On May 10 I took off to Jalisco again para pasarme allá las fiestas patronales del rancho. I had gotten back to the states on the 30th of April and I really should have just stayed put but I couldn’t pass up the chance to spend more time with family and friends. I previously came back for several reasons 1) la noviecita 2) work related stuff 3) the Coachella Music Festival. I got to say that the second half of my visit was fun times. The fiesta is 9 days (novenario) of tribute to the local patron saint, San Isidro Labrador. The main day of the fiesta is May 15. Anyhow throughout those nine days there is plenty of music, food and drinks. I have to say that I am lucky to be from the great state of Jalisco. Jalisco is the state that has given us Vicente Fernandez and Maná, but more importantly it has helped us alter our state of mind with a drink that is derived from the maguey plant. Not that I am a borracho but everyday we contemplated what brand and what style of tequila we would get ourselves intoxicated with. Shall we drink tequila Reposado? Blanco? Añejo? What brand? 7 Leguas? Cazadores? Herradura? Cabrito? Centenario? Good times. Good times.
The fiesta is also the best excuse for the people that reside in the U.S. to make the trip back to their town. One of the reasons that I love the fiesta is that during the fiesta, the ranch resembles its old self. You get to see people that you haven’t seen in years. You meet for the first time the children of friends that you grew up with. It is essentially a town reunion. The last day of the fiesta is a day of much celebration but also of sadness because it signals the end of this yearly reunion and its time to go back to the states, for many including me.
During my visit, which overall was about a month, not everything was great. I came back with many criticisms of the ranch. It is disheartening to see suck a lack of town leadership and initiative. The plaza is falling apart and the jardin that once flourished is now non-existent. There is trash all over the town. One of the main entrances to the town is now doubling as a makeshift trash dump where one can see the “magic of plastic.”
Since many fathers, which are the heads of the household, leave to the U.S. for parts of the year to work there also seems to be a disintegration of the family. There seems to less respect towards the town elders by the town youth. When I was young you never cursed in the presence of an elder, much less curse at them, and this time around I saw this many times. Some of the adolescent girls miran alguien que viene de dinero y luego luego se van con ellos sin importarles las reglas de la familia, y mucho menos las de la religión. Claro que esto de “irse juida” es algo que siempre a ocurrido y va ocurrir pero ya es como la norma y para mi eso esta muy mal.
There is also a growing dependency on U.S. Dollars. It is getting to the point where there are youths that drop out of school and just bum it and live off the money that their relatives send. Some argue that there are no opportunities in Mexico and this is not true. There are less opportunities but there are ways to making a life in Mexico that don’t require you coming to the U.S. Interestingly, it seems that some of the younger women have taken it upon themselves to change the status quo. More and more girls from the ranch are finishing their schooling and become teachers, nurses, accountants, and even doctors. These licensiadas will unfortunately make much less money than in the U.S. but they can still live comfortably in Mexico. It impresses me when I hear of people from the ranch bettering their lives through education. There just needs to be more of it.