Velvet Was the Night

The Mexican Dirty War (1964-1982) was a conflict between the Mexican government (the Partido Revolucionario Institutional, or PRI) and leftist guerilla and student groups. Like other “dirty wars” across Central and South America, the Mexican Dirty War was a theater of the Cold War, with the US-backed PRI trying to quash communist, Marxist, and leftist groups across the country. The Mexican Dirty War, much like the contemporaneous Argentine Dirty War, resulted in the forced disappearances of students and activists—in the case of the Mexican Dirty War, an estimated 1,200 people were disappeared by the government. Many of these people were likely tortured and murdered.

The Mexican Dirty War was defined by two government-led crackdowns on student protests in Mexico City: the Tlatelolco Massacre in 1968 and the Corpus Christi Massacre on June 10, 1971. Velvet Was the Night begins on the date of the second massacre and follows Elvis, a member of a paramilitary group called the Hawks (Los Halcones). During the Corpus Christi Massacre, the Hawks attacked the student protestors, first with blunt instruments and then with high-caliber rifles. Nearly 120 protestors were killed, including injured protestors taken to hospitals who were tracked down by the Hawks and murdered while hospitalized. Because the events of the massacre in the novel are only seen through Elvis’s eyes, Velvet Was the Night doesn’t portray the extent of the government-sponsored brutality against student protestors. Rather, it focuses on how the events and aftermath of the massacre radicalized even more students and activists across the country.

Nearly every character in Velvet Was the Night is involved with various factions fighting the Mexican Dirty War. Elvis works for the Hawks; El Mago is a former military operative now placed in charge of the Hawks; Rubén, Leonora, and the other members of Asterisk are leftist students and activists. Silvia Moreno-Garcia incorporates characters like Arkady—the KGB operative working with Asterisk—to show the complicated sociopolitical dynamics that were at play in Mexico City during this time. Arkady’s presence in the novel speaks to the ways in which the Mexican Dirty War operated as a facet of the broader Cold War; the US and the USSR were involved in funding and training the players in the Dirty War, even down to involvement with groups as minor as Asterisk.

To the modern reader, Leonora’s disappearance in the novel might initially seem like a typical missing persons case. For the characters living through this historical moment, though, Leonora’s silence immediately takes on a more sinister implication, especially given her recent involvement with Asterisk. Though none of the characters state their fears directly, many assume that Leonora might have become one of “los desaparecidos,” or “the disappeared”—the name given to the many people who were disappeared by their governments during the Latin American dirty wars. This assumption sheds light on El Mago’s motivations at the end of the novel. He is intent on forcing Elvis to find his niece not only because she’s gone missing but also because he—as a former military operative—is fully aware of the violence inflicted on those who are taken by the PRI.

The Mexican Dirty War didn’t have a clear ending. In 1978, left-wing political parties were legalized, and amnesty was offered to many guerilla groups. While this led to a drop-off in militant activity against the PRI, guerilla groups didn’t fully stop fighting the regime for another four years. In 2019, the archives of the Dirección Federal de Seguridad—the intelligence agency Anaya works for in the novel—were released to the public, documenting the full extent of the PRI’s persecution and violence.