NAYELI HAD JUST SAID HER GOOD-BYES TO A friend and was about to descend the stairs into a Mexico City subway station when a shout pierced the evening air: “An emo!” Within moments, six youths had grabbed the 15-year-old from behind, wrestled her to the pavement, and begun kicking. Better known to her friends as Campanita (“the Little Bell”), Nayeli curled up in the fetal position as her assailants, four of whom were male, repeatedly stomped on her stomach and legs. The savage beating on the night of March 21 might have gone on longer if an older girl who happened to be passing by hadn’t intervened. The

Punks and Metalheads

Emos An all-too-common attitude is expressed at Mexico City’s El Chopo market (far left); Jesús Soto (near left) fell victim to thugs after a party

victim knew neither her attackers nor her savior, but Nayeli believes she was targeted on the basis of her skintight jeans, slip-on Vans, and pink hair bow. “I’ve been living in fear ever since that day,” says the high school student, who is barely five feet tall and declined to give her surname for fear of future reprisals. “I still go out—it’s not like I’m in hiding—but I am afraid.”

The episode is just one example of the escalating violence inside Mexico against emo fans, here commonly referred to as “emos.” The wave of thuggery made national headlines after hundreds of youths pummeled a handful of emos on March 7 in the central Mexican city of Querétaro’s main plaza, resulting in three injuries and 28 arrests. Eight days later, dozens of self-styled punks, “darks” (goths), and skaters marched on a plaza in Mexico City where emos gather daily, and the ensuing war of words eventually deteriorated into a rock-hurling, bottle-throwing melee before police arrived. Similar disturbances erupted that month in the northern city of Durango, leaving two injured and 80 in police custody. No deaths have been blamed on the emo-bashing to date, but the grainy cell-phone video images of terrified emos being cornered by a howling mob in downtown Querétaro have alarmed officials. “We are troubled by the fact that only violence seems to interest young people,” says Adolfo Ortega Osorio, president of the Querétaro State human rights commission. “And while one can’t generalize, this attraction is becoming increasingly obvious.”

Though it’s hard to explain the timing of the anti-emo campaign, the beef stems in part from a perception that emos—a relatively recent phenomenon in Mexico—are stealing elements, including fashion and music, from other urban tribes. Another factor that helps account for their persecution has resonated on schoolyards through the centuries: Almost without exception, emos tend to be younger, smaller, and scrawnier than their adversaries. “They’re easy targets,” says Leninn Zavala, a 17-year-old bassist in the emo band Heroiine who boasts the typical 28-inch waistline and tips the scales at 123 pounds. “They can’t defend themselves, and beating up an emo has become a kind of entertainment.”