Quotes from Alcalde Avenue

Walking north from the city centre along the pedestrian Av. 16 de Septiembre, the crowds disappear and one finds oneself on Av. Alcalde, named after a beatified priest, Fray Antonio Alcalde, who built a nearby hospital and started the University of Guadalajara in 1792. The numerous concrete tables and stools far outnumber the people looking for places to rest. Maybe the Avenue comes alive in the evening when I am usually within a few blocks of my hostel, but it has always been empty whenever I meander through.

I just happened to stop for lunch at Casa Cigales Hotel & Restaurante, the house that Fray Antonio Alcade built in the 1700s. It is named after the town in Spain where he was from. The young waitress, Natalie, is from the U.S. Her father was from Guadalajara, so she came here recently. . . she seemed a little reticent to say much about her life here compared to back home. When she asked me if I liked Guadaljara, I said there were pros and cons to being here - I really like the city, but I miss my friends back home. Then she admitted that she felt much the same way. I couldn't help but make up a story for her - her father, threatened by ICE; her family life disrupted.

Ten years ago when we were in Zihuatenejo, one of the waiters who served us had been born in Mexico but raised in the US. His undocumented parents became citizens when The Immigration and Control Act of 1986 allowed illegal immigrants to become permanent residents, but they never thought to do the same for him. Consequently he was expelled to his birth country where he was working in a cafe and trying to apply to go back to the US.

At the end of every block on Av. Alcade is a fountain with a quote enscribed on it. Water may or may not be coming out of the spout, but the quotes are interesting. I'll give you a sampling. . .

The towers are pointed words, they are prayers aloud, they are piety and supplication. Ramon Mata Torres 1934 - 2021

In quiet leisure, he combed through the past to better see the future. Maria de Jesus Barrera 1945 - 2022

Little by little, all those who are tyrants are falling until the world is cleansed and only brothers remain. Concha Michel 1899 - 1990

Today you are mine, dark one, in my arms: breathe me in in the last second Ernesto Flores 1930 - 2017

I am fruit and flesh and air. I exist with the earth, I belong to the blood that carries me in its veins. Maria Luisa Hidalgo Riestr 1918 - 1990

Art is not a corpse to be dissected, it is a living body of emotions Marco Aurelio Larios 1959 - 2022

To name you, love, to invent you, you hear, love, the birds of dawn Hugo Gutierez Vega 1934 - 2015

Life dissolves like fragile foam. And what remains? What is gone is not born, it vanishes Rebeca Uribe 1911 - 1949

What is necessary is to walk, always walk, never stop; to be masters of the valley, the plains, the mountains Mariano Azuela 1873 - 1952

A social history takes into account the opinions of ordinary people. Carmen Castenada 1941 - 2007

Then my voice was filled with ghosts and mirrors, with birds with burning wings, with labyrinths with uncertain exits. Ramon Gil Olivo 1945 - 2016

For sixty years I have tried to be true to myself. Emmanuel Carballo 1929 - 2014

It is preferable to disappear from the memory of men than to remain immersed in this endless blue insomnia. Carlos Bustos 1968 - 2016

Philosophy is sunshine, Philosphy is perfume. We agree that our girls should be taught philosophy. Agustin Rivera y Sanroman 1824 - 1916

I cast my eyes to the dark corner and there I saw myself crying. Arturo Rivas Samz 1905 - 1985

And with my atrocious immensity of oblivion, I will die content. I ask for nothing more. Alfredo R. Placencia 1875 - 1930

Blessed land! Land sought in dreams, in the devasted word, in the eyes of the air! Ignacio Arriola 1930 - 1990

To live we will leave everything: the house, the book, the mask, and the sea. Adalberto Navarro Sanchez 1918 - 1987

The essential ingredient of One Thousand and One Nights is magic. And, when you think about it, isn't there something magical about the history of a language! Antonio Alatorre 1922 - 2010