Three homes, one heart: Returning to my Durango roots

They accidental location is wherever the bosom is, and I hold — though successful today’s globalized world, the thought of location feels much analyzable than that. I spent my puerility successful a rancho successful Durango. Not a lone ranch house, but a small, agrarian colony of astir 50 homes and 150 people. At 12, I moved with my household to the Chicagoland area, wherever my parents and siblings inactive live. Now I’m based successful Mexico City. If location is wherever the bosom is, past excavation is successful 3 places.

The agelong roadworthy to Santa Rosa

There’s much to the authorities of Durango than mightiness archetypal appear. (Rocio Cadena)

In July, I returned to Santa Rosa, my archetypal home, aft 4 years away. My parents spell backmost each summer, and my older member brings his family, too. I wanted to coincide with them. The usually sleepy ranchería comes live successful June, July, and August, past again successful December. Weddings, quinceañeras, equine races, coleaderas, cabalgatas — the calendar fills fast. But first, you person to get there.

And getting determination is nary tiny feat. The “convenient” way is flying into Durango’s superior city, past driving 5 to six hours, with the past 3 connected unsmooth roads. Sedans don’t basal a accidental — if it’s rained recently, they’ll get stuck successful the mud. A sturdy motortruck is the lone way.

Another enactment is to thrust from the U.S. My household did this for years aft moving to Chicago. We’d load up the car, walk 3 days connected the road, and halt astatine roadside motels connected the U.S. broadside for 2 nights earlier yet crossing into Mexico done Ojinaga, Chihuahua. My member inactive does this travel astatine slightest doubly a year. 

Then there’s the El Paso route, fashionable with galore families. You alert into El Paso, transverse into Ciudad Juárez, and drawback the overnight autobus — 12 hours to Santa María del Oro, the nearest municipality to Santa Rosa. From there, it’s inactive a two-hour drive. However you arrive, the travel is long, uncomfortable, and often exhausting. It usually takes days conscionable to recover.

Rancho life, seen anew

But erstwhile there, it’s worthy it. Santa Rosa is rugged and remote, tucked among mountains and desert. Durango’s semi-arid clime usually means scorching summers, but this twelvemonth was different. Heavy rains had transformed the land. Rivers brimmed, creeks ran strong, and everyplace I looked, writer and vegetation replaced the accustomed muted godforsaken tones. I was astonished — it was the greenest I’d ever seen.

While the fashionable representation of Durango is arid desert, the authorities is overmuch greener than that. (Rocio Cadena)

Returning arsenic an adult, I spot things I erstwhile overlooked. Most families present unrecorded disconnected cattle and remittances. Horses and cows predominate the landscape. As a child, I ne'er grasped however relentless beingness arsenic a husbandman truly is. My begetter inactive raises cattle, and during my ten-day stay, I watched him enactment from dawn to dusk — feeding, vaccinating and guarding pastures. At 72, helium inactive mounts his equine daily, looking aft his herd similar a existent old-school cowboy-ranchero.

Another observation: immoderate ranchos that were practically shade towns 20 years agone are present thriving. La Noria, for example, utilized to person precise fewer people. This summer, I was shocked to spot it transformed — with arches welcoming visitors into the rancho and homes remodeled and freshly painted. My parents explained that galore of those who near to enactment successful the U.S. decades agone person present retired and chosen to instrumentality and walk their aureate years here.

This signifier is common. Families whitethorn permission for 20 oregon 30 years, moving pugnacious jobs successful the U.S., but if they’re documented, they travel backmost successful the summers and winters. That’s erstwhile rancherías similar Santa Rosa travel to life. Fiestas, cabalgatas, and weddings are often scheduled astir these visits, truthful locals and returnees tin observe together.

Even my U.S.-born nephews consciousness the pull. From seven-year-old Oscar Jr. to 18-year-old Christian, they inquire to travel backmost each year. Watching them clasp the onshore moved me. If I person kids 1 day, I’ll marque definite they transportation that aforesaid connection.

Beauty and risk

Modernity has reached Santa Rosa successful its ain way. Wifi arrived a fewer years ago, though energy and compartment work tin inactive beryllium unreliable. While I was there, the powerfulness went retired for 24 hours, and reception was truthful spotty you could hide astir depending connected your phone. Unplugging is inactive casual — sometimes, unavoidable.

Remote communities, hard roads and inclement conditions marque getting astir agrarian Durango a situation — if not outright dangerous. (El Sol de Durango)

But rancho beingness besides comes with danger. In summertime 2024, a household of 3 drowned portion trying to transverse a stream swollen with rain. The father, assured helium could marque it crossed successful his motortruck with his woman and three-month-old baby, didn’t survive. A mates of years ago, an older mates driving down from the U.S. veered disconnected a cliff and died. A comparative of excavation precocious fell from a equine and spent weeks successful a coma. These tragedies dependable similar scenes from a peculiarly improbable movie, but they’re portion of mundane world here.

Cultural norms tin astonishment outsiders, too. At parties, astir men deterioration guns strapped to their belts, firing them successful the aerial erstwhile a fashionable corrido plays. I don’t stock this to glorify oregon condemn — it’s simply portion of beingness successful this country of bluish Mexico. With small to nary constabulary presence, it’s the Wild West successful immoderate ways. For galore men, a weapon is portion of the outfit, on with the hat, boots, and belt.

Returning to my roots

Visiting Santa Rosa unlocks thing caller wrong maine each time. My travel to the spot wherever I spent my puerility evoked a myriad of emotions and themes — nostalgia, pride, joy, roots, heritage, and the conception of home(s).

When I was a assemblage pupil astatine UIC-Chicago, I took a people connected Latin American Studies. I had a distinguished Mexican-American professor, astir apt successful his 40s oregon 50s, who shared an anecdote: increasing up, helium rejected his parents’ emotion of norteño euphony and leaned into hip-hop, wanting thing to bash with what his parents played. But arsenic helium got older, thing shifted — helium started craving the euphony of his childhood. He returned to his roots. I retrieve uncovering that communicative fascinating and wondering however it mightiness subordinate to maine aboriginal successful life.

I was ne'er ashamed of wherever I came from, but I did consciousness indifferent, much focused connected bigger, amended places. Leaving the colony opened the satellite to me, and I wanted to spot it all. That led maine to survey overseas successful Italy during assemblage and unrecorded successful South Korea for 2 years successful my 20s.

Now, though, I consciousness a fondness and pridefulness for Durango that has taken years to aboveground but is present firmly rooted. Whenever I spell to Garibaldi successful Mexico City, I bask mariachi — but what I truly crave is norteño music, particularly old-school corridos.

I volition ever transportation successful my bosom the spot wherever I spent my childhood. In galore ways, it completes the triangle of my beingness — Durango, Chicago, and Mexico City. Three homes that shaped me, each successful its ain way. And I’m already looking guardant to returning to the archetypal one, Santa Rosa, successful December.

Rocio is simply a Mexican-American writer based successful Mexico City. She was calved and raised successful a tiny colony successful Durango and moved to Chicago astatine property 12, a bicultural acquisition that shapes her lens connected beingness successful Mexico. She’s the laminitis of CDMX IYKYK, a newsletter for expats, integer nomads, and the Mexican diaspora, and Life of Leisure, a women’s wellness and spiritual community.