Post Cards from the 2023 Benito Juárez Cup

Author: Adrián Román

Guelatao ¶

The wind blows between the mountains, it runs, it plays; the clouds bundle up what remains of the dawn. We came to see one of the basketball tournaments with the largest attendance in the south of the country. It’s played here, in this precise place, because it’s where Benito Juárez was born. Someone ought to make a full accounting of all the streets, schools, parks, plazas and tournaments in the state of Oaxaca named for the Benemeritus of the Americas.

When we arrive, we realize that the event is even bigger than we’d imagined. People overflow across the edge of the court and through the streets of the village. You can already hear the shouting, the cranking of ratchets and an announcer narrating the event. There are stalls selling sweatshirts, jerseys, t-shirts, socks, hots, sneakers, and a great of merchandise from the nba. There are also people wearing shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with the names of their communities. There’s smoke from food stalls permeating the landscape. There are ardent fans who’ve probably not yet eaten breakfast.

This is the tournament of the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca, which draws players from the Mixe, Mazateco and Chinanteco peoples—36 communities in total. They arrive each year in their impeccable regalia, dressed as if for the tournaments held at gringo universities. In this tournament no one plays except those who were born in the Sierra or have direct lineage here through their parents or grandparents. The sanctions for disobeying that rule are exemplary. The tournament does not offer any kind of cash prize to the champions in its eight categories. The only thing in play is a trophy. Once a team has won three times, it retains the right to keep the Cup, even if the championships aren’t consecutive. They’re playing in honor of Benito Juárez and no one wants to lose.

Love for the Court ¶

At six years old, I can’t get enough of Playmobil and Star Wars toys, but my Grandmother Josefina orders me to get out of my room: “Go out and get some sun!” she says. She grew up on a ranch, surrounded by animals and by nature, and she can’t imagine why a child would want to drag himself around the house all day, playing with monkeys and inventing stories. She gives me a ball from the Harlem Globetrotters and sends me out to the court in the middle of the housing complex where we live.

The court is right at the entrance to the complex. You have to go up a few stairs to reach it. Sometimes my friends and I get together there at night and make fires with the trash we find lying around. We’re a bunch of rascals. Between us, we steal toys, we say mean things, we throw some shots, but we never split up, or if we do not for more than a day or two. When we light fires, we’re like witches gathering around the old god. And the tongues of the fire get so tall that they look like the tongues of fire given off by the sun and we jump around and shout. “Are you becoming a nahual [a sorcerer] or what?” my grandmother asks when I come back up to our house.

A lot of people who know me suggest to my Mom that I should try playing basketball. Hearing it so often, it started to seem like an obligation that I didn’t want to fulfill. I like to watch the Globetrotters on Acción, the sports show that comes on on Sunday afternoons. I want to play like them, to be able to dribble the ball between legs and shoot with that much grace and ease. But I’m not that good and I get bored easily. No one shows me how to play and I’m too clumsy to learn on my own. When I ask my dad for help he just tells me I need to practice, that it’s not easy. I think he doesn’t know how to play and he’s ashamed to admit it. I feel like I just get worse every day. My shots keep getting farther form the hoop, as if the hoop were moving away.

Migrants ¶

Latuvi is one of the few teams that’s allowed to enter with players born in the United States of America. There’s a group of cousins who were all born in Los Angeles and every year they come to represent the village where their parents and grandparents were born. They struggle to express themselves in Spanish.

Guelatao doesn’t only welcome players from other countries. Some of the chroniclers have had to migrate, too, to improve their quality of life, but they don’t want to lose the chance to commentate games live. In the bleachers, too, there are people who have made the long journey to support their communities. The tournament didn’t happen for the first two years of the pandemic—this year will be the 44^th edition. The sun sets and the mountains sleep. Finals are in two days.

Love for the Court ¶

I fell in love with basketball when I started high school. I would wear shorts that came down to my knees, t-shirts with the face of Shawn Kemp and Reebok sneakers. I could never play on the school team because of legal procedures that I didn’t manage to finish. But I spent four years playing on public courts and I was better than a lot of players who were in the selection.

At 19, they asked me to play for the selection in Mexico City. I played at the Venustiano Carranza Recreational Center and they had practice at another sports center I never went to. I was scared to take responsibility for my talent. I let the opportunity to shine in something I love pass me by. It was painful and difficult to understand. Basketball taught me never to be afraid of who I am.

How does a basketball court sound? ¶

I met him when the last game of the tournament had ended. I reached his hand through the crowd of people that had taken over the court. On one side, people were lamenting the defeat of Ixtlán and, on the other, celebrating the triumph of Villa Alta. Brayan Cross introduced us, said I should interview him, that he’d taken photos of every tournament since the 1960s. I sat with him in the bleachers and listened to his stories all night.

He had a calm look, carried his lens and camera slung around his neck and two bags loaded with his treasured possessions: two albums full of photos of all the tournaments of the Benito Juárez Cup and other photos from before, from the 1960s, when there weren’t even concrete courts, only dirt.

He was small and enthusiastic and he’d never played basketball, but he loved it like few others do. He told me that they played the first tournaments with Voit balls and that the players wore shoes made by Superfaro, a Mexican brand that looked like Converse. His eyes lit up thinking back on the greatest players of the Oaxacan Sierra. The gym was empty, the electronic scoreboards had forgotten the scores of the many matches that had taken place and had fallen asleep. The bleachers were full of trash, memories and ghosts. The photographer invited me to visit his community, Macuiltianguis, to continue our conversation about the legends of the Benito Juárez Cup. I hope to visit soon.

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Translation: Michael Snyder
Proofreading: Jaime Soler Frost