Mexico's Escribanos: Sending Email Without the Internet Kimberley Brown - Toronto Star
go to original June 3, 2013

Jose Edith Gonzales, 73, has been a scribe for 45 years. Business has slowed, but he remains optimistic. (Kimberley Brown/Toronto Star)

MEXICO CITY — Typewriters are long thought to be a thing of the past, or an essential piece of vintage decor, but not in Santo Domingo Square in Mexico City. Here, some 20 escribanos sit outside, behind their typewriters and small wooden writing desks, waiting for customers.

The escribanos are Mexico City’s professional letter writers. They’ve existed in this square for more than 150 years, taking dictation from academics, writing love letters for estranged lovers and helping friends and families correspond.

Jose Edith Gonzalez, 73, has been doing this job for 45 years. Today a woman has asked him to write a birthday letter for her mother-in-law. His jaw drops in astonishment.

“In all my years here, I have never heard of a wife and her mother-in-law loving each other,” he says.

Read the rest at Toronto Star

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!