EXILED BY FEAR

I have never before thought of myself as an exile. All my life I have
traveled between Mexico, where I was born, and Los Angeles, my home
since I was 6. What do I, whose parents freely chose to leave their
country for the United States so many years ago, have in common with
Vietnamese, Cubans, Iranians and Iraqis who were forced to flee their
homelands, never to return?

Fear.

The headlines tell the story: "Mexico Under Siege," "Deadly Drug
Violence Claims Hundreds of Lives," "U.S. Warns of Danger in Mexico as
Violence Increases." Or the one about the 14-year-old who
matter-of-factly told authorities he had killed people by chopping off
their heads and then added, as if exonerating himself, that at least
he "never went and hung the bodies from bridges or anything like that."

That story is particularly chilling to me because many of those bodies
were hung from bridges in Cuernavaca, the city where my mother's
family lives, where I spent summers visiting from the United States.
Friends there tell stories of shielding their children's eyes from the
dangling corpses that seem to be falling from the sky.

In Cuernavaca, and in Mexico City, our friends do not leave their
homes at night. Conversations in restaurants are whispered -- no one
wants to be overheard saying so-and-so was kidnapped or that so-and-so
is a narco. You never know who is sitting next to you. Many people we
know have been kidnapped. The 2007 death of Silvia Vargas, a highly
publicized kidnapping, hit close to home. Her dad was once my summer
swim coach.

That 14-year-old killer is part of a new generation in Mexico that is
being called los ni-nis, the "neither-nors," lost boys and young men
who proclaim they neither study nor work. They have found plenty to
do, however, acting as the cartels' killers, mules and torturers.
Usually, the reports say, they are so doped up, they don't even
recognize or feel the carnage they are inflicting.

I know that, as with most countries, Mexico has always had a dark and
wild side. My own mother and aunt were kidnapped by a powerful cacique
in the 1960s. He thought my 14-year-old aunt, with her green eyes,
white skin and black hair, was so beautiful he had to have her.

Fortunately, my nervy and intelligent mother (also a great beauty) was
with her, and she was able to figure out an escape: opening the door
of the moving car, grabbing her little sister's hand and running
against traffic down Mexico City's largest boulevard, Paseo de la Reforma.

For several months after the kidnapping, my aunt was escorted to
school every day by a friend who was a general in the army. The issue
was resolved quietly by my grandfather, a military doctor, when he met
privately with the cacique. Nobody knows what was said, but the dirty
old man never bothered my aunt or mother again.

In the 1980s and '90s, there were always stories of crimes. During the
summers I spent with my cousins in Mexico, we were trained to give a
cop his bribe and never allow them to take us in. Somehow, the crime
stories always had a twist of kindness or mercy to them that made them
almost comical. In his early 80s, my stepgrandfather was mugged every
week after depositing his money in the bank at the same time on
Fridays. But the muggers were always polite and apologized for having
to take his money. A friend who was carjacked was given bus fare.

There is nothing funny in the stories being told today. There is only
fear and lament. And yet, life goes on. My cousins, aunts and uncles
will all spend Christmas in Acapulco. They will dance, eat, swim in
the sea. I hear the sadness in my grandmother's voice when I tell her
we won't be visiting this year. I feel my voice catching as I think
about her, 90 years old, sitting in her living room holding the
telephone. I remember how beautiful Christmastime is in Mexico,
everything decorated in the crimson hues of the season. I can see the
poinsettias, noche buenas, blooming in the languid gardens in
Cuernavaca, a place the Aztecs called the City of Eternal Spring. The
Mexico I like to remember is about love and warmth and family.

I know I am giving in to the media frenzy that sensationalizes the
crimes and only covers the horrors in Mexico. But now I have children
of my own, and having children makes one a coward.

If my family were to make the trip, most likely, the worst wouldn't
happen. After all, the majority of the violence is occurring between
drug dealers and their henchmen. Crime rates in general are much worse
in Brazil and Venezuela, for instance.

But what if we were to drive under one of those bridges on the wrong
day? How would I explain the sight of those hideous, lifeless bodies
hanging from above? Or what if our cab driver happened to work for a
narco? Or what if we got caught in the crossfire of a shootout? There
is no more negotiating, as my grandfather likely did more than 40
years ago. Just ask Silvia Vargas' parents.

It is an ugly, ugly time in Mexico. So now I too have joined the ranks
of so many immigrants, exiled in fear, who dare not go back. To be
honest, we cannot -- because the place and the time we seek no longer
exists.