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On the Mexico-Ireland front, here is a story that was once told to me by the Derry writer, trade unionist, and civil rights activist Eamonn McCann.

Derry, 1968: At the height of the Civil Rights campaign, demonstrators were listening to various speakers who were referring to students in Paris and Prague, when some young freckle- faced boy spoke up from the back of the crowd. Shouldn't they also be sending solidarity greetings to the Mexican students, and have a minute's silence in memory of those who had been recently massacred before the Olympic Games? McCann, one of the speakers at the rally, recalled that he saw the young man twice after that. Once at a political meeting in the early 1970s, he remembered him as shy, though articulate and politically astute. The last time was after he had died on hunger strike on August 20th, 1981, and his emaciated body was brought back to a relative's home in Derry for the funeral. His name was Micky Devine. In September 1981, in a packed hall at the University in Mexico City, students stood up for a minute's silence in memory of Micky Devine and his nine comrades.

Joelle Gartner, Ireland

Joelle Gartner can be reached at: 100127.1430@compuserve.com

On a West Belfast street named in Irish, a billboard states, "HARP: the Irish lager Mexican's Drink": another, selling cigarettes, reveals an obscure riddle depicting a "Mexican wave." In the fields of the San Joaquin valley of California, a Oaxacan migrant worker, who speaks neither Spanish nor English but his native Mixtec, picks strawberries wearing a faded T-shirt depicting an aggressive leprechaun figure--the logo of the "Fighting Irish" football team. While our cultures remain unique to our histories, they have always converged, interacted, and been reinvented throughout history--only now it is at an extremely rapid pace. The confusion and madness is evident to us all as we try to make sense of this new Babel of our postmodernity.

Trisha Ziff

"Irlando": Mexico vs. Ireland

Orlando, Florida--World Cup, 1994. Like most international sporting events, the 1994 World Cup was the perfect impetus for clannish and tribal behavior the world over.

In Ireland and Mexico the streets were empty--town after town, city after city--people glued to television sets. As is often the case in Ireland, sporting alliances reinforce political divisions, and this World Cup was no exception; a sectarian attack occurred, killing Catholics viewing the game in a country pub. In Belfast, Loyalist graffiti mocked the Irish soccer team's English-born players, labeling them mercenaries. In Mexico, large crowds took to the streets to celebrate each victory, waving national flags and shouting, Viva Mexico!

As a host of the World Cup, the United States, the fictional melting pot, became the international salad bar. At each game, immigrant communities from all over the world displayed caricatures of their own ethnic identities. For those few weeks in the summer of 1994, it was acceptable not to hyphenate Swedish, Brazilian, Dutch, Irish, and Mexican with American. People who had spent their lives investing in assimilation reveled in their ethnicity. What emerged from the millions of spectators was Disneyesque--Swedes sported yellow-blonde braids, Dutch wore clogs, Irish donned green paint and shamrocks, and Mexicans showed off large sombreros and Zapata mustaches. At the Ireland vs. Mexico match in Orlando, it was hard to distinguish where Disney World began and ended. The city became a theme park; Epcot became a reality. It's a small world after all.

Trisha Ziff

(1)(2)

(1) Daily Mirror, june 25, 1994.

(2) The Irish News, june 25. 1994