"Can you say 'frog' for me?" Apparently not. If your kids are refusing to speak your language, why not try a different approach? (Yael González/Unsplash)
In my 22 years in Mexico, I’ve happened upon a familiar scene several times. It involves a family with one Mexican parent and one foreign parent. There are children, or perhaps just one. The scenario, as you might have implied from the title, involves trying to teach your child English.
And though the foreign parent, usually English-speaking, may speak tome in English, it’s Spanish with their kids. “Oh, they understand English, they just won’t speak it.”
Oh, dear.
It is quite common to see multicultural families in Mexico, but multilingual ones can sometimes be problematic. (Chayene Rafaela/Unsplash)
The roots
How does this happen?
Most of the times I’ve witnessed this dynamic, the father is the foreigner, and the mother, Mexican. Obviously, I’ve got a theory — for my generation of immigrants and older, at least.
The profile of young men who would come to Mexico before it was cool tended toward counter-culture hippie types. And if they stayed, they typically wound up with one of two types of women. The first, shy, sweet and unassuming; the second, also counterculture hippies.
And to be a counter-culture hippie in Mexico often means to reject, loudly, imperialism from the north. One easy way to do that is to actively resist the imposition of their language and culture. As an added bonus, avoiding the hard work of learning a language gets rebranded as activism.
But like humans everywhere, we’re charming, and sometimes even get people to fall in love with and marry us.
Golden boys
Foreign men especially get huge returns on at least attempting to speak the language. People may be impressed by foreign women who learn Spanish, but they love, love, love when men do it.
Why? I’m not sure. But I have seen countless foreign men get adopted into multiple Mexican families. If they’re friendly, passably good-looking and speak even broken Spanish, they’re golden. They’re fed, included in all major family events and generally treated like rock stars.
Notably, I have not yet witnessed this treatment of foreign women. I fear the root of this is the fact that a foreign woman does not meet the standard of what it traditionally means to be a good woman in Mexico. If you’re a visitor, you’re serving no one. All those American “Girls Gone Wild” videos from the ‘90s couldn’t have helped, either.
Anyway: if you’re a foreign man in Mexico and not a total jerk, you’ve found your oyster.
The (kind of) bicultural, monolingual Kid
So why rock the boat? You’ve got a formula that works and you don’t want to mess it up. If you’ve married someone with misgivings about your culture, you may not be eager to disturb the peace at home by bringing it to the foreground.
Chances are, too, that your kids will adopt some similar attitudes of ambivalence. Pair that with every child’s need to fit in and not be too different and you’ve got a recipe for protest.
I’ve often heard that the ideal situation for a child to learn another language from birth is to have a foreign mother in the father’s country. The reasoning behind this is old-fashioned: mothers, traditionally, interact more with their children.
I suspect that this is less true with modern parents, but the fact remains. If you don’t speak to your kid regularly in your language, your kid won’t learn the language. Period.
How to make sure your kids are bilingual
Protest or not, speaking two or more languages is always beneficial. If making it happen automatically is a gift you’re able to give your child, it’s my opinion that you should.
Insisting on speaking your language from a young age is important. (Bruno Nascimento/Unsplash)
To make this happen is, as a friend once brilliantly put it, not a mystery; it’s just hard. All you have to do as the “foreign” parent is this: insist that your children speak to you only in your language.
That’s it.
They will likely push back, even as babies. That’s okay — you might as well get used to that aspect of parenting now. If your kids know that you speak the primary language — and how could they not — they will likely protest. But you must stand firm. Even though it’s not the truth, you must say, “Mommy can only understand you if you speak to her in English.” Unless it’s a dire emergency, ignore them in Spanish, or say “What? Can you say it in English?”
I mean, you don’t have to be cruel. If your kid — especially if they’re older when you begin — truly doesn’t know how to say what they want, teach them. Make them repeat it. Explain that it’s important to you to have that linguistic connection to them.
While this article is not peer-reviewed, the author’s daughter is fluent in English and Spanish, so the advice seems to have worked. (Sarah DeVries)
If you’ve been speaking to them in your language from the beginning, though, narrating everything you can to them, these moments will be few and far between. I promise.
My own 10-year-old, who has been raised in Mexico, speaks both languages fluently. She doesn’t have an accent in either, and never has. People ask me how I managed to teach her English, but really, I didn’t teach her. I simply never spoke directly to her in Spanish, ever, and that was that. Done. Easy.
And don’t worry about their Spanish, by the way. It’s the language of the sea they swim in. They’ll learn it just as naturally as they did English.
So go forth, parents. Don’t be afraid to put your foot down about insisting they speak your language with you. I am 100% sure they’ll be glad for it in the future.
Researchers were able to piece together some of the desert nomad's remains, which could hold lessons about the lives of ancient peoples. (INAH)
Officials in the state of Coahuila last week presented the skeletal remains of the “Man of Bilbao,” a nomad who roamed the high desert between 700 and 1,000 years ago. The unprecedented finding could open a new chapter in the study of northern Mexico’s ancient peoples.
The man’s skull was initially found in 2022 by tourists riding on ATVs in the Bilbao Dunes near the Pueblo Mágico of Viesca, Coahuila, prompting the state’s Missing Persons Prosecutor’s Office to investigate further.
After all, maybe the skull belonged to a contemporary person who had met an untimely demise.
However, after more bones and other artifacts were found — and archeologists were brought into the mix — it was determined that the remains were pre-Columbian, and that the man was likely 20 to 30 years old when he died.
Enough bones were found to construct a rudimentary skeleton, which was nicknamed “El Hombre de Bilbao” and presented last Wednesday at the La Laguna Regional Museum in nearby Torreón, Coahuila.
Diego Prieto Hernández, general director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), participated in the unveiling for the media and a handful of locals. Others present included archaeologists, anthropologists and members of the Attorney General’s Office of Coahuila.
Archaeologists at the site where the ancient remains were found. (via Milenio)
An INAH press release said the “surprising” initial finding led to the discovery of a new archaeological site that offers valuable insights into ancient hunter-gatherers in the region.
The remains were discovered on the shores of the ancient Viesca lagoon, in the high sand dunes of what is now referred to as the Chihuahuan Desert.
“This discovery allows us to generate a great deal of knowledge about who our ancestors were, how they lived, their health, what they ate, what physical activities they performed, and at what age they died,” said Axel Baños Nocedal, head of the INAH’s Physical Anthropology Department.
He said the finding was significant because it was not only in the middle of nowhere, but because it was in sand, a material that commonly treats bone material poorly. Officials speculated that the dunes buried the remains for centuries, until the movement of ATVs brought them back to the surface.
A researcher studies one of many bone fragments found at the excavation site. (Centro INAH Coahuila)
Archaeologist Yuri de la Rosa explained that the site was likely a hunting or gathering camp, as evidenced by the presence of small flakes from rockwork, finished objects and preforms indicating tool production.
“It was not a site for burying the dead, nor is there any evidence that the body was prepared,” De la Rosa said, “which leads one to think [he] was in his camp, hunting or fishing, and something happened to him or he was sick.”
Near the remains of the man were a seashell necklace, a white flint blade, a projectile point and animal remains. Also found were fragments of pottery and clay models common to the region.
The artifacts suggest the individual belonged to the Desert Cultures, which thrived between 700 and 1,000 years ago.
The lithic materials are similar to those found at Candelaria Cave, a site about 65 kilometers away that was used as a cemetery by nomadic people and was discovered in the 1950s. Caves and rock shelters were traditionally used as burial sites, De la Rosa said.
“El Hombre de Bilbao” and his associated artifacts are currently housed at the La Laguna museum, where they continue to be analyzed.
Sheinbaum's economic proposal includes the development of 10 industrial corridors, planned around the the strengths of different regions of the country. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
In an interview last year, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum predicted that the nearshoring trend will help drive significant economic growth in Mexico during the 2024-30 period of the federal government.
An aspirant to the ruling Morena party’s presidential nomination at the time, Sheinbaum made it clear that she wouldn’t be satisfied with strong economic growth unless it benefited all regions of Mexico and the nation’s poorest people.
So how does she plan to go about ensuring that foreign investment in Mexico is spread across the country and benefits all Mexicans?
The soon-to-be president outlines her response in the “100 pasos para la transformación” (100 Steps for Transformation) document she released earlier this year.
In it, Sheinbaum presents her plan to create 10 industrial corridors spanning all 32 federal entities of Mexico.
She also proposes the construction of “at least 100 additional industrial parks to arrange and distribute national and foreign investment.”
Sheinbaum has proposed the construction of at least 100 new industrial parks. (Thor Urbana)
The Sheinbaum administration could offer additional incentives to attract companies in specific sectors to the different industrial corridors outlined below.
Sheinbaum’s regional development plan
At the beginning of the “regional development” section of her 381-page “100 steps” document, Sheinbaum asserts that there is currently a “favorable environment” for business and investment in Mexico because the federal government “has created political and macroeconomic stability” in the country.
Mexico’s skilled labor force and location in North America have attracted increasing industrial investment in recent years. (VG Foto/Shutterstock)
“In addition, it has maintained healthy public finances, strengthened the peso and managed to control inflation despite global pressures,” she writes.
In that context, she proposes the creation of 10 “specialized” industrial corridors. According to the consultancy Prodensa, industrial corridors are “geographical areas that have a concentration of manufacturing, industrial and logistics activities.”
The Trans-Isthmus Corridor
This industrial corridor, named after the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will run through Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tabasco and Chiapas, according to Sheinbaum’s plan.
The sectors to be prioritized in the corridor are renewable energy, specialized manufacturing, agro-industry and logistics.
An important feature of the planned isthmus corridor is the recently opened Interoceanic Train. (Oaxaca state government)
The railroad — part of the government’s plan to create a trade route that rivals the Panama Canal — will allow freight to move between the Salina Cruz port on the Pacific coast and the Coatzacoalcos port on the Gulf of Mexico coast.
The AIFA Corridor
This corridor, named after the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), will run through Mexico City, México state and Hidalgo.
The priority sectors are medical devices, chemical and pharmaceutical products, logistics, specialized manufacturing, services, and food and beverages.
Running along Mexico’s northern border with the United States, this corridor will run through the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
The priority sectors are auto parts, manufacturing and agro-industry.
This corridor already includes a large number of export-oriented manufacturing plants known as maquiladoras. Many maquiladora workers earn low salaries, but Sheinbaum asserted that her government will seek manufacturing investment that brings “fair and decent salaries, knowledge, technological innovation and added value.”
The Baja Corridor
As its name indicates, this corridor will include the states of Baja California and Baja California Sur as well as Sonora and Sinaloa, which also border the Gulf of California.
The priority sectors are semiconductors, renewable energy generation, tourism and agriculture.
The Baja corridor includes green energy projects like the Puerto Peñasco solar farm. (CFE)
Earlier this year, the United States government announced that it would partner with Mexico in a new initiative whose ultimate aim is to strengthen and grow the Mexican semiconductor industry.
The Bajío Corridor
This corridor will run through the Bajío region states of Querétaro, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí and Aguascalientes.
The priority sectors are automotive, data centers, aeronautical and tourism.
This corridor is already home to auto plants operated by companies such as General Motors, Ford, Nissan and Honda. More foreign automakers including Chinese companies could open plants in the region in the coming years.
Named after the people who have inhabited Mexico’s south and southeast for thousands of years, this corridor will run through the states of Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas.
The star of Sheinbaum’s proposed Maya corridor is the new Maya Train. (Maya Train/X)
The priority sectors are tourism, agro-industry, renewable energy, food and beverages, and services.
This corridor includes the US $20 billion Maya Train railroad, which is already partially operational and is slated to be completed later this year. Tourist trains are currently running on the railroad, but freight services are expected to commence soon after the project is completed.
Sheinbaum said in late June that she was analyzing a proposal to extend the Maya Train railroad to Progreso, a port city north of Mérida on the Gulf of Mexico.
The Central Corridor
This corridor will run through Guerrero, Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala.
The plan prioritizes four sectors: textiles, automotive, electricity and electronics.
Volkswagen and Audi already have plants in Puebla, while Nissan has a factory in Cuernavaca, Morelos.
The Northwest Corridor
This corridor will run through Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango and Zacatecas.
Mines like the Mina Peñasquito in Zacatecas are a focus of the northwest industrial corridor. (Cuartoscuro)
The priority sectors are mining, agriculture and electricity generation.
Mexico’s largest potential lithium reserves are in Sonora. The current federal government nationalized lithium in 2022, but Chinese company Ganfeng Lithium remains determined to go ahead with its proposed Sonora Lithium Project despite the cancellation of its concessions.
The goals of Sheinbaum’s industrial corridor plan
In her “100 steps” document, the president-elect says that “unlike in the past, we must ensure that investment translates into well-being for everyone.”
Sheinbaum says that “strategic infrastructure projects” must be prioritized in the 10 industrial corridors to guarantee residents’ rights to housing, water, energy, health care, education and high-quality transport.
The president-elect also writes that the government has a responsibility to ensure that job creation occurs close to where people live.
Increased economic opportunity at home could mean fewer Mexicans seeking to work in the U.S. and other foreign countries. (Omar Martínez/Cuartoscuro)
If employment is available, migrating to another part of Mexico or another country — most commonly the United States — goes from being “the only way” to improve one’s life to “one of many choices that people can take with autonomy,” Sheinbaum says.
The president-elect also writes that “regional development and the defining of productive vocations by federal entity will provide continuity to the approach focused on the development of value chains in the priority sectors for North America.”
The objective, she says, is to “achieve the substitution of imports from Asia” for North American companies — a central goal of nearshoring to Mexico.
Sheinbaum adds that “the main sectors … that must be promoted in the coming years are:
Residents of the Nahua town Cuentepec in Morelos walk by a multi-lingual mural. More than 7 million Mexicans speak an Indigenous language. (Margarito Pérez Retano/Cuartoscuro)
Google has added 110 new languages — including Zapotec, Nahuatl, Maya Yucateco and Qʼeqchiʼ, also a Maya language — to its free Google Translate service.
Machine translation is valuable in the efforts to save minority languages, which could help preserve Mexico’s Indigenous languages.
Indigenous Mexican languages now supported by Google Translate
Zapotec is an extensive language family originating in southern Mexico. There are over 50 different Zapotec languages (which belong to the larger Otomanguean language family). Mexico’s national statistics agency, INEGI, reports that a total of approximately 425,000 people speak Zapotec, primarily in the state of Oaxaca.
Nahuatl (also known as Aztec, or Mexicano) is a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. About 1.7 million Nahua people speak Nahuatl, primarily in Central Mexico.
Nahuatl, Maya, Zapotec and other Indigenous languages spoken in Mexico are now available on Google Translate. (Google)
Qʼeqchiʼ (Kekchi in many English-language contexts, such as in Belize) are a Maya people of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. Their language is Qʼeqchiʼ.
Maya Yucateco, often simply called Maya, is spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula and parts of northern Belize. Linguists added “Yucateco” to the name in order to clearly distinguish it from all other Maya languages.
Google Translate’s latest expansion is its largest yet
The expansion is part of a Google initiative to build AI models to support the 1,000 most spoken languages around the world.
“We’re always applying the latest technologies so more people can access this tool … From Cantonese to Qʼeqchiʼ, these new languages represent more than 614 million speakers, opening up translations for around 8% of the world’s population,” the tech giant said in a statement.
These languages are in different stages of usage. Some have 100 million speakers, Google noted, and some have no active speakers.
In determining which languages to provide support for in Google Translate, Google said it considers regional varieties, dialects and different spelling standards, the news site Tech Crunch reported.
A large language model called PaLM 2 powers the new expansion. PaLM 2 was pre-trained on multilingual sets of texts ranging in scope from human to programming languages, making it much more advanced than its predecessor PaLM, which used mostly English-only datasets.
More readily identified with tequila and mezcal, Mexican rum is emerging from the shadows to take a turn in the spotlight. (Photos by Anna Bruce)
Mexico might not be at the forefront of the mind when it comes to thinking of great rum producers. But Mexican rum has a profound, if often overlooked, legacy that lives on today at the hands of traditional distillers.
Mexican sugarcane rums are different from Caribbean rums in that they are generally produced using not molasses but fermented sugarcane juice. There are two prominent styles of this type of spirit in Mexico. The first is charanda, made from either molasses or fresh-pressed sugar cane. This spirit has a protected appellation of origin (AO), and can only be called charanda if it’s produced in certain parts of Michoacán.
In the moutains of Oaxaca, a rum revolution is gathering steam.
A second style is locally called aguardiente, also known as Mexican agricole. Much of this liquor comes from mountainous areas in Oaxaca, where fresh-pressed aguardiente de caña is made in a manner akin to Martinican rhum agricole and Brazilian cachaça.
Sugarcane was first brought to Mexico by the Spanish. Over the next century, liquor production grew rapidly. Despite its popularity, Mexico’s growing liquor industry was hit by a royal prohibition to protect public morals and the interests of Spanish merchants, driving production underground.
Fortunately, as with many alcohol prohibitions around the world, people found a way to keep recipes and traditions alive. In Mexico, people made rum at home in secret small pot stills. This activity has kept the legacy of rum in Mexico alive.
Centuries later, Mexican sugarcane rum hit another hurdle with the introduction of NAFTA in 1994. Major transnational alcohol brands arrived with aggressive prices, marketing and branding. Mexican companies adjusted their prices to compete with foreign brands, going for volume over quality. This in turn reduced their margins and options for innovation. Overall, these developments led to a stigma of low quality around Mexican cane spirits.
Mexican rum is made from traditional sugarcanes, unlike most famous Caribbean rums which use molasses.
In the past decade, consumer preferences have begun to change. A major shift towards craft production has swept through the liquor industry, with mezcal serving as the movement’s poster child. Underdog spirits such as raicilla and sotol have been on the rise, and Mexican sugarcane spirits are not far behind.
Small-batch cane spirit production draws many comparisons with traditional agave spirits. Production facilities are often far from the cities. Distillation traditions vary by location, creating a wide diversity of style and flavor. Ellisandro Gonzalez, who produces Dakabend sugarcane rum, explains that “rum from this part of the land will taste different than the next because the soil is different [and] the microclimates are different.”
Alongside Dakabend, Camazotz is one of the first of the new wave of Mexican rums reaching the international market. It was developed by Melanie Symonds, founder of Quiquiriqui mezcal, and partner Charles Koutris. Together they have led the way for deeply flavorful craft sugarcane rum to reach the United States, United Kingdom and beyond.
Symonds explains that she became interested in the idea around 2016. “There was a lot of industrially produced aguardiente de caña in the region, which isn’t great, but occasionally I’d visit a village to meet a mezcal producer and someone would bring over a plastic bottle that had the unmistakable smell of an agricole-style rum, something I have always loved!”
She asked the mezcal producers she works with to keep an eye out for small, traditional cane spirit producers. This went on for over a year, due to the challenges of reaching these producers whose products rarely made it out of the local area. She explains this was “much like mezcal back in the early 2010’s when you could drive off from Oaxaca city and follow the smoke plumes in the hills and there you’d find a magical palenque making beautiful liquid, untouched by the grubby hands of commercialization.”
In 2018 she was given a trio of samples made by a producer from a remote, steep, area of the Sierra Mixe, in eastern Oaxaca. Symonds remembers that “as soon as I opened one of them, there was the unmistakable smell of agricole.” This unique profile is what she then pursued for her sugarcane rum brand, Camazotz.
The day after she tried the sample, she took off on a four hour journey to the highest region of Oaxaca. “We arrived and met the producer of the rum, Leoncio Gaspar, at his family home, along with his wife and son. Leo learned to make rum from his father and has worked most of his life making rum at the family ranch, Punto Fiero, in the valley next to his village.”
The rum is often still made in traditional pots and with traditional tools.
Gaspar and his family grow their cane organically, without using pesticides or fertilizers. It takes approximately eighteen months to reach maturity and reaches up to three meters. Gaspar and his team harvest the cane by hand.
The area of Gaspar’s distillation is extremely remote, you need to hike for several hours down a mountain trail to reach his ranch. The setup at Punto Fiero hasn’t changed since his father was head distiller. They have a mule pulled cane press, fermenting tubs and a clay pot for distilling.
The press he uses at the family ranch is around 80 years old and is worked by Gaspar and the mule. The cane is fed into one side and pulled out of the other side, this is repeated to maximize the collection of the juice. One kilo of sugarcane yields approximately 700 milliliters of raw juice.
The juice is collected in a tub ready for fermentation. Symonds describes how “a bunch of the crushed cane is always added to the juice to kickstart the fermentation.” This helps the ambient yeasts relied on for this artisanal process. The ferment takes around 5 days to a few weeks, a time frame dependent on the outside temperature at the time of production.
One kilo of sugarcane yields around 700 milliliters of raw juice and takes up to eighteen months to grow to maturity.
Symonds says that the surrounding flora and fauna also have a dramatic impact on the wild yeast and therefore the flavor imparted through the fermentation. The ranch is surrounded by a very old wild banana plantation which plays an important role in the development of the unique flavor found in Camazotz.
The challenges for Symonds and Camazotz have been significant. “I can’t explain the difficulties of getting this rum to where we have,” she says, “from the remote location and hard work to produce the rum, trying to navigate a truck on the clifftop trails to collect it, to the ridiculous taxes and legal restrictions in place when you try and export. It’s way harder to export than mezcal because it does not have an AO. Mexican Customs have no idea what it is and we have had instances where they won’t let it leave port because we don’t have a certificate from the AO governing body. Hopefully as more people discover Oaxacan rum, this will change and it will become easier.”
Since Camazotz launched in 2019, they have sold to the USA, UK and Europe. Symonds also recognises the appeal for mezcal lovers “because of the hand made process and the similarities in how terroir affects the flavor.” She accepts that it “definitely helps having Quiquiriqui as the sister brand as it opens up introductions and often, where people say they hate rum and only drink agave, we find once they try it they are converted!”
She was reminded of launching her mezcal brand before many people knew what it was. It’s exciting and it feels extra special when you know the hard work it takes to get that liquid into a bottle. Leo’s face when we first took him a labeled bottle with his name on was also a special moment.”
Anna Bruce is an award-winning British photojournalist based in Oaxaca, Mexico. Just some of the media outlets she has worked with include Vice, The Financial Times, Time Out, Huffington Post, The Times of London, the BBC and Sony TV. Find out more about her work at her website or visit her on social media on Instagram or on Facebook.
Mexico and Canada celebrate 80 years of diplomatic relations this year. (Canada in Mexico/X)
On a late January day in 1944 – the same day that a British bomber sank a German U-boat in the Bay of Biscay as World War II continued to rage – Mexico and Canada established diplomatic relations.
Now, in 2024, the two countries are celebrating the 80th anniversary of that milestone with a range of events, including a photographic exhibition inaugurated by Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly during her visit to Mexico City in late June.
President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly met in late June, accompanied by Sheinbaum’s future foreign affairs minister, Juan Ramón de la Fuente (left) and Canadian Ambassador Graeme C. Clark (right). (Mélanie Joly/X)
This week, Mexico News Daily is joining the celebrations with a series of “Canada in Focus” articles, each of which explores connections between Mexico and Canada.
As we’ve done in previous editions of our Global Mexico series, we’re kicking things off by delving into the history of Mexico-Canada relations, and examining the state of the bilateral relationship today.
A brief history of Mexico-Canada relations
While the formal diplomatic relationship between Mexico and Canada began 80 years ago, their commercial relationship dates back even further.
Porfirio Díaz ruled Mexico for three decades in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Canadian investment in Mexico began during this period. (Wikimedia Commons)
During the Porfiriato — the three-decade period in the late 19th century and early 20th century when Porfirio Diáz was president of Mexico — Canadian investment began flowing into the country.
“At that time, Canada played a significant role in Mexico through major infrastructure projects including railways, urban transportation, hydro-electrification, water treatment and the establishment of the banking system,” Sandra Fuentes, a former Mexican ambassador to Canada, wrote in an article published in the magazine Voices of Mexico.
Companies such as Mexican Light and Power Company, Mexico Tramways Company and Mexico North Western Railway were founded with Canadian money around this time.
Díaz was ousted at the start of the Mexican Revolution, and the decade-long conflict that ensued was a major impediment to Canadian investment in Mexico.
A Canadian share of the Mexico North Western Rail Company dated 1909. (Wikimedia Commons)
In 1938, almost two decades after the end of the Mexican Revolution, President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized Mexico’s oil industry and expropriated the assets of foreign petroleum companies. Canada cited that decision as a reason for holding off on establishing diplomatic relations with Mexico at a time when it was formalizing ties with other Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Brazil.
Eventually, amid World War II, a conflict in which both Mexico and Canada participated on the Allied side, formal diplomatic relations were established.
Fuentes, the former Mexican ambassador, wrote that “one would have thought that there would have been a flurry of activity between the two countries” after the commencement of diplomatic relations.
“But this was not so,” she said. “In fact, over the next 30 years, while the two countries often shared similar views on major issues of the times, … bilateral interaction was very limited.”
Despite that, it was in this period that a Mexican president and a Canadian prime minister came face to face for the first time. Adolfo Ruiz Cortines met Louis St. Laurent at a trilateral meeting in 1956 organized by United States president Dwight D. Eisenhower.
At that meeting, held in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, the Mexican and Canadian leaders raised with Eisenhower “similar concerns related to their proximity to their powerful neighbor, such as environmental issues, illegal fishing by American vessels and the temporary employment of Mexican workers,” wrote Fuentes, citing Ruiz’s 1956 report to the nation.
Mexico’s President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (left) and Canada’s Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent were the first leaders of the two nations to meet in person in 1956. (Wikimedia Commons/MND)
In 1959, Adolfo López Mateos became the first Mexican president to make an official visit to Canada. Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker reciprocated by coming to Mexico the following year.
Many other Mexican and Canadian heads of state subsequently met during visits to each other’s countries.
In 1968 — an especially tragic year in Mexico due to the Tlatelolco massacre just before the start of the Mexico City Olympics — a joint Mexico-Canada ministerial committee was established, providing a forum for biennial meetings between officials from the two countries.
A significant development in the bilateral relationship occurred in 1974 when the governments of Mexico and Canada signed a memorandum of understanding that established the Mexico-Canada Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP).
Just over 200 Mexican workers went to Canada in the program’s inaugural year, while more than 26,000 will participate during this 50th anniversary year, according to the Mexican government.
“Over the last five decades, 522,628 employment contracts have been arranged, benefiting an equal number of families,” the government said in a recent statement.
Canadian Ambassador Graeme C. Clark (far right) at a sendoff for 92 Mexican workers heading to Canada. (Canada in Mexico/X)
Mexico and Canada entered into a range of other agreements facilitating cooperation in various fields in the years and decades after the SAWP was established. They include a cultural agreement, signed in 1976, and an environmental cooperation agreement, reached in 1990.
The relationship, however, was turbocharged when the two countries, together with the United States, signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which took effect on Jan. 1, 1994.
Trade between Mexico, Canada and the United States is now governed by the USMCA, which superseded NAFTA in 2020. The free trade pact is known as T-MEC in Mexico and CUSMA in Canada.
The bilateral relationship in the NAFTA and USMCA era
Trade
The trade relationship between Mexico and Canada has increased significantly in the 30 years since NAFTA took effect.
Canada is the second largest destination for Mexican exports, after the United States.
According to the Canadian government, Mexico is Canada’s third largest single-country trading partner after the U.S. and China, while Canada is Mexico’s fourth-largest trading partner.
Major Mexican exports to Canada include motor vehicles, auto parts, alcoholic beverages and agricultural products such as fruit. Among Canada’s exports to Mexico are auto parts, aluminum, steel, wheat and rapeseed.
Canada was the third-largest investor in Mexico in 2023. (SE)
Economy Ministry data shows that Canadian investment totaled $3.47 billion last year, or almost 10% of Mexico’s FDI.
Among the major Canadian companies that operate in Mexico are Scotiabank, TC Energy and Bombardier.
A number of large Canadian mining companies also have a presence in Mexico. Some have faced criticism for reasons that include alleged damage of the environment, such as water contamination, and failure to pay taxes.
For its part, the Canadian government says that “Canadian investors play an important role in economic development and employment in Mexico, sometimes in isolated and marginalized regions.”
“Canadian companies are committed to operate under the principles of responsible business conduct, and contribute through their programs not only to employment, but also to education, sustainable development and the well-being of individuals and communities,” it adds.
Among the Mexican companies that operate in Canada are baked goods company Grupo Bimbo, which owns Bimbo Canada, building materials company Cemex and mining company Grupo México.
The Canada-Mexico Partnership and the Canada-Mexico Action Plan
Launched in 2004, the Canada-Mexico Partnership is the “key mechanism for bilateral cooperation” between the two countries, according to the Canadian government.
“It serves as a catalyst for concerted action between our governments, private sectors, and non-governmental partners to pursue common goals and mutually beneficial priorities,” the Canadian government says.
President López Obrador with U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the North American Leaders’ Summit in 2023. (LopezObrador.org.mx)
Mexican and Canadian officials frequently engage at bilateral, trilateral and multilateral meetings.
After the trilateral North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City in January 2023, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a bilateral meeting and subsequently announced a new “Canada-Mexico Action Plan.”
The plan established “a strengthened partnership built on 9 pillars that outlines our citizens’ priorities and the initiatives that will advance them,” according to the Mexican and Canadian governments.
Those pillars are:
Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples
Gender equality and women’s empowerment
Trade and investment
Anti-racism
Youth engagement
Peace and security
Tourism, migration and human mobility
Environment and climate change
Cooperation in the face of future health crises
Cooperation in multilateral forums
Mexico and Canada collaborate on various issues in a range of multilateral forums including the G20, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the United Nations.
While the USMCA is the main instrument that governs trade between Mexico and Canada, both countries are also signatories to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP.
Mexico and Canada collaborated on a complaint against the United States over the interpretation of auto-sector content rules under the USMCA. They prevailed in that dispute early last year.
Challenges and disagreements in the bilateral relationship
While Mexico and Canada are trade partners and friends, there have been – and are – some challenges in the bilateral relationship arising from disagreements between the two countries.
When the Canadian government announced in February that it was ending visa-free travel to Canada for some Mexican citizens after an increase in asylum claims by Mexicans, Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Mexico “regrets” the decision “and believes that there were other options available before putting this measure in place.”
Mexico and Canada remain engaged in a dispute over the former country’s nationalistic energy policies. Canada joined the United States in 2022 in seeking dispute settlement consultations with Mexico over its policies that favor state-owned firms over private and foreign companies.
Among the previous disputes between the two countries is one long-lasting one over potatoes.
Views of political leaders and ambassadors
The last time President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met face-to-face was in San Francisco last November during the 2023 APEC summit.
At the time, López Obrador said that Mexico’s “relationship with the people of Canada is a very good one, and that the trade relationship is fundamental for the development and prosperity of the North American people and region.”
During an address in Mexico City in January 2023, Trudeau said that trade between Canada and Mexico had increased “more than ninefold” since NAFTA took effect, but asserted that there is still “huge potential for growth between our countries.”
“… Let us continue this momentum. Let us keep doing what [North American] leaders did a generation ago: hold fast to a belief in open trade and collaboration” he said.
Mexico’s ambassador to Canada, Carlos Joaquín, described Mexico as a “strategic ally for Canada.” (Gob MX)
In a message included in the 2023 report “Mexico and Canada: Two Nations in a North American Partnership,” Canadian Ambassador to Mexico Graeme Clark wrote that the two countries “have become indispensable friends, partners and allies” since formal diplomatic ties were established in 1944.
“Canada and Mexico are two countries sharing not only a continent but also a solid friendship that has continued to grow over the years, and which includes strong cooperation on a wide range of issues: trade, culture, Indigenous empowerment, human rights, gender equality, and much more,” Clark wrote.
In the same report, Mexican Ambassador to Canada Carlos Joaquín described Mexico as a “strategic ally for Canada” and noted that the two countries “share various mechanisms to promote dialogue and cooperation throughout their relationship.”
“Both face the 21st century with enormous challenges, but the strength of their relationship must be the roadmap that leads to understanding in the coming years,” Joaquin wrote.
The 20-year-old airport has seen a consistent increase in passengers, both national and international, since completing renovations in December 2023. (Demian Chávez/Cuartoscuro)
Querétaro International Airport (QIA) saw international passenger traffic increase by 47% annually in January 2024, just one month after the airport completed a US $80-million renovation project.
Domestic arrivals are also up at QIA, and overall traffic at the newly renovated airport is projected to reach 2 million passengers in 2024.
Aeromexico recently relaunched its Querétaro-Atlanta route from QIA. (@AIQ_MX/X)
The Federal Civil Aviation Agency reported that 51,200 international passengers arrived at the 20-year-old airport in January, up 47.2% over the 34,800 international arrivals in January 2023. And from January through April of this year, 205,142 international travelers touched down at the Querétaro airport, representing a 60.4% increase over the 127,906 international arrivals during the first four months of 2023.
After the renovations were completed in December, several airlines added new international routes. Viva Aerobus now flies to San Antonio and Houston from QIA, and Aeromexico flies from QIA to Detroit and Atlanta.
Domestic arrivals during the first four months this year increased by a comparatively modest 11.2% over the January-April 2023 figures, but domestic traffic makes up the majority of total passengers at QIA. Of the 594,152 passengers arriving at the QIA during the January-April 2024 period, 389,010 — or 65% — were Mexican nationals.
Querétaro’s Sustainable Development Minister Marco Antonio Del Prete predicted last week that overall traffic at the airport could surpass 2 million this year, a number that would represent a 13% increase over 2023, when 1.7 million passengers traveled through QIA.
“We are seeing 20% growth in passenger traffic over last year,” del Prete said at a press event, taking into account the unofficial data for May.
The second phase of the aforementioned renovation project includes the expansion of the existing terminal as well as the installation of new jetways. A new waiting room will accommodate 500 additional passengers, while the jetways and additional screening centers will facilitate the movement of the increased numbers of travelers.
Festival celebrations happen throughout the whole month of July, including food fairs, parades, music, dance, competitions and visual arts exhibitions. (@GobOax/X)
Oaxaca City is expecting to draw 139,000 tourists throughout July as it prepares to celebrate the 92nd edition of La Guelaguetza, the city’s biggest cultural event, from July 22-29.
Also known as los Lunes del Cerro (Mondays on the Hill), the festival showcases the cultural heritage and traditions of eight Indigenous communities of Oaxaca.
La Guelaguetza has its origins in an Indigenous Zapotec ritual celebrating Centéotl, the corn goddess. (@GobOax/X)
Representatives of the state’s Tourism Ministry (Sectur) said in a press conference that the city is expecting 517 million pesos (US $28.7 million) in tourism revenue between July 19 and 29, and an average hotel occupancy of 81%.
“The revenue is usually significant during the July holidays, as well as on Day of the Dead, in December, and during the Holy Week season, which also register high occupancy rates,” said Tourism Promotion Minister Ángel Norberto Osorio Morales.
The week-long festival has its origins in a Zapotec ritual called Daninayaaloani or “Hill of the Beautiful View” in honor of Centéotl, the corn goddess. During this ritual, people gathered to share offerings, eat food and dance over eight days. After the Spanish conquest, the festival transitioned to a Catholic celebration and is now part of the popular rites of the Virgin of Carmen. La Guelaguetza, as it is known today, is celebrated on the two Mondays closest to the Catholic Day of our Lady of Carmen on July 16.
However, celebrations for La Guelaguetza happen throughout the whole month of July, including food fairs, parades, musical concerts, dance performances and visual arts exhibitions.
La Guelaguetza is celebrated at the “Guelaguetza Auditorium” atop Cerro del Fortín, a hill overlooking Oaxaca City. (Carolina Jiménez/Cuartoscuro)
The name of the festival is inspired by the Zapotec word “guendalezaa,” which translates into Spanish as “offering, present or fulfillment.” It refers to the offerings the Indigenous people of Oaxaca took to the capital in 1932 to commemorate the 400-year anniversary of the city of Oaxaca.
The first performance called Bani Stai Gulal, which means repetition of the old, takes place two Saturdays before the first Monday of La Guelaguetza (July 13) and is a dance depicting four eras in Oaxaca: Pre-Columbian, Colonial, Independent Mexico and the Contemporary Era.
Hill Monday starts at dawn on the first day of La Guelaguetza (July 22). Throughout the day, performers gather to play las mañanitas (Mexico’s Happy Birthday song), signaling that it is time to go to Cerro del Fortín, a hill overlooking the city.
The remainder of the festival takes place in the “Guelaguetza Auditorium” atop Cerro del Fortín.
After suffering an injury in a cycling accident, Bel Woohouse experienced top class medical care on the island of Cozumel. (Artur Tumasjan/Unsplash)
When I say to people “I’m glad I had my accident in Mexico” they usually look at me like I grew a second head. But I’m serious. The level of professionalism, attention, rapid response, and modern equipment was mind-boggling. To this day I still don’t know what half the gadgets were but they were all shiny and clean. I can say with confidence that hospital care in Cozumel was better (and cheaper) than I could ever have dreamed of.
If you’ve ever thought that healthcare in Mexico might be a bit backwards, let me share my story with you and change your mind. Here’s what happened…
Cozumel is an island paradise, but you’d think it was a terrible place to suffer a serious injury, right? (Conanp)
Just over a year ago, I had a bicycle accident on Cozumel island in the Riviera Maya region of Mexico. People ran out of a nearby shop to help pick me up while one lovely Mexican lady asked if she could drive me to the ER as she was looking at my arm.
Following her gaze and looking down, my arm was at a very awkward angle and said “That can’t be good.” So of course, my answer was, “Yes please.”
While others took my bicycle into the store for safekeeping, we went to the hospital. Walking into the ER a nurse listened as the lady told him in Spanish what had happened. If I weren’t in pain it would have been comical. There were lots of gasps, arms waving and gestures, it was a fun re-enactment of my accident.
Shown straight to a bed an English-speaking Doctor arrived moments later. With a warm smile and a “Tell me what happened” it finally hit me, I was in the ER. So, trying to be stoic (and failing) the whole story poured out while he held my hand.
Cozumel has a modern hospital with state of the art facilities. (International Hospital Cozumel)
With a nod and an “Everything will be alright, we will take care of you,” the room became a hive of activity. The nurse took a full medical history to ensure nothing would clash with the pain meds waiting on a tray. An orthopaedic surgeon was called who turned up promptly to give an exam as well as review my chart with the nurse.
I just lay there amazed at all of the fuss, reclining in the bed wishing I wasn’t still in sweaty bicycle riding gear wondering if anyone had deodorant. Isn’t it silly the things we think of?
Next came a visit to the x-ray technicians who were waiting for me at the door. Honestly, I felt like a bit of a VIP as one thing after the other was immediate, not a line or wait time in sight. Running smoothly like a well oiled machine I can honestly say it was the safest and most comforting experience you could wish for.
My only concern was when the Orthopaedic surgeon told me he’d have to put me under to pop my elbow back into place. No breaks thankfully, just an elbow going the wrong way. But that did mean anesthetic. For me, that is a problem. My family’s one and only health issue is with blood clotting so the mix of anaesthetic drugs can be an issue.
The operation was quick, easy and safe thanks to the high standards of care available in Mexico. (Piromn Guillaume/Unsplash)
But the anaesthetist arrived at my bedside, carefully listening to my concerns and even asking me to write the name of my condition and its variant form on the chart so there could be no miscommunication between English and Spanish.
Which I will admit, put my mind at ease so when it came time for the anaesthetic to be administered my anxiety had dropped to a minimum. My last sight was of the nurse by my side, the surgeon smiling down on me, and the anesthetist holding my hand.
Then black.
When I came to everything was quiet. They’d even dimmed the lights in my room and drawn the curtain so waking up would be as comfortable as possible. It took the scariness out of the whole event.
Most of all, my greatest appreciation was the fact that they made it relaxed and peaceful. Down to the fact that the procedure was done in my ER bed. Not in a scary operating room where everything seems a lot worse to my overactive imagination. I mean, an operating room is where you go when it’s really serious right?!
After all, it was just a popped-out elbow going the wrong way, no bones were sticking out or anything dramatic so I was thankful just to lay in my bed on a fuzzy cloud of almost consciousness.
By the end of the day all I wanted was to go home, have a shower and finally get out of sweaty bicycle riding clothes. So, closing my eyes in anticipation, I asked for the bill and discharge forms.
When the bill came I almost fell out of bed. It was so cheap, surely it must be wrong.
The total was US $350 for everything! Jaw-droppingly inexpensive for an entire day in the ER, Orthopedic surgeon, nurses, x-rays, special anesthetic drugs, and excellent care.
As I said, that was just over a year ago, so the price may have gone up a smidge but I guarantee the staff would still be just as wonderful.
So, if you ever wondered about the hospital care in Mexico, I can tell you that even on Cozumel island in the Mexican Caribbean, it’s excellent.
Mexico Correspondent for International Living, Bel is an experienced writer, author, photographer and videographer with 500+ articles published both in print and across digital platforms. Living in the Mexican Caribbean for over 7 years now she’s in love with Mexico and has no plans to go anywhere anytime soon.
Most of Mexico will see rain throughout the week as Hurricane Beryl moves north and another tropical wave enters Yucatán. (Margarito Pérez Retana/Cuartoscuro)
Get your umbrellas ready for another rainy week.
The National Meteorological System (SMN) has forecast that on Monday, the remnants of Hurricane Beryl — which is currently traveling through Texas — will cause strong gusts of wind and waves of 1 to 2 meters high on the northern coast of Tamaulipas, as well as heavy rains in the northeast part of Mexico.
Meanwhile, tropical wave number 8 is moving over the Yucatán Peninsula, bringing heavy rains to Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco and Veracruz. It may also cause wind gusts of 40 to 60 km/h and possibly waterspouts off the coast of Campeche, Tabasco and Yucatán.
Starting Monday, heavy to very heavy rains are expected in Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Puebla, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Colima, Guanajuato, Sonora, Tlaxcala and Zacatecas. Scattered storms are forecast in Aguascalientes, Mexico City, México state and San Luis Potosí.
In the north and center of the country, rains may be accompanied by hail and lightning.
The SMN has warned residents that heavy rains may reduce visibility, cause flooding and landslides and increase river and stream levels.
Mexico has seen extraordinary rain in the past few weeks. According to the National Water Commission (Conagua),Mexico had its rainiest June in more than 80 years, which has helped replenish the country’s reservoirs.
The forecast for the rest of July predicts consistent rain, with some models predicting rainfall well above average in many parts of Mexico.
Tropical Storm Alberto brought heavy rains in the northern states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, helping to refill dams that were at low capacity throughout the first half of 2024. (Samuel García/X)
Despite the rain, some regions are still scorching
Despite the rain, hot to very hot weather will continue in the northwest as well as in the north and northeast regions of the country.
Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa and Sonora may see maximum temperatures reach between 40 to 45 degrees Celsius, with Baja California and Baja California Sur forecast to feel scorching temperatures ranging between 45 to 52 degrees Celsius.
Durango, Guerrero and Michoacán will have temperatures between 35 to 40 degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s east and west coast states, as well as parts of the Bajío, will see temperatures range between 30 to 35 degrees Celsius.
