Spratling's Work

A terrific collection of silver, furniture and drawings are on exhibit at the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City right now. They are the work of William Spratling, who lived and worked in Taxco Guerrero from 1929 to 1967. Spratling led a fast paced life and he loved Mexico and its people.  As his biographer Joan Mark says, "The land suited him because it mirrored him.  It was harsh, tough, and weighted with secret sorrows."

Spratling's fame rests on Taxco's silver.  Don Guillermo, as he was known in Taxco, introduced new silver designs into the market. He also trained apprentices and valued their input in the manufacturing process.  He put Taxco on the map as a vibrant production center of world-class design.

About silver he wrote:  "The true color of silver is white, the same color as extreme heat and extreme cold.  It is also the same color as the first food received by an infant, and it is the color of light.  Its very malleability is an invitation to work with it.  It lends itself to the forming of objects in planes and in three dimensions of great desirability, objects to be done by hand in precious metal."

Helen Escobedo tells us that after sizing up a customer's ability to pay, Spratling would lead his visitor into the appropriate display room in his shop in Taxco.  He served iced champagne in the gold room and tequila in the silver room. A third room was for tourists in general.  In all three rooms the quality was high; what varied was weight, size, and type of metal.  In the exhibit at the Franz Mayer Museum you'll see a great variety of the work that came out of his workshop.  One display is of identical, equally beautiful, tea sets, one in silver the other copper.

You’ll also see Spratling’s signature furniture. His slightly reclined chairs are made of a hardwood frame with a single piece of leather as the back and seat. A low table with a stretched leather top completes the set.

The exhibit also includes some of Spratling's sketches, drawings, and portraits.  You’ll see illustrations from his book "A Small Mexican World," which he originally published under the title "Little Mexico."

What caught me by surprise, in among some personal effects, is a wallet-sized copy of Spratling's honorary doctorate diploma from Auburn University -- tribute to his multi-faceted life and personality.

It was his knowledge of architecture and skill in sketching that brought Spratling to Mexico in 1929 on a commission from Architectural Forum magazine to write and illustrate articles on Colonial architecture. In moving to Mexico he gave up the house he shared with William Faulkner in New Orleans but he had a knack for making friends with the most interesting people around.  In his article "Figures in a Mexican Renaissance" Spratling wrote of his new friends artist Diego Rivera, archeologist Manuel Gamio, and Moises Saenz, defender of the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Spratling traveled Mexico's southern Sierra Madre collecting crafts and archeological pieces on horseback and by Jeep. He also flew his own single engine two-seater Ercoupe plane.

On one occasion he piloted his plane to Alaska where he signed a contract with the territorial government set up a native jewelry production program to supplement the income of the Inuits, similar to what he had set up in Taxco. Shorter trips could be on a whim to Puebla to buy traditional "camote" candy or off to Acapulco for fresh fish.

After crashing his Ercoupe and surviving the night on a 12,000 foot peak, he gave up flying and acquired a Ford Mustang.  It was on a high-speed drive to Mexico City that he met his death in 1967.

"Taxqueños remember August 7, 1967, the day Spratling died, as northern North Americans of at least a similar age remember the death of John F. Kennedy -- they can remember what they were doing when they heard the news," writes Ms. Mark. This newspaper reported at the time that 20,000 people attended his funeral.

Taxqueña Margarita Dominguez said at his funeral: "The people of Taxco are mourning the death of a man who came to settle among us, not just as a friend, but as a brother, who for more than thirty-five years shared our pains, our bitter griefs, our sorrows, and our poverty as well as our pleasures and our deepest joys."

On your next trip to Taxco make a point of visiting the Spratling Museum in an attractive three-story building behind the Santa Prisca Church. It holds mainly archeological pieces that Spratling purchased and collected for their artistic value rather than their archeological or historical value.

I also encourage you to treat yourself to a marvelous visit to the Spratling exhibit, titled "William Spratling, Designer; Legacy in Silver", in the Franz Mayer Museum on Hidalgo Avenue, across the street from Alameda Park in downtown Mexico City. The exhibit is open on Tuesdays-Sundays through February 17, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Parking is available in a building adjacent to the museum. The Bellas Artes metro station is a block away.  Save some time for a meal or coffee and dessert in the Museum's cafeteria set in one of the most beautiful of Mexico's downtown gardens.

Weights and Measures

I invite you to visit a central market in Mexico. Most municipalities have one, and they are delightfully busy places. Activity starts before dawn as trucks arrive with produce, flowers, and fresh meat and continues until after sunset. Think of them as the original big box store where you can find anything and everything.

Despite a first impression of chaos and confusion, in this type of market there is order to the layout. Meat is in one section, fish another, and chicken stalls are all together.  Vegetables are in some aisles, fruits others.  Cheeses have their own section as do móle, pasta, and herbs.  There are areas for haircuts, food stalls, and seasonal items. You need a new machete, you’ll find it.  Any kind of pot or pan, dish or flowerpot--it’s there.

Standardized weights and measures are essential in setting prices in a market of this type. In most cases prices are set per unit of measure and customers are not penalized for buying in small quantities.  If the price is set per kilo, the cost of 250 grams is one quarter of the kilo price.  However, not all vendors have scales on which to weigh their merchandise.

There are a number of other units of measure which are recognized and accepted in Mexican markets.  These allow customers to comparison shop between various stalls.  As far as I have been able to determine they are amazingly uniform throughout the country.

A "cuartillo" is a unit of volume equivalent to two liters.  There are two presentations of this measuring device. One is a cylindrical tin container which looks like a straight-sided pitcher with a handle. The other is a square wooden box.  Both can be used to measure grain or beans.  Only the metal one is used to measure liquids, such as milk or cooking oil.

Half cuartillo pitchers are referred to as "medio cuartillo" and half of that is called a "puño" (a fist).  Though pitchers and boxes are clearly handmade, I've tested their accuracy using water.  Two puños equal a medio cuartillo and two medio cuartillos equal a cuartillo, in both cases filling the larger container right to the brim.

When measuring dry ingredients such as grains and beans there can be a fluctuation in the amount you get depending on how the pitcher is filled.   There’s a way to fill the container that is advantageous to the buyer, and another way that is better for the seller. When buying, set the pitcher on the ground and fill it, shaking and tapping it on the ground a few times in order to get the contents to settle into the container a bit more.   When selling scoop up the grain, brush off the excess on top, and quickly pour it into the customers bag or bucket. I call the first technique "settling" and the second "scooping."

This difference came to light under President Luis Echeverría's administration (1970-76) when the government fixed the price for both buying and selling corn. Most farmers preferred to sell their corn to middle men who paid immediately rather than sell it to Conasupo, the National Company of Popular Subsistence, who took weeks to pay. By alternating between "settling" when buying from farmers and "scooping" when delivering to Conasupo, the middlemen could make an additional profit -- sometimes 10% more.

Two other unusual units of measure found in main markets are tuna fish cans ("un atun") and sardine cans ("una sardina").  Since these items are a standard size and sold all over the country, they are a dependable way to measure small quantities.

In public markets you'll notice that some stalls are much better equipped than others.  Those selling cheese and other dairy products will usually have refrigerated display cases.   I recently asked a vendor whose market stall is right at the boundary between cheese and grains -- he sells both -- if he uses a cuartillo.  He disparagingly answered that only those who sell "en el piso" (on the floor) use cuartillos.  He sells per kilo.  I didn't ask what he meant by "floor" however I did wonder if he was referring to a pile of grain on a tarp, or to those who have their grains and beans in barrels resting on the floor instead of a fancier display counter such as his.  What was clear is that there is pride that goes along with how the merchandise is presented.

Fascinating as it is, shopping in a central market is not to everyone’s taste.  There are no shopping carts, payment is made at each market stall, no credit cards are accepted, space in the aisles is tight, and parking spaces are scarce.  On the other hand, there is little waste.  Youngsters are more than willing to carry your purchases for a tip as you move through the market, prices are excellent, and you can have a grand adventure as you shop.

Where tortillas come from

Most Mexican children are well experienced at being sent out "al madado" -- to buy tortillas just before breakfast or lunch.   Mothers give their children a special cloth in which to wrap the tortillas and just the right change to pay for them. The children go to a neighborhood tortillería where a clanging apparatus spits out hot and aromatic tortillas.

I first came upon a tortilla-making machine as an adult. I wonder what it is like to grow up with them as a child sent off to buy tortillas every day.  At first glance these machines look like complicated, disjointed contraptions, but really they are a compact, well-designed assembly line process. I wouldn't be surprised if early childhood awe over the tortilla-making machine leads to the National University's high enrollment in its School of Engineering. 

The machines are ubiquitous throughout the country.  You'll find them in small towns and city neighborhoods as well as in the fanciest of supermarkets.   The machinery is powered by electricity but the cooking is done with gas heat. In most neighborhood tortillerías the machines seem like they are always on the verge of breakdown with their covers removed years ago and their insides visible. Bicycle chains can be seen making gears turn and the conveyor belt move.  Just like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, the machines start making tortillas in the back of the store and shape, cut, cook, and pile up the finished product right at the front counter in less than a minute.

The Celorio brand machine puts out tortillas single file.  The Verastegui brand, designed for busier tortillerías, puts out tortillas which are almost side by side on the conveyor belt. It would be more correct to refer to designs rather than brands since most tortilla machines weren't purchased from the manufacturer. It's cheaper to buy parts and assemble one yourself following one of the traditional designs.   Too bad for the Celorio and Verastegui families, but that's the way it is.

The tortilla wouldn’t be possible without the ancient Mesoamaricans' discovery of the process of nixtamalization (an English word of Nahauatl origin). Corn was the staple of ancient Mesoamerica's diet and continues to be so for a substantial portion of the Mexican population.  Unless it is first nixtamalized, corn eaten in quantity will lead to debilitating diseases caused by a niacin (vitamin B3) deficiency.  Nixtalamization involves soaking and cooking kernels of corn in water and powdered limestone. This process breaks down the hull and transforms the nutrients in the kernel making them accessible to the human body.  When eaten along with beans and chile our bodies can transform the mix into protein.

Ground nixtamal becomes the dough or "masa" from which a tortilla is made. It's only ingredients are corn, lime, and water. Watch for a small pick-up truck delivering masa to a neighborhood tortillería.  You’ll see 50-kilo-bundles wrapped in a large cloth, referred to as a "maleta" (a suitcase).

At the tortillería, the maleta is put in the hopper of the tortilla-making machines. The machine presses the masa flat, cuts it into circles, and drops it on a conveyor belt where the tortillas cook. The tortillas on the conveyor belt expand and seem like they will fill up with air and pop. But they settle down by the time they get to where the conveyor belt drops the tortilla into a shoot where it comes to a standstill right on top of the tortilla ahead of it.

Tortillas made by machine have a characteristic that all Mexican cooks know about--they have a front and a back. Cooks will take this into account when rolling a tortilla into a taco or enchilada. They will make sure the inside of the folded tortilla is the weaker side, the side that bulged. 

As tortilla connoisseur Eduardo "Edy" Corona explained to me, “the machine's comal heats them more on one side than on the other.  In the machine the tortilla doesn't get cooked as evenly on each side as a hand made tortilla does."

It was interesting that Edy used the word comal to refer to part of the machine in which a metal conveyor belt keeps the tortillas moving at all times.  Comal properly refers to the flat griddle on which tortillas are traditionally cooked. Tortillas "hechas a mano" (made by hand), be they patted out by hand or squeezed flat in a press, are carefully laid on a hot comal.  They may inflate but they do so on both sides as they are flipped.

Neighborhood tortillerias that advertise “100% nixtamal” are where you’ll find tortillas made with the original Mesoamerican recipe, without fillers or preservatives.  You’ll also see a wonderful form of just-in-time movements, where vendors take orders from customers, weigh the tortillas, and make change just before the pile that has emerged from the machine is about to keel over.  And you’ll see children with their brightly-colored cloths out on their “madado”.

Dining with the Pope

Last month Bendicta Alejo Vargas of Michoacan cooked for the Pope. She honored the culinary traditions she learned from her grandmother by preparing a traditional Purépecha dinner for Pope Benedict XVI and other guests in the Vatican on December 12, the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

Benedicta, a Purépecha herself, has received numerous cooking awards and currently serves as a chef and instructor at Morelia's Culinary School.   In addition to the honor of meeting him personally and receiving his blessing, she is particularly thrilled to have prepared a meal for the Pope who is her "tocayo". 

"Tocayo" is the marvelous Spanish word that gets us around the awkward situation of addressing someone who has the same name as ours.  We can call that person "tocayo".  And when referring to him or her we can replace that person's name with "mi tocayo".  In most cases our tocayo is of our same gender, however there are cases of names that are similar for women and men -- with an "a" on the end for women and an "o" for men. 

For the Pope's dinner Benedicta prepared "corundas naturales",  similar to a central Mexican tamale. The corunda is traditionally more moist than a tamale, triangular in shape and wrapped in a corn husk and tied with a trademark knot.  For the second course she prepared two types of móle, rabbit and cheese.  The cheese móle was prepared with a kind of chile "que no pica" Benedicta said. I smiled when I heard her say that -- is there really such a chile? 

For beverages Benedicta prepared tamarind and sesame "atoles", flavored corn-based drinks.

The whole meal was prepared in the traditional Purépecha way.  The organizers of the event shipped the volcanic-stone metate (grinding stone), huge clay pots and a comal (a griddle on which tortillas are cooked) to Rome. They shipped stones for the hearth. They even shipped over Michoacan firewood.  Before setting off to the Vatican herself, Benedicta received word that the pottery had arrived in good order.  In her luggage she carried most of the ingredients she would need; however she purchased the rabbit meat at a butcher shop in Rome.  

A marvelous aspect of Mexican cuisine is that it has not changed much since the time of the Conquest.  UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has recognized this by naming it to its Intangible Cultural Heritage List. The same meal Benedicta prepared for Pope Benedict XVI and other guests had certainly been prepared in Michoacán in the late 16th century.  The non-Mesoamerican ingredients in Benedicta's dinner were few. Cheese is of European origin and tamarind and sesame seeds are both of African origin and used extensively in Asia. They probably arrived in Acapulco on ships from Manila shortly after 1565.  

European food of the 16th century was very different from the food today. Food historian and Mexico resident Rachel Landau tells us that a European court meal of that time would seem strange to anyone accustomed to today's Western cooking.  Dishes of that time period "might include blancmange -- a thick puree of rice and chicken moistened with milk from ground almonds, sprinkled with sugar and fried pork fat."  Accompanied by "fava beans cooked in meat stock sprinkled with chopped mint or quince paste, a sweetmeat of quinces and sugar or honey.  To wash it all down, we would probably drink hypocras, a mulled red wine seasoned with ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar."  

According to Landau it was in the mid 17th century that the European diet became similar to what we know today. This is quite unlike Mexico's cuisine which has stayed the course through the centuries.

The dinner celebrating Our Lady of Guadalupe Day at the Vatican was also unusual in that the Pope rarely attends large dinner parties. In fact, such is the fame of the Pope eating alone -- especially breakfasting alone -- that Cuernavaca artist of English origin, John Spencer, made a piece of sculpture he titled The Pope's Table.  Mounted on the base of a treadle sewing machine, the edge of the table has arches allusive of those in the Colosseum in Rome, with intricate sculpture rising up as a spire from the tabletop.  Characteristic of Spencer's quirky and whimsical sculpture, the pedals connect to a circle of bells to call for service.  

I haven't been able to find out how many people attended the dinner Benedicta prepared. She made 600 corundas and 700 handmade tortillas, both white and blue tortillas.  None were left over.  

And did Benedicto enjoy his tocaya's concoctions?  From the kitchen she couldn't see for herself, but she reports that members of the Michoacan delegation told her he liked the corundas and the cheese móle -- the one with the chile que no pica. 

Learning for Learning's Sake

Ancient Roman patricians were proud of being able to enjoy "ocio", similar to leisure in English. It set them apart from plebeians engaged in "negocio", the negation of ocio – now the Spanish word for business.  Interestingly “ocio”, in a round-about way, is the root of “school” in English, as the place where lectures are given.  One aspect of ocio can be learning for the sake of learning.

I had the good fortune to experience three days of ocio last week at the Ivan Illich conference in Cuernavaca. Held on the 10th anniversary of his death, the conference covered the wide range of topics that this keen thinker and writer explored in his lifetime. 
Illich is mainly remembered for his writings on education, transportation, and medicine, but he also wrote about how modern society faces the challenges of growing population, limited resources, increasing concentration of wealth, governments' ever expanding control over our lives, gender issues, and the rights of indigenous peoples.  In each case Illich's point of view was very different from the mainstream.  

Illich identified the same topics of study in four important time periods in western culture. The first was ancient Greece and Rome. The second was Europe in the thirteenth century, a period which was important in shaping the Catholic Church and which saw the rise of institutions such as universities and religious orders. Then he focused on the industrial revolution and the modern times of the latter twentieth century. 

He criticized modern marketing institutions which “create needs faster than they can create satisfaction, and in the process of trying to meet the needs they generate, they consume the earth.”  He noted that an automobile owner in the U.S. in the 1970’s spent 1600 hours per year in the car or working to pay for the car and its upkeep. When dividing that cost by the miles driven, he found that cars were no more efficient than a peasant walking. He asked why we didn’t ride bicycles instead.

The conference organizers treated us to some of the more obscure topics Illich studied too, such as water, the acts of reading, and gazing.  

According to Illich, the ancient Greek concept of water was as an abundant crystalline purifier.  Today it has been reduced to H2O and sold as merchandise and is frequently a conveyer of waste. 

Before the advent of the printing press reading was usually done out loud in a gathering.  Words flowed together melodiously along with a good dosage of hand gestures and body language on the part of the reader.  Today we usually read alone, the words are independent of each other on the page, and body language has disappeared.  

An even more surprising topic was Illich's discourse on gazing or seeing.  Today we think of the eye as passive and receptive -- like a video camera receiving light.  The ancient Greeks maintained that when we look at someone our gaze goes out like an organ -- Illich actually used the phrase 'erectile organ' -- and touches what we look at.  In a sense making gazing a sensual event. When we close our eyes after staring at something bright we can see an after-image. This supports the idea of our eyes absorbing light. But if gaze isn't an organ going out and touching what we are seeing, how do we explain that feeling that someone behind us is staring at us?

For me the "Illich's Radical Humanism" conference was three days of ocio in its truest sense -- leisure and learning for nothing more than the sake and enjoyment of learning and questioning what we engage in during our daily lives.   However participants in their 20s remarked that they had not gotten anything they could use in their workplace or with which to further their studies.  I interpreted that as evidence that education itself has become expensive merchandise, even here in Mexico.   That was not a concern as recently as five years ago at the first of Cuernavaca's homages to Ivan Illich.  The nature of this conference was more along the lines Illich described when he referred to his study center in Cuernavaca, "free and powerless thinkery which can be squashed by its rising influence." 

I enjoyed a privileged seat in all the sessions as translator/interpreter from Spanish to English.  The translating equipment was rudimentary. Those requiring translation sat as close as possible around me on folding chairs.  My listeners had no headsets. I had no microphone. We quickly became an accepted group within the auditorium and head turnings and nasty stares by people in the audience ceased after the first session.  After particularly complicated presentations I found myself asking my little group if the translation had made any sense.  We had the good fortune of having Dougald Hine sitting with us. Five years ago he was working with the School of Everything in London. His extensive knowledge of Illich's work allowed him to give us a synopsis of each talk.

Many of Ivan Illich's essays and books are available free online.  His Wikipedia article lists his titles.  I encourage you to download some of them and enjoy some well-deserved ocio yourself. 

Lupe Reyes

Have you met Lupe Reyes? No, not the person. Lupe Reyes is what Mexicans call the time period from December 12th through January 6th. Lupe refers to the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, and Reyes refers to Epiphany, the celebration of Los Reyes Magos, Three Kings' Day on January 6th. In addition to the anchor dates at each end, Lupe Reyes includes celebrations of the "posadas", Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, the Day of the Holy Innocents, and the Feast of the Name of Jesus on New Year's Day.

Lupe Reyes pulls together a marvelous amalgamation of events rooted in different cultures all in less than a month.

Guadalupe is a name of Arabic origin. Words with "guada" in them refer to the sound of running water. In other contexts we've heard or seen that word as "wadi" for dry riverbeds in the desert. The Virgin of Guadalupe is a Spanish manifestation of the Virgin Mary, and the Arabic origin of the name is a remnant of the Moors long domination there. She first appeared in Spain as a wooden image attributed to Luke the Evangelist. Spanish conquerors and colonists entrusted themselves to her at her shrine before setting off across the ocean. Likewise they thanked her for their safe journey upon arrival in this hemisphere. She appeared in Mexico as a life-sized, beautiful woman whose feet did not touch the ground to Juan Diego, an indigenous merchant. This happened on the 9th, 10th, and 12th of December in 1531 on the same hilltop where the Aztecs had worshiped Tonantzin, the goddess of fertility.

The posadas take place from December 16 to 24 and re-enact Mary and Joseph's attempt to find room at an inn. They lead up to Christmas on the 25th. Next comes the Day of the Holy Innocents on December 28, doubling as Mexico’s equivalent of April Fools’ day. All are Christian celebrations dealing with the birth of Jesus.

January 1st is The Feast of the Name of Jesus. This celebrates Jesus’ circumcision ceremony in which he became a member of the covenant established between Abraham and God following the instructions given in the Book of Genesis (chapter 17, verse 12). In other words, Jesus didn't become “Jesus” until eight days after he was born. Though there is much debate about the actual date of Jesus’ birth, I have no doubt that it is because of this Jewish ceremony that we start the Christian calendar on January 1st, not on Christmas Day.

Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, is January 6th. That’s when Mexican children expect gifts just as the baby Jesus received gifts from the Wise Men. All ages participate in cutting the "rosca", a special Three Kings' Day bread. The Three Kings or Three Wise Men are frequently used to symbolize the cultural and ethnic diversity of Christianity.

This year, in addition to Moorish, Spanish, Aztec, Christian, and Jewish influences, Lupe Reyes includes a significant Mayan religious event.

The ancient Maya deified time in addition to worshiping gods of the natural forces. They kept count and celebrated “bactuns”, a time period of 144,000 days.  In their world-view the humanity that we are a part of will be completing our thirteenth bactun on December 21. The count began in August of 3113 B.C.

The completion of bactun 13 and the beginning of bactun 14 is a moment when some gods will drop out of the procession of time and others will take their place. Because of that turnover the new bactun will have a distinct personality, different from the previous.

Though an important milestone, the Mayans don’t believe that December 21 will be the end of time. Not to put a damper on the "end of the world" parties planned for that night.

The day will be celebrated throughout the Maya world by those who honor Maya religion and its calendar. However, according to the Associated Press, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology (INAH) is not allowing indigenous ceremonies at Maya archeological sites “for visitor safety and preservation of the sites." Indigenous shamans and religious and community leaders will have to find other places to honor the gods passing the staff in the relay march of time. INAH spokesman Francisco de Anda, went on to say, "many of the groups that want to hold ceremonies bring braziers and want to burn incense, and that simply isn't allowed."  Horrors!

In Guatemala indigenous ceremonies will be carried out at important Maya temples in present-day archeological sites. Guatemala's peace accords brokered by the United Nations and signed in 1996 guarantee the right of indigenous people to free access to their ancient temples as well as the right to carry out ceremonies in archeological sites. The treaty even required that contemporary archeologists construct appropriate altars for offerings, many of which involve fire and incense at the base of ancient temples.

Lupe Reyes is a fascinating time to be in Mexico. Charlie's Digs' of late November and early December 2010 and 2011 cover other aspects of these year-end holidays.  Columns dated August 2 and 9, 2011 deal with the Maya calendar and the completion of backtun 13. All are posted at charliesdigs.blogspot.com.  

Mexico's Symbolic Colors

In Mexico City drivers are aware of the color of the sticker on their car’s rear window. It’s the color assigned to the last digit on their license plates, one of five colors identifying which weekday their car is not to be driven in the city. Morning newscasters make mention of it much like the weather is reported in northern countries. This is just one of many ways, some subtle and some bold, that colors take on significance in Mexico.

The color of the trim in a metro (subway) station is understood by all passengers.  Each metro line has a designated color as well as a number.  Each station has a logo that alludes to the name of the station.  With twelve lines crisscrossing the city, color changes can get pretty subtle.  There is green, olive green, and chartreuse.  There is yellow and there is gold.  Nevertheless, using colors makes it easy for illiterate people to ride the metro -- they follow a color and watch for the picture that identifies their stop.  A station with two colors in its emblem identifies it as a transfer station.  There are some stations where three lines converge, with three colors in their emblems.

Intrestingly neither black nor white are used to identify metro lines.  Perhaps because black is identified with death and white is hard to keep clean.

The most frequently seen colors in workers' or union marches are red and black -- the colors of the working class.  A red and black flag draped across the entrance to a workplace indicates that its workers are on strike.  When Mexicans see television coverage of striking workers in the U.S., walking endlessly to nowhere on a picket line, they wonder why their northern counterparts don't just put up a red and black flag and take a well deserved vacation. 

In the United States, both major parties freely use the colors of the flag for political purposes. We see red, white and blue donkeys as well as elephants. Since the 2000 elections, states and counties voting Republican have been shown as red with Democratic places shown in blue. This seems strange to me since red is the only color that has had a longstanding political connotation in the U.S, with "Reds" meaning Communists.

In Mexico no party is allowed to use the colors of the flag in its emblem.  Each has its own distinctive colors. Frequently the parties are referred to by their colors rather than their name.  The PAN party, closely identified with the Catholic Church, uses the colors of the Virgin Mary's white dress and blue cape. It is referred to as the "albiazul" (blue dawn) party.  At first glance the PRI might seem to be using the colors of the flag. Close inspection of its emblem will show that it is red and green with no color in the center.  Nevertheless it is frequently refered to as the tri-color party.  The PRD's emblem is a yellow square with a black design similar to an asterisk in the center, leading it to be called the party of the Aztec sun.  That association with an Indigenous nation leads to the different factions within the party being referred to as "tribus" or tribes.  The only party with a color in its name is the PVEM, Mexican Green Ecological Party, the “partido verde”. Not surprisingly it's color is green.

Red and yellow belong to the Partido del Trabajo (the Worker Party or Labor Party). Orange belongs to the Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizens' Movement). Partido Nueva Alianza's (New Alliance Party) emblem is a white swirl in a chartreuse square. 

With that mind, you can quickly determine which party holds the municipal presidency or governorship when you enter a Mexican municipality or state. Look at the railings on bridges, the overpasses, or really any public works. The color they are painted will tell you the answer.

The hundreds of men attending last Saturday's presidential inauguration in the Chamber of Deputies and the National Palace appeared to be in identical dark suits. A few women in bright colored dresses were interspersed. A closer look, however, revealed each man with a colored tie and each woman with a colored shawl or scarf. You guessed it—the color symbolized their party affiliation. The PRI wore red, the PAN wore blue, the PRD yellow, PVEM green, PT red and yellow, Movimiento Ciudadano orange, and Nueva Alianza chartreuse.  Enrique Peña Nieto, who assumed the presidency that day, wore an elegant grey tie. He is the president of all Mexicans.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Felipe, Prince of Asturias sat next to each other at the National Palace, obviously enjoying each other's company. Prince Felipe wore the color blue of the flag of Asturias.  Did Joe Biden decide to follow along and use the color -- blue -- that US television has assigned to his party?