Laura Roush
El Colegio de Michoacán
likes to walk at night and during the pandemic began documenting aspects of the night in Zamora, Michoacán, where she lives. She holds a PhD in anthropology from the New School for Social Research and teaches at El Colegio de Michoacán.
Image 1. Zamorano's insomnia. What is not talked about, but what the night allows to show.
Entrance hall in Jardines de Catedral, Zamora, Michoacan. Mural by Marcos Quintana, 2019
Image 2. Pandemic novena
Colonia El Duero, Zamora, December 2000
Image 3. "When the Merza closes at eleven o'clock, I want you back here".
Parish of St. Peter and St. Paul, Infonavit Arboledas. 22 hours and 55 minutes. January 2020.
Image 4. Chiras pelas. At night the streets and sidewalks cool down and you can play more fun. Some neighborhoods in the city offer the conditions for children to enjoy nightlife all year round.
Cathedral Gardens, Zamora, 2018.
Image 5. On Christmas and a few other holidays, the schedule rules are suspended.
Cathedral Gardens, December 24, 2020, almost midnight.
Picture 6
Cathedral Gardens, Zamora, New Year, 2021.
When the Douro River was diverted, segments of its former course became curved streets, sometimes narrow and with few connections to other streets.
La Lima, July 2023.
The narrow and curved streets of the old course of the Duero allow the continuation of the custom of street altars because they protect them from traffic. However, they say, because of the violence and disrespect, many now prefer to set them up inside the houses and publicly visible altars are scarce.
Day of the Dead, 2020, La Lima.
Image 9. Traffic goes down, kids go in and cats come out.
Colonia El Duero, September 2023.
Image 10. Already locked up
Jacinto López, January 2021.
Image 11. Day of the Dead Altar
Infonavit Arboledas, 2021
Image 12. A multi-family altar housing memories of an entire street
Arboledas Third Section, Day of the Dead, 2021
Image 13. "What hurts is the fucking killing".
Day of the Dead, 2021, La Lima
Image 14. Two fallen from the same family. Suddenly, the third one was killed
The Douro, July 2021
Image 15. "It's just that he was in it".
The Douro, July 2021
Image 16. "No one understands. But if you isolate yourself, you can go crazy."
Zamora, October 2022 (photo); conversation about the purpose of these photos, October 2023.
She wanted to remain anonymous, but she also wanted her children to be seen, for one might be alive somewhere.
Image 17. Altar to Saint Jude Thaddeus
Same place as in the previous image, Zamora, October 2022.
The situation of women who had to take on these tasks due to the kidnapping-disappearance, imprisonment or clandestinity of their partners is intrinsically different....
The situation of terror in which they lived required various forms of concealment, even of personal pain. It included trying to get the children to go about their daily activities as if nothing had happened in order to avoid suspicion. Fear and silence were constantly present, with a very high emotional cost.
Elizabeth Jelin, anthropologist, on the Dirty War in Argentina (2001:105)
If I die today, and God gives me the opportunity to be born again, I would ask only one thing, that you, Rossy, be my mother again. I love you, little one. Thank you for being my mommy."
Avenida Virrey de Mendoza, January 2021.
Picture 19
Arboledas Second Section, October 2023
There is a great stigma attached to missing persons. In Zamora, the population has internalized the phrase "he was up to something" to justify any crime against humanity. I believe that this is a reflection of the fact that we have lost the ability to empathize with the pain of others, we think that violence is a reasonable means to punish or resolve conflicts, and it also gives us a false sense of security, since it will not happen to me, only to the other, to the one who is "up to something".
This symbolic violence exercised by the population has had various repercussions on the victims of forced disappearance and murder, and their relatives, in the search for truth and justice. It would seem that, if the victim had any link with illicit activities, to search for them, to demand justice or their appearance alive, would be illegitimate in the eyes of society, but also of their relatives, who out of shame or "lacking moral authority", are forced to live in fear and silence.
Itzayana Tarelo, anthropologist, personal communication, Zamora, October 2023.
Picture 20
Guadalupano Shrine, Zamora Centro, July 2023
What level of violent deaths is socially acceptable? If we aspire to a death rate of 9.7 intentional homicides per one hundred thousand inhabitants, registered at the beginning of Felipe Calderón's government, or 17.9 when his administration ended, the 39 murders in Zamora and 15 in Jacona, in April alone, are a lot.
But if we compare with the 196.63 (per hundred thousand) publicized by the national press, according to the report of the Citizens' Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice (March 11, 2022), then "we are doing well", since 39 murders per month would result in 468 per year, slightly above the 401 that result from an annual rate of 196.63%. Ah, but if we compare with the 57 intentional homicides in Zamora and the 21 in Jacona noted in December 2021, April is going down!"
José Luis Seefoo (2022)
Image 21. Asphalt up to the very trunk
Avenida del Arbol, May 2023.
A saleswoman from hot dogs she told me how two murderers waited for their victims among the trees. Although the ones she mentioned were just rickety ficus trees; to her, they added to the darkness of the scene. She went on to relate other murders in the area, including one on the next street. Drug addicts hung out there, she said, until several large trees were cut down. When I insisted, he acknowledged that the military rounds began around that time. However, she stuck to the fact that the trees were the main factor. For this lady, the trees were metonymically linked to danger and crime.
For an ex-taxi driver, these were thugs themselves. He told me of a dead tree that fell on top of a car, killing the parents and orphaning the children riding in the back seat. "No tree bigger than a person should be allowed!" he insisted. We also talked about the homicides that day, but he saved his indignation for the trees. When those responsible cannot be named for fear of reprisal, even trees can be a focus for articulating anxiety.
Rihan Yeh (2022) The Border as War in Three Ecological Images
(The border as war in three ecological images)
Image 22.
Avenida del Arbol, June 2023.
Picture 23
Day of the Dead, 2020, Colonia El Duero
The homicides, stated as 'confrontations', are in reality forms of manhunts of marginalized youths. Both victims and direct killers do not occupy high positions on the social ladder.
Thus, as long as the pain of loss and the smell of incense invade the homes of popular neighborhoods, intentional homicides will not drop sufficiently. If wakes and funerals were to take place in "residential" spaces, we should expect important changes...
Anonymous (textual)
Picture 24
Colonia El Duero, January 2022
Image 25. The food stalls with their lights summon from afar to live with neighbors or strangers, a nocturnal sociability that does not give up.
El Duero, January 2022
Image 26. Just called "The Metataxis": it gathers information from all cab drivers.
The Douro, February 2021
His hamburger stand is the one that closes most nights. He has the gift of getting watchmen, watchmen, policemen, hospital staff, taqueros who have already set up their stalls and who have also heard something, and a whole range of people who can't sleep for some reason.
Cab driver committed to the night shift and occasional diner at the hamburger stand.
Colonia El Duero, October 2022
After midnight, the conversation often becomes more philosophical. Bits of news that will never make it into a newspaper are gathered.
Image 28. Another member of the night owls' gathering. Topic: What is the fault of the night if you are killed during the day?
Colonia El Duero, 2022
Image 29
Zamora Centro, March 2023.
On March 5 we went out to march in Zamora for 8M. I was accompanying the contingent of women searchers and we were gluing, with paste, the cards of the missing persons. A few days later I passed by those streets again and I saw that they had tried to tear them up.
A friend of mine told me that in Queretaro the public cleaning people were instructed to remove all kinds of propaganda or posters and that is why they tore off the missing persons' cards. I suppose they do the same thing here, although sometimes the advertisement of an event lasts longer on a wall than the face of a missing person.
Anonymous, Zamora, October 2023
Image 30
Zamora Centro, August 2023.
To the perpetrators of the violence, the searching mothers have said "We don't want the guilty ones, we only want our children". With the celebration of masses and vigils in which prayers are said and candles are lit with the photo of their family member, the mothers seek God to soften the hearts of those who took their sons and daughters, not to abandon them in their search and to protect their family member wherever he or she may be.
Anonymous, Zamora (textual), October 2023
Image 31
Zamora, April 2023
We accompany ourselves with Our Lady's sorrow today, in the hope that she will be moved with us.
Anonymous, ending the Women's March of Silence
The March of Silence in the Catholic world is typically a procession of men commemorating the death of Christ on Good Friday. The Women's March of Silence has grown in parts of Latin America in recent years. In some, as in Zamora, it provides a language for some of the mothers of missing or dead young people.
Image 32. Panther
Colonia El Duero, October 2020
These pains have no words. One keeps silent more out of modesty than fear. Crying screams and one hides the tears. All loss does not want to show itself impudently.
One closes oneself and keeps silent while one's heart burns, either for love or for absence. Impotence hurts and one knows that there is no return or solution. Poetics can only murmur. The anthropologist sometimes errs on the side of exhibitionism and fills with theoretical frameworks what hurts to mention.
The Douro Panther (textual), October 2023
Image 33. Anonymous. She made this figure representing her husband after he was killed.
Zamora, November 2023
Image 34
Bank of the Douro river course
Four months ago (May 30, 2023) a teenager was killed in my neighborhood when he was going to pick up his girlfriend at CBTIS. Rumors said it was for stealing his cell phone. Some guys on a motorcycle chased him and shot him many times, until he fell dead on the corner of a vacant lot, where people throw garbage.
A few days after he was murdered, his family put up a small metal cross, some plastic flowers and a candle, but someone came by and tore the cross down and people threw garbage there again.
My mother told me that she felt bad that the boy didn't have a cross, so she made him another one with some pieces of wood she found in the yard. She put it up and, days later, she found it lying in the vacant lot, as if someone had thrown it. We think that this could only have been done by the person or persons who killed him, that the cause of his death was personal and not a robbery, as it was said.
We feel that it was a matter of hatred, of a lot of anger against the boy, because they did not respect the place where he died, nor the crosses. I feel that there was a desire to erase him, to erase his memory.
Anonymous (verbatim), October 2023
Image 35
March 29, 2024
The Women's March of Silence grew exponentially; the municipal government estimated that 15,000 people participated.
Silence was strictly maintained, punctuated only by drums with a slow, synchronized rhythm between contingents. Likewise, other signs were discarded and only those that reminded to remain silent were kept.
Image 36
Guadalupana Shrine of Zamora, March 29, 2024
They were received by their rector, Father Raúl Ventura, who congratulated them because "Zamora is consolidating its position as a leader in religious tourism.
Image 37
Avenida Virrey de Mendoza, January 2022
Where language must be imprecise, a flame in the night communicates, even if it is difficult to know who put it there or to whom it is addressed. To the dead man himself, of course; to God.
Image 38. During the day they are not even seen. At night they acquire convening power
Hidalgo Market, September 2022.
Image 39. It hurts. See it
Jacinto López, October 2022.
The author would like to publicly acknowledge the support and patience of her colleagues at the Centro de Estudios Antropológicos, Colmich; the collaborations of Itzayana Tarelo and Reynaldo Rico Ávila to think the narrative arc from a hundred photos or more; the enthusiasm of Renée de la Torre, Paul Liffman, Melissa Biggs and Gabriela Zamorano, as well as the complicity of Ramona Llamas Ayala.
Dedicated to the memory of Julio César Segura Gasca, alias the FUA (1967-2024), poet of the Zamorano night.
Bibliography
Citizen's Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice (2022). "Ranking 2021 of the 50 most violent cities in the world." https://geoenlace.net/seguridadjusticiaypaz/webpage/archivos Accessed: August 2023.
Jelin, Elizabeth (2001). The work of memoryMadrid: Siglo xxi.
Seefoo Luján, José Luis (2022). "Zamora va... muy bien?", Semanario. Guide. https://semanarioguia.com/2022/04/jose-luis-seefoo-lujan-zamora-va-muy-bien/
Yeh, Rihan (2022) "The Border as War in Three Ecological Images," in Editors' Forum: Ecologies of War, thematic issue, in. Cultural Anthropology. January. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/series/ecologies-of-war
EN 
ES 
FR 
PT