Beatings and Abuse Give Mexico's Emo Teens Plenty to Feel Anguished About

Beto stares with defiant melancholy from behind a jet-black fringe that both covers his eyes and identifies him as a member of one of Mexico's fastest growing and most hated urban tribes: 'They beat me up because I'm emo.'

The 15-year-old describes his harrowing few minutes curled up on the pavement waiting for four members of a different subculture to get bored with kicking him. 'But I'm not going to change for them. Pain doesn't bother me anyway.'

Burgeoning anti-emo sentiment exploded here last month when hundreds of young people in the central city of Querétaro heeded a call to rid the central square of the kids with the hair, drainpipes, eye makeup and angst-ridden aura who listen to hardcore music about personal anguish.

The baying brutality of the mob was captured on mobile phone cameras and relayed on national TV and posted on YouTube. It ended when the police intervened.

Nothing as horrifying has happened since, but emos say the bashing incidents have increased and the habitual harassment intensified, while several marches demanding tolerance in cities, including the capital, have degenerated into tense stand-offs. The police have announced that they are sending undercover agents 'to gather intelligence' to head off confrontations.

Emo music made its first appearance in Mexico about six years ago, just as the genre was blowing itself out in the US. Now there are emos in schools nationwide, alongside the plethora of more established tribes ranging from politically charged anarcho-punks, Mexican goths, known as darks, and rapping reggaetoneros. Omar, 16, and his group of equally skinny friends sit on the curb and explain the details of their aesthetic, but the substance is harder to pin down.

Strikingly apolitical and averse to the urgent rebelliousness of others, emos are happy to admit that they have no ideology beyond insisting on their right to do what they want.

Some of this is about a tolerant and permissive sexuality summed up by the word mamosear - perhaps best translated as heterosexual and gay kissing without strings.

Emos also attract attention for self-harming. Around the Glorieta many willingly show little cuts and cigarette burns on their arms, explaining with almost disarming openness that they believe physical pain substitutes for emotional torment.

Introverted, unthreatening, wimpy and polite when approached, it isn't immediately obvious why emos have suddenly become national hate figures. Those on the left point out that the most serious incident of emo bashing took place in Querétaro, a bastion of conservative Catholics.

Last weekend an emo march in Mexico City that was supposed to pass through the punk stronghold that had been bedecked with welcoming banners to celebrate inter-tribal harmony actually received a volley of insults when it arrived.

But while these are undoubtedly tough times, the emos of the Glorieta de Insurgentes, a circular pedestrian plaza, show no signs of backing down. Juan, at least, says he doesn't care that his father calls him a fagot or that his mother cut off his fringe while he was asleep. 'I know that soon emos will win their place.'