Why burn an OXXO?

  

When I mention to somebody in the UK that we spend a lot of time in Mexico, one of two comments follows. The first is: Cancún? The second is: Isn’t Mexico very dangerous?

 

My answers are that I have only been once to Cancún, in about 1975, before it became the frightful mega-resort that it now is; and that, yes personal safety is an important concern in Mexico, but although members of our family have visited Mexico many times for more than 50 years, none of us has yet been harmed. I sometimes add that an acquaintance once asked me (we were visiting the Paricutín volcano in Michoacán) if I was worried for my safety in London because he had heard that knife crime was very prevalent.

 

I have heard gunshots only once in my now 74 years, one Sunday in calle Mexicali, Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. A young neighbour in a nearby apartment building had borrowed a gun to warn off a worker in the building who had been pestering the young man’s sister. The confrontation became heated and the young man shot his antagonist several times. I stayed home that day. Once in a while, I would learn of a shooting in Mexico City through conversations or reading the press. Casual violence was not uncommon in 1970s Mexico, but I did not feel threatened. My travels in Guerrero obliged me to be somewhat more cautious, since there was fighting in the mountains between guerrillas and the army.

 

By 2018, when Jan and I spent three months in Zamora, Michoacán, at the Colegio de Michoacán, organized crime had created a much more severe level of violence. Before we left I consulted a man on the Mexico desk of the Foreign Office, who gave me some useful advice. After we had been in Zamora for several weeks, we learned one day that a local crime boss had been arrested, and as retaliation his fighters had stopped some buses, ordered passengers off, and burned the vehicles. Our small local supermarket was attacked with a fire bomb, but it caused little damage. We only learned of this after the event when the owner of our rented apartment told us what had happened. Otherwise, we led normal lives, in the library, attending seminars, walking around town and eating in restaurants and cafés. However, we only left town if we were taken by local colleagues, or if friends told us that the risk of encountering crime was low. Occasionally we were advised not to undertake a visit, to Uruapan, for example. But mostly we lived life as normal and enjoyed being part of a community for a time.

 

In 2026, however, organized crime violence, briefly affected the life of a Jacobs. On 22 February the Mexican armed forces, apparently acting on intelligence from the US government, apprehended Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, who died from gunshot wounds. El Mencho was the head man of the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), currently the most powerful crime syndicate in Mexico; in effect an international enterprise that operates across continents. One of El Mencho’s senior lieutenants is the boss of Puerto Vallarta, where our son Chris lives.

"Mug shots" of El Mencho under arrest in San Francisco 1886 and 1889.

A US Department of Justice wanted poster for El Mencho.

Chris began our regular Sunday Zoom session the next day with the words “We are under attack.” From the balcony of his apartment, with views across the Bahía de Banderas, plumes of smoke could be seen. CJNG men were emptying and burning buses and cars, and businesses. Perhaps the most targeted business was the convenience store chain OXXO, and its lesser rival Kiosko. These shops supply a wide range of generally unhealthy food, with an emphasis on crisps and beers. They also sell some household basics such as milk, eggs, a very limited range of vegetables and fruit, detergents and so on. Most Mexican, and many foreign, residents frequently buy something from an OXXO. The hijackings and burnings lasted for the day, and by Monday it was time to clear up. Chris’s partner Kourtney is a teacher; her school remained closed for several days, but Chris returned to work on Tuesday as normal (he does not work Mondays). He stopped for petrol at a service station where there was a burned out OXXO. The woman who sold him his petrol reported that on Sunday a group of young men had arrived, asked the employees of the OXXO and the petrol station to leave, reassured the petrol station workers that their business would not be harmed, and then poured petrol around the OXXO and lit it.

An Oxxo store in Oaxaca.

 When Chris arrived at work at the botanic garden, he found a group of Canadian tourists being served breakfast. They had been on a bus travelling to the airport on Sunday. The bus was stopped close to the garden, its passengers ordered off, and the bus burned. The garden workers on duty invited the Canadians into their building and gave them shelter and meals for two days. After breakfast on Tuesday, they ordered taxis for their visitors and waved them off.

 

We also heard that the staff of a hotel in the centre of Puerto Vallarta that has no restaurant ventured out in the midst of the violence to find food for their guests. Not all Mexicans are, contrary to the statements of D J Trump, bad people; they can be very generous indeed.

 

I read an article that asked why so many OXXOS were attacked (especially in the state of Jalisco), but also elsewhere. Apparently, the OXXO management refuses to pay protection money and has elaborate security plans. This may have been one reason why so many OXXO stores were attacked, but so were Kioskos and some larger stores such as Costco. I suspect that the sheer ubiquity and visibility of OXXOs was also a reason (there are apparently as many as 22,000 in Mexico, perhaps some 1,500 in Jalisco). Fortunately, it seems that nobody in Puerto Vallarta was killed or injured.

 

The cartel probably has the firepower to inflict far greater violence and terror on the people of Mexico than was the case on 23 February. The objective seems to have been to demonstrate forcefully the power of the cartel and to warn the government not to take further action by targeting things that are highly visible fixtures of everyday life for most Mexicans: convenience stores and public transport.

 

I have often asked Mexican friends in Vallarta how they explain the city’s relative calm, in contrast, for example, to Acapulco, Guerrero, a much older resort which is now a decidedly dangerous place. They usually reply that there is only one cartel in town, so there are no turf wars (as has occurred, for example, in Chilpancingo, the state capital of Guerrero). However, the same friends often comment that a new narco business has opened in a certain neighbourhood, perhaps a bar or a restaurant. When I ask them why they think this might be a narco business, they reply that it is open for very long hours, even when there are no customers. The main function of the business is to launder cash, so profit or loss is not particularly important. I have also read that the boom in condominiums sold to overseas owners is another way for the CJNG cartel to legalize its cash.

I must confess that we have been shaken by the events of 23 February – we will no doubt be more cautious when we next visit Chris and Kourtney, but the CJNG’s revenge will not deter us from our next planned stay.

Alice in Wonderland in Sunninghill

  

2026 is the National Year of Reading in the UK. As our contribution to the year, the volunteers of Sunninghill Library, and Claire Towers-Goodman, the library manager, have organized an exhibition of some of the illustrations from Alice in Wonderland. Today (1 April) Claire and her colleagues organized a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, with a “real live” Alice (actually Chloe, on of the librarians) and craft activities for children. When Jan and I visited the library at 2pm it was full of children busily making White Rabbit pocket watches. Clifford, the Sunninghill Librarian, made two Mad Hatter hats of papier mâché.

 

Here are a few photos, followed by a brief history of Alice in Wonderland.

 

 

 

Note Clifford's hat. 

 

The edition of Alice with dots on the cover is illustrated by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. 

 

 

The Mad Hatter's Tea.

 

This is the story of Alice (with thanks to Alysoun Saunders, former Macmillan archivist for her precise comments): 

 

Alice in Wonderland: the Tenniel Illustrations

 

Alice in Wonderland is a tale that has been enjoyed for more than 160 years and is one of the most influential children’s books of all time. We all know what the fantastic characters created by Lewis Carroll look like because an artist who specialized in drawing cartoons for Punch magazine drew 42 illustrations for the story. But those first readers did not know that Alice wore a blue dress and blue and white stockings, for the original pictures were black and white.

 

To celebrate the National Year of Reading, we are exhibiting in colour a selection of the illustrations created by Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914) for Alice in Wonderland.

 

The author of Alice was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) whose pen name was Lewis Carroll. He taught mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford and was friends with the Dean of Christ Church, Henry Liddell, and his three daughters: Lorina, Alice and Edith.

 

Carroll was a man of many talents. In addition to his two Alice novels, he wrote the nonsense poems, The Hunting of the Snark and The Jabberwock. He also invented the Wonderland Postage Stamp Case, and the nyctograph, a device for writing in the dark, and an early version of a game that became the modern Scrabble. But he is famous as the creator of Alice.

 

One sunny day on 4th July 1862, Carroll took the Liddell sisters on a boat ride on the Thames in Oxford and he told the story that was to become Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The story enchanted Alice Liddell, who becomes Alice in the novel. She begged him to write the story down. The date became known as the “Golden Afternoon” and is celebrated every year in Oxford as “Alice’s Day”.

 

Carroll met Alexander Macmillan, the co-founder of the Macmillan & Co. publishing house in Oxford in 1863. Alexander immediately agreed to publish Alice. Carroll entrusted the illustrations of the story’s extraordinary characters to John Tenniel, whose illustrations for Aesop’s Fables he admired. Tenniel was an unusual artist in that he had been blinded in his right eye by his father in a fencing match. Author and illustrator did not get on: Carroll, who was keen on photography, then a new artform, gave Tenniel photographs of models he liked, but Tenniel refused to use them. Nevertheless, the poses and gestures of Tenniel’s drawings, like Carrol’s story, have enchanted children and adults alike.

 

Carroll paid for Tenniel’s illustrations to be engraved in woodblocks. Electrotypes, made from the woodblocks, were used for printing; as the electrotypes wore out, they were replaced by new ones made from the woodblocks. When Carroll died his estate passed the woodblocks to Macmillan to continue to use to make electros from and for the very odd special "pull". In 1984 Paul Trotman, the company secretary, rediscovered the woodblocks in the company archive. A limited edition of 250 copies with black and white prints was made from them by Rocket Press. The woodblocks are now in the British Library.

 

Indeed, Queen Victoria so enjoyed the book that she commanded that Carroll dedicate his next book to her. It is probable that the Queen did not enjoy that book, An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, quite as much!

 

In 1911 Tenniel commissioned Harry G. Theaker (1873-1954) to colour sixteen of the illustrations. In 1995 Michael Wace, Macmillan’s publisher of children’s books, commissioned DIz Wallis to complete the colouring. We have selected twenty-two illustrations, printed in a large format to show all the details, all but one in colour.

 

Alice got off to a bad start; Carroll rejected the first printing of 2,000 copies (known as the suppressed edition) in June 1865 because Tenniel was dissatisfied with the printing quality. A reprint in December 1865 sold out rapidly and by 1872 Alice was already published in French, German, Swedish, Italian; Finnish followed in 1906 and Esperanto in 1910. An edition in words of one syllable was issued in 1905. A stage adaptation premiered in 1915. By the 21^st century Alice had been read in 175 languages, perhaps most popularly in Japan where 1,271 editions have appeared.

 

Carroll’s brilliant idea of a child’s adventures in a parallel fantastic world is the theme of many subsequent beloved children’s stories, many brought to life by the combined talents of the author and the illustrator such as:

 

J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, a play 1904; a novel 1911 (illustrations by F. D. Bedford, 1864-1954 and Mabel Lucie Atwell, 1879-1964)

L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900 (illustrations by W. W. Denslow, 1856-1915)

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 1950 (illustrations by Pauline Baynes, 1922-2008)

Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, 1962 (illustrations by Ellen Raskin, 1928-1984)

Phillip Pullman, Northern Lights, 1995; The Subtle Knife, 1997; The Amber Spyglass, 2000

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth, 1961 (illustrations by Jules Feiffer, 1929-2025)

Neil Gaiman, Coraline, 2002 (illustrations by David McKean)

L. D. Lapinski, The Strange Worlds Travel Agency, 2000 (cover illustrations by Natalie Smillie)

Christopher Edge, The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, 2016 (illustrations by Matt Saunders and Spike Gerrell)

Anna James, Pages & Co: Tilly and the Book Wanderers, 2018 (illustrations by Paola Escobar)

Jenny McLachlan, The Land of Roar, 2019; Dragon Riders of Roar, 2025 (illustrations by Alla Khatkevich)