Academia, Art, & Coyotes

Wow. What a day.  It actually feels like it was 3 days in one.  I need to slow down otherwise I'll burnout by the end of the week!

I started off the day in Ciudad Universitaria, which just means University City.  The name says it all, really.  The Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, or UNAM for short, is HUGE.  Even though I spent all day there I probably only got to see a fraction of university.  The university has about 100,000 students, which makes it the largest university in North America (it is also the oldest!). 

I got the pleasure of auditing a course about social justice and Mexican-Americans.  The class I sat in was titled Chicanos y Identidad en EE.UU.  We watched a movie called "Walkout" about a group of high school students who became politically active when they got fed up with the inequalities they saw between East LA schools (i.e. Lincoln, Garfield) and those on the west side of the city.  They staged a walkout as a way of boycotting until the district agreed to institute changes, such as allowing Spanish to be spoken in school, prohibiting corporal punishment, providing Mexican food in the cafeteria, keeping the restrooms open for students all day, buying historically accurate and more recent texts...Pretty basic demands, yet it took days of violence to even get their voices heard. 

The film was really moving and afterward the class continued with a discussion of the various themes and motifs that we picked out.  The class was made up of mostly professors and all were born in Mexico (I was definitely the youngest, as always, and the least educated, which made for a very invigorating discussion to be a part of).  While there is too much to discuss about here, I will say that I was pleasantly surprised at how similar discussions can be regardless of where you find yourself in the world.  The reality of socioeconomic inequality is palpable everywhere we turn, and as this lecture pointed out to me, also has real consequences on our identity.  As a chicana myself I definitely experience the absence or lack of identity (I neither identify as American or Mexican, and Mexican-American just doesn't quite fit either), which means that I really end up losing the richness and meaning of my ancestors and their history.

Needless to say, my morning was educating and inspiring, not to mention filled with nice and intelligent people.  Oh, and I'll be taking a Spanish course while I'm here so I'll have more opportunities to keep exploring the university and audit some other classes.  Yes, I am a nerd.  Going to school while on vacation is most definitely my idea of fun ;)

And no post would be complete without food!

Shredded carrots, cucumbers, and jicama with chile & limon.  YUM!

A cafe/bistro type restaurant on campus.  I think it's called El Papilotl which explains all the butterflies on the wall.

OMG!  Best mole I've ever had! 

After lunch, I visited the Centro Cultural Universitario.  This is the cultural center of the university and contains a contemporary art museum, a couple theatres, a cinema, and a library.  The buildings are always busy showing films, plays, concerts, and art shows.  I could probably spend my seven weeks in Mexico just attending all their events.  Did I mention that most events are free to the public or never more than a couple bucks?  Because I couldn't decide and because I'm a sucker for art exhibits I decided to spend the afternoon in the contemporary art museum.

The building is beautiful and I was bummed it was raining so much that I couldn't take a picture of it.  Maybe next time. There were two major exhibits, but there was definitely a favorite.  The exhibition was called Extranjeros, or Foreigners.  All the pieces were meant to explore the different aspects one encounters when he or she enters a new environment.  This can be thought of very broadly.  It could literally mean when someone migrates to a different country or it could simply mean when one is finds him or herself in an unpredictable situation.  While all the pieces were amazing, here are a couple of my faves:

A Room of CDs

A comment on the role of music piracy in our generation.

You could literally pick off a CD from the wall and play it.

Mirror Box

This piece was a box made of mirrors with an image in the back.  In any direction you looked the image was repeated forever. 

After finishing the exhibit, I walked around enjoying the beautiful architecture and trying to plan a schedule to make sure I fit in all the shows before I leave.  When Veronica got off of work we hopped on the metro to another neighborhood known for its history museums, art galleries, and 'bohemian' street vendors:  Coyoacan.  The name means "Place of Coyotes" and if you missed that then the hundreds of coyote images and statues of coyotes scattered across the neighborhood would give you an idea ;)

My neighborhood itself is beautiful!  The centro is a huge picturesque park where street vendors line up to provide anything from tamales to jewelry.  It's kept really clean and the perimeter of the park is lined with cute little cafes, bars, and local restaurants. 

Again with the coyotes.  These two are directly in the center of the neighborhood.

Like I mentioned before, Mexicans are very Catholic and it doesn't take too long to spot the neighborhood church.  In Coyoacan, it was right next to the center.  While the church I saw yesterday (wow, it feels like a week ago) was beautiful, it had nothing on this one.  It's called Iglesia de San Juan Bautisa and it is a Dominican church built in 1528.  I learned that all Catholic churches are dedicated to a particular saint and churches will hold special events on specific days of the year dedicated to their saints.

Inside the church structure.

Magnificent.  The murals and sculptures are amazing and they line both the walls and ceilings.

 Since we didn't get to Coyoacan until around 7, we didn't have much time to visit all the sights.  In particular, I still want to visit La Casa Azul, the residence of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the Casa de Cortes, and the Museo Anahuacalli that was designed by Diego Rivera.  We also missed a lot of the vendors so I will definitely be coming back!  We did get a chance to have an elote though!  And if you were wondering, yes, yes it was amazingly delicious.

Extras:

"That my feet hurt and my hands.  What else could I possibly say?"-A mother responding to her son's question about how she dealt with the pain and the work after he left to America. This was part of a piece in the Extranjeros exhibit.

Whenever a saint answers a prayer, the person comes back to pin a thank you card and a token in appreciation.

Outside of the Museo Nacional de las Culturas Populares.  This piece was made by indigenous children.

The only exhibit open in the above mentioned museum was on the types of masks made by indigenous populations for their dancing rituals.  While I couldn't take pictures of the masks, take my word that they were beautiful/scary/elaborate works of art.  The sign translates to "Masks we see, expressions we don't know", which refers to the idea that people hide their real emotions behind a mask.

And the world's largest spider web, which looks like a giant dream catcher but I was told it isn't...