As a former gay resident of Mexico City, I cannot be quiet after hearing the vicious and racist statement by billionaire gringo Donald Trump about the Mexican people. His comments, many believed designed to create publicity for his TV career and his laughable presidential campaign, are despicable and sickening.
My years living in Mexico City, 1996-1998, were an exciting and enjoyable period in my life. Mexico City gay life was different from what I experienced in Washington and New York. I adapted quickly.
One Saturday evening a male companion and I were walking in the early evening in La Zona Rosa, the famous Pink Zone near the Angel statue and the American embassy. Perhaps we were walking a bit too close. Perhaps we appeared a bit too gay. Whichever it was, it provoked an attack on me.
A filthy and frightening looking Mexican man struck me in the face. Based on the sting from the hit, I was sure he had slashed me with a razor or a piece of broken glass. Fortunately, it was neither. It must have been a sharp fingernail.
I fell to the street and my male companion, fearful for his safety, stepped back. As I lay dazed on the street, my attacker kicked me. I will never forget the violence in the man’s face and eyes. Nearby, an elderly Mexican woman was attending a food cart on the sidewalk. The dear lady, slightly hobbled with age, came to my defense and scared the attacker away with a broom. At this show of courage, several Mexican men, considerably younger, came forward to chase the attacker away. I gave the elderly lady my thanks along with a handful of pesos.
The Mexican police arrived but did very little. I reported the attack to the U.S. Embassy without mentioning my sexuality. One of the security officers saw the attack as anti-American assault. With blond hair, blue-eyes, and milk white skin, I suppose my European ancestry might have been cause for a vicious attack.
When the embassy security interviewed an ornately uniformed Mexican police official about my attack, the response confirmed the distrust my Mexican friends told me they had in their police. The Mexican police official, apparently unclear of the approximate time of my attack, told the embassy security officer his men had arrested my attacker hours before my attack occurred on the sidewalk in La Zona Rosa.
I suppose what the Mexican police official had said was his men had foresight to know I would be attacked and they arrested the man before he could actually attack me. How then could he explain the attack by the same man he had arrested and placed in jail?
The Mexican police official proudly told me, though the guy escaped police custody, his men had the guy under arrest again at that very moment in another part of town. Amazing!
My experience with the Mexican police and the attacker that long ago summer evening in Mexico City did not make me dislike the Mexican people. Instead, it gave me deep respect for the elderly and frail Mexican lady who bravely took her broom and came to my defense to scare my attacker at no regard as to what the much younger attacker might have done to her.
I do not intend to imply that anti-gay violence was commonplace while I was in Mexico City. This was the only incident I encountered. I had also been assaulted multiple times in New York and smaller U.S. cities. Violence against LGBT people is everywhere and we must all be on constant guard.
Aside from my elderly defender, I am also grateful to the Mexican, and a few Cuban, gay men who shared their time with me while I was in Mexico City. We had some great times listening to music, most of them were Barry Manilow fans, drinking tequila, and sharing life stories on weekend getaways.
Donald Trump might have a different view of Mexicans and Mexico if he did the same thing. I know a very nice gay Mexican businessman to whom I would like to introduce The Donald. It just might make Trump an admirer of all things Mexico.
Feliz orgullo amigos Mexicanos!
Human Rights Advocate Jim Patterson is a writer, speaker, and lifelong diplomat for dignity for all people. In a remarkable life spanning the civil rights movement to today’s human rights struggles, he stands as a voice for the voiceless. A prolific writer, he documents history’s wrongs and the struggle for dignity to provide a roadmap to a more humane future. Learn more at www.HumanRightsIssues.com
