary against seven decades of PRI government, its repeated electoral frauds, and its unpunished corruption. In 1988, the Neighborhood Assembly nominated Superbarrio for president. But, already exercising a profound understanding of coalition building, he gave up his nomination to support Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the progressive leader of Mexico’s Democratic Coalition.
Who is SUPERBARRIO?
Superbarrio Gomez is like any other working class man; he is a street vendor, lives in the barrio and owns a Barriomovil. According to the Cumbia de Superbarrio (Superbarrio’s cumbia song), he was an orphan. While a teenager, he witnessed the ’68 military oppression against the students uprising in Tlatelolco. Superbarrio “tried selling clothes, driving a taxi, about 200 different jobs before settling on a career as a luchador calling himself Black Prince.” Eventually he fell in love with “Lucha,” not the popular ranchera singer Lucha Villa, nor Lucha Contreras, but Lucha Popular. (Lucha is a proper name which also translates as “struggle.”) He married and had a wrestling carrier. Gomez’s life changed after the September earthquake in 1985, and after he and his neighbors were evicted from a building in downtown Mexico City. He decided to stop fighting fictional enemies in order to fight the real enemy, the government, and its illegal alliance with landlords who perpetrated tenant evictions. In his interview, David Brooks asked Superbarrio what was behind that mask, if there were many Superbarrios. Superbarrio replied that there were thousands of Superbarrios, in fact that anyone who rises his/her voice against injustice was Superbarrio.
Superbarrio’s consciousness is the result of the unification of Mexico’s majoritarian class against a large national problem, the government’s consistent project of gentrification. Superbarrio explains: “The policy of the government over the last decades has been one of forcing people from the center of the city to the periphery, and giving the properties at the center of commercial use to benefit large enterprises, warehouses, restaurants, tourist attractions.” In 1993, Mexico was the fourteenth-wealthiest country in the world, and the most politically stable country in Latin America. Simultaneously, Mexico City had the most unequal distribution of wealth; it concentrated the richness and the misery of the entire country. Superbarrio adds that, “when peasants demanded land to the government, the government gave them land—but 6 feet under. Those who petitioned housing and invaded vacant lots, got housing—but inside jail. And those workers who asked for wage increases—found themselves fired.”
La Asamblea de Barrios (Mexico City’s Neighborhood Assembly) is a grassroots organization concerned with the egalitarian acquisition and distribution of decent housing for the poor. In the late 1980s, working class women and amas de casa constituted seventy percent of the organization. La Asamblea de Barrios was the result of the unification of the representatives of 40 neighborhood unions, which emerged to oppose the city’s evictions against the marginal population in Mexico City. The government proved its lack of commitment to the poor during the most difficult moments after the earthquake. Taking advantage of the situation, the government spent most of its time “organizing” the evictions of thousands of underprivileged people living in downtown’s historic center, rather than rescuing other thousands of people dying, or already deadly trapped, “aplastadas,” by the Government’s poorly constructed building projects and hospitals. Two hundred and fifty thousand people were left homeless after the first earthquake, while, 500 thousand Mexicans slept on the streets with one eye opened, looking at their houses, afraid to lose the rest of their belongings. This devastation and corruption, and La Asamblea de Barrios’s infrastructure, created the context for Super to jump into the ring of urban politics to renovate and reconstruct the Mexican political arena. “To confront these problems a super human effort is required, and that is why it takes a Superbarrio to change it.”
Superbarrio’s ability to transform the practices of popular culture, such as wrestling and its rhetoric, into an alternative political imaginary produces the transformation of social space into urban mobilization. Simultaneously, his wrestling performance within a social movement transcends and conveys his fictional character into a real political leader.
The wrestling mask is designed to differentiate each wrestler within the various social spaces in which they interact, from the wrestling ring performance to the “fotonovela” print. While Superbarrio’s mask connotes the traditional strength of wrestling championship, he subverts this exclusive function by adding to it an extra layer of signification. “Behind the mask there is the whole struggle of the city’s inhabitants, to make it more livable, more democratic, to resolve the great problems we face. The mask is the symbol, the identification of the people in this struggle…it is not an individual struggle…” For Superbarrio to keep his mask on in the wrestling ring and the social struggle means that we are all winners, we are all Superbarrio.

>Photo essay originally published online at Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University
PREMONITORY PRECEDENTS
Manifest Destiny and El Tamal’s Counter-Attack (or the future weapons of mass destruction?)
George Bush senior, in his war against drugs (chemical substances that would cross north of the border and sustain the cocaine addiction of the upper class right?) invaded Panama. The evidence: Mexican tamales found at Noriega’s freezer. ACORDING TO AN INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCY, THE PENTAGON INFORMED THAT THEY HAD SPENT ONE MONTH DOING DETAIL LABORATORY TESTS OF THE SUBSTANCES WITHIN THOSE BANANA LEAVES.
In an emergency response, alarmed that Mexico would be the next target, and given the fact that Noriega’s tamales were of Mexican origin, Superbarrio and the Asamblea organized a tamalada, an action against US intervention in Mexico. Why wouldn’t Mexico be invaded (again) when it is the country with the largest, uncontrolled, unmonitored, domestic and regional production of green, red, sweet and fruit tamales? (photo of tamales should have a text saying: “this is a dramatization”). Marco Rascón, then one of the Asamblea’s leader, inaugurated the event:
“Today, one month after the US invasion of Panama, the killing of thousands of people, the violation of all international laws, and a proved prepotency, the Empire’s judges lack legal evidence to sentence Noriega because what they had found in Noriega’s house [refrigerator] was not cocaine but tamales.”
Luckily for Mexico, tamales were still prepared with national, un-chemically altered corn; after NAFTA, and the US hyper-processed corn invasion of Mexico, tamales have become chemical weapons of mass market destruction!

Photo essay originally published online at Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University
This photo essay is about Superbarrio Gomez and his journey in the construction of a “politics of the possible” (1) , an alternative political imaginary constituted via popular culture and the construction of a national and transnational social movement. Superbarrio makes evident the collapse between politics and performance; he forces us to think beyond the performance of politics in order to understand the politics of performance. Superbarrio belongs to both the majoritarian class and to the wrestling ring of popular culture, which makes his politics possible. Superbarrio’s practices of popular culture creates a political imaginary in which winning was possible in spite of corrupt referees. But Superbarrio makes evident how the wrestling ring teaches us about political culture as well as social mobilization. Superbarrio’s wrestling ring is a place of possibilities where corrupt landlords and politicians are unmasked .As long as Superbarrio keeps his mask, we all win. Superbarrio’s journey maps an alternative political imaginary that functioned at the local, national and transnational/hemispheric register. At the local level, Superbarrio, with the strength of Mexico City’s Neighborhood Assembly [Asamblea de Barrios] created a social movement that understood that to win one’s home, one had to win at the national level, the National Palace and la Casa de los Pinos [presidential house]. Superbarrio became the symbol to mobilize the political imaginary in which to vote, (against seven decades of perfect dictatorship) was the only option to own the Presidential house. In 1988, Superbarrio aligned forces with Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in the winning of the national vote and they won.
But against systemic corruption, to win was not enough and the social movement had to reach beyond the US/Mexican border. In order to do so, Superbarrio made his first US tour promoting the possibility of Mexicans, living on the US side of the border, to vote for Mexican president. After all, their income has contributed to the Mexican economy 13 thousand million dollars in economic gross. Superbarrio promoted a political imaginary in which voting– a fundamental right of citizenship– could be exercised across national borders. But this transnational campaign was the practice of a political vision that understood the rules of the game within the then nascent process of globalization and the privatization of the Nation-State. In 1994, NAFTA (North American Free-Trade Agreement) would become the national precedent. Knowing the dirty rules of what became a macro-economic political game, Superbarrio jumped out of the national arena to fight for the rights of workers transnationally; he ran for US president in 1996. Superbarrio’s strategy was to contextualize the concept of national citizenship (exercised in the voting of national citizens such as Latinos/as and Latin Americans living in the US with dual citizenship) into that of free trade, not of goods but of people. In his campaign he proposed “free citizenship”, a concept that assumes rights to decent housing and working conditions across nations for all, citizens and non-citizens, the workers of the hemisphere within and beyond the US territory. Superbarrio’s free citizenship becomes a model of global citizenship in which fair housing and fair working conditions function within the realm of human rights transnationally. He also proposed the voting rights of these transnational workers, their vote would count for Mexican as well as US president. Superbarrio’s US presidential campaign, and his premonitory “politics of the possible”, produce an alternative political, social and cultural imaginary. By implication, to believe in Superbarrio is to believe in a collective struggle that functions regionally and operates as a social movement across borders. To believe in Superbarrio is to believe in us as transnational social agents. Beneath the mask, we are all Superbarrio.
(1) I am borrowing this concept from Kumkum Sangari “The Politics of the Possible,” Cultural Critique 7 (Fall 1987: 157-186).

Imagine:
The fence from the U.S. to Mexico is recycled and settled in the Palestinian territories. The U.S./Mexican border becomes Wall-Mart Nation, where peso salaries purchase dollar products. Wall-Mart becomes the contact zone, the bridge where socialization takes place via consumption, and transculturation functions by way of gastronomic hybridity with post-national and post-natural products. The category of migrant and/or undocumented worker disappears, now replaced by the Wal-Mart migrant shopper. Wal-Mart becomes a brand citizenship. Mexican workers are from both sides of Wal-Mart as the U.S. becomes Mexico and the south of Mexico becomes the place where the corporate oligarchs live in their natural resorts of Puerto Vallarta, Cancun and Acapulco. Wal-Mart workers are mostly women; child labor laws have been dismantled, given the population’s gastronomic diet made of intense hormonal doses in super-size meals. Workers overdeveloped in size and Mexican mothers conspire by creating cilantro pills to sustain the IQ levels and cultural memory of their overgrown children. Workers sneak in the pills. Reports from the information guerrilla network attest that those who intervene against the Wal-Mart production line risk being devoured into the fast food menu. In the south, the formation of a Coca-Cola State becomes a preventive model against military occupation and tamales are assimilated into Wal-Mart’s production line. The Chinese, out of earthly space, transport their maquila sweat shops into outer space in Bangladeshi man-made space ships. Meanwhile, the electoral process experiences radical change, voting acquires a Wal-Mart redirecting points system; the more one purchases, the more points for the ruling BWW Party. In Wal-Mart World, former U.S. citizens and radicals vote a la the Mexican “si no?” vote against the ruling party even if it is not in favor of any candidate. Chiapas is yet to be conquered.

Originally posted: http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/24/local/me-25798
Campaign: Taking inspiration from cartoon crime stoppers and wrestling stars, a string of social activists is donning outlandish costumes to fight for worthy causes.
October 24, 1999|MICHELLE RAY ORTIZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY — Faster than a bolt of lightning? Doubtful. Able to leap tall buildings? Not a chance.
Mexico’s newest superhero rushes into his headquarters, the office of the Union of Electrical Workers, flustered and breathing heavily under his leather and nylon mask after jogging from his car.
Even Super Luz–Super Light–can have trouble finding a parking space.
But when duty calls, this mere mortal slips into tights and cape to campaign against the government’s plan to privatize the power industry and to defend the interests of his fellow pole-climbers and linemen.
Just what compels a grown man reared in a macho culture to dress up like a cartoon character–and do it with a straight face?
“Precisely that the human being, the Mexican . . . needs the existence of heroes to be able to continue enduring a common and ordinary life,” Super Luz says.
Putting up with years of rampant crime and widespread government wrongdoing has left many Mexicans exhausted and cynical. But the sight of Super Luz thrusting his fist into the air can cause weathered electricians to crack a smile.
“Go, Super Luz!” one man cheers when the masked man bounds through–not over–the union building in downtown Mexico City.
Super Luz is just the latest in a string of Mexican social activists who have taken inspiration from comic book crime fighters and stars from the country’s unique genre of professional wrestling movies.
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They trace their origin to El Santo (The Saint), a wrestler named Rodolfo Guzman whose silver mask propelled him to fame on the silver screen starting in 1958.
Guzman starred in dozens of films battling criminals, demons, witches and zombies before his death in 1984. “El Santo Against the Vampire Women” of 1962 is a kitsch classic, and his character continues to inspire a cult following as well as lyrics in Mexican rock music.
The passage from screen to streets came in the wake of Mexico City’s horrendous 1985 earthquake, when an incarnate superhero sprang to life to rally support for the thousands of homeless neglected by the city’s overwhelmed government.
He was Super Barrio, a paunchy figure in red and yellow spandex who became a cult idol for his attacks on the administration of the dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party. He led protest marches and rallies and helped form the Assembly of Barrios–a neighborhood coalition that defended the rights of the poor.
Super Barrio has kept a low profile since the leftist opposition won control of the city government in 1997, and he declined to be interviewed.
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Other masked heroes have followed his path: Super Universal Ecologist fought to save the environment; Super Puppy explained the need to treat pets humanely; Super Policeman railed against corruption; Super Woman cheered women’s rights; and Super Gay denounced homophobia.
One of the longest lasting has been Super Animal. Like El Santo films in which the bare-chested, masked hero met desperate clients in his bookshelf-lined office, Super Animal welcomes visitors in costume from behind his desk in a disturbingly normal middle-class neighborhood.
The costume, he explains, is a sure-fire means of attracting attention to his cause: fighting for the rights and lives of animals–a battle he admits is difficult in a society enamored of bullfights, cockfights and meat-filled tacos.
But the mask and outfit are not only attention-getters, he says. They are a necessity for Mexicans who adore ritual.
“If they were to go to a church and see a priest come out for Mass in a T-shirt and jeans, would they like it or would they ask, ‘What’s going on, Father?’ He has to put on his vestments to reach the faithful,” Super Animal says.
“Here in Latin America people really like characters–professional wrestling, the films of El Santo. People like the masks.”
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Super Animal and Super Luz, both of whom ask to have their real names kept secret, say they have taken the common man’s love of entertainment–specifically, professional wrestling–and sharpened it into a means of attacking a government they contend is intent on keeping the masses sated with bread and circuses.
Mexican television, with its history of state control, has been used to divert public attention from real problems, Super Luz says.
“What the mass media have given us is simply trash,” he says. “We are saying: Fight! Fight for economic stability for your families. Don’t remain asleep because the federal government is trying to bombard us so that the people will be stupid, conquered and forgetful of problems while they are focused on wrestling, soccer and soap operas.”
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For Super Luz, Mexico could use even more superheroes–with or without masks.
“I believe everyone has an important fight because in Mexico there are many things that should be done,” he says. “And if there isn’t someone who says, ‘Here I am to do it,’ then no one will.”

MEXICO CITY (CNN) — He’s faster than a speeding turtle, able to leap small speed bumps in a single bound. Look, up in the sky … Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Superbarrio — a flabby caped crusader in cherry red tights who traverses the streets of Mexico City, defending the lower class.
A high school dropout with a humble upbringing, Superbarrio has become one of Mexico City’s greatest folk heroes. For the past 10 years, he has stood as the champion of the working class, the poor and the homeless.
Superbarrio roams Mexico City
“I opened my eyes and found myself as you see me with a voice telling me, ‘You are Superbarrio,'” he said, explaining that his name means super-neighborhood. “I can’t stop a plane or a train single-handed, but I can keep a family from being evicted.”
His true identity remains a mystery, masked behind his quirky outfit. By day, he’s a street vendor, but at any time he can squeeze into the flashy tights to fend off evil. Little else is known about the masked man, fitting of a true superhero.

His role is primarily symbolic as the protector of low-income neighborhoods. But on behalf of squatters and labor unions, Superbarrio leads protest rallies, files petitions and challenges court decisions. Rumors also have circulated that he attempted to run for the president of the United States to better protect Mexican workers.
He says his mission is simply to protect the right of ordinary people.

Superbarrio, meanwhile, continues to stroll the streets of Mexico City seeking to uphold justice and defend the weak.
Correspondent Chris Kline contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9707/19/mexico.superhero/

Orignally Posted: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/supergay-outs-macho-mexicans-1273193.html
Who is that masked man – in the spandex pants? Phil Davison on a new folk hero
Phil Davison
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a professional wrestler? No, it’s Supergay, caped crusader for homosexual rights in macho Mexico.
Dressed in black spandex with a pink-sequinned cape, black mask and rainbow symbol, the country’s latest colourful folk hero stepped out of an underground comic book and appeared as large as life in the capital last week.
“It is time to come out of the closet. I am a symbol all gays and lesbians can identify with,” he said as he and two fellow rights campaigners, Superbarrio and Superecologist, symbolically “closed down” the Mexico City headquarters of the strongly Catholic and conservative National Action Party (PAN). The country’s fourth caped avenger, Superanimal – who fights for animal rights – was indisposed.
From as far back as the Aztecs, on through the days of Spanish colonial rape, Mexicans have traditionally hidden behind masks in more ways than one. In the cases of Superbarrio, Superecologist and Superanimal, the outfits are a publicity-grabbing gimmick. But in a country where men still wear cowboy boots, often tote pistols and prefer their wives to stick to making tortillas, Supergay’s mask may serve the strictly functional purpose of saving him from being beaten up. Some locals immediately branded him Supermaricon (Superpoof).
Superbarrio, formerly an all-in wrestler, was the first caped and pot- bellied crusader for the oppressed. He emerged when the government was slow to rebuild poor barrios in the wake of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. So popular did he become that he has twice been cloned – three men now take turns to wear the costume. Superecologist and Superanimal followed over the last few years. Then along came the slimline Supergay, pronounced by some as in English, by others as in Spanish, when it sounds like Superguy.
“We symbolically sealed off the PAN building because of the party’s gay- bashing policies,” says Rafael Cruz, spokesman for Mexico’s Circle of Gay Culture organisation. “They forced the cancellation of a meeting in Guadalajara of the International Lesbian and Gays’ Association and continue to block individual rights.”
In the face of Mexico’s long-standing machismo, where borracheras (drunken binges) and la casa chica (“the second home,” or mistress) are what make a man a man, Mexico’s gays and lesbians are emerging only slowly.
“Homophobia still permeates Mexican society. Repression is total,” says Mr Cruz. “Five years ago, maybe 300 people took part in our annual Gay Rights March. “Last year, we got 2,500. But that was a group phenomenon. Individually, almost everyone is still in the closet. And we have a saying in Mexico: ‘El closet mata’ (The closet kills).
“Some gay groups think that, behind the macho facade, 10 per cent of Mexico’s 90 million people may be gay or lesbian, but who knows? Among politicians, entertainers et cetera, there are strong rumours as to who is gay. But no one has come out. Everybody knows that Juanga [popular singer Juan Gabriel] is gay, but he’s never said so.”
“You can’t hold hands or kiss here. The police extort money from us even if we stroll together in Alameda Park,” says Supergay, a 26-year-old computer engineer and graduate of the University of Mexico. His character began as a comic book hero in a free gay newsletter distributed by the Circle of Gay Culture.
“The only places we can really show our sexual orientation are the gay or lesbian bars but the authorities shut some down or blocked entertainment shows claiming they were ‘dens of prostitution’.” Gay men in the capital frequent bars such as el Taller (the Workshop), or Tom’s, favoured by “the black leather set”. Lesbians hang out in Enigma or El Gab, named after its owner, Gabriela.
“Gay transvestites have been murdered and the cases were never cleared up,” says Supergay. “Earlier this month, the owner of a gay bar, Bar 14, was horribly murdered. Someone bored a hole through him with a drill.”