3-XI-95
Querido Luis, Espero que cuando recibas estas lineas te encuentres bien…bueno Luis, yo quisiero que tu como fuera de esta pais me dieras tu punto de vista en cuanto a la situacion que vive en este momento como veras si los ricos se quejan como estan todos los umildes. Pero lo que si te digo Luis que quiero tu opinion de lo que…Feliz navidad y que el cielo te calme de benediciones…
- Estela Lopez Toriz
Estela was one of the four individuals in the ejido Dario Martinez (Valle de Chalco, State of Mexico, on the highway to Puebla just outside the DF boundary past Ciudad Neza) I interviewed over a 2 year period from 1989-1990 for a community oral history I gathered and translated for the Inter-American Foundation (see entries for January 23 for the full report). We stayed in touch by mail for a few years after my last visit during which I gave her a copy of her testimonials that I had edited and transcribed.
It was not easy for her to write to me- her community had no post office, no mail delivery or other government services. I am certain that few of my letters reached her (in fact her letter lamented that she had not gotten any replies to her previous letters sent to me, which either I had not received, or perhaps my returns had not arrived to her).
I recently found this letter from her, written in November 1995, asking my opinion on some updated political news from Dario Martinez- a not unusual tussle between rival community action groups- and wishing me a Merry Christmas, that was folded into a book on my shelf. I don’t remember why I put it there or when.
I had forgotten the letter, but not Estela. She was a single mother, a fighter and a scrapper, a community organizer and an advocate for her neighbors, trying to get the essential services- electricity lines, drainage and sewerage, clean water, a decent primary school- that they deserved for their neighborhood.
Proper mail service was the least of these. The fact that she sent me letters at all, that she thought it a normal thing to write from her squatter settlement to an American in New York, that she expected the mail to arrive despite everything in Mexico that would make such a thing doubtful, proves more importantly that she expected to have the same things that other Mexicans count on without a second thought- a way to speak out, a way to be heard, and a way to be answered.