The Mud People: Chronicles, Testimonios & Remembrances

by Patrisia Gonzales

Patrisia Gonzales, Fort Worth native and syndicated columnist, takes readers on a spiritual, political journey to Mexico in her recently published book, The Mud People, Chronicles, Testimonios and Remembrances. One strand follows the dignity and strength of the common Mexicans' struggle against governmental repression and poverty. Another draws on indigenous creation stories that tell how people emerged from the earth, colored in muddy hues, and drew strength from its healing powers. Mexican curanderas -- natural healers -- taught her Aztec and Mayan cures and rituals that helped her to overcome her own emotional traumas from childhood sexual molestation, adult rape and a crippling autoimmune disease. Blending Buddhist teachings with practical, indigenous survival skills of hard work, land use, resiliency and frugality, she learned that we can control our destinies. Despite the terrors of torture, abductions and murder that she claims the Mexican government perpetrated in the "dirty wars' against dissidents and Indians in the last century and today, the mud people raised their voices and named their abuse and abusers. In a book loaded with examples of anonymous Mexican women who couldn't weep anymore for their abducted husbands and sons, Gonzales tells heroic stories of their purification of fear and shedding shackles of silence. Seldom seen by the tourist class, Mexican mothers and wives organized, marched and petitioned the federales for democracy, justice and the return of their disappeared love ones. They displayed their photos in public squares for all to remember.

Genres: Indigenous

Paperback

Published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing retelling of Mexican oral history about the constant resistance of Indigenous Peoples of Mexico and their role in the various revolutions of the 20th century. It includes the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the Tlatelolco Student Massacre of 1968 during the Mexico City olympics, and the Zaptatista revolution of 1994.