Jorge Castañeda is a political scientist at NYU and former foreign minister of Mexico. Before giving a lecture on the contradictions of character and country in Mexico, he took questions in our Green Room.
Q. What is your favorite dessert?
A. I don’t eat dessert. Cheese.
Q. What superpower would you most like to have?
A. For myself? Intelligence.
Q. Who was your childhood role model?
A. Childhood, I don’t know. Youth, Trotsky.
Q. What is your favorite city on Earth?
A. Mexico City, Paris and New York. The three equally.
Q. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?
A. Dead would probably be Lenin.
Q. What was the last great book that you read?
A. The last great book that I read that really impressed me was Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.
Q. What is your favorite vegetable?
A. I don’t really like vegetables. Chiles.
Q. What time do you wake up in the morning?
A. Between 6:30 and 7.
Q. What would we find you doing at 8 pm on a typical Saturday?
A. Out with friends or girlfriends. Or both.
Q. What is your favorite type of weather?
A. I like the sun. I like warm, hot weather with sunshine and blue sky. I like that.
Read more about Castañeda’s lecture.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.