The National Landscape

Femicide, in addition to being a crime¹, is the result of a concatenation of multiple forms of violence perpetrated against women. Since the 1990s, Mexico has promoted various actions aimed at giving visibility to systematic homicides against women and at investigating and legislating with the intention of eradicating this extreme form of gender-based violence. Since 2012, the year in which femicide was typified as a crime in the Federal Criminal Code, there has been an enormous debate on the count of femicides. There are two main positions in this process of “keeping track and counting femicides”: the official approach and that of civil society organizations. The latter accounts for 11 women victims of femicide per day. In this context, the situation of Indigenous women is almost invisible, since none of the counts is broken down by ethnicity. Thus, we do not know how many of these 11 women belong to any of the 68 Indigenous peoples that reside in Mexico. The response from the Indigenous Women’s Movement has been to generate our own data² in our own communities.³

The first organization that took interest in this subject was the National Coordination of Indigenous Women (CONAMI – México). Since 2013, we have been working to document the violence experienced by Indigenous women and our peoples. The results and outcomes of the Emergencia Comunitaria de Género initiative —a Gender-Responsive Community Emergency initiative— were published in the book entitled “Hacia un Futuro sin Feminicidios. Investigación, activismo y respuestas organizadas en las Américas” (2024).⁴ In the more than 10 years that we have been working with Emergencia Comunitaria de Género initiative, we have realized that the violence experienced by Indigenous women is intimately linked to the violence perpetrated against our peoples. In this sense, my reflections on femicidal violence and femicide are part of this collective analysis. In this essay I present these insights based on a particular crime committed in my community.

Lighting the Way with the Flaked Wax Candles

Tuesday, February 13, 2018. I woke up at early dawn. The flaked wax candles were to leave my godparents´ house: colorful flower candles made of beeswax and decorated with silver and red glitter would be offered in appreciation to the Lord of El Sauz, saint, and patron of my hometown, and serve as decorative candles at the church altar. My godparents had arranged and ornamented their house with earnest effort. This was a day to give thanks. I decided to join in gratitude, to celebrate with them alongside people from my community. The early morning was cold, the sky was clear and still starry. The procession walked from Cerroblanco to the church at 5:00 am. These were the mañanitas. As I marched following the pilgrims, I remember myself thinking about the importance of the “traída de la cera” tradition —lighting the way with flaked wax candles— during the carnival festival, as a way of giving thanks. I envisioned myself as a candlemaker and organizer at some point in time. The feeling of giving thanks —I am not sure if it meant thanking the patrons, the saints, the energies of the universe or all of them, but the feeling born when giving thanks— and the joy I felt on that early morning, made me believe I was in the right place and at the right time to rejoice in my people´s religious syncretism, which I had been experiencing and thinking about for years now.

The festivities continued after that morning. Year after year, the celebrations took place on Shrove Tuesday. It was the most important day of that long-awaited feast. Many people who worked in the suburbs —just like me— had arrived in the town over the weekend. Even some who were now living in the United States had come back to experience the town’s festival, enjoy the horse races, the “charreada”, the mass ceremonies; watch the enchanting fireworks, eat barbecue at the music host´s house, drink beer in the main square, live and engage in the merriment. These were the spaces where we would all convene, come together, and continue building our community.

The Dance

The night fell and along came the procession, walking through the main streets of our community, clean and decorated with bright flowers, balloons and —of course— colorful paths with carpets made of sawdust. Saints and virgins from 30 neighboring towns had joined the fiesta. Everyone marched carrying their saints… this was clearly a day of celebration. In the village, everyone had cooperated and given their best to make sure that everything would go well and that gatherings would be a perfect time for all to enjoy. The “castillo” (fireworks) shone once the procession had ended. Hundreds of people, families, neighbors from across the region had gathered with “the saints” in front of the church. We saw the glowing shapes take form in the air as the gunpowder burned. Yes, this was a lot of money “burned”, but, indeed, it was also part of a moment of joy shared with other communities and other spiritual beings, which although embodied in St. Andrew, St. Theresa, St. Michael, and many other saints, are considered so much more than mere porcelain figures, Our Father and Hail Mary. This celebration was about expressing gratitude, coming together and rejoicing.

The festive fireworks were followed by the dance, mostly awaited by youths. Everyone had been looking forward to this gathering to dance, and many also to drink alcohol… and dance. “The dance” would offer a moment for socializing, which —for a long time now—, had turned into the only place where you could find a partner. A collectively approved space for public display of affection, to hold hands, to hold your partner´s waist, and to enjoy the rhythms —from the North that is, because we still do not dance “cumbia” here.

It was almost 11 p.m. on that Shrove Tuesday evening. The long-awaited dance was led by two Northern bands and, of course, a trio, because dancing “huapangos” during these festivities was one of the main attractions. Although this was a working day, the event had grasped a lot of engagement and attendance. People had come from different communities —and so had the saints. One of the big, popular, and expensive bands of the region would be performing. As expected, this group started playing at around midnight. The community auditorium was packed. I remember meeting a friend, dancing together, and talking to him about the corrupt practices that prevailed at the municipal administration level. You see, the celebration as a space for gathering, triggers various conversations: from the carefree talk about the weather —good thing it did not rain this year, otherwise your boots would have gotten dirty—, to securing potential business deals. This is a space where we all come together.

The leading band started to perform accompanied by a festival of lights. We were all looking at the south stage. The band kicked off with their traditional accordion tunes. Couples began to dance and rejoice. This was the beginning of our celebration of love and friendship… We heard three chords, three shots and screams. We all started to run, first trying to get away from where the sound of explosions was coming, and then towards the exit. The screams continued. We could tell they were from a woman. There had been times in the region when shots had been fired in the air as men would swagger around, drunk with alcohol, and —empowered by the money they had earned as migrants—, they would attempt to show their virility using a gun. But it had been many years now since then, so everyone found this very disconcerting. Chaos ensued and we all rushed out of the auditorium.

A few minutes later, some women came out, holding each other, crying. I recognized them. We all knew each other. I tried to get closer to hear, “Fermín has shot Sandra.”

The message arrived a couple of hours later. Sandra had died on her way to the hospital. Fermín, her ex-husband, with whom she had two children, had murdered her on the day of our town festival. Three years following a painful separation, Sandra had found happiness once again, working, driving a van, just like her mother. She was thrilled with the occupation she had learned from her mother and father: being a van driver. But in the early morning of February 14, the man who had vowed to love her had shot her with a gun, in front of the whole town that had seen her grow up.

He was in custody, but his relatives and several friends were offering a hefty sum of money to get him released. I turned to my contacts and reached out within my networks to get the femicide case to be taken up by the Observatorio Nacional de Feminicidio —National Femicide Observatory. That was the only thing I could do. Meanwhile, the celebration had been brought to an end. We were all in a state of shock, heartbroken, feeling the pain in our chests. There was disorientation.

The Assembly

The authorities were at a loss and did not know what to do. The dance had ended in the least expected way and there was no money now to cover the expenses of hiring a “famous” band. Faced with such an emergency, the Assembly convened and ordered the authorities to collect all the necessary evidence to file a robust and compelling femicide complaint, to support the family in every conceivable way, and to leave the payment of the band as the last in the priority list. The Assembly concluded and we all left the room; but after a few minutes, a woman came to me and said, “Liz, the gentlemen over there are planning to do something else, different than what has been agreed in the Assembly.” I went back to the meeting room. There they were, the men in white hats, the femicide “buddies,” our community authorities. I approached them and enquired about their plan. They said that they were interested in honoring their payment agreement with the band, and —therefore— they had considered accepting the money that the murderer´s family was offering the community —a fine that is applied to any subject infringing the community´s public order as per community regulations—, and that the rest was up to the family. They had seized the firearm that had been used to kill Sandra. “I killed her for love," was the message they had found and used to describe what had happened.

The Impact on the Community

Nothing was ever the same after that day. The authorities did not allow a cross to be placed at the crime scene in memory of Sandra, as “It would look bad to have a cross at a festive space as a reminder of what happened there. Although very unfortunate, that is over now.” However, we did not forget it. The celebration was never the same. Some of us did not return to the place for a long time. Children and youths could not but wonder… Why did he kill her? Why did they kill a woman at the party? Why does machismo kill? No one knew or was able to answer those questions. Many of us have not recovered from the “shock.” A young woman who was pregnant with her baby that day assures that her baby was born with a heart condition because she went through a terrible scare that night… These shocks are bad for pregnant women.

For the next few months, it was not easy to take in what had happened that day, going through the joy of gratitude and community unity, to boiling with rage after witnessing patriarchal pacts. The concept once reviewed in so many readings had been there for me to behold. It was poignant when I listened to the gentlemen in white hats, the hats they always wore because they felt powerful. The hat that they had inherited, not from our ancestors —because they wore “xamati”— but the hat representing —for me back then— the patriarchal connection, the combination of pre-Hispanic patriarchy and colonialism. And then I began to ask myself the following: why hadn´t my community, after organizing everything for the festivity, after getting ready to celebrate and give thanks for life, done something before that femicide happened? Why had they claimed it was “her” problem… Because why had she gone dancing in the first place? Were the gentlemen in white hats not shocked by what had happened? What did they think about their “juada”⁵?

The former description narrates the moment when a femicide left us all in utter shock. I have entitled this chronicle “The Day They Stole My Fiesta” because that is precisely how I felt then, dispossessed. Upon digging deeper into dispossession, I realize that a femicide not only rips a woman´s life away, but also affects the lives of the people around her, we are all stripped of our peace and joy.

Sources

Código Penal Federal [C.P.F], Reformado, Diario Oficial de la Federación [D.O.F], April 17, 2024, (México).

Ley General de Acceso de las Mujeres a una Vida Libre de Violencia [LGAMVLV], Reformada, Diario Oficial de la Federación [D.O.F], January 26, 2024 (México).

CONAMI (2024). Emergencia Comunitaria de Género. Una metodología artesanal para visibilizar y sanar las violencias desde las mujeres indígenas in Di Marco, Martín Hernán; Branigan, Claire et.al (compilation), Hacia un futuro sin feminicidios. Investigación, activismo y respuestas organizadas en las Américas (pp. 21- 37). Editorial Teseo Publishing Company.