A breakdancer at a dance hall near the Alameda park in downtown Mexico City (see photo gallery below) (Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream)
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ALAMEDA DANCE HALL: The Sunday dance-hall scene in and around The Alameda park in downtown Mexico City. The scene emerged to provide fun for rural kids who've come to the capital to work construction (boys) and as maids (girls) on their one day off. It's part of a story I wrote about in Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration

VELVET PAINTING: Also from Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream, the story of the Henry Ford of Velvet Painting, Doyle Harden, and the boom in the despised pop art he initiated from El Paso/Juarez.

These will change every couple weeks, so check in again soon.

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The Photos
Jose Ordonez, in the role of Canio, from the Tijuana Opera Company's production of Pagliacci. (Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream)
SamQuinones
.journalist, author
ALAMEDA DANCE HALL -- Mexico City
VELVET PAINTING -- Juarez and Tijuana
Mexico City depends on young, poor workers from the countryside to do its toughest work.... (from Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream)They come from poor villages in nearby states of Puebla, Veracruz, Morelos, Oaxaca, Hidalgo. The boys work construction; the girls as maids. Most send money back home every week to their villages that depend on their remittances. (from Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream)They have one day off a week: Sunday. On that afternoon, the Alameda is transformed into an open-air singles scene for poor country kids working hard in the big city. They are essential to the city, but ignored, abused, insulted, exploited. (from Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream)On Sundays they are looking for fun. So around the park, in abandoned buildings and empty lots, have sprouted improvised dance halls, as well as restaurants, clothes shops, even preachers . I came upon this scene one Sunday afternoon and spent almost every weekend there for about a year. ...Samuel Shapiro, a heavy-metal drummer, set up two of the first dance halls -- one in a parking lot next to what is now the Sheraton; the other in a space where the Spanish Inquisition once burned Indians. ...Some dance halls formed in abandoned buildings far from the park, where the kids congregated, and thus had to provide shuttle bus service. ...These kids came from the countryside, but, alone and without parental supervision, many quickly became urban. ...About a year before I happened on these dance halls, kids had ignited a break dancing fad.... The boys often practiced their moves at the worksites where they lived each night after quitting time.... (This team of brothers also did a helicopter move with one on the head of the other. From Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream) So that on Sundays they could show their stuff at the dance halls near the Alameda....Delfino Juarez, a main character in Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream, was one of those who started the break dancing fad....
Doyle Harden saw velvet paintings on sale in Juarez while on vacation in 1964. That changed his life. ...He moved from Georgia to El Paso/Juarez and became the Henry Ford of velvet paiinting, starting factories that fed the US demand for velvets in the 1970s.Chuy Moran had a studio in Doyle's largest factory. Moran eventually employed 36 painters, producing velvets signed by Chuy....Chuy and his brothers were the kings of velvet painting in Juarez, as the city became the center of the despised art.Still, despised though it was, velvet painting made many poor folks wealthy, for a while at least. When I met Chuy, he was penniless, back in Juarez after years away, and hoping the art would return a bit of his faded glory. It didn't happen.In Tijuana, velvet painting was also big business, though not what it was in Juarez. The Velasquez twins -- Juan and Abel -- were teenagers at the time. Their father was briefly presiident of the city's velvet painters' union.Abel Velasquez, painting a pachuco on velvet, in his studio in Tijuana. ...Enrique Felix is one of the few remaining painters in Tijuana who knows how to paint Elvis on velvet....Velvet helped create the border's first generation of fine artists, many of whom were poor and couldn't have afforded art school. Among them was Tijuana's Tony Maya. Maya eventually gave up velvet, spent a year walking the Baja peninsula, painting and drawing what he saw.
Antonio Carrillo, from Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream*
*These photos were generously provided by Heriberto Carrillo and Catherine Carrillo, son and granddaughter, respectively, of Antonio Carrillo.

BACK STORY: I tried mightily to find relatives of Antonio Carrillo before publishing my book -- Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream -- with no success. After it was published, Ms. Carrillo learned of the book, read it and was surprised to read the story of her grandfather, killing the pistolero who'd murdered his father, with a gun bought with money he made working at Inland Steel in Chicago.

She'd never heard the story before. She asked her father, who confirmed the story as I wrote it. They kindly provided these photographs of her grandfather, for which I'm very grateful.

In descending order:
Photo 1: Portrait
Photo 2: Federal Policeman's ID
Photo 3: Gobernacion ID, 1937