Narratives of Vulnerability in Mexico's War on Drugs

219 Pages·2020·3.34 MB·English

by  Raúl Diego Rivera Hernández

Narratives of
Vulnerability in Mexico’s
War on Drugs
Raúl Diego Rivera Hernández
Translated by Isis Sadek
Narratives of Vulnerability in Mexico’s War on Drugs
“NarrativesofVulnerabilityinMexico’sWaronDrugs standsapartfromarecent
wave of academic books on organized crime and anti-drug policy by exploring
the often-overlooked potential for political engagement and resistance of those
most vulnerable to the country’s unprecedented violence: migrants, journalists
and activists. Through a convincing multidisciplinary examination of literary
works, journalistic chronicles and documentary film, Diego Rivera Hernández
goes beyond the reiterative approaches to ‘narcoculture’ and its mythology of
‘cartels,’‘jefes’and‘sicarios.’Instead,hisbookshedslightonempoweredvictims
thatbecomepoliticalsubjectsastheyconfrontthecomplexcrisisofhumanrights
framedbythemilitarizationoftheshared‘nationalsecurity’agendapropelledby
boththeU.S.andMexicangovernments.Thisisathoughtfulinvestigationabout
the ability of courageous people to reject reductive narratives of victimization
andcounteractthehorrorsofstateviolence,transnationalcrimeandprecarityby
mobilizing to enact social change and seek transitional justice.”
—Oswaldo Zavala, Professor of Latin American literature and culture at the City
University of New York, USA, author of Los cárteles no existen. Narcotráfico y
cultura en México
“In Narratives of Vulnerability in Mexico’s War on Drugs, Raúl Diego Rivera
Hernández explores alternative ways of articulating the dominant narratives of
the ‘War on Drugs’ promulgated by the United States in the early 1970s that
unleashed violence both on Afro-Americans in the U.S. and on communities
throughout Latin America. By focusing on the ongoing migrations, disappear-
ances, and human rights violations precipitated by the ongoing ‘war’ that covers
for rapacious neoliberalism, this book tells another, necessary story. Beautifully
writtenandmeticulouslyresearched,thisisessentialreadingforthoseconcerned
with the urgent issues of hemispheric migration and human rights.”
—Diana Taylor, Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish, New York
University, USA
Raúl Diego Rivera Hernández
Narratives
of Vulnerability
in Mexico’s War
on Drugs
Raúl Diego Rivera Hernández
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Villanova University
Villanova, PA, USA
Translated by
Isis Sadek
Ottawa, ON, Canada
ISBN 978-3-030-51143-2 ISBN 978-3-030-51144-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51144-9
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Photo credit: Prometeo Rodríguez Lucero. Used with permission.
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Para mi pequeña Luisa,
este libro sobre un México en resistencia que también es tuyo.
Acknowledgments
In preparing Narratives of Vulnerability, the affection, patience, and
support of Barbora Pˇríhodová have played a vital role from the moment
when I began to imagine this book and at every step since. She knows
best how hard it has been to get to this point. Thank you, mi amor, for
your endless encouragement.
I thank my parents Adriana and Raúl, and my brother Rodrigo, for
their presence in my life, which has been constant despite the many miles
between us. They are a wonderful tribe and have motivated me to finish
this project.
My gratitude to Isis Sadek for her outstanding work in translating the
manuscriptasIwaswritingitandhersubsequenteditsandcomments.In
addition to being a brilliant scholar, I am lucky to have her as my friend
and colleague.
I am grateful to my colleague Manuel Gutiérrez Silva for his critical
reading of the manuscript and his perceptive observations.
My thanks to Shaun Vigil for his interest in and enthusiasm for
the initial manuscript proposal. Throughout the process of writing this
manuscript,Ihavealsobenefittedconsiderablyfromtheincisivefeedback
that the external evaluators provided.
Thank you to the team at Palgrave, especially Camille Davis, Liam
McLean, and Ashwini Elango, who brought this book into the world.
I am indebted to Daniela Rea for introducing me to the extraordi-
nary team of Pie de Página and to some of the members of Periodistas
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
de a Pie who worked on the documentary series Buscadores en un país
dedesaparecidos.ConsueloMoralesPagaza,PrometeoRodríguezLucero,
XimenaNatera,DanielaPastrana,JoséIgnacioDeAlba,andÉrikaLozano
are highly skilled journalists and photographers tirelessly engaged in the
struggle for human rights.
My gratitude and admiration to activists and writers Rubén Figueroa,
Marta Sánchez Soler, Alejandro Vélez Salas, and John Gibler for what I
have learned from them along the path.
Finally, I thank Vilanova University’s subvention of publication
program for the funding that allowed me to pay for the rights to use
the images reproduced in this book.
Contents
1 Introduction. Vulnerability and Victimhood
in Mexico’s War on Drugs: A Human Rights Crisis 1
2 Vulnerabilities and Resistances in Transit: Narratives
of Central American Colonial Transmigrants 27
3 “Nos están matando!”: Professional Reflexivity
on Violence Against Mexican Journalists
in Contemporary Chronicles 83
4 Dissident Mourners: Victims’ Political Participation
in Human Rights Activism 133
5 Conclusion 191
Index 201
ix
List of Figures
Fig. 4.1 Mario Vergara’s outfit is adapted to the typical conditions
of the searches of disappeared people in Iguala (Photo
by Prometeo Rodríguez Lucero) 168
Fig. 4.2 Forensic tools and equipment owned by Mario Vergara.
The photo of his brother and the text of the General
Victims’ Law is at the center of the shot. On the right,
t-shirts identifying him as a searcher (Photo by Consuelo
Morales Pagaza) 169
Fig. 4.3 MarioVergaraandthemembersofTheOtherDisappeared
Persons of Iguala conduct exhumations (Photo
by Prometeo Rodríguez Lucero) 170
Fig. 4.4 Graciela Pérez Rodríguez explaining the objectives of CFC
to the relative of a disappeared person (Photoby Consuelo
Morales Pagaza) 172
Fig. 4.5 GracielaPérezRodríguezcollectsaDNAsampletoidentify
disappeared persons as part of her work with CFC (Photo
by Consuelo Morales Pagaza) 173
Fig. 4.6 Sample collection system for citizen-led DNA analysis
(Photo by Consuelo Morales Pagaza) 174
Fig. 4.7 Plaza de los desaparecidos in Monterrey, Mexico (Photo
by Diana Guadalupe Martínez Gálvez) 178
Fig. 4.8 Leticia Hidalgo and an embroidery that seeks to make
the absent visible (Photo by Érika Lozano González) 179
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction. Vulnerability and Victimhood
in Mexico’s War on Drugs: A Human Rights
Crisis
This book originates from a political urgency to understand the current
humanrightscrisisthathasbeencausedbytheWaronDrugsinMexico.
I study this crisis by focusing on three vulnerable populations that have
felt the blunt impact of the War on Drugs: Central American migrants in
transittotheUnitedStatesofAmerica(Chapter2),journalistswhoreport
on violence in highly dangerous regions (Chapter 3), and the mourning
relatives of victims of severe crimes, who take collective action by partici-
patinginhumanrightsinvestigationsandsearchingfortheirmissingloved
ones (Chapter 4). I discuss these communities by reading contempo-
rarynovels,journalisticchronicles,testimonialworks,anddocumentaries.
Theseanalysesbringtolighthowallthesefictionalandnonfictionalrepre-
sentations engage with vulnerable social groups affected by the violence
wrought by the War on Drugs. They also capture the unique conditions
of each of these communities, portraying their migratory status, profes-
sional activity, and the reasons why they decided to embrace as their
own responsibilities that the state should and could not fulfill. Violence
againstmigrants,journalists,andactivistsrevealsanarrayofhumanrights
violations affecting the right to safe transit across borders, freedom of
expressionandtherighttoinformation,andtherighttotruthandjustice.
The three case studies in this book are part of a deeper and broader
human rights crisis. In Mexico, this crisis is further aggravated by other
forms of violence: internal displacement, the expansion of feminicidal
© The Author(s) 2020 1
R.DiegoRivera Hernández,NarrativesofVulnerabilityinMexico’sWar
on Drugs, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51144-9_1