The Monument to Independence as an event: No nos cuidan, nos violan, they do not protect us, they rape us

Abstract

On August 16, 2019, protesters arrived at the Monument to Independence in Mexico City. In response to three separate allegations of rape by police in less than a month, demonstrators scrawled 565 pieces of graffiti to transform a historical site of national commemoration into a symbol of state violence against women. México feminicida (Mexico is femicide) covered the central plaque that previously read: '[from] the Nation to the Heroes of Independence'. The paper explores this transformation. Informed by Alfred North Whitehead, it argues that the Monument to Independence is an event. It is neither a timeless tribute to the nation, nor is it merely situated along the manicured Paseo de la Reforma. Rather, the Monument is continually reproduced in how graffiti connects it up with multiple histories of gender-based violence, in how it is given to meaning through the assembly of female/feminine bodies. From one of the most sedimented artifices of national remembrance, the site is transformed into a monument to patriarchal domination; a transformation that persists despite subsequent restoration work.