By Maya Palit
What is the La Llorona ‘weeping woman’ legend in Hispanic culture? Although people aren’t really sure when exactly the tradition began, according to one variation of the myth, it’s meant to symbolise a woman ghost who howls for her missing children after they drowned in a river.
But on Saturday in Mexico City, 43 women reinvented the legend in order to mourn the 43 students who went missing from the town Iguala three years ago. Dressed as the Weeping Woman, donning white sheets and Joker-like make up, they conducted a street theatre performance which recalled the way the students suddenly vanished on one night after being abducted by local police. The students had seized buses and were planning to go to a protest in Mexico City, when municipal police officers apparently punctured the tires, came on board the bus, and threatened to shoot them, as well as opening fire on the buses. Government officials later suspected the local police of handing the students over to a heroine trafficking gang.
Why remember them again now? It could be because recent reports have revealed that five human rights legal experts’ search for information on the case ended last month. The new information they unearthed about the missing students is that the police were definitely complicit in the disappearance, but so were other government officials, and the investigation was very murky. An article speculates that the Mexican government is now harnessing Trump’s presidency and anti-Mexican sentiment to “mute criticism” about the missing students. But every year since the event has seen massive protests and mobilisation on the streets, and the Weeping Women are the latest to protest in innovative ways to remind the public that these deaths have not been forgotten.