On Friday, November 29, 2008, I took a taxi to the North Bus Station to catch a bus to San Miguel de Allende; I am here now in this fabulous city. The bus I rode in even had wireless Internet service: I must be a true Texas hick because I think wireless Internet on a bus moving across rural Mexico is just amazing. Anyway …..

As I was weaving through México City’s busy streets to the bus station, I noted that we passing close to the area known as the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, the Plaza of Three Cultures, which is the main square of the Tlatelolco neighborhood, the place where the 1968 Student Massacre occurred. Looking to make conversation with the taxi driver I mentioned to him that I thought that the massacre of the students in 1968 was such a tragedy.

I was most surprised to hear driver’s response because I had not heard anyone approving of what had happened before. The taxi driver said he was glad that the President [México’s President then was Gustavo Díaz Ordaz] did what he did. Because if the president had not taken the action that he did to stop the students, then México would be worse than what it is today. WHAT! I couldn’t believe what I just heard. I did not want to argue with the taxi driver because the thought of becoming one of the “disappearing” in this county did cross my mind; apparently this man had a touch of fascism in his blood

But I did ask the driver, where was he when this event occurred, October 2, 1968. Kind of like asking what one was doing when one had gotten word that J.F.K. or Tejana singer Selena was shot. I was taken aback when he told me that he didn’t exist yet because he was not even born yet. And I thought poor dear, Mother Nature has not been kind to this man because I could have sworn he was older than me.

Anyway, glad to report that the 1968 STUDENT MASSACRE MEMORIAL EXHIBIT, information I posted on my blog on August 17, 2008, has been awarded the prestigious Miguel Covarrubias Prize for Museology and Research for Museums granted by the National Anthropology and History Institute.

The News, México’s only English daily newspaper, reports that the “award is Mexico’s highest distinction in museology” and that the “prize was for Best Planning and Project for a Museum Open to the Public.”

The emphasis in the exhibit was that it be a “living memorial” and that it provides a critical and open-minded view on the movement: read more in The News.