Pubdate: Thu, 26 Nov 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Brittny Mejia

HEARTS UNDER SIEGE

Mexico's drug violence casts a long shadow over the city of Ocotlan, 
and the Southern Californians who love it.

The children paid no heed to the priest from Jalisco as he celebrated 
a fiesta Mass in the backyard of a La Puente ranch, or to their 
parents urging them to sit still for the misa, or even to the rooster 
crowing nearby.

They were too busy studying the animals they didn't see in Los 
Angeles every day: a small herd of goats, a single black pig - and a 
troupe of dancing horses.

The mothers and fathers didn't share their children's sense of awe. 
If anything, the horses and the smell of manure that hung heavy in 
the air made them nostalgic.

It reminded them of Ocotlan.

How many of you are from Ocotlan? the priest asked. Almost every hand went up.

Most people have never heard of Ocotlan, a city more than 1,500 miles 
away in Mexico's Jalisco state. But drive L.A.'s freeways and 
streets, and you might spot a not-unusual sight: a car or truck 
sporting a sticker bearing its name. The T in the middle is elongated 
in the shape of a cross, with Jesus Christ's crucified silhouette.

On this Saturday night, the priest told the familiar story of how the 
fiesta came to be. After an earthquake devastated Ocotlan in the fall 
of 1847, he said, the townspeople attended a Mass outside a ruined 
church. And that's where they saw a vision of Jesus on a cross - 
known to Ocotlenses as El Senor de la Misericordia.

For more than 100 years each fall, celebrations have been held on 
both sides of the border. In Ocotlan, thousands pack the small city 
near the shores of Lake Chapala, coming from all over the country to 
see the performers and the fireworks lighting the sky, to hear the 
church bells ringing. In the La Puente backyard, there was no church, 
and fireworks weren't allowed. Plans for a live streaming broadcast 
of the fiesta back in Ocotlan fell victim to technical difficulties.

None of that stopped the crowd from conjuring up memories of home.

"It'll never leave your heart," said Antonio Rangel, who left Ocotlan 
for California 30 years ago. "Ocotlan is a magical city."

But today a shadow hangs over Ocotlan, and the people in Southern 
California who love it.

For generations, Mexico has sent its sons and daughters north, and no 
Mexican state has done that more than Jalisco, which gave the world 
mariachi music, birria and tequila. Jalisco gave birth to so many 
things associated with Mexican culture that the state's motto is 
"Jalisco is Mexico."

Jalisco is probably "the state that has the most people in the U.S. 
right now," said Andrew Selee, executive vice president of the 
Woodrow Wilson Center, a policy think tank in Washington. "It's 
almost the birthplace of the migration trends to the States."

For years, Jalisco had offered a relative reprieve from the gruesome 
drug violence convulsing much of Mexico.

Then, in 2012, 18 human heads were found near Chapala. In April, 
gunmen ambushed a police convoy, and the next month an army 
helicopter was shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade. A 
confrontation in May between federal forces and suspected drug cartel 
members on a ranch in the neighboring state of Michoacan left 42 
dead. Most, it turned out, were believed to have been from Ocotlan.

For people in Ocotlan, and those in places like the San Gabriel 
Valley who have roots there, it was a reminder of how much had 
changed, giving a somber undertone to the yearly ritual of 
celebrating their connection to a land they loved.

"When all this started in Michoacan, most of the people said, 'Thank 
God it's not in Jalisco,' " said Patricia Castillo, an organizer of 
the La Puente celebration. "Two, three years later, it started in 
Jalisco and everyone said, 'At least it's not in Ocotlan.' "

Sergio de Jesus Reyes Chiquito, the priest, preached of the Jalisco 
everyone in the crowd knew well. Ocotlan is framed by hills thick and 
green with trees and bushes during the rainy season, with little 
arroyos wending down the canyons, pooling in ponds. The priest knew 
things were not what they once were there, but he kept the Mass 
light, joked about not being stingy on donations. He tried to instill 
a sense of hope in the congregants.

"God never leaves us," he told those gathered in the backyard on 
folding metal seats. "God is always with us."

But sometimes it didn't seem that way to the people in Ocotlan and 
their relatives in the U.S., who often make yearly trips there.

Once, people would stay out until past midnight, more afraid of 
waking up their parents than anything else. Now there's a 10 p.m. 
curfew residents follow for their own safety. Ocotlenses living in 
Southern California say they worry about being kidnapped or killed 
when they visit, or having that fate befall a family member.

Sergio Medina, a former boxer from Ocotlan who lives in Sacramento, 
said his heart is still in Ocotlan. But as with many Mexicans in the 
United States, Medina's family has been touched by the violence south 
of the border. Last year, two of his cousins - a father and son - 
were shot dead in the crossfire of drug traffickers fighting in the 
streets of his native city.

"You get scared for your family. I thought one day it might come to 
Jalisco," he said of the violence that has infected Mexico. "And it did."

When Castillo visited in July, she saw homes pockmarked with bullet 
holes. Everything is fine, her mother reassured her.

"Mami, this is normal to you?" She pleaded with her to come to the U.S.

"Everyone is living through this," her mother told her. "This is 
where we're staying."

In Mexico it's a precarious proposition to count on the government 
for the public good, so the people at the fiesta were helping to 
raise money to build an orphanage for street children in Ocotlan.

"We're trying to rescue these kids on the street so they can have a 
better opportunity and they won't have to get into drugs because 
they're lacking something," said Miguel Botello, 28, who came from 
Ocotlan in 2009. "But it's not enough. Today is simply one day. We 
have to continue fighting to give them a better opportunity."

Everywhere at the fiesta, there were signs of people's connection to 
the city and Jalisco.

One man wore a T-shirt with the words "Hecho en Ocotlan, Jal" (Made 
in Ocotlan, Jalisco), while another boasted of the "Ocotlan" tattoo 
on his chest. People hoisted clay jugs filled with tequila and Squirt soda.

Men and women danced across a dirt floor underneath the dim sky as 
legendary Mexican singer Vicente Fernandez's baritone boomed from the speakers.

"Me voy por Ocotlan ... Hay que bonito es Jalisco."

"I'm heading to Ocotlan," say the lyrics to the song "El Jalicience." 
"How beautiful is Jalisco."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom