Mothers' Day and a Short History Lesson

This year I celebrated Mother's Day twice. Mexican Mother's Day is always on May 10; ours was May 11 this year. Even though Bill and Dan are far away - Maine and Vermont - I enjoyed the weekend.

Today Dulce and her family invited me to spend the day at their sports club, near the Bosque de Chapultepec. And what a club it is! Two Olympic swimming pools, another for platform diving and another for children; courts for tennis, frontennis, squash, badminton, basketball; an indoor track elevated over the basketball courts; rooms for aerobics, dance, Tai Chi, spinning and weights; computer center, library, spa, TV room, restaurant. And should anyone need a break from all these sports, Chapultepec Park is a short walk away. In fact, you can see the Castillo in the distance in this photo of Dulce and her brother Mike.








Frontennis is similar to racquetball, but it's played outside and with three walls instead of four. It was a demonstration sport in the Mexico City Olympic Games of 1968; Dulce's father played in those games and now coaches an amateur team. Last November he was inducted into Mexico's Sports Hall of Fame. We watched some games, had lunch, and then went to the park to visit the Castillo, built in the 18th century when Mexico was still Nueva España.

In the 1840's the Castillo was the Colegio Militar (military school), scene of the final battle in the Mexican-American War (1846-48)in which six young cadets, now known as the Niños Héroes, perished defending the Colegio against the U.S. invasion in a war that lost for Mexico half of its territory (now parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming and all of California, Nevada and Utah). Texas had already become a state in 1845, after having won its independence from Mexico in 1836.

It's a sobering experience to visit this museum (as well as the Museum of Interventions ) and realize that I, as a U.S. citizen, have benefited from the policy of Manifest Destiny while Mexico still suffers from the loss. And I say to myself, "Well, you're looking at this event from a perspective of 160 years later." But then I read this quote from Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs in a brochure I picked up, "I don't believe there has ever been a more iniquitous war than the one the U.S. waged against Mexico. Remembering that invasion, I am ashamed for my country."

The next invaders were the French, who came in response to president Benito Juarez' having suspended payment on foreign debt. The Mexicans won the Battle of Puebla on May 5 (el Cinco de Mayo), but later the French prevailed, and Napoleon III named his cousin Maximilian Emperor of Mexico. Maximilian and his wife Carlota lived in the Castillo until republican forces advanced on the city, and the U.S. and Prussia put pressure on France to withdraw, leaving Maximilian to face his destiny without support. He was captured, judged, and killed by a firing squad. Carlota returned to Europe. Juarez, who led the republican forces, resumed his presidency of Mexico.

Juarez lived in the Palacio Nacional at the Zócalo, but Porfirio Díaz, elected president and then ruling as dictator for the next 30 years, sometimes resided in the Castillo. The Revolution of 1910 resulted in his overthrow, and subsequent presidents lived in the Castillo until 1939, when it was converted into the museum it is today.