La Rosita (Coyoacán)

A pulquería on the corner of Aguayo and Londres streets in Coyoacán, near Frida’s house. In Hayden Herrera’s Frida her students, “Los Fridos”, paint its outer walls and open them with a riotous fiesta.

At a glance

SourceAuthorRoleIn one line
FridaHayden HerrerasettingLos Fridos paint the pulquería’s walls; at the opening Diego makes Benjamin Péret dance a zapateado at gunpoint.

Frida — Hayden Herrera (1983)

Source: Frida - A Biography of Frida Kahlo · Original · Readwise highlight

Near her house, on the corner of Londres Street, just next door to the home of the dethroned King Carol of Rumania, there was a pulquería called La Rosita.

  • Role: setting
  • In the book: The government had whitewashed the murals of Mexico’s pulquerías, and Frida gets permission for her students to paint new ones on La Rosita’s two outer walls. The inauguration is a fiesta with music and dancing: Frida dances with Diego despite her pain, and Diego pulls out his pistol to make Péret dance a zapateado. Speeches follow, few of them about La Rosita.
  • Why it matters: It is the book’s liveliest scene of Frida as teacher, bringing her students’ art to the street life of Coyoacán.