Eventually, I was escorted to the office of Leo and Fernando Lopez, whose La Noria Entertainment manages the arena. Leonardo, the patriarch of the family business, had been a concert and rodeo promoter for more than three decades, yet he graciously allowed his son Fernando to set the agenda and do most of the talking.
"This is the Staples Center of Mexico," Fernando said. His family had booked Los Enanitos Toreros here for the last three years, and he agreed that between "Fear Factor" and extreme sports, their stature may indeed have been, well, growing. "They have a miniature bull," he lectured. "It's bred from one of those huge bulls they have in Spain that run in Pamplona, but it's miniature. It has the same blood and the same anger, and it goes out there mad. At the shows in Mexico, they have everything back there--ponies, little motorcycles. Today, they just brought the miniature bull and all their costumes and everything. But you're going to get a kick out of it. It's a hilarious show."
Leonardo looked on from one side, smiling. "A lot of white people come," he said. "It's good to see them."
And in fact, thanks to a promotion by an L.A. radio station, a small but vocal minority of Anglos had made the pilgrimage that day, although their focus appeared to be limited. An on-air personality with a big burnished-chrome voice had run a live mic over to the corner of the stadium where his raucous drive-time demographic was ensconced, and they seemed thrilled at the prospect of the broadcast media straying beyond consensus boundaries of comportment and taste. This created an odd dynamic, as dueling announcers attempted to commandeer the proceedings and work their respective crowds. I could only assume that the Spanish-language commentator made use of a shared history and cultural identity to narrate the feats of strength and cunning before us. The gringo, by contrast, waited a few minutes into each new act to lead a spontaneous chant of "Mid-gets! Mid-gets!"
But soon, such observations were rendered trivial, as I learned I'd been granted an audience with the little people. I was led through concrete corridors and cattle chutes to a small cinder-block dressing room where half a dozen athletic gentlemen between 3 and 4 feet tall--some with proper proportions, some with prominent heads and truncated limbs--struggled into tiny toreador pants and bolero jackets. There has been some controversy over the terms "midgets," "dwarfs" and "little people" (the preferred designation, according to their domestic lobby and appreciation society, the Little People of America), with each phasing in and out of fashion over the course of modern history. I vowed to resolve this and other controversies, and to document the will, stamina and character required of this assembled crew to face their daily challenge.
