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Ernesto de la Cruz vs. The Court of Public Opinion

Chapter 4: “Miguel Rivera nominated for Best New Artist” / Quadratín Oaxaca, September 18, 2024.

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“Miguel Rivera nominated for Best New Artist” / Quadratín Oaxaca , September 18, 2024.

Miguel Rivera has been nominated for the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist. A native of Santa Cecilia, the nineteen-year-old singer and songwriter is going from strength to strength; his debut album, ¡Oiga Mi Gente!, has recently gone gold with 127,000 units sold.

“I'm so pleased to have been nominated! My family have already rung and told me how proud they are. Or not to let it give me a big head. One of those,” Miguel told us. Today, he was at an elementary school in Oaxaca de Juárez today, where he taught a group of children a comic song called ‘Everyone Knows Juanita’. A portion of the proceeds from his debut album has been pledged to support teaching music in Oaxacan schools. “Nothing makes me feel more happy and confident than my guitar, and playing music with my family,” Miguel said. “And I want every kid in Oaxaca to share that! We're the best musicians in all of Mexico, after all, and we need to keep it that way!”

 

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Netflix Latinoamérica Rumours @NetflixLatLeaks

Coming soon: the dark side of a Mexican icon? ‘El Músico Mortífero’ could be released 2027. Two very different directors linked to the project, one known for recent prizewinning true-crime documentary and one for thrilling crime drama. Which way will they go?

 

BE KIND TO ANIMALS @flor_del_desierto

FINALLY! Iñaki Godoy for Hector, please please please #MusicoMortifero #DeLaCruzNetflix

 

Dulcinea @DanielaDulce

@flor_del_desierto good pick but Xolo Maridueña would be even better, he looks just like him #DeLaCruzNetflix

 

Maria from Acapulco @marimba_maria

obviously nobody should be making true crime and it’s exploitative blah blah but the real crime would be not casting Diego Boneta. You know he can sing #DeLaCruzNetflix

 

Dulcinea @DanielaDulce

@marimba_maria Diego’s like 33, that’s way too old

 

Maria from Acapulco @marimba_maria

@DanielaDulce Since when is 33 old?!

 

Maria from Acapulco @marimba_maria

@DanielaDulce Maridueña can’t do it. He played Garrido in El Hombre Celoso, remember? Ernesto was good but even he can’t murder the same guy twice.

 

Dulcinea @DanielaDulce

@marimba_maria i bet i know how old you are

 

Francisca @ololiuhqui

@jacosta Do the Rivera family plan to say anything about this rumored Netflix documentary/drama? #DeLaCruzNetflix

 

Luisa @hyperburrito

@ololiuhqui they can’t do it if Hector’s great-grandkids don’t give them permission, right?

 

Francisca @ololiuhqui

@hyperburrito Sadly, they can and have.



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From the Museum of Ernesto de la Cruz

 

The end of an era.

Francisco de la Cavalleria, Curator

 

To all our valued visitors and supporters:

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the permanent closure of the Museum. This has not been a decision taken lightly, but has been forced by the rising cost of operations and a sustained decline in visitor numbers.

We have certainly struggled with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, as have all museums and cultural institutions. However, we must acknowledge that we have also seen a significant change in how our collections are viewed as, in recent years, questions have been rightly asked about the legacy of the musician in whose honor this museum was founded. We are honored to have participated in the important conversations this has inspired about history, accountability and the figures we choose to commemorate.

We expect to gradually wind down the operations of the museum, in preparation for permanent closure in March 2026. We are committed to ensuring the safe relocation of our archives and artifacts, to institutions which can continue to study and display them for the benefit of all.

We are deeply grateful to all those who have supported us over the past eighty years, from our dedicated staff and volunteers to the eight million visitors who have walked through our doors. It has always been your passion and your engagement that has truly brought our history to life.

 

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“A hundred years later, is this Hector Rivera’s wedding ring?” / Josefina Acosta, Oaxacan Heritage, October 12, 2024.

When Hector Rivera left his home in Santa Cecilia in 1921, he wore a plain wedding band. After his death, it was taken by Ernesto de la Cruz to return to his family, according to the writings of Fr Antonio Calderon y Mejia. The ring, however, was not returned to Hector’s family. Nor was any item matching its description—a plain and cheap gold band—clearly listed among Ernesto’s possessions when they were inventoried by the Museum of Ernesto de la Cruz.

Now, after more than a century, that wedding ring may have been restored to his descendants. It is claimed that, in September 1921, in San Luis, Ernesto de la Cruz sold a plain and well-worn band of 8ct gold to a jewellery dealer. The dealer had seen Ernesto perform the evening before and suspected he would soon be better-known. So, with impressive foresight, he had Ernesto write and sign a declaration of the ring’s origin. This ring was finally sold eighteen years later, for a significantly increased but undisclosed sum, and given to Ernesto devotee Antonia Pérez as a wedding ring. Following the passing of Mrs Pérez, her daughter has delivered the ring to the Rivera family.

It has not been confirmed whether this ring is fact the wedding ring once worn by Hector Rivera, and it is unlikely that this can ever be conclusively proved or disproved. The document attesting that it was sold by Ernesto de la Cruz (having allegedly belonged to his late mother) has not been formally examined for authenticity, and its condition may prevent any examination. Rivera's ring is not visible in the Rivera Photograph, being obscured by his guitar. The Sepulveda Sketch shows a plain band, without any distinguishing detail which would confirm identification. However, Manuela Moreno, 68, daughter of Mrs Pérez, firmly believes the ring once belonged to Rivera, and felt too uncomfortable to keep it. “I didn't believe before Mama passed away that it ever came from Ernesto at all, but I put it on after she passed and felt a cold shiver. I felt as if I would be sick. If it stayed in my house it would haunt me, I'm certain of it!” Mrs Moreno hopes the ring can now rest peacefully with its first owner's family.

Elena Rivera has told Oaxacan Heritage that she is convinced by the story, and believes the ring matches her grandmother Imelda’s. The family had never expected to have Rivera's wedding ring returned, and are profoundly grateful to Mrs Moreno... and have assured her that they think their ancestor was much too lazy to haunt anyone.



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>Ana @ana_conda

>@marimba_maria And the wedding ring, too! So many treasured mementoes. Does the budget book have any income listed from a pawn shop?

 

Ana @ana_conda

Retweeting myself because I’M PSYCHIC, GUYS.

 

Bruno Lopez @blopez

@jacosta @herenciaoaxaquena Okay, here’s what I think of your Rivera ring story https://ernestoinnocenceproject.wordpress.com/2024/10/15/that's-just-good-business

 

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That’s just good business.

Okay, here’s my plan to make bank when I time-travel back to 1938 San Luis. Or anywhere in Mexico in 1938, come to think of it. I’m going to get hold of a signed photo by Ernesto de la Cruz. That’s not hard, he signed everything that stood still long enough. I’m going to learn to copy his handwriting, and I’m going to write up a hundred attestations saying that some cheap-ass generic crappy rings once belonged to him! 500% profit, easy. How would anyone compare the writing to a better example? You couldn’t google it. You couldn’t write to Ernesto and ask him if he remembered selling a ring in San Luis in 1921 - his fanmail arrived by the truck, he couldn’t answer everyone.

So to believe this theory, you have to have total faith in… the honesty of a second-hand jewellery dealer. No, thanks.

It doesn’t seem that Josefina Acosta and the Riveras even have too much faith in this identification. J. Acosta doesn’t want to get the attestation verified? Weird. I thought she was so into her handwriting analysis. Oh, it’s too fragile and damaged? Isn’t that convenient.

And before you start, I already know what the Riveristas are going to say, so here’s why they’re wrong.

“The document says the ring was sold in September 1921, when we know Ernesto really was in San Luis. How would the jewellery dealer get that date right if he was forging it in 1938?”

Uh, with his memory? It wasn’t a secret that Ernesto was in San Luis in September 1921. In 1923 and 1927 and 1931 and 1935, when Ernesto came back through on tour, the newspapers reported that he’d first played there in 1921 before he hit the big time. (He actually played in San Luis every year between 1926 and 1944, which includes in 1937 and 1938! I couldn’t find the newspapers for those years, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t report on it.) More importantly, that 1921 performance was at the Medianoche dancehall, and you know what they had on their wall starting from 1926? A giant poster of Ernesto mocked up to advertise his 1921 performance! Anyone living in San Luis in the 1930s who didn’t know he’d been there in September 1921 just wasn’t paying attention!

“We know from the Budget Book and the memoirs of Lara Cerecero and Vega Miguélez that Ernesto was robbed in San Luis in September 1921. All he had left was his guitar and the clothes he stood up in. So he was hurting for money, and he had motive to sell Hector’s ring.”

What else do we know from the Cerecero and Miguélez memoirs? That Cerecero gave Ernesto a grooming kit and an old suitcase and convinced her then-boyfriend to give Ernesto some of his old clothes. That Miguélez gave Ernesto cold hard cash. (That Ernesto, what a charmer!) Ernesto was on the way up by that point, anyway, even if he hadn’t reached the level of fame he’d achieve in Mexico City. He was making money every night. Why would he need to sell a cruddy old ring for whatever pittance it would bring in? And if you want to believe he even had the ring on him after he was robbed, you have to admit he was keeping it close, in his pocket, or wearing it himself. Is that what you do with a ring you’re willing to offload? Serial killers cherish their trophies and keep them close, sure, but they don’t also sell them to pawn shops.

“We know from the priest’s diary Ernesto took Rivera’s ring to return it to his family. Where did it go, if he didn’t sell it?”

We know Ernesto didn’t return the ring to the family. There’s no new information there. We already knew he didn’t tell them Rivera was dead, whether that’s because he was psychotic and in denial (not a theory I buy, by the way), or because he thought it would help Mrs Rivera to move on or any other reason people have made up over the past six years. If he’d given them the ring, he’d have had to explain why it wasn’t on Rivera’s finger, wouldn’t he? Cover: blown.

So the ring is, almost certainly, with Ernesto’s existing jewellery collection, in the collection of the Museum of Ernesto de la Cruz.

“But then why wasn’t it in the Museum’s inventory?!”

I’ll quote J. Acosta here. ‘Nor was any item matching its description—a plain and cheap gold band—clearly listed among Ernesto’s possessions when they were inventoried by the Museum of Ernesto de la Cruz.’ That ‘clearly’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there because, listed in the inventory, which is clearly available on the Museum’s website, we have ‘37 misc rings, plain’!

Rivera’s wedding ring is a plain, cheap, generic piece of crud, and it was just too boring to write about. Now the Museum knows to look out for it, odds are good a stronger contender for the missing ring will appear while they’re packing and re-inventorying their collection to be moved to other museums – and that will prove Ernesto cherished Rivera’s wedding ring all his life, exactly like you’d expect from somebody who didn’t murder their good friend.

 

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Luisa @hyperburrito

@blopez you’re so cute when you’re all bitchy and opinionated



Bruno Lopez @blopez

@hyperburrito wow then I must be goddamn adorable literally all the time



Luisa @hyperburrito

@blopez like a grumpy little chihuahua <3 <3 <3



Luisa @hyperburrito

@blopez it’s a great post! love the research, good work on the inventory and newspapers and posters! obv also disagree completely



Bruno Lopez @blopez

@hyperburrito as written by E de la C himself, the sense that you’re not making leaves my cabeza shaking



Luisa @hyperburrito

@blopez keep being wrong at me, baby, you know I love it



Francisca @ololiuhqui

@hyperburrito If you don’t stop putting this on my feed, I am going to puke directly onto your keyboard.



* * *

 

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

SATURDAY 2 NOVEMBER

PLAZA SANTA CECILIA

PARADE 2PM

TALENT SHOW 7 PM – GUEST JUDGE SRA. ELENA RIVERA – DON’T GET THE CHANCLA!

* FACE PAINTING! * FOOD STALLS! * FLOWER STALLS! * MUSIC! * CALAVERA CONTEST!*

PRIZES SPONSORED BY RIVERA FAMILY SHOEMAKERS - MAKERS OF THE BEST DANCING SHOES IN OAXACA!

 

Notes:

Feel free to correct any linguistic or cultural errors! I'm not even from the Americas, what would I know.