“Los 43 was not the beginning: Los desaparecidos”

Since the disappearance of the 43 normalista students in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero in the fall of 2014; the forced absence of young Mexicans and others of note (journalists, for example), evidences a brutal form of emotional violence that has become a key topic in contemporary Mexico. Elena Poniatowska’s piece, available here for the first time in English, discusses the disappearance of members of the opposition in Mexico and is a stark reminder that the students who vanished in 2014 in Mexico are linked to an occurrence that is neither new nor trite. The Cervantes Prize winner’s early essay prompts the reader to remember that political subversion and disappearance are axis that function in Mexico’s past and present.