Game Born in Mexican Prisons Brings People Together

01On a Sunday afternoon in Mexico City's Roma neighborhood, Rosa Maria Espinoza joins about 80 men in a park to play Pollyanna.

02The almost 100-year-old game was created in a Mexican prison and requires luck and thinking skill.

03Pollyanna still carries a stigma connected to its birth as a prison game.

04However, it is growing popular as people from different backgrounds discover its appeal.

05Espinoza says she likes the excitement of the game, but sometimes, she adds, the dice aren't lucky.

06Pollyanna is played with four people and a square wooden box with a sunken center for dice rolling.

07Each player has four pieces that they race around the box.

08They use dice combinations and math to govern how to move their pieces strategically.

09At the same time, they must also try to block moves by their competitors.

10The board represents the limits of a prison and getting out of it before others.

11Winning freedom is the game's goal.

12People used to say these folks know how to play because they've been to prison, said the 62-year-old Espinoza.

13Thank God I've never been, but I like to play.

14That was the first time she had competed against anyone besides her family and friends.

15She usually plays on Tuesdays and Sundays in the small church in her apartment building.

16Alejandro Olmos studies ancient cultures at the National Anthropology and History School.

17He has studied and played Pollyanna for years.

18He has followed the game's roots to the Indian game Chopper or Pachisi.

19He found evidence of the connection dating back 1,400 years.

20After British colonization of India, the game spread to Western countries under different names, including Ludo, Aggravation, and Parchisi.

21In 1915, the American company Parker Brothers marketed a similar game.

22Parker Brothers named it Pollyanna, after a popular 1913 children's book by Eleanor H.

23Porter.

24Sometime around 1940, the game spread to prisons in Mexico City, including Le Camberri.

25That prison's physical structure is very similar to the design of the game board.

26So experts say Le Camberri may have been the birthplace of modern Pollyanna and its new set of rules.

27Almost said that in Mexico, the game reflects the roughness of prison life.

28Mistakes are not pardoned.

29Six years ago, Jonathan Ruggieri started a family business, marketing Pollyanna.

30His goal was to bring together people from different backgrounds.

31One of the early difficulties was establishing common rules for the game, which in Ruggieri's words, has been spreading from below from prison to the street, and from the street into neighborhoods.

32The 37-year-old man learned to play while serving a sentence in a prison outside Mexico City, the capital.

33After his release, he struggled to find work.

34He and his wife launched a food delivery service.

35However, the business proved unsuccessful.

36This led him to accept an offer to make a Pollyanna board for a friend.

37Then came another offer.

38Soon, he began to post his creations on social media.

39He said they gave up the food business and started making Pollyannas instead.

40The business, Pollyanna Canada Frogs, has organized 55 Pollyanna tournaments.

41They are family-friendly, including people of all ages.

42We want to remove the game's stigma, Ruggieri said.

43In the 1980s, the game began to spread beyond the prisons and into Mexico City's neighborhoods.

44Tapito is one of the neighborhoods where people are almost always playing Pollyanna.

45Fernando Rojas is 57 years old and learned Pollyanna when he was 18.

46But it was in prison where he really got good at the game.

47It really helps you escape the reality of being a prisoner, and that's how it started, Rojas said.

48No one can understand what it's like to be a prisoner.

49You don't see the end of your sentence.

50There are people who have to do drugs as their way to escape.

51Pollyanna is very important in prison.

52Now the game helps Rojas cope with life's difficulties.

53We all have problems in prison and in the street, he said.

54So, a lot of people come here for a distraction.

55While luck plays a part in the game, math understanding is also important.

56That is why Diego Gonzalez and Dana Lopez are very happy that their 7-year-old son, Kevin, is learning to play Pollyanna.

57He has fun, and his math skills are improving.

58Gonzalez also runs a family business making Pollyanna boards.

59He started the business after serving a 3-year sentence 10 years ago.

60His boards are popular birthday and Christmas gifts.

61Some are personalized, and might include images of loved ones who have died, or playful pictures for players who are children.

62Sales of the board game sharply increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

63People were stuck at home, and found that the game was a good way to pass the time.

64They realized it's not a bad game, Gonzalez said.

65It's a game of strategy, and getting the family together.

66I'm Ana Mateo.

67And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.