Mexican Radio


I was going to have a whole bunch of pithy observations on a whole pile of things – the amendments to the Indian Act that are going to restore status to a whole pile of people – and going forward, allowing my children to have their kids claim status – the changes being talked about in funding post-secondary education for indigenous students, the alarming rise in racist remarks that show an incredible amount of ignorance regarding the history and status of indigenous people in this country....but dammit I’m in Mexico. So I’m not in a headspace to give any of these things serious consideration. I’m concerned with hanging out by the pool, how much sunscreen I need to apply, or what drink I should have now. I should be all concerned with privilege and how the burden of north American greed crushes these polite, friendly people here all working for pennies to keep the drinks flowing and the pool clean and the tile free from sand and the sagauro cactus from overrunning the carefully-landscaped areas...but I’m on holiday where my economic privilege translates into a seven-day stint in a resort in Los Cabos at the very end of the Baja Peninsula, the south-western most point in Turtle Island, or as I’ve been delighting in saying all week, the tip of the Turtle’s flipper.

But in contemplating this, I’ve also discovered that The Minutemen’s song Corona is so very fitting here...

The people will survive
In their environment
The dirt, scarcity, and the emptiness
Of our South
The injustice of our greed
The practice we inherit
The dirt, scarcity and the emptiness
Of our South
There on the beach
I could see it in her eyes
I only had a Corona
Five cent deposit

This desert landscape is beautiful and so weirdly alien to my southern-Ontario eyes, and laying about in the sun has totally lowered my IQ by several digits, so I am unable to formulate a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. Given that, we will return to our usual topics next week.

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