Jorge el Zapoteco
There’s magic in Latino cities, especially the old ones, cosmopolitan and colonial, centers surrounded by miles of misery, but the site of hope oh yes, with so much money flowing, so much there could be opportunity around every corner for a guy with a little education and an eye for his main chance.
In the magical cities where the world is changing.
Just look at Jorge in the sleek Toyota sedan he’s borrowed, elbow out the window, bronze Zapoteco skin, eyes quick behind hipster glasses, sun glinting off the gold ring in his ear, studs in his eyebrow. Jorge the Zapoteco flips open his cell, always available for the tourist trade as guide and driver carrying clients in borrowed sedans through magical cities where the world is changing for Jorge the Zapoteco.
And change is opportunity, in bustling Latino cities, for Maya and Mixteco, Aymara and Quechua, Zapoteco and Huichole, with the right clothes and phone, a little education and an eye for the main chance.
To get ahead means be here now, though your mother’s village is a day’s journey you return every year for her Saint’s Day, Zapoteco Jorge, far from cell towers in el pasado perpetuo del indio. Even in a city of Indians Jorge is still a stranger, all strangers outside the village.
“Bulmaro and I are both Zapotecos,” says Jorge, Zapotecos in the 21st century, “… both Zapotecos, but we don’t speak the same dialect.”
“In Oaxaca, there are 15 indigenous language groups,” says Jorge, and begins counting on his fingers, “Zapoteco, Mixteco ….” falters at eight and begins again, “Zapoteco, Mixteco ….” stops at 11, shrugs, gives up and checks his phone.
“We are all Mesoamerica,” he says. “We are all Mesoamerica” … because in this city dialect doesn’t matter, he and Bulmaro do business and he tastes the future though the old language sticks to tongue and lips. “I want to travel the Pan American Highway,” he says. “Once I rode all the way to Peru on the back of a motorcycle.” Opportunity around every corner if you separate yourself from the past and keep an eye out for the main chance.
“My mother’s village,” he says then puts away the memory and flips his phone, speaks some English, says hello in French and Chinese, self-taught, flips his phone flips his phone flips his phone, 3 hours by bus and a four–hour walk to his mother’s village, 3 languages in his head, gold hoop through an eyebrow, that’s why I’m single, he says, to get ahead, be here now, I don’t drink or use drugs, be here now, vivo, listo, cumplido and sharp, ready on the phone, not a scratch on the borrowed car, listo, vivo and sharp, with an eye for the main chance … with an eye for the main chance.