Milpa Alta - which retains traditions from its pre-Columbian past - feels like a small mountain village, making it hard to believe that it is part of Mexico City.
In the 1970s, before the workers laid the asphalt as a two-lane road linking Mexico City to Milpa Alta, the southernmost of the city's 16 delegates, Javier Galicia-Silva's grandmother would climb the hills to Xochimilco every day at 4:00. From here he will take a chalupa (big water taxi) along the ancient canal that leads downtown, where he spends the day selling fresh produce in La Merced district near the great Zócalo (historic center). With a little money and some supplies loaded on his back, he would return to the village at about 8:00 pm in time to sleep and take a six-hour round trip once again the next day.
Although farmers from Milpa Alta now travel by road, carrying nopal (edible cactus), moles (traditional Mexican sauce), fresh honey and tortillas from their homes and gardens for sale at markets and on road corners throughout city, not much else has changed.
Milpa Alta is the southernmost of 16 Mexican City delegates (Credit: Megan Frye)
Milpa Alta ('high cornfield' in Spanish) can not be any different from the smoke-laden city that formally belongs to him and that he faces from its mountain location. What used to be known as distant agricultural land and the villages of Nahua has been slowly handed over to the city. Although it is literally part of Mexico City, is rarely visited by other residents of Mexico City. Foreign tourists are even more unusual. And although officially within the city limits, the people of Milpa Alta in many ways live as they have for hundreds of years.
Many people here speak Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec kingdom, and they still use the pre-Columbian milp system of crop rotation. The delegation is about 50% forest, and the field is mostly pesticide free, watered by rain and hijacked by horses. Insects and various heirloom corns (including blue and red varieties) are still very much part of the diet in this municipality that produces large amounts of food for the city, as is the case for the residents of Tenochtitlan (the ancient city of the Aztecs, now known as the center of Mexico City) more than 500 years ago. From the Mexico City delegation, Milpa Alta is the greenest and the least populated. This is forest land and fields, not a common slum town among the sprawl of the city.
Although the road is relatively new, getting to Milpa Alta still requires effort. The Xochimilco congestion, its neighboring delegation, makes a long journey by bus from the train station in Xochimilco or from Tasqueña, the southern subway and transport station of the southernmost city. When I visited, it was a two-hour stop-and-go along a one-way street. Traffic from Mexico City slowly subsided, the road began to switch back and clean air. The bus was slowly emptied and the often invisible mountains from the center of town suddenly towered over me. It was clear that I was heading somewhere else, somewhere somehow far away. When the complex and sweet scent began to burst into the bus, the driver announced a halt to San Pedro Atocpan: the first of 12 pueblo at Milpa Alta,
Milpa Alta feels worlds away from Mexico City, with forests covering about 50% of delegates (Credit: Megan Frye)
The cold mornings at Milpa Alta, and Galicia-Silva, a Mesoamerican historian and professor, wore a red sweater and black beret when he opened the door for me and the lonely road. He just finished giving away the free Nahuatl classes to the community members, which he hopes will help preserve his ancestral languages. He spoke Spanish quickly, often smiling and moving slowly, inviting me into his garden. When he talks about his grandparents and his hometown Santa Ana Tlacotenco in Milpa Alta, that is pride.
"I do not feel like I'm part of the city," he said as we ate starfruit, guava and fresh grapes from the ground, moving our plastic chairs to escape the exhausting summer sun. "The city starts at Xochimilco and goes north. I'm from Milpa Alta. If I meet someone else from Milpa Alta while I'm in town, we ask each other when we're back home. There's a fraternity here. "
Milpa Alta, with ancient language and custom, has been self-sufficient for thousands of years. The forest is home to deer, rabbits and hallucinogenic fungi which according to Galicia-Silva can make you "crazy" if not cooked properly. Many residents of Milpa Alta are in the business of making moles, and the region produces 90% of the mole consumed in Mexico City.
The people of Milpa Alta live as they have done for centuries, using traditional farming techniques to cultivate their crops (Credit: Megan Frye)
The Mesoamerican tradition is still in practice, like the dukun-led temdies (the indigenous sweat baths held in an adobe cottage, supposedly curative and spiritual), and the locals boast that there are celebrations in the 365-day delegation a year, including the summer festivals in each, each of the 12 pueblos (villages). Most involve traditional dances, religious pilgrimages and mayordomías, guarding religious icons in one's home and hosting a party for the community.
Day of the Dead (1-2 November), a synchronized holiday that combines indigenous and Catholic traditions, is celebrated differently here from other parts of Mexico: villagers went to the funeral on 29 September to formally invite the deceased to people's homes live for partying, starting October 31st. Without an invitation, they say the spirit will not join their family. When the holidays arrive, the bonfire is placed outside every home, where the whole family gathers to eat tamales (pre-Hispanic dishes, made with corn and usually meat, then steamed with corn skin).
As you walk in the steep and steep streets of the villages, you may be invited to chat, some sharp puls (fermented nga), or fresh tlacoyo (corn tortillas filled with cheese, beans or meat and topped with nopal, cheese and salsa). The people here depend on each other, and everyone knows everyone's name. You will often hear Nahuatl's words, even though the language's future is uncertain for years.
Many inhabitants of Milpa Alta speak Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec kingdom (Credit: Megan Frye)
"My grandmother was born in the 1920s and is monolingual in Nahuatl," Galicia-Silva said. "His mother told him that he needed to teach his children to speak Spanish, not Nahuatl. My father was the last generation to learn Nahuatl in school. Currently, it is no longer a communication language.
According to Galicia-Silva, a group of teachers and community members from Milpa Alta approached the city government in the 1980s, hoping to mandate Nahuatl's teaching in public schools. Officials responded that students should learn Spanish as their native language, and English, French or German as a second language, to improve future employment and education prospects. Throughout the history of Mexico colonized, to speak the native language has resulted in discrimination, it still exists to this day. Galicia-Silva remembers being asked at his university whether he is an Indian. His father always tells him that they are a peasant family: the word 'India' never appears. Today she proudly identifies as a native; special, like Nahua.
And there is much more a resurgence of identity. On the hill from the Galicia-Silva house is the home of artist José Ortiz Rivera, where he and Oswaldo Galicia Calderón, both Nahuatl professors, are giving away other free Saturday classes in Nahuatl to family members and neighbors. Their hope is to keep the language alive among the younger generation.
"My parents speak Nahuatl and now they're gone," said Victor Ortiz, José's brother and native Milpa Alta who is studying Nahuatl. His brother has spent more time with Nahuatl's parents and grandparents, and now he wants to learn it too. "I feel it's an obligation; to save my identity and possession in this community, "he told me.
Milpa Alta produces 90% of mole consumed in Mexico City (Credit: Simon Glogiewicz / Alamy)
Meanwhile, the delegation population is growing rapidly with people from outside the Nahua community, something that concerns Galicia-Silva when it comes to sustaining the green space of Milpa Alta and way of life.
"Whether we like it or not, we are in a global world and that will not change," he said, adding that rejuvenating indigenous languages and cultures could help to dismantle oppression and exploitation for five centuries. "This means that we have to do an in-depth study of our language and history. When we talk about decolonization of our thinking, we are still far from it, but we are on our way there. "
I left Milpa Alta with my stomach full and my heart warmed by the hospitality of strangers. When the bus returned to town, I thought of the big step Milpa Altans made toward reclaiming their identity; and how, despite being part of this bustling megalopolis, still feels far away in the world.
