Stains of Blood

Abstract

Chapter 6 dissects how Mexicans processed and came to terms with death, especially tragic deaths of youth. It examines the moral panic that arose regarding youth and their perceived propensity for self-destruction and other violent behaviors. The documentary base of this chapter draws mostly from editorials and media coverage that bemoaned the self-destructive impulses of adolescent Mexicans. Secondly, the chapter contrasts competing attitudes toward death and how death ought to be commemorated in official and popular practice and discourse. Drawing from the approaches of anthropologists and historians of emotions, the incidences of vernacular mourning and memorialization at "stains of blood" ([suicide sites)] are read for their political messages of marking untimely violent death and personalizing public issues like youth suicide.