Dia de La Morena December 4, 2022
A chilly breeze blows through the city. The streets around the Zocalo are closed to car traffic, turning my own busy street, Calle Colon, into a pedestrian Andador, if only briefly. For the first time, there is no honking traffic outside my window, leaving my crazy California Nuttail Woodpecker free to crash into the glass without distraction. Even the parades of Guelaguetza did not close downtown to this extent, and I begin to wonder what the fuss is all about.
Marco, who has reluctantly become our own personal garbage man since the collectors went on strike, has his own ideas regarding the closed streets and large concert-scaffolds erected in the Zocalo—a goodbye party for the outgoing PRI governor. He is convinced that the PRI crooks want to drain Oaxaca’s coffers completely dry before departing from office today. I fear the garbage strike may have turned Marco into a cynic.
Then the real source of the fuss appears, Salomón Jara Cruz, walking down Calle Colon wearing a red-trimmed guayabera and a garland of flowers, waving at the crowd with a feather-clad red stick presented to him by some indigenous elder. He is surrounded by well-wishers in pressed guayaberas and floral dresses. Flowers are thrown in his path, as if he is an arriving messiah. Salomón has just walked down from the Guelaguetza tent on the hill, where he accepted the mantle of Gobernador de Oaxaca, the first governor since the Revolution not be a member of PRI. Everyone I see seems thrilled to welcome Salomón Jara, including many who share his Morena skin tones.
By the next morning, massive change is afoot on the Zocalo. Lines of dump drunks are hauling away what had been a protest-homeless encampment. For the first time in six months, I can see what the front of Palacio Municipal looks like. The sheltered porticos, which had been walled with tarps and cardboard by the squatters, have been utterly cleared.
Indeed, all of the vender stalls, but for the shoeshiners, have been removed. Just as I am imagining the arrival of La Cuatro T, in which the new Morena government reaches an agreement with the protesters and vender associations, I read the Oaxaca Post headline: “Triqui women can be heard screaming for help while the police officers trash their merchandise.” Hopefully this is not what the 4th Transformation has in store.
The Triqui are a small indigenous group that have been selling their handcrafts in front of the Municipal Palace for at least 12 years. The incoming mayor reportedly presented one final offer, of an unspecified nature, which the Triqui rejected. This was followed by an aggressive overnight eviction, captured and posted online, during which police officers can be seen removing Triqui inventory.
Tonight Christmas lights and potted poinsettias replace the Triqui on the Zocalo. One wonders how the native world views the displacement, although it is significant that Salomón waved his feathered red stick, as if to emphasize his endorsement by the indigenous communities. However, the Triqui are but a minority tribe in Oaxaca. Meanwhile, the majority tribe, the Catholics, seems to prefer the Zocalo’s new look—the Christmas trees being assembled, a life-size nativity scene with an elephant and camel, the marimba player beating his instrument until my teeth buzz, and the one-armed crooner serenading a new governor with a hit from the ages:
“De la Sierra Morena, Cielito Lindo, Vienen Bajando
Un Par de Ojitos Negros, Cielito Lindo, de Contrabando”