The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City’s Anexos

Anthropologist Garcia (The Pastoral Clinic) presents a stunning portrait of Mexico City’s “anexos,” informal rehab-like institutions where drug addicts, alcoholics, and the mentally ill are committed, sheltered, cared for, and sometimes treated harshly by staff. Though Garcia had traveled to the city intending to study a “utopian” government-proposed healthcare complex, she changed her research focus when an offhand conversation with a taxi driver introduced her to the “countless little rooms” that serve the poor. Stunned to encounter such a large but secretive healthcare system, she quickly discerns that the anexos are deeply connected to Mexico City’s escalating enmeshment in the country’s ongoing drug war; families often use them to hide teen boys from gangs and keep teen girls with drug problems from becoming targets of violence. Spending days embedded inside the crowded single rooms that comprise most anexos (“What is this place? A prison? A shelter? A church?” she notes while in one), she transcribes residents’ evocative life stories. Startlingly, her journey eventually brings her to the U.S.; “anexos are everywhere,” she reveals before visiting one hidden in Oakland, Ca. Garcia’s narrative is fueled by an insatiable curiosity about the unique ethos of anexos, which sometimes seem to serve as spiritual retreats from a world gone haywire. It’s a luminous, immersive account of an unseen social safety net. (Apr.)