Although Chango remains the oldest and largest botánica in the city, there has been a huge boon in these shops, with nearly two dozen listed in the Yellow Pages, and many more populating the city's bazaars, mercados and flea markets. On West Davis alone, amid the taquerías, bridal shops and tire shops, there are another half-dozen, as if Chango's formidable presence had given birth to them. They thrive because the Hispanic community is growing, because the old ways make immigrants more comfortable in new and unfamiliar surroundings, and because botánicas remain a first line of defense against myriad ailments for those immigrants too frightened or poor to seek out more modern heath care—at least until they have no choice but to do so.
Aside from herbs and teas that deal with physical afflictions, botánicas offer potions and lotions that deal with affairs of the heart and amulets and candles that deal with matters of the spirit.
BrandonThibodeaux
Chango’s life-size statues seem to come to life at night when backlit
by the glow of the shop’s fluorescent lights.
BrandonThibodeaux
The shelves of Chango’s stockroom are brimming with inventory of incense, candles, lotions, potions and religious articles.
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"You can't take out the religious element from the botánicas," says Northern Arizona University anthropology professor Robert Trotter, who has researched curanderismo, Mexican-American folk medicine. "But, if you were to do so, there would be a huge overlap between what they carry and many of the supplements and products sold at, say, a GNC or someplace like Whole Foods."
What you won't find at Whole Foods is Pancho Diaz, Chango's owner and folk healer whose patients believe that he has the power to purge them of their afflictions through a limpia, a cleansing ritual thought to bring body, mind and spirit into alignment. But soon you may not find him at Chango, because even though the store is doing better than ever, its continued existence is threatened. Pancho, for one, has fallen ill, diagnosed with cancer of the white blood cells and weakened by a lifelong enjoyment of tobacco. And even though Jorge, after much deliberation, has decided to continue the business, the city's proposed gentrification plans for Oak Cliff, which include running a trolley down West Davis Street and building condos for young urbanites to inhabit, may drive out the immigrants upon whose patronage Chango depends.
"Imagine one day you're driving and you don't see that lighthouse of beautiful saints from multiple faiths and beliefs, and you ask yourself, 'What happened?'" Jorge says. "We are a fixture in this community and so is every other business on West Davis. It's sad to see even one tire shop disappear. And if a tire shop can make me feel that way, think about Chango Botánica."
With a lit cigar between his lips and a fresh cup of espresso at his feet, El Negro sits in the center of Chango, resting on a wooden chair with a straw hat on his knee. The statue's hair is painted salt-and-pepper only a shade darker than Pancho's. El Negro is surrounded by an altar of burning candles, incense and vases filled with flowers, some fresh, others long withered. And if you ask Pancho who owns the shop, he will point to the statue.
El Negro is the physical manifestation of Pancho's primary spirit guide, who in 1977 told Pancho—or so he says—to open a botánica in Oak Cliff. For this alone, El Negro gets coffee and a cigar daily. But the spirit, says Pancho, has been by his side since he was a 12-year-old boy in Havana, Cuba.
"Like some kids have an imaginary friend," Jorge explains. "He would see El Negro walking beside him. And when he would dream, El Negro would always be talking to him. He was never alone."
But El Negro was just one of many apparitions who visited Pancho from the time he was six, he says. "I'd see people talking to me, they would appear and disappear." He would tell his mother and others, but they just thought he was crazy. That is, until he met a "mulatto healer, Raphael," who told him he had a gift and took him through a cleansing ritual. Over time, Pancho says he taught himself how to control the voices, letting them in or shutting them out as he wished.
When he fled communist Cuba in 1967, El Negro made the trip with him, Pancho says, first to Spain, and a year later to Dallas where his aunt lived. He worked as a waiter at the Belmont Hotel in Oak Cliff, putting in long hours, sometimes 16 hours a day. But he still had time to sell candles and some religious articles out of his home, where he also acted as a curandero.
He bought his candles a case at a time, competing with folk healers working out of their homes, and other shops that sold spiritual supplies to the steadily growing Hispanic and already established African-American communities. And when he slipped in the hotel while serving coffee, injuring his ankle, he took it as a sign. "When the spirit wants you to do something," he says with a shrug, "you go with it."
So at El Negro's insistence, he opened a small shop, just down the street from its current location. He named it Chango, a saint in Santería (an Afro-Caribbean religion), who spoke with fire from his mouth and was known for his magical powers.
