Distrito Federal

I don’t remember much of the flight into Mexico City, just filling out the customs forms and then, in the airport, going through customs, as nervous as I always am, worried they’ll find something banned that I don’t even have. When I passed through customs Maria Teresa was waiting for me, but Dillon was off wandering, searching for us at other exits. When he returned we left the airport and I saw Distrito Federal for the first time. It was loud, crowded, smoggy, intimidating, and full of crazy drivers. As we drove to his mother’s home I tried not to pay attention to the cars around ours: apparently lane lines were just a suggestion.

The next day we went to Teotihuacan. It was hot but when we got there and I looked at the huge city stretched out in front of me, presided over by the Pyramid of the Sun in the center, some 700 feet tall, the heat didn’t matter. It was awe-inspiring. As we walked toward the Pyramid of the Moon on the north end Dillon told me about the ancient city. He talked on and on about the city and the people who lived there. He would do this at the Museo Nacional de Antropologìa as well, a few days later, and his knowledge of the cultures that had established Tenochtitlán and eventually Mexico City was stunning.

Everywhere we went, Dillon and his mother had something to tell me about the history of their city, ancient and not-so-ancient. He told me about the ice rink and the three nativity scenes in the Zocalo on Christmas Eve; he told me the legends of Our Lady of Guadalupe as we rode the short moving sidewalk in front of her; about the chinampas that had turned Lake Xochimilco into a maze of canals as we glided through them on the trajinera we had rented for the day. When we walked through Coyoacan and La Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s house, he told me about the history of the neighborhood, the artist, and the famous homeless man, el changoleon, the "monkey-lion," we saw posing for pictures with locals. He could tell me all about this place he hadn’t lived since he was a child, and I could feel the pride of his country in his voice. It made me realize something about American culture and Mexican. In Mexico, everyone knows about the Niños Héroes who defended the Military Academy in Chapultepec Park from the Marines during the Mexican-American War and about Our Lady of Guadalupe. They are proud of their culture and they know these things because they make up their identity, not because they just happened to retain this information after the test in history class. This country is their home, and there is pride in that. I know what I learned in U.S. History about the Founding Fathers and the Revolutionary War. These weren’t things my parents told me because it makes me who I am. We, as Americans, don’t look much into our identity, except when it is convenient. I have never felt the connection to my home I could see both he and his mother felt to their city, decrepit and confusing as it was. They are chilangos, through and through. I am American, but only because I was born there, not because of any connection to my country.