Olivia: We're often told that in the tech world, a great idea is all you need. That innovation is the great equalizer. But what if the same 'disruptive' idea could get you celebrated on national television, or get you disappeared by the state? That's the reality we're exploring today. Jackson: Whoa, okay. That's a heavy start. Fame or disappearance? Those are some high stakes for a hackathon project. Where does this idea come from? Olivia: It comes from a really powerful and widely acclaimed book called Code Work: Hacking Across the US/México Techno-Borderlands by Héctor Beltrán. And what makes Beltrán's perspective so unique, and why scholars have praised this book so highly, is that he's an MIT-trained computer scientist who became an anthropologist at UC Berkeley. He literally speaks both languages—code and culture. Jackson: Huh. So he's an insider and an outsider at the same time. That’s a rare combination. I can see how that would lead to some deep insights. Olivia: Exactly. And he uses that dual vision to look at how young Mexican and Latinx hackers aren't just writing code; they're trying to hack the very systems that marginalize them. And Beltrán opens the book with a chilling real-world example of this paradox from Mexico in 2014.

Jackson: Okay, I'm hooked. What happened in 2014? Olivia: Beltrán introduces us to three different groups of young, tech-savvy Mexicans. All of them are disillusioned with the government and want to use technology to create change. The first group is led by a 17-year-old prodigy nicknamed 'El Chico Partículas'—The Particle Boy. Jackson: The Particle Boy? I love it already. Olivia: Right? He and his friends get an old VW bus, call it 'la combi de la ciencia'—the science van—and drive into rural, impoverished areas of Guerrero. They're trash-picking old computers, fixing them up, and giving them to kids, saying things like, "Perhaps the next computer genius is somewhere in the mountains of Mexico!" Jackson: That’s fantastic. A classic feel-good story. So they get celebrated, I'm guessing? Olivia: They become national heroes. They win awards, get tons of press. They are the poster children for the government's 'Mexico Conectado' project. They represent the 'right' kind of disruption: individual initiative, educational, and perfectly aligned with the state's narrative of progress. Jackson: Okay, so that's path number one: get celebrated. What's path number two? Olivia: Path number two is a group of elite hackers on a 'startup bus' heading to a festival in the US. One of them, a guy named Javo, is frustrated with the lack of support in Mexico. On the bus, they have spotty internet and it gives them an idea for an app that lets people communicate without a connection. They call it Pingafy. Jackson: An offline messaging app. That’s genuinely useful, especially during disasters. Olivia: Exactly. They win the hackathon, and after a few years of perfecting the tech, they get millions in funding from Silicon Valley. Their app is used in protests and natural disasters around the world. They become a global success story. So, path two is: get funded. Jackson: Okay, celebrated or funded. Both sound pretty good. What’s the third path? This is where it gets dark, isn't it? Olivia: This is where it gets heartbreaking. The third group is also from Guerrero, the same state as the Particle Boy. They are students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College. They are known for their political activism and for protesting government neglect. To get to a demonstration in Mexico City, they do what they often do: they commandeer a few buses. Jackson: Commandeer? Like, they just take them? Olivia: It's a common protest tactic there, a way of highlighting how underserved they are. But on the night of September 26, 2014, as they travel from the city of Iguala, they are intercepted by an armed operation. Jackson: Oh no. Olivia: Several students are killed on the spot. And 43 of them are forcibly disappeared. To this day, the case is officially 'unresolved,' but most accounts point to state authorities and the army being involved. Their 'disruption' was seen as a direct threat to the state. Jackson: My god. That's horrifying. So you have three groups of young people, all trying to 'disrupt' the system in their own way. One gets praise, one gets venture capital, and one gets murdered by the state. Olivia: Exactly. And that's the central paradox Beltrán lays out. The value of a 'hack' or a 'disruption' has nothing to do with its technical brilliance or social utility. It's about whether it serves the interests of state and market power. If your hack fits the narrative of neoliberal, entrepreneurial progress, you're an innovator. If it challenges the political order, you're an enemy. Jackson: That completely reframes the whole idea of 'disruptive technology.' It’s not about the tech at all. It’s about power. So, if you're a young hacker in Mexico, navigating this incredibly dangerous and complex world, how do you even begin to think about it? How do you cope?

Olivia: That's the perfect question, and it leads directly to the book's most creative and, I think, brilliant concept: the 'ethno-stack.' Jackson: Hold on, 'ethno-stack'? That sounds incredibly academic. Can you break that down for me? Is it just a fancy way of saying culture affects technology? Olivia: It's more than that. In computer science, 'the stack' refers to all the interdependent layers of hardware and software that make a program run, from the physical microchips at the bottom to the user interface at the top. Beltrán borrows this idea and creates the 'ethno-stack'—a framework for seeing how a coder's technical world is layered with their personal life, their relationships, and the political reality they inhabit. Jackson: Okay, so it's like seeing a person as a set of interacting layers. I can kind of picture that. But what does it mean in practice? Olivia: It means that these hackers start applying the logic of coding to their own lives. They use technical concepts as metaphors to make sense of their world. Beltrán gives so many amazing examples, but my favorite has to be the story of Rodo. Jackson: Go on. Olivia: Rodo is a young coder in a bootcamp in Xalapa, Mexico. The author asks him how being a developer influences his social life. And Rodo says, "Well, my girlfriend once told me she didn’t want MIT in bed with us." Jackson: (laughing) What does that even mean? Did he bring his laptop to bed? Olivia: That's what he thought at first! But she clarified. She was annoyed because he was translating the 'fastness and efficiency of a good algorithm' into his performance in bed. He was trying to optimize intimacy! Jackson: Wow. He was trying to debug his love life. That is amazing and also... a little sad. Olivia: It's both! And it's a perfect example of this cross-domain transfer of logic. Another hacker named Leo describes his precarious, project-based work life using the software design principle of 'loose coupling'—where components are connected but autonomous. It’s his way of framing instability as a kind of flexible, modern freedom. Jackson: So they're using the language of code to build a mental model for their own chaotic lives. It's a coping mechanism. Olivia: It's a coping mechanism, a survival strategy, and a form of social analysis. In a world that feels unpredictable and often hostile, the logic of the system—the code—provides a set of rules and heuristics to navigate everything from job hunting to dating. But as Rodo's story shows, it has its limits. You can't always 'refactor' a human relationship. Jackson: Right. Some things don't have a logical fix. They're just messy. But this idea of applying a technical framework to your whole life is fascinating. It shows how deeply this 'code work' identity goes. Olivia: It goes all the way down. But this 'ethno-stack' isn't just about individual psychology. Beltrán shows it extends to the very foundations of the tech world, and he does it with my favorite story from the book: the all-women's hackathon.

Jackson: An all-women's hackathon? In a field that's so notoriously male-dominated, that sounds like a powerful idea. Olivia: It was. The event was held at a university in Mexico City, and it was framed as the first of its kind in Latin America. The goal was to create a space where women could code, lead, and innovate without being relegated to just making the app 'look pretty,' which one participant, Mariana, said happens all the time in mixed-gender events. Jackson: I can imagine. So what was the atmosphere like? Olivia: Incredibly energetic and productive. The theme was 'intelligent homes,' and teams were building prototypes for things like pet trackers and smart pantry sensors. There was this intense ethos of productivity, a feeling that they had to prove themselves. But then, during the final presentations, something unexpected happened. Jackson: Don't leave me hanging! Olivia: The participants' mothers and grandmothers—their abuelitas—started showing up. They hadn't been formally invited, but they came to cheer on their daughters and granddaughters. Jackson: Grandmothers at a hackathon? That’s incredible. What did they do? Olivia: They just did what abuelitas do. They brought snacks, they cheered loudly, they offered words of encouragement. One grandmother, watching her granddaughter present a prototype, proudly remarked, "What she didn't do all semester she did in two days!" But their presence had a profound effect. Jackson: How so? Olivia: Beltrán was talking to one of the participants, a young woman named Ío, about her abuelita being there. And Ío said something that became a cornerstone of the book. She said, "She's the one that helps with everything in the day to day. She is the one that is in charge of everything." Jackson: Wow. Olivia: And this is Beltrán's huge insight. This isn't just a heartwarming detail. The abuelitas are infrastructure. The invisible labor of care, the domestic work of making meals, the emotional support, the management of the household—that is the foundational, bottom layer of the 'ethno-stack' that allows the 'code work' to happen at all. Jackson: That’s a beautiful and radical idea. So the argument is that the code literally couldn't be written without the grandmothers making lunch and keeping the family running. The social is the foundation for the technical. Olivia: Precisely. It challenges the entire Silicon Valley myth of the lone genius coder working in a garage. It reveals the hidden, often feminized, and consistently undervalued labor that supports all technological innovation. The abuelitas made the invisible visible. They weren't just spectators; they were the human infrastructure.

Jackson: So, from state violence to debugging your love life to grandmothers as infrastructure... this book completely reframes what 'hacking' and 'code work' even mean. It’s so much bigger than just technology. Olivia: Exactly. Beltrán shows us that for these communities, code work is border work. It's a way of hacking not just computers, but the very systems of inequality that define their lives. He ends the book with a powerful statement: "the code work can never stand on its own." It's always tied to the messy, political, and deeply human world. Jackson: It really makes you think about what we consider 'work' and what we consider 'infrastructure.' We see the gleaming office buildings and the complex software, but we don't see the unpaid care work, the community support, the emotional labor that makes it all possible. Olivia: And that's the challenge the book leaves us with. To see the whole 'ethno-stack,' from the lines of code all the way down to the love and labor that hold it all together. Jackson: It makes you wonder, what's the invisible 'infrastructure' in our own lives? Who are the 'abuelitas' holding things together so we can do our 'work'? Olivia: A question worth reflecting on. This is Aibrary, signing off.