Creative Non-Fiction by Alex Tellez of Cerro Coso Community College
2015 Met Awards - Second Place for College Creative Non-Fiction
Last December, I went on a trip to Mexico City to visit relatives. I’ve already gone there a couple of times in my life, but this trip was different. This was my first time leaving the country as an adult and I surely felt as if I was being treated like one. My grandpa decided to take me to the beautiful cathedral that was located in Zócalo.
On the way there, we had to get to our destination via the metro stations that encompass the gargantuan city. One of the trains was taking a while to get to the station. As I waited with my family to continue our day-long trip, my grandpa recounted an experience he had in 1968. Now, this is quite possibly the greatest story I have ever heard. It’s one of those stories you don’t forget. It’s one I plan to pass down to my children.
In 1968, the Mexican government was experiencing instances of civil unrest among the citizens, specifically university students at the time. The reason why this happened was because the Mexican government allotted $150 million dollars to fund the 1968 Olympic Games that were going on in Mexico City. Today, that amount would have equaled $7.5 billion dollars. In my mind, the revolts made total sense, since Mexico today is still considered a third-world country.
My grandpa was a university student at the time these revolts were going on and the government knew that he was an activist in the Dirty War, or the instances in which the government tried to suppress opposition to the government.
It was October 2nd, 1968, and the government decided to massacre hundreds of university students that had taken part in the revolts. That night, thousands of young Mexicans gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas and chant ¡No queremos olimpiadas, queremos revolución! or, “We don’t want Olympics, we want revolution!”
That night, my grandpa was targeted by the federal government and he was on a hit list that included him and an estimated 300 more people. My grandpa could have been taken out by the government had he stayed in his home; however, my grandpa was not home for a good reason: he was out celebrating his 17th birthday.
By the time he finished telling me his story, the train had just arrived and I was left with a huge feeling of morbidity. At that moment, all I could think about on that train was how everything was fragile and that nothing is ever absolute. I think about this story every time I feel like I’m going nowhere in life. I start to think of the moments and steps that led up to this very second and how all of that could instantly have been lost in time. In these moments, I think of my life as a string oscillating through time that gets tangled in other people’s strings until that string gets cut.
I think about how all I’d be left with are the stories that made my string mean something.
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