Mexico City: The Capital of the 21st Century by David Lida
Riverhead Books, £10.76
Mexico has been referred to recently as a failed state. President Calderón’s tough and, many believe, misguided offensive against the drug cartels and the ensuing violence are rarely out of the news but David Lida’s contemporary travelogue, a street level panorama, offers a refreshing alternative to the doomsday headlines. Lida, an American journalist, fell in love with the Mexican capital and made it his home in 1990. His book reflects that affection but also lays bare the city’s less appealing side: its corruption, extreme poverty, the sex industry and the shopping habits of the rich all come under scrutiny.
As well as offering us a cultural exploration of his adopted home, Lida also describes what the move entailed: making friends and his promotion from outsider to citizen. His inquiring mind leads him into all manner of places, from the city’s most infamous bars to its most feted restaurants. He has some hilarious encounters with various characters in the city’s most notorious dives and some hair-raising cab rides that include a terrifying secuestro express (express kidnapping) at knifepoint. Lida and his wife had the journey from hell that lasted more than two hours but they lived to tell the tale and he argues that the capital is not as dangerous as its residents (known as chilangos) believe, although victims of violent crime can rarely rely on the police or judicial system.
Lida makes some surprising judgements, such as his claims of mutual mistrust between the sexes and that many Mexican men are emotionally distant. He also suggests that well-off chilangos tend to restrict themselves to specific zones of the city in order to “insulate themselves from the existence of the poor.” Although one cannot deny the “rampant inequality” between rich and poor, and
the problems associated with Mexican machismo, my experiences have been markedly different.
In proposing that culturally, economically, and politically, Mexico City is the capital of the Spanish-speaking world, Lida may not have counted on the extent of the damage caused by the world economic crisis; some financial forecasts suggest that Mexico will be the hardest hit country in Latin America. However, part of the pleasure of reading this book is that so much of it invites reflection, speculation and, in the more challenging assumptions, even argument – the remit of any good travel book. Lida’s feel for the city and his evocation of its past as well as its present is both entertaining and profound.
Lucy Popescu
