Transnational Zapata: From the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional to Immigrant Marches
STEPHANY SLAUGHTER The following traveler’s reflection began in an airport—a space both national and deterritorialized. As a U.S. scholar based in Mexico City from 2005–2008, for me the waiting areas and shops of the Benito Juárez International Airport began to feel like a home away from home. The airport is an ideal space to contemplate how a country represents itself in the midst of global flows. To consumers, last-minute purchases in this travel chronotope are objects that represent the country they have visited in the form of a “souvenir.” At Benito Juárez you will find a combination of what vendors believe to be representative of Mexico and what tourists imagine to be representative of Mexico (such as the ostentatious sombreros that don’t resemble any headwear I’ve ever seen worn by a Mexican outside of Hollywood movies). Before boarding the flight, you can buy tequila, serapes, or a variety of items bearing Mexican symbols and heroes such as Frida Kahlo, the Virgin of Guadalupe, or Emiliano Zapata. Among these images, I am especially drawn to representations of the Mexican Revolution—especially those of General Emiliano Zapata. After spending some time in the state of Morelos surrounded by his omnipresent image in museums, monuments, license plates, restaurant names, and markets, I began to interrogate the circulation of his image in different contexts. In the years leading up to the 2010 explosion of products related to the bicentennial of the Mexican Revolution, I ran across a variety of merchandise in airport shops: 1910 tequila with Emiliano Zapata’s face on the bottle, Pineda Covalin designer silk ties and scarves with miniature Zapatas or neo-Zapatistas, and a shadow-box version of a Day of the Dead altar with a reproduction of Zapata’s face, a skeleton, and a miniature Corona beer, all encased