Tepito
Tepito is a barrio in Mexico City that consists of 72 blocks that are home to 120,000 people. Barrio Tepito is famous for its street markets and notorious for its high crime rate . Street crime is very common. For example, in 2006 there were a total of 317 attacks on pedestrians in Colonia Morelos, to which the Barrio Tepito belongs. Most of them were pickpockets. The neighborhood is also known for the fact that many of the contract killers of the Mexican gang wars grew up here.
location
Barrio Tepito is about a mile north of the Zócalo and is part of the Cuauhtémoc district . It is bounded by the streets Eje 2 Norte (Canal de Norte) in the north, Eje 1 Norte (Rayon) in the south, Eje 1 Oriente (Avenida del Trabajo) in the east and Paseo de la Reforma in the west. On the southern border of Barrio Tepito are the metro stations Tepito (in the east) and Lagunilla (central), both of which are served by the B line. The Garibaldi station , which is served by both the B-line and line 8, is only two blocks south to the west .
origin of the name
According to the most common interpretation, the name Tepito is derived from the Aztec word Tepiton and means small . According to Alonso de Molina, this term refers to the fact that the small quarter belongs to a larger unit. The most common interpretation derives the term from the double word designation teocali-tepiton , which means small temple . Because in the first years after the conquest of Mexico, there was a small temple called Tepito , today's Plaza de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas , which the Indians called Teocultepiton and which the Spanish conquerors called Tepito for short . This small temple at the gates of the city stood at a relatively short distance from the Great Temple of the former Aztec capital Tenochtitlan .
A poor neighborhood
Archaeological finds show that even in pre-Hispanic times the inhabitants of Tepitos were considered poor and lived from fishing and related activities on the lake . Even today, the district is still inhabited by the poorest sections of the population.
In 1945, for example, Tepito was considered one of the most run-down residential areas in all of Mexico . The houses, mostly just poor stalls with an area of 13 to 25 square meters, built from the simplest of materials and without sanitary facilities, were extremely neglected. In these dwellings, mostly social outsiders such as criminals, alcoholics and prostitutes lived, which gave the district even more disrepute.
Tepito is still one of the poorest and cheapest accommodations in the capital. The “privilege of low rents” encourages the Tepiteños, as the residents of Tepito are called, in their fight against property speculators and so-called urban development programs that aim to displace them.
In 2003, for example, there were raids with hundreds of the special police in Tepito to clean up one of the toughest neighborhoods in the country. Behind the action were financial interests, such as those of the controversial multi-billionaire Carlos Slim , and the efforts of the then mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador to clean up the crime-ridden district. But the district survived this "attack" by the special police just as unscathed as the Mi Barrio Tepito project initiated by the city in 2007 , which was intended to enable investors Slim and Walmart to enter Tepito. One of the organizers of the opposition to these plans complains that the city administration is doing everything possible to demonize the neighborhood in the media, thus emphasizing the demand for private investors in Tepito. In his opinion, big business is very interested in gaining a foothold in Tepito: but "Tepito lives because it defends itself."
The Tepito market: drug trafficking and hit men
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Even in pre-Hispanic times, Tepito was not only poor, but also a market for the poor, their wardrobe, so to speak. There has always been trade here and some of the goods on sale came from theft.
Over the years, Tepito has turned into a large market. But the original market for clothing and general consumer goods gradually turned into a trading center for plagiarism and drugs . It is the area of fayuca: smuggling and product piracy that has long since made up a larger part than trade in legal goods. The fayuca, in turn, has brought about the drug trade and has attracted even more organized crime . Until the destruction of La Fortaleza , a block of 144 houses within Tepito, in February 2007, an average of eight kilograms of cocaine and half a ton of marijuana were used there every day . With 12,000 merchants, the quarter is one of the main hubs for product piracy - Mexico is the world's third largest producer of such goods - and one of the main sources of black money , which flows into bribery and political corruption , among other things . The whole system is inconceivable without political protection and some of the people behind it are allegedly part of the Mexico City administration.
As traders managed to attract wealthier customers from other parts of the city, so did the number of pickpockets. This in turn caused considerable damage to the reputation of Tepito and ensured that the customers previously won stayed away again. To get this problem under control, the Tepiteños have developed their own safety program. If a pickpocket is discovered, a signal sounds and the culprit is hunted down. If the hunters get hold of him, they shave his head, steal his shoes and chase him away. Since then, pickpockets have decreased noticeably.
It is not for nothing that Tepito has the nickname “Barrio Bravo” (Wild Quarter) because it is one of the most dangerous areas of Mexico City. Probably the most dangerous commodity of Tepito is contract murder . The dreaded Mexican cartels can easily find offspring among the numerous young and hopeless Tepiteños who they use in the fight against other gangs or the police. The “career” of a young man from Tepito often begins with robbery and ends as a contract killer.
Adoration of Santa Muerte
Traditionally, the cult around Santa Muerte was only practiced in private. Its public celebration came about in 1997 when a life-size statue was erected on private property in Tepito. The figure quickly became a place of pilgrimage for followers of this religious movement, which is not recognized by the official Catholic Church. Since then, devotion to Santa Muerte has spread all over Mexico and every year thousands of believers make a pilgrimage to the saint's figure on the day before the Dia de los Muertos .
Arts and Culture
In 1951 the José María Velasco art gallery was opened, whose exhibitions are dedicated to everyday life in Tepito. First and foremost, it wants to show that the district has more to offer than product piracy and drugs.
One of their exhibitions took place in 2006 under the name Tepito ¡Bravo el barrio! ( Tepito, the wild quarter ) and showed numerous photographs of the quarter.
In another exhibition entitled Dos Filos , some of the most important text and image publications on Tepito were brought together. It should make it clear that there is not only crime and poverty in Tepito, but also culture . Some of the text contributions used in this exhibition came from contributions in local newspapers and magazines that are published in Tepito. For example the magazine Desde el zaguán , founded and published by the Tepito-born writer Fernando Cesár Ramírez , which leaves space for amateur authors to publish their stories from the neighborhood. Other important media outlets in the district include El ñero , Desde Tepito , Tepito y Anexas , Tepito crónico and La enredadera .
The Mexican director Daniel Giménez Cacho started a theater project in Tepito in which the residents were involved in the performances. Giménez Cacho also produced the television series "Safari en Tepito". Ai Weiwei visited the neighborhood in August 2016 .
Famous residents
It should come as no surprise that a neighborhood where you have to make your way through has produced some world-class boxers . The two former boxing world champions Rodolfo Martínez and Carlos Zárate were born in Tepito as was the legendary Kid Azteca (actually Luis Villanueva), one of the few boxers who practiced his profession for four decades. The Tepito-based sports club Deportivo Kid Azteca was named in honor of the latter . The boxing world champions Raúl "el Ratón" Macías and Rubén "Púas" Olivares were not born in Tepito, but received their athletic training in the area. Macias set himself a monument with his immortal words: "I owe everything to my manager and the Virgin of Guadalupe ."
The wrestler Místico and the Mexican national soccer player Bernardo Hernández , who was under contract with Club Atlante throughout his career , were born in Tepito. In addition, the 121-time national player Cuauhtémoc Blanco and the actor Cantinflas grew up in Tepito. Before starting her successful career as a singer, Paquita la del Barrio also lived in Tepito in the early 1970s.
Web links
- Frederik Caselitz: Mexico City's most notorious neighborhood on the Latin America Observatory website
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Gustavo Esteva (Context Institute): Tepito: No Thanks, First World (English; article from 1991)
- ↑ a b Cynthia Ramírez (Letras Libres): Bienvenidos a Tepito (Spanish; article from November 2007)
- ↑ a b John Holma (CCTV America): Tepito one of Mexico's most dangerous black markets (English; article from September 14, 2014)
- ↑ The metro station Tepito ( Memento of the original from November 26th, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the official website of the Metro del Distrito Federal (Spanish; accessed June 14, 2015)
- ↑ a b Un solar del barrio de Tepito escondía en el subsuelo pasado azteca y colonial mexicano (Spanish; article from June 5, 2008)
- ↑ Andalusia Knoll: The Mexico City Barrio Giuliani Couldn't Conquer ( VICE , English; article from July 3, 2013)
- ↑ Agustín Salgado (La Jornada): Tepito: la historia de un barrio donde es caro el "impuesto a la ingenuidad" (Spanish; article from March 16, 2007)
- ↑ Maite Rico (El Pais): Tepito, barrio bravo de México (Spanish; article from June 21, 2006)
- ^ Carlos Garma (El Universal): El culto a la Santa Muerte (Spanish; article of April 10, 2009)
- ↑ César Vicente Montiel: Conozca México, visite Tepito (Spanish; article of October 5, 2009)
- ↑ Alejandro Campos: Tepito ¡Bravo, el barrio !; recorrido a través de su gente (Spanish; article of 6 November 2014)
- ↑ Rescatan arte del barrio de Tepito (Spanish; article from January 26, 2009)
- ↑ a b Frederik Caselitz; Francisco Mata Rosas: The People of Tepito. Digital Development Debates, accessed June 26, 2016 .
- ↑ Estrena Comunidad de Tepito Instalaciones remodelas del Deportivo Kid Azteca ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Spanish; article of January 24, 2015)
- ↑ a b Héctor Cruz (Chilango.com): 5 Tepiteños ilustres (Spanish; article from June 25, 2013)
- ↑ Rosalía A. Villanueva (La Jornada): Místico acudió a Tepito a regalar juguetes con motivo del Día de Reyes (Spanish; article from January 7, 2008)
Coordinates: 19 ° 27 ′ N , 99 ° 8 ′ W