Chicanonautica: Update from the Plain of Snakes

by Ernest Hogan

To most Americans--and a lot of Chicanos--Mexico is the Godzilla-esque mutant iguana living next door. I’ve been hearing people predict the end of the country for forty years. Still, it goes on . . .

“You must be careful, Don Pablo,” Rudi Roth said at the hotel. “Mexico is surrealistic.”

That’s from Paul Theroux’s On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey. I can’t resist a book with lines like that.

I once returned from Mexico, after being called a gringo by locals and tourists asked me for directions as if I was part of the landscape, and California looked like it was in black and white.  There is something ancient and surrealistic radiating from the center of the Earth into that soil. It disturbs a lot Americanos. It always changes my life. 

They do their best not to look at it directly, in fear of catching whatever horrible infection brought it into being. What is the nature of the infection? Who knows? This situation has only gotten worse in the age of Trump and the pandemic. 

Paul Theroux, bestselling author of novels and travelogues, has done us all a favor. An old gringo going on heroic road trip, alone, by car, crisscrossing the border, going down through northern regions, to Mexico City, Oaxaca, experiencing an earthquake and its aftermath, encountering crime, corruption, the muxes--the Third Sex--and the Zapatistas and Subcomandante Marcos.

. . . Marcos said to some tourists, “We apologize for the inconvenience, but this is revolution.”

Revolution now, revolution forever.

Yeah, I know some will object to an Anglo doing this job, but I’ve experienced how being a Chicano down there is problematic. And he’s a damn good writer, with a sharp eye, and sympathy. Americanos feel safe reading him. This book could help to break the crippling stereotypes that we are forced to live with.

These realities put most science fiction world building to shame.  

You want dystopia? This is real life. (Who created it? That’s an interesting story that we probably won’t see on American bestseller lists in the near future.)

Post-apocalyptic landscapes? Once again reality is more fantastic than imaginations brought up on corporate franchises. Societies undergoing transformation? These mutations have been going on for centuries.

“'Nothing is illegal here,' Francisco said with a crooked smile.”

How’s that for your anarchist utopia?

When I create my imaginary world, I try to make the reader feel the way wandering through Mexico makes me feel, in all its gritty glory.

Mexico is an exploding galaxy of new worlds and old. Theroux has provided us with a needed update. He puts it all into historic, political, and literary context–I’m going to have to go through it and take note of the books he mentions for my never-ending research.

And most important, he introduces us to an astonishing diversity of people, with fascinating lives, and things to say. Real human beings. Not stereotypes. Not monsters. Another step toward seeing things clearly . . . 

Ernest Hogan tries to see things clearly, but it keeps coming out stark, raving sci-fi.