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 Editorials | Issues | April 2008 
In Mexico, 'Emo' Subculture Won't be Subdued
 Marion Lloyd - Houston Chronicle
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| | Monserrat Cazares fixes Xanoni Nuria's hair before a Mexico City march protesting violence against "emos" a youth subculture. (Jennifer Szymaszek/Chronicle) | | |
Experts point to intolerance when violence against teens jumps from Web to the streets.
Mexico City Maybe it's the tight black jeans and dark make-up. Or the moody poses, one eye peering out from under a shock of fuschia or jet-black hair.
Whatever the case, the dramatic dress style of urban music followers known as "emos" has struck a nerve in Mexico's macho society. The result is a wave of violent attacks in recent weeks against the scene's mostly teenage followers.
The attack getting the most publicity occurred last month in the central city of Queretaro. Hundreds of youths shouting "kill the emos" pounced on a handful of long-haired teenagers in a plaza. As the victims lay bleeding on the concrete, their assailants filmed the scene on cell phones. Within hours, the footage was posted on YouTube, fueling attacks in other cities and the Mexican capital.
"Sometimes I'm really afraid to go out on the streets," said Pamela Perez, 18, who was among an estimated 300 emos who marched in Mexico City recently to demand a halt to the violence. "You think they really might kill you."
"Mexican culture isn't used to people who are different," said Perez, who wore a pink tutu and a pair of fuzzy leopard ears atop shaggy red bangs. "If you're different they look at you like you have a disease."
Emo subculture has its roots in the hardcore punk music scene of the early 1980s in Washington, D.C. But the music whose name derives from lyrics dwelling on painful emotions and suicide later became more mainstream, incorporating elements of indie rock.
The trend, which now refers more to a style of dress and attitude than the music itself, has gained popularity in Latin America in recent years, largely thanks to the Internet.
But Web sites also attract unwanted attention. Before the Queretaro attack, a group calling itself "anti-emo" began issuing calls through the Internet for Mexican youths to assault emos in their hangouts. Since then, YouTube has been littered with videos that deride the emos for supposedly stealing symbols from other music subcultures, such as the punks.
Others object to the group's supposed suicidal tendencies.
"Emos, why don't you just kill yourselves," said a Spanish voice on one video.
A psychologist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, Andr้s Alcantara, fueled that stereotype by declaring that 40 percent of emos have suicidal tendencies. His contention sparked a public debate.
"Instead of asking for tolerance, they should make a huge campaign with psychologists and psychiatrists to find out what is happening to these kids who call themselves emos," reader Belinda Gomez wrote in a letter published in the Mexico City daily Reforma.
Many experts say the real cause of the attacks is something deeply rooted in Mexican society. "It's homophobia and intolerance," said Hector Castillo, a Mexican sociologist who studies youth culture.
Following the Queretaro attack, a video captured an unrepentant assailant saying of the emos: "It bothers me that they dress more like girls than boys." And another emo-bashing site carried a symbol that said "Parental Advisory: Emo is Gay."
The group's members resist such typecasting.
"Those who say such things are the real closeted gays," said Javier Sarazoa, a 14-year-old emo who was dressed in black skinny jeans and wore a nose ring to the Mexico City march. "They can't accuse us of being gays or bisexuals, because we're not. But we have to respect those who are."
Castillo, the sociologist, blamed the climate of polarization following Mexico's contested 2006 presidential elections for the violence, which he said pitted the "extreme right" against the left.
The lack of recreational and cultural spaces for youths in Mexico is also contributing to the tension, he said. Despite the fact that Mexicans between 15 and 29 make up a third of the city's population of more than 20 million, "they are simply not in the public agenda," he said.
Instead, youths hang out in public plazas across Mexico, where their rivalries sometimes bubble over into violence.
During the recent protest march, gangs of punks and skaters hurled plastic bottles and insults as the emos marched by a popular street market, where violence had broken out recently. Several hundred riot police stepped in, forming a wall to separate the groups.
"Sometimes it makes me afraid to see so many people who want to hurt you," said a 17-year-old emo who gave his name only as To๑o. "I think they don't have anything better to do than to hurt people."
However, he and other emos said they wouldn't change the way they look.
"It would be like denying who I am," said Perez. "I'm not going to give this up just to make other people happy."
marionlloyd(at)gmail.com |
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