Headlines were seized this month by the ambush and murder of three American women and six children by drug traffickers in Mexico. Americans were naturally shocked by the brutality of the cartels. But it would be a mistake to think it doesn’t happen here.
PUEBLA, Mexico—When Lupita Pérez Parra was a young girl, struggling to learn how to read, her mother would punish her by pricking her fingers with a sewing needle. Years later, when Ms. Pérez became frustrated at her own children, she found herself meting out the same painful punishment.
EL FUERTE, Mexico—One recent day, a line of grieving mothers armed with picks and shovels worked their way across a muddy field looking for Mexico’s dead and missing, their own children among them.
