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Rocío Carrasco, to the victims of sexist violence: “That they don't do the same as me.
Let them say it from minute zero.
That they are not alone "
"It's very authentic, can't you see her face?" Excited, Ana María Acosa challenges the eyes of the bronze Rocío Jurado who, smiling and wearing a bata de cola, rests on the grave of the artist Rocío Mohedano Jurado (Chipiona, 1940, 1944 or 1946 - Madrid, 2006). The Jerez woman has come to that point where myth and mortal person converged 15 years ago with a clear mission: "I come to ask you, as a mother, to intercede for your daughter Rocío Carrasco from heaven." Each one with his wish and remembrance, family, friends and followers of the greatest have honored this Saturday in Chipiona the folkloric before the anniversary of his death.
In truth, it was on June 1, 2006, a "curiously gray" day, as the mayor of the Cadiz town and friend of the singer Luis Mario Aparcero recalls, when the artist died at her home in La Moraleja (Madrid). However, the RJ La Más Grande Cultural Association, chaired since January by Gloria Camila Ortega, Jurado's third daughter, has chosen to celebrate its International Day this Saturday with a mass at the Shrine of the Virgin of Regla and visits to the mausoleum of the artist in the local cemetery and the monument she owns in the same city. "We talk, we remember and we tell each other anecdotes", Ortega assured as soon as he entered the cemetery on a day under the slogan "Immortal Rocío".
Gloria Camila herself has given herself to that common memory; his father and widower of Jurado, José Ortega Cano; the singer's brothers, Amador and Gloria Mohedano; Rosa Benito, ex-sister-in-law and worker of the chipionera; Rocío and David Flores, their grandchildren, children of Rocío Carrasco and Antonio David Flores. And that the most mediatic members of the family present this Saturday in Chipiona have not had it easy to separate the tribute from the controversy that fuels them, due to their poor relationship with Carrasco, absent in the acts, but again current after the emission of a documentary in which they have shelled the episodes of mistreatment to which she claims that she was subjected to her ex-husband. The silence that all the relatives have returned in response each time they were asked about what was denounced by the universal heir of the artist has not prevented that,at the end of the act in the cemetery, a neighbor shouted: "I am Rocío Carrasco."
Rocío Jurado with her daughter Rocío Carrasco in 1999.
Despite the fact that the exclamation - applauded by some and censored by others among the public present - has been viralized on Twitter under the
hashtag that has
become the
trendic topic
#LaMasGrandeNoSeToca, has been one of the few public demonstrations referred directly to the artist's eldest daughter. Different is what Chipiona have been living since, last March, the broadcast of the documentary began. “I think Rocío needed to tell the truth to stay alive - in reference to the name of the program - and I defend her to the full. We have discovered what many of us thought, ”said Aparcero, without going into more familiar details. The mayor, accompanied by other members of the Municipal Corporation, has been one of those who has been present at the mass in honor of the Jury held in the sanctuary and which has exceeded the capacity limits established by the pandemic. Chipioneros and visitors have filled benches and corridors of the temple to follow a service full of memories of the artist,as song playback
Jesus with you,
who has moved Ortega Cano.
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Rocío Flores: “Mom, no one has taken your children from you.
Call us, sit with us "
The religious act has been followed by the tribute in the cemetery.
In front of the mausoleum, family members and attendees have listened excitedly to the interpretation with a saxophone of
Como una ola
y
Algo se fue me
al con
tú.
From there, the family has moved to the monument of the artist Juan de Ávalos that Chipiona dedicated to Jurado during his lifetime, where Gloria Camila Ortega - dressed in a fuchsia suit similar to the one her sister wore in the documentary - and Rocío Flores have taken off their shoes to get into the fountain that surrounds it to reach the statue of the chipionera.
The three points, sanctuary, cemetery and monument, are key elements of the pilgrimage that Rocío Jurado moves in Chipiona.
"In 2019, before the pandemic, we received between 700 and 800 buses a year from people who came to see their places," explains the mayor.
On the wall of the chalet Mi abuela Rocío, where the singer saw the procession of the Virgin of Regla every year, there is not a white brick that is not written with a message in her memory.
"My cousin Gloria [Mohedano] is incapable of bleaching them," says Manuel Jurado, a relative of the artist and vice president of the association.
In one of those messages, made in 2018, it can still be read: "A person does not die as long as they are remembered."
Rocío Flores Carrasco and David Flores Carrasco during the 15th anniversary of the death of Rocío Jurado in Chipiona, CadizCRISTOBAL_DUENAS / GTRES
And in Chipiona they are clear that they do not intend to let their most illustrious neighbor die. In the city - also famous for its beaches, muscat and the cut flower sector - of just over 19,000 inhabitants, it is difficult to find someone who does not have a good word for Rocío Jurado. “Here people idolize her. And most of them love the girl very much, ”explained Toñi Sánchez, a resident of the town for 40 years. "Rocío invited me to any place where she was with personalities, she acted as an ambassador for the town and she introduced me to intercede for Chipiona," recalls the now mayor, who was also a councilor from 1985 to 2000.
But the coastal city is not worth that vivid memory. Not even with the avenue, the monument or the mausoleum that is dedicated to him. Aparcero hopes that "this year is finally" the one that sees the light of the artist's museum, set up since 2011, but unopened. After a decade of bureaucratic obstacles, Aparcero unblocked the project in January 2020 with the signing of an agreement with Carrasco for which she will receive 30,000 euros of annual fee for exhibiting her mother's objects. “Rocío Carrasco saw that documentary was not good. I was reluctant. But he has never been against it ”, points out the enthusiastic councilman.
When the exhibition opens —it is located in an exhibition center near the cemetery—, the visitor will be able to contemplate pieces of value from the Jury, such as furniture, gold records, more than 500 costumes or his piano. In the locality they await its inauguration with enthusiasm. “We would have liked it to have happened 10 years ago. It will be the true R&D of Chipiona ”, assures the vice president of his fan association. Aparcero is clear that the benefit will go beyond tourism: "The museum will give strength to Rocío Carrasco and will reinforce the figure of the mother."