VIVA NOLA May 2018

SOMOS
NOLA
By Christopher Ard
brown like me
If you spoke with me on the phone, you?d have no
idea I was half-Mexican. However, because of genetic
luck, many people who see me on the street greet me
with ?What?s up, mi amigo!?
I like to tell people I got the brown gene in my family.
You can see it in my eyes, my hair, and my skin tone?
but mostly in the summer. There was another famous
New Orleans resident whose brown gene made
him famous. Benito Juárez was born in Oaxaca, Mexico,
in 1806. Having Zapotec heritage, he became a
hero of Mexico for separating the church and state,
and for his native American heritage. In the mid-
1850?s, Benito was exiled for his liberal views and like
most other liberals lost in the world, ended up in New
Orleans? twice.
The story has it that Benito lived in New Orleans for
about three years. Although he was a lawyer in Mexico,
Benito?s life was anything but luxurious here in
New Orleans. At one point he rolled cigars on St. Peter
Street in the Quarter. He lived a life of poverty in New
Orleans until he returned to Mexico to kick out the foreign
rulers and transform his country into a modern
nation.
Many believe that it was his time here in New Orleans
that influenced his thoughts on inequality and race.
53 years ago from April 22nd to the 29th, New Orleans
celebrated ?Mexico Week? as the city prepared
to dedicate a statue of Benito Juárez on Basin Street.
The city welcomed a delegation of 100 representatives
from Mexico to help throw the party.
To thank New Orleans for the hospitality shown to
their hero, Mexico commissioned an artist
to create an enormous statue of Juárez which today
still stands on Basin and St. Louis Streets
? known as the Garden of the Americas. During the
dedication of the statue, former Mexican Ambassador
to the United States, Hugo B. Margain, said this,
?Juárez is here, not as a mere gift from one nation to
another, but as a reminder to young and old, that the
humblest of origins is no impediment to greatness; that
poverty of worldly goods can be overcome by spiritual
wealth.?
That brings me back to the beginning of this story? my
brown gene.
Guanajuato, M éxico. Photo Cr edit: Chr istopher Ar d
"
21