Notes from Zacatecas: A prologue

Immediately after the Mexico trip, I had meant to scan all my images and present something. I wasn’t sure what format it would take, but I had pages of notes and rolls of film. I didn’t get on that as quickly as I should have; life got in the way. 

Life is still in the way, but heading now back to the hills of Zacatecas, I need to cement those first impressions. But before impressions, before notes, before anything else, a prologue. 

Political scientist Robert Putnam, in a book almost a decade old, discussed a thing called “social capital,” a fancy word to describe social interaction with other human beings. And after studying social capital in America, he realized something: in the last thirty years of the 20th century, social capital was on the decline. 

A recent study by the National Science Foundation found that the number of “socially isolated” people in the United States has doubled since 1985. One in four Americans say they have nobody to talk to about their personal problems. When asked if they have no one outside of family to talk to, that number doubles to 50%. 

People aren’t just more friendless. Since the 1960s, the number of family picnics has declined by 60%. The number of family dinners has declined by 40%. 

In short, we are more alone than ever. 

With that in mind, the first entry, straight from the notepad, from my Zacatecas week: 

Day 1

Observed El Rastro Reyes, a huge celebration of the Feast of the Three Kings in the town square and main street, Hidalgo. It occurs to me that, unlike Americans, Mexicans have their heads on straight. We get together — everyone — maybe two or three times a year. Yet tonight, for this feast day, a teeming mass of people flooded the street to partake in free sweet bread. 

In 2008, our government will subsidize millions of boxes that recieve digital TV signals, in the hopes of ensuring uninterrupted television service to the people. Meanwhile, this government in Zacatecas will subsidize thousands of pounds of bread, to be placed in the town square, in the hopes of bringing people together. 

I almost always see parks and plazas in the US sparsely populated; a few groups here and there, playing frisbee or soccer. But tonight, this city was _teeming_.