You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

MEXICO CITY COLLEGE

Submerged in a sea of hushed conversations in Spanish, I was drifting off to sleep on my cot in the crowded hotel courtyard, with the recognition that it had been naive to think that I could find work on a freighter. Winter term would be starting back at the University of Oregon. I missed the academic life, and was envious of the students on the bus from Juarez who were returning for Winter term at Mexico City College. The prospect of working on a ship no longer seemed desirable.

In the morning, I left Vericruz on a bus back to Mexico City. Once there, I phoned one of the students whom I had met on the trip from Juarez. We agreed to meet at the college the following day.

It was the start of Winter term of 1961. I enjoyed being in the sunny, scenic campus. It felt good to be back in an English-speaking academic setting, with students from many foreign cultures. I wanted this to be more than a one-day visit. So I decided to immerse myself in Mexican culture by enrolling in two Spanish Language courses, one in Mexican Cultural Anthropology, and a course in Mexican art history. I also attended a short required course that taught us Gringos how to behave while living in Mexico. The college had a housing office. Through it, I found a room and board accommodation in a home in Mexico City. For the following three months, I took a second-class bus, affectionately known as the “Toluca Rocket”, up the winding mountain road to Mexico City College. In addition to shoppers going to the market town of Toluca, the Rocket carried merchants and their wares, including vegetables, chickens, goats, and an occasional pig.

There were several memorable experiences during those three months in Mexico, living in an unfamiliar culture. Events which, at the time, seemed insignificant, have enriched my understanding of what it is to live on this planet among a culturally diverse sea of human beings.

One important lesson taken from the class that focused on getting along in Mexico was a warning not to “spangleize” English phrases. The example given was of a Gringa who wished to exit from the back of a bus in Mexico City. When she said “Excuse me,” no one in the crowded aisle moved. So she spangleized her request and loudly said “ESCUSATO!”. She was surprised to see that the people quickly stepped back and let her pass. Later, she proudly told a Mexican friend about her ability to get along without speaking Spanish. She only needed to modify English into Spanish. To illustrate her contention, she described her experience on the bus. When her friend quit laughing, he told her that in Spanish, “escusato” means “I urgently need a toilet.”

The experience of renting a room in the home of Seniora Baptiste was memorable because it gave me an opportunity to learn about the lives of her two criadas. Criadas are essentially child slaves, sold by their families for payment of a meager wage. The children are always native indian, who in Mexico are seen as inferior second-class citizens. I have written separately about these two native indian children, Petra (11) and Chrisanta (8) who lived in the dingy courtyard of the Gomez home.

Another profound experience was a day trip, by bus, to Acapulco, where I spent a very pleasant day wandering around that city’s beachfront. Before boarding the bus back to Mexico City, I bought a blended fresh fruit drink from a street vendor. It was delicious and refreshing. By the time I reached home, I was so violently ill with diarrhoea and vomiting that I was close to passing out. When, finally, I could get away from the toilet, I stumbled to my room and drank several gulps of the tincture of opium, which my dad had given me, and fell asleep not knowing, or caring, if I would ever wake. I did wake up in the morning, feeling weak but no longer ill. Petra and Chrissanta prepared me a breakfast of coffee, huevos revueltos, e tortillas. After eating their breakfast, I felt fine.

Seeing Maria again was memorable. She was the law student who was on the bus trip from Juarez. It was great to visit with her; however, our meeting was strained. We met in accordance with Mexican middle-class mores. She could not go out for dinner, as I had hoped. We couldn’t meet for lunch or even for coffee. When I asked, “How then will it be possible for us to meet, she said, “You may come to my home, but only when my sister or a parent is present.“

Another very memorable event took place while on a college-sponsored bus trip to Monte Alban in Oaxaca. Seeing the Zapotec ruins was interesting, but at that time, they were nothing more than mounds at either end of a flat field of weeds. The thing that made this trip to Oaxaca so memorable was Hilda.

Hilda was from Heidelberg. She was among the students who were on the trip to Oaxaca. She and I never met. The only time I saw her was at dinner in a cantina. Yet I will never forget her, and the moment of her breakdown. I had joined other students in a cantina for dinner. Hilda was sitting at adjoining table with three of her girl friends. Hilda was extremely distraught. I could clearly hear her speaking. She was talking through sobs, saying. “He is such a nice boy…He’s Jewish. She repeated these two statements several times. Then she sobbed, “My father was an SS officer.“ She paused and then said, “How could he have done those things to such nice people?” Afterward, she put her head down on her arms and cried uncontrollably.

I have thought about this scene many times since then, and thought that this is how the Germans of the Third Reich pay for their blind following of Nazi leadership?” “It is their children who pay with the realization of what their parents had done?” For years, I have wanted to ask a German who had lived through the war, how it happened that the German people stood by while their country slid into such extreme policies, the extermination of Jews and Romanos, and supported waging a devastating war across Europe.

It was not a unique event. I see it happening now with Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine and the devastating Israeli retaliation on Gaza for the brutal attack by Hamas. I no longer need to ask Germans how it happened. I can see it happening here in the USA, where half the population is following Donald Trump, who they see as a savior. turn a blind eye to what he is doing to the Latin Americans in this country. The conclusion, which I draw, is that it was not the Germans. It was not the people of Italy, Japan, or Russia. Nor is it our own countrymen. Rather, it is a flaw in the workings of the human mind. It is a serious source of fallacious thinking, which, if not overcome, will eventually result in the collapse of all human civilizations.