Families gather in a Polanco restaurant to celebrate Mother's Day, in 2022. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
Mexico will celebrate Día de las Madres (Mother’s Day) on Friday, and the holiday is expected to generate a surge of revenue — 80 billion pesos, according to Octavio de la Torre, president of the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco Servytur). The figure represents a 13% increase compared to last year, he said.
The anticipated spending is similar to that seen on Día del Niño or Children’s Day on April 30, which De la Torre said resulted in a 14% increase in economic revenue.
De la Torre said that there is continuous work to improve Mexico’s economic development and acknowledged the important role of mothers in society and in the economy. “With their effort, work and daily dedication, mothers contribute to the education of better children, comprehensive families, productive businesses and a more prosperous society,” he said.
In Mexico City alone, Mayor Martí Batres anticipates revenue of 3.5 billion pesos for Mother’s Day. In a press conference, Batres told reporters that compared to last year, this figure is 25% higher, representing an increase of 728 million pesos.
A survey by the Federal Consumer Protection Office (Profeco) found that 76.7% of participants will celebrate on May 10. Of those who will celebrate, 32% will organize or attend a party or gathering with friends and family while 30% will have breakfast, lunch or dinner at a restaurant. In addition to dining out, the most popular gifts among respondents included flowers, clothing and shoes. Estimated expenditures ranged from 751 to 1,000 pesos (US $44 to $59).
Mexican mothers in the workforce
A Tijuana mom kisses her daughter goodbye on the first day of classes. Balancing expectations related to work and motherhood can be complicated for Mexican mothers. (Cuartoscuro)
The role of women in Mexican society has gone beyond the household and into the workforce. According to the latest data from the National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE), carried out by INEGI in 2023, more than 70% of women in the workforce are mothers.
“Traditionally, a mother’s work has focused on household chores, but in recent years their participation in economic activities has also been recognized,” he noted.
Last year, on Mother’s Day, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reported that as of Q2 of 2022, 56 million women aged 12 and older resided in Mexico. Of them, 67% (38 million) were mothers, of which 11% were single and 89% were married. Seven out of 10 single mothers were economically active.
Despite the growing incorporation of mothers into the workforce, many face a daily struggle to make working hours compatible with motherhood. According to Dr. Luz María Velázquez, professor at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, working mothers have become a symbol of strength but they shouldn’t be idealized.
“We should not idealize this figure of the mother who endures everything,” she remarked.
The U.S. Treasury said LNFM is implicated in human trafficking of migrants seeking to enter the United States. (Cuartoscuro)
Thousands of migrants spent close to a week stranded on or near stationary freight trains amidst oppressive climatic conditions in the northern state of Zacatecas.
As many as 3,000 migrants from Central and South American countries spent the weekend in the municipality of Cañitas de Felipe Pescador, where the train on which they were hitching a ride stopped in the early hours of Saturday morning.
A train departed Zacatecas on Monday, with migrants catching a ride north to Torreón, Coahuila. (Cuartoscuro)
They finally left on board a train headed for Torreón, Coahuila, on Monday afternoon, according to a social media post by a correspondent for the El Universal newspaper.
Temperatures in Cañitas de Felipe Pescador rose above 30 C on the weekend, and the migrants complained that National Immigration Institute (INM) agents prevented them from going into the nearby town to buy food and water.
The migrants were also stranded for long periods last week as the trains they were traveling on came to a halt on repeated occasions north of Zacatecas city.
The general secretary of the Zacatecas government said that logistical problems on railroads in the United States and Canada were to blame for the train stoppages in Mexico.
#Avanzan Miles de migrantes que estuvieron varados este fin de semana en #Cañitas, Zacatecas, por fin, avanzan en nuevo tren rumbo a Torreón, Coahuila … Se escuchan los aplausos y los gritos de felicidad pic.twitter.com/KERQJnAHWo
A train left for Torreón, Coahuila on Monday and migrants cheered.
But migrants said that Mexican immigration authorities and the rail company Ferromex — which last year halted scores of services after a string of accidents involving migrants riding the rails — were not allowing any freight trains on which they were traveling to move north.
The stranded migrants are aiming to reach Mexico’s northern border before crossing into the United States. Hundreds if not thousands of migrants who made the journey before them sustained serious injuries including the loss of limbs when they fell from freight trains collectively known as “La Bestia” or The Beast.
One of the stranded migrants told El Universal that INM agents told her and others to abandon the rail tracks and start walking along the highway.
“[They said] that nothing will happen to us, but the people here believe that taking the highway is dangerous. … What’s waiting for us on the highways are the cartels,” said the woman, identified only as Mónica.
Migrants told El Universal that they were given food and water on Saturday but nothing on Sunday.
The newspaper El Sol de Zacatecas reported that INM agents stopped migrants from going into the town of Cañitas de Felipe Pescador to get food and water.
“We’re close to the town, but [the INM agents] made them close the shops,” said Bárbara, a migrant from Colombia.
Migrants interviewed by El Universal newspaper reported that members of the National Guard (GN) prevented them from seeking help from locals in nearby towns. (Cuartoscuro)
“They don’t even give us water — nothing,” she said.
El Sol said that the migrants were also prevented from seeking assistance from locals.
“We’re not animals, be more humane,” said Helen Roque, a Venezuelan woman who is almost five months pregnant and traveling with her two-year-old son.
She and other migrants said that immigration agents tried to forcibly remove them from trains at different points during their journey. There were reports of physical aggression against migrants as they were traveling on trains in Zacatecas last week. One video showed a female INM agent hitting migrants with a metal bar, the Excélsior newspaper reported.
“They threaten to beat us, they throw away our water, they throw away our food, despite the presence of sick children,” Roque told El Sol.
She said she needed to get to the United States because her father is there and he is very ill.
Another Venezuelan woman, Anaís, told El Sol that her young son is sick and vomiting and defecating blood. However, he had not received any medical attention.
“[The INM officials] don’t care if we have kids, they just want us to do what they tell us,” Anaís said.
The Zacatecas government asked Ferromex to allow trains to resume their trips northward from Zacatecas, but that didn’t occur before the migrants endured a very difficult weekend in central Zacatecas.
Many large caravans of migrants venture north from Tapachula, Chiapas, which is near Mexico’s border with Guatemala. (Cuartoscuro)
In a report published early Monday, El Universal said that the Cañitas de Felipe Pescador train station had turned into “a time bomb that could explode in a large social and humanitarian problem” due to the situation faced by “almost 3,000 migrants.”
That possibility was apparently avoided by the departure of a freight train on Monday afternoon. Migrants can be heard clapping and cheering as they finally leave the Zacatecas town where they were stranded for more than two days.
As usual, significant numbers of migrants are traveling northward through Mexico after entering the country at the southern border with Guatemala. Last Thursday, authorities found more than 400 foreign migrants who were left “abandoned” in buses on a highway in the state of Veracruz.
Residents shared photos of the Velo de Novia fire near Valle de Bravo burning late Sunday night. (Paty Armendariz/X)
The brutal 2024 fire season continues to rage across Mexico with a recent wildfire menacing the Pueblo Mágico of Valle de Bravo in México state. Meanwhile, firemen continue fighting blazes in 20 states, according to the National Forestry Commission (Conafor).
On Sunday afternoon, Conafor reported that more than 3,800 firemen and emergency personnel were battling 142 forest fires that had already consumed more than 68,000 hectares (169,447 acres) of forest and brush.
And those figures do not include a conflagration that threatened a popular tourist and resort area in México state that was reported Sunday afternoon.
Residents of Valle de Bravo noticed heavy smoke coming from the nature reserve known as Cascada de Velo de Novia (Bridal Veil Falls) and notified Conafor. The authorities reacted quickly with rangers from Probosque, the state forest protection agency, arriving on scene along with members of the México state Civil Protection Ministry, as well as area fire brigades and Conafor agents.
Officials closed down the park, removing tourists and residents to safe zones and managed to prevent the fire from spreading into adjacent nature reserves and woodland.
In the meantime, area residents were posting images of the fire to social media with some reporting that Velo de Novia was still aglow around midnight.
President López Obrador briefly addressed the Valle de Bravo forest fire at his Monday morning press conference. (Lopezobrador.org.mx)
President López Obrador announced that the Valle de Bravo forest fire was 60% contained at his Monday morning press conference, adding that it had affected 6 hectares and was not a threat to the population. Also on Monday, Probosque published a message on X (formerly Twitter) informing the public that the authorities were still working to suppress four fires in the Valle de Bravo area (Velo de Novia, Cualtenco, El Cerrillo and La Carreta).
In that same message, Probosque reported that officials are also battling four other fires at natural reserves in México state.
Conafor’s Sunday afternoon report revealed that of the 142 active forest fires across the nation, 20 are located in nature reserves.
The number of active forest fires has more than doubled since April 1 when Conafor reported that, after suppressing 39 fires throughout March, 69 fires were still ablaze across 12,000 hectares (29,650 acres). At the time, 2,800 firemen and emergency personnel were on the front lines as compared to the 3,864 on duty today.
Conafor had predicted an active and potentially explosive wildfire season this year, especially as 55% of the country was in drought conditions at the end of 2023. Then cold weather in January created large amounts of dry grass and conditions on the ground were exacerbated by record high temperatures in February and March that produced more fuel for fires.
The arrival of SINBON Electronics to Villa de Reyes, San Luis Potosí will generate 700 jobs. (Villa de Reyes Oficial/Facebook)
Another East Asian manufacturer has announced it will build its first plant in Mexico with the aim of strengthening its North American supply chain.
On April 30, SINBON Electronics, a Taiwanese manufacturer of cable assemblies and connectivity solutions held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new plant in San Luis Potosí.
SLP’s Director of Public Works Alfonso Rodríguez and other state officials attended SINBON Electronics’ groundbreaking ceremony. (Villa de Reyes Oficial/Facebook)
The company plans to invest US $50 million to establish its subsidiary in Mexico, with plans to build three additional factories over the next three to five years, covering a total area of some 84,000 square meters.
“Today, we not only broke ground on the new factory but we also laid the foundation for the future development of San Luis Potosí, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to the North American market,” SINBON’s President Mite Liarng said during the ceremony. “As we till the soil today, we sow the seeds for future growth, innovation and partnership.”
Local sources have reported that the company will generate 700 jobs with the new facility.
Founded in 1989, SINBON provides design and production services for electronic components, catering to the automotive electronics industry, the aerospace industry, the medical devices industry and the consumer electronics industry. In Mexico, it will focus on the production of electrical components for the automotive and green energy sectors. The company has operations in Taiwan, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary and the United States.
SINBON is the first electronic design service provider in Greater China to obtain a UL certification for its NACS (The North American Charging Standard) AC/DC charging cable, which means it can provide to brands such as Tesla, Ford, General Motors, BMW, Honda and Toyota.
Australian brothers Callum and Jake Robinson and American Jack Carter Rhoad were killed while on a surfing and camping trip in Baja California last week. (Instagram)
Three bodies found south of the city of Ensenada last week have been identified as those of two Australian brothers and another man from the United States who went missing during a surfing and camping trip to Baja California in late April.
The Baja California Attorney General’s Office (FGE) said in a statement that three bodies found in a 15-meter-deep well on a clifftop in the area known as La Bocana were confirmed to be those of Callum and Jake Robinson, two brothers from the Western Australian city of Perth, and Jack Carter Rhoad of San Diego.
On Sunday, the surfing community of Rosarito and Ensenada organized a memorial and protest demanding better security on Baja California beaches. (Omar Martínez/Cuartoscuro)
The FGE said that the families of the victims identified the bodies and that genetic tests weren’t required.
A fourth male body in an advanced state of decomposition was found in the same well. That body has not been identified and was apparently dumped in the well sometime before the three foreign tourists went missing.
Baja California Attorney General María Elena Andrade Ramírez told a press conference on Sunday that the bodies identified as those of the three foreign tourists all had gunshot wounds to the head.
Authorities believe that the alleged killer or killers drove past the men’s campsite, saw their tents and pickup truck and wanted to steal the vehicle for its tires and other parts.
“Surely they resisted,” Andrade said, adding that it is believed that the men were subsequently shot and killed.
She noted that a range of evidence was found at the campsite, including a single bullet casing, blood stains, drag marks, tent poles and plastic bottles.
“This makes us think they were attacked and since then we doubted we’d find them alive,” Andrade said.
The attorney general said that the aggressors disposed of the bodies in a well in a hard-to-get-to location some six to eight kilometers from the campsite.
The white pickup truck similar of the three travelers was found burned at a ranch near Santo Tómas, Baja California. (X)
“This is what happened,” Andrade said, adding that the men weren’t targeted because they were tourists but because they had a vehicle the aggressors wanted to steal.
“[The killers] probably didn’t know the origin of these people,” she said, although the pickup truck — which was found burnt out on a ranch in nearby Santo Tomás — had license plates from the state of California.
Andrade said that the parents of the victims understood that their sons, all aged in their early 30s, had gone into an “inhospitable” area where there was no way of calling for help.
Three suspects arrested on Sunday
Authorities have arrested two men and one woman in connection with the disappearance and alleged murder of Callum and Jake Robinson and Jack Carter Rhoad.
According to media reports, they are Jesús Gerardo García Cota, his brother Cristian Alejandro García Cota and Ari Gisel, who has been identified as Jesús García’s girlfriend. The woman was detained in possession of one of the deceased men’s cell phones.
Andrade said Sunday that Jesús García Cota, known as “El Kekas” (a colloquial term for quesadillas), was detained on kidnapping charges. The attorney general said that he has a criminal record.
She noted that the other two suspects are in preventive detention on drug possession charges and said they could be directly or indirectly related to the alleged murder of the three foreign tourists.
“El Kekas” had previously been convicted of extortion and vehicle theft in the municipality of Ensenada.
Three Mexican Nationals have been charged with forced kidnapping in relation to the disappearance of Australian brothers Callum and Jake Robinson.
Today, one of Callum’s closest friends spoke of his kindness and bright personality, telling #9News that he “lit up a room”. pic.twitter.com/JPMXDL8hfz
Andrade said that the three people detained do not belong to a criminal group that “controls” territory in Ensenada.
Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar called on “the state’s judicial power” to apply the law with “complete rigor against those responsible for these terrible events.”
“Baja California is and will continue being a state with a safe tourism [experience] for the thousands of people who visit us from the rest of the country and the world,” the governor added in a post on X.
Jake Robinson, a doctor, traveled to the United States in April to visit his brother Callum, who lived in San Diego and played professional lacrosse in the U.S.
They attended the Coachella music festival in California before traveling to Baja California with Rhoad, who lived in San Diego and worked as a director at the company ITCO Solutions, according to his LinkedIn page.
“I love people. I’m lucky to have found a ‘job’ that fuels my passion for problem-solving by connecting the right people with the right companies,” Rhoad wrote on his LinkedIn page.
Jake Robinson had worked in regional hospitals around Australia and was to take up a new position in the city of Geelong on his return, according to his parents.
“Callum and Jake are beautiful human beings. We love them so much and this breaks our heart,” the men’s parents said in a statement.
“… Our only comfort right now is that they were together doing something they passionately love,” said Martin and Debra Robinson, who traveled to Baja California from Perth to identify their sons and meet with authorities.
Debra Robinson had posted in the Talk Baja Facebook group to seek assistance locating Callum and Jake last week.
“They have not contacted us since Saturday 27th April. They are traveling with another friend, an American citizen. They were due to book into an Airbnb in Rosarito after their camping weekend, but they did not show up,” she wrote last Wednesday.
In a statement “on behalf of Mexico,” the Foreign Affairs Ministry (SRE) expressed its condolences “for the tragic deaths of Australian citizens Jake and Callum Robinson and U.S. citizen Jack Carter Rhoad, who were vacationing in Baja California.”
“The Foreign Ministry sympathizes with the families of the victims of this tragic event and deeply regrets the outcome. Since their disappearance was reported, the Foreign Affairs Ministry has been in constant, direct contact with the Australian Ambassador to Mexico, Rachel Elizabeth Moseley, and her team to support their efforts,” the SRE said.
“On the instructions of Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, Mexico’s Ambassador to Australia, Ernesto Céspedes Oropeza, traveled to Baja California to provide consular assistance to the Australian embassy staff and to express Mexico’s solidarity with the families of the youths,” the ministry added.
Anti-violence march held in Ensenada on Sunday
The Baja California Surfing Association organized a “march against insecurity” at which surfers and others condemned the crime against the tourists from Australia and the United States and demanded security on the state’s beaches.
Baja California surfers organized a paddle out on Sunday in memory of the victims. (Omar Martínez/Cuartoscuro)
Surfers also participated in a “paddle out” tribute to the slain foreigners, who had enjoyed the waves off the Baja peninsula before their violent deaths.
“We’re really, really sorry this happened. As local surfers from Baja California we’re shaken to the core,” Gino Passalacqua, vice president of the Baja Surf Club, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Avianca passengers coming from Central America will now be able to reach 28 cities in Mexico via Mexico City and Cancún.
(Estado de Guanajuato, México/Facebook)
Mexican airline Viva Aerobus and Colombian airline Avianca announced an interline agreement on Friday to expand their routes to over 50 destinations in both countries.
The agreement will allow Avianca passengers traveling from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Costa Rica to connect with 28 cities in Mexico via Mexico City and Cancún.
The newly announced interline agreement between Viva Aerobus and Avianca will greatly increase connectivity between Central America and Mexico. (BoardingPass/Facebook)
In turn, Viva Aerobus customers traveling to Bogotá from Mexico City, Cancún, Guadalajara and Monterrey will be able to make connections with 23 destinations operated by Avianca within Colombia.
“I believe in the potential of Colombia and Mexico as two of the most relevant markets in Latin America,” Chief Commercial Officer of Avianca Manuel Ambriz said, adding that the agreement will enable customers to carry out the connections under one single ticket.
“An interline agreement like this allows our customers to purchase one ticket through any of our direct sales channels and travel agencies … a single transaction [will] guarantee connections between Avianca flights and Viva Aerobus flights within Mexico (or vice versa), with one check-in and labeled luggage through to the final destination,” Ambriz explained.
“The alliance with Avianca, an airline with more than 100 years of history and recognized as one of the most important on the continent, strengthens our air offer between Mexico and Colombia,” Director of Alliances at Viva Aerobus Jordi Porcel added.
Colombia was the third largest country of origin for passengers (after the United States and Canada) arriving by air in Mexico in 2023, with 604,468 tourists — up 23.9% from 2019.
Avianca was the first commercial airline founded in the Americas and the second worldwide, just after KLM from the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Viva Aerobus flew nearly 25 million passengers in 2023, a 20.7% increase over 2022 that made them the fastest-growing domestic airline last year.
The perception of aging and the body is very different in Mexico, which can be very liberating, especially for those used to comparatively narrow standards of beauty in the United States. (IMSS/Cuartoscuro)
Like many American women, I spent decades struggling with body image, and an equal amount of time getting angry at myself for caring so much. Moving abroad changed all that, as the concept of body image in Mexico is unlike the one that I left behind.
Body image refers to how an individual sees and feels about their body. In my case, I worried about my weight. While it fluctuated over a twenty-pound range, my body image — even when I was at my thinnest — caused me much more stress and anxiety than my actual weight ever did.
Bodies in Mexico are often different to the perfectly sculpted specimens plastered across U.S. mass media. (IMSS/Cuartoscuro)
Strong body confidence
But 18 years ago, my husband Barry and I bought a house in Guanajuato. We knew we would love the town, already seduced by its pedestrianized, vibrant streets and the Cubist houses piled on top of each other, the color of mango, watermelon, lemon and kiwi. But I never dreamed that living here would change my attitude toward my body — for the better.
It didn’t take me long to notice that Mexican women seemed to feel good about their bodies. Even if they were on the llenita (plump) side, they exposed their midriffs with pride. Indeed, a 2015 survey showed that Mexico was the most body-confident country in the world, with almost a third of its population feeling completely satisfied with the way they looked, and almost half were fairly satisfied.
Fitness baked into my life
Before we bought our Mexican home, I was reasonably fit, but exercise and physical activity were not woven into my everyday life the way they are now. My fitness is no longer an extraneous aspect of my life that comes and goes.
We don’t have a car in Guanajuato — and don’t want one. Unless you live in the suburbs, having a car is a pain, because the houses are adjoining, row house-style constructions with neither garages nor driveways, and keeping a car in a commercial parking lot is expensive. And without a car, we walk everywhere. There’s nothing like doing errands on foot at almost seven thousand feet, not to mention climbing the steep steps built into Guanajuato’s hills, to create a bank deposit of fitness. One of my favorite morning circuits is a loop of about 45 minutes, which involves climbing a steep and colorful street for about 15 minutes, walking level for another 15 minutes, and then downhill back home.
Moving to Guanajuato changed Louisa’s life and broke old habits, leading to a healthier, happier lifestyle. (Dan Torres/Unsplash)
Another weekly activity I build into my routine is shopping at La Comer, the gourmet supermarket about twenty minutes from our home. I know I’ll come back laden with goods. “Why not take a cab?” Barry says. But why? Taxis can get stuck in traffic. I just take a backpack.
We also hike. We can close the door to our home and be hiking in the hills above town in ten minutes without ever getting in a car or a bus. The fact that I can be out of Guanajuato’s dense urban environment so quickly is one of the main draws of the city.
Strong role models
Much as I appreciate that fitness has become an organic part of my life, it’s not the only aspect of life in Mexico that has affected my body image. Everywhere I look, I see Mexicans at work: street cleaners sweeping the sidewalks and picking up trash, and construction workers, gas and water deliverers carrying heavy loads of bricks, gas canisters and 5-gallon plastic water containers on their shoulders. In the U.S., I don’t notice physical labor the way I do in Mexico. Seeing people working hard reminds me that the body is designed not to look a certain way, but to get things done.
In particular, I’m in awe of our house cleaner, Vero, a street-savvy woman in her late fifties who lives in the country and takes three buses into town. She cleans houses and tends gardens six days a week, and cooks and cleans at home on Sundays. I admire her resilience and the way she steps up to any task. A woman of deep faith, she walks for almost 24 hours to a pilgrimage site once a year. She’s much tougher than I am.
Bodies in Mexico are seen as tools for work as much as aesthetic objects. (Depositphotos/Photo by Kasto)
Seeing people work so hard humbles me and reminds me that the body is much more than appearance. Sure, I want to look reasonably attractive, but it’s more important to me to be physically competent. Every day, seeing Mexicans work hard puts any lingering anxieties about my body in perspective.
It’s OK to age
In Guanajuato, I see people of all ages out and about. The other day, as I watched an elderly gentleman walking cautiously down the street with a cane, I realized that people who look old are visible in Mexico, whereas in the U.S. I rarely see them. Where are they? I guess they’re at home, in an assisted-living facility or a vehicle being driven to appointments. Wherever they are, they’re hidden, certainly not in public.
Seeing elderly Mexicans out and about, navigating their lives in the public arena, leaves me with the message that aging is normal. In Mexico, nothing is embarrassing or shameful about getting older, and this makes me feel better about my aging process.
Almost twenty years after buying our home, Mexico brings me even more joy than I expected: music, cuisine, Spanish, friendly people, history and art. Today I’m not only enjoying all that Mexico has to offer, but most importantly, I’m happier with myself. And that is the biggest surprise of all.
Louisa Rogers and her husband Barry Evans divide their lives between Guanajuato and Eureka, on California’s North Coast. Louisa writes articles and essays about expat life, Mexico, travel, physical and psychological health, retirement and spirituality. Her recent articles are on her website, https://authory.com/LouisaRogers
Monroy depicts the history of Jalisco, weaving human history, agricultural developments and the old gods. (Watercolors by Jorge Monroy)
Guadalajara’s twenty-seventh Festival Cultural de Mayo was inaugurated on May 2 with an exhibition of “Acuarelas Ancestrales” (ancestral watercolors) painted by local muralist Jorge Monroy. The paintings will be on display at Casa Feria in the city’s historic center, throughout the month of May.
I visited Monroy at his rustic studio in the foothills of the Primavera Forest, just west of Guadalajara. As the painter picked tomatoes from his garden, he described the watercolors he had chosen for this event.
Jorge Monroy working on a painting in his studio. (John Pint)
“I am presenting 18 originals,” he told me “all with the theme of pre-Hispanic Jalisco. This includes circular pyramids, shaft tombs, obsidian, the ancient ball game Ulama and scenes of everyday life 2,000 years ago.”
Maize: made in Mexico
In these scenes of daily life, Monroy gives special importance to maíz (corn).
“The most important painting for this event,” the artist told me, “shows a woman lovingly caring for a maize plant with a view of the Great Lake of Magdalena (drained by the Spaniards) in the background. You can see their colorful houses in the distance and people planting corn. This is a scene that could have taken place 3,000 years ago.”
The process of breeding maize, in fact, started much earlier than that, perhaps as long as 9,000 years ago.
“The domestication of corn took place in Mexico and there is some evidence that it may have occurred right here in what we now call Jalisco,” the painter told me. “This, I consider Mexico’s most important contribution to humanity because today maize is the most cultivated food on the planet. Our ancestors started out as hunters and gatherers, nomads, but then they came upon a grass that they called teocintle and they began to cultivate and domesticate it.”
“Los Hijos de Teocintle” shows maize being cultivated on the shores of the Great Lake of Magdalena in Jalisco. Circular pyramids can be seen in the distance. (Watercolor by Jorge Monroy)
Domestication, Monroy pointed out, required saving seeds from plants with the biggest, best and most kernels. “This they did year after year,” he says, “and created corn as we know it today. Originally, teocintle had only about 12 kernels, hard enough to break your teeth. Compare that to what we call maíz today!”
Secrets of the shaft tomb
In another of his watercolors, Monroy takes us inside a shaft tomb, a peculiar tradition of West Mexico that was in vogue from around 300 B.C. to 400 A.D.
“In this painting,” said Monroy, “I have recreated a ceremony that must have taken place inside all the shaft tombs: what we think of today as a funeral. They had special ceramics for this occasion and a whole host of items that would be buried alongside the corpse, things representing the deceased’s tastes and preferences.”
The shaft tombs were deep holes, just over a meter wide, dug into the soft volcanic tuff so common in West Mexico.
With one to three burial chambers at the bottom, the shaft might have been two to 22 meters deep, perhaps a kind of insurance policy meant to protect the tombs from looting. Unfortunately, this strategy has not dissuaded modern tomb raiders, who have beaten the archaeologists to the bottom of almost every shaft tomb known.
Mexico’s love affair with maize is celebrated extensively in the exhibition.
Fortunately, in 1993 an untouched tomb was found at Huizilapa, Jalisco, located just northwest of Tequila.
This shaft was 7.6 meters deep and had two chambers. Six individuals were found, three in each chamber, together with rich offerings. The body of the most important individual in the tomb was, according to archaeologist Eduardo Williams, “elaborately adorned with jade and shell bracelets, nose-rings, earrings, greenstone beads, carved jade pendants and a cloth sewn with thousands of shell beads. Conch shells ornamented with painted stucco had been placed on his loins and at his sides, along with atlatl hooks.”
Incredible as it may sound, over 60,000 artifacts were discovered inside the Huitzilapa tomb.
Pre-Hispanic restaurant
Jorge Monroy’s new collection of paintings will be on display in Guadalajara’s Casa Feria, which hosts cultural events including concerts, plays and book launches. Casa Feria is also a restaurant — open only on weekends — specializing in pre-Hispanic food. This means that visitors to the painting exhibit can wander about, immersing themselves in a world of ancient customs and after that, enjoy a pre-Hispanic meal.
In Aztec legend, the goddess Mayahuel was the lover of Quetzalcoatl and it was at her grave that the very first maguey plant appeared.
From Beethoven to Jazz
The watercolor exhibit is just the first of many events taking place in Guadalajara throughout May.
On May 7, 8 and 9, the city will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the premiere performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. On these nights the “Choral Symphony” will be played at the city’s celebrated Degollado Theatre, followed by all of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas between the 12th and 23rd of May, at the same venue.
Dozens of other cultural activities will take place throughout the rest of the month, everything from 3D Street Art and a concert by the GRAMMY-winning Attacca Quartet to the premiere of a “Jalisco Jazz Suite” by Guadalajara’s Arturo de la Torre Jazz Orchestra.
To learn about all 34 cultural events taking place in and around Guadalajara during the month of May, see the official page of the Festival Cultural de Mayo en Jalisco.
John Pint has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates the Mexican victory over French invaders at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, has become a major holiday... in the United States. Find out why. (Nipyata/Unsplash)
The date is May 5th, 1862. The battleground: Puebla, Mexico. Two armies face off. Hailing from overseas, the French, with powerful military capabilities, against the outnumbered resident underdogs — the Mexicans.
Sent by French Emperor Napoleon III, the French troops are here to collect a debt — by taking Mexico as a colony. Mexico’s president, Benito Juarez, has suspended all payments to foreign countries, leaving accounts with France in the red. The two-year freeze is a measure to alleviate the financial strain faced by Mexico due to the country’s ongoing civil “Reform” War being fought between liberal and conservative factions within the country. It is also a move meant to stabilize the country and increase Mexican sovereignty by reducing the foreign intervention of European creditors who had lent Mexico money.
An unlikely victory
The Battle of Puebla was a shock, but decisive victory for the Mexican government against the French troops of Emperor Napoleon III. (Gob. de México)
The battle lasts all of three hours. When the smoke clears, the unlikely winners emerge. The French have surrendered and are routed after suffering casualties of nearly 500 men. The victorious Mexican underdogs, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza, have lost less than 100.
The Mexicans have won this battle, but will ultimately lose the war. One year later in 1863, the French would return and recapture Mexico, with their reign lasting for several years. But for this Cinco de Mayo battle, the Mexicans are victorious.
Fast forward to today. Somehow victory at Puebla, which had meant relatively little in the grand scheme of Mexico’s turbulent history, has become a nation-wide celebration… in a foreign country.
An American celebration
North of the border, on May 5 of each year, festivities in the United States celebrating Cinco de Mayo commence, drawing partygoers of all backgrounds into celebrations filled with guacamole, tacos, sombreros, mariachi music and endless margaritas. Mexican restaurants throughout the country find themselves packed with revelers taking part in city-wide celebrations, parades, festivals and events in over 500 US cities.
For many Americans, Cinco de Mayo is a time for margaritas, tacos and guacamole. (Hybrid Storytellers/Unsplash)
So how did this minor battle victory become such a nationwide Mexican celebration… outside of Mexico?
Historical significance and symbolism
The victory became symbolic for U.S.-based Latinos, with obvious parallels to the Civil War, the Chicano movement and a broader push toward democracy and against oppression.
In 1862, the United States was facing its own internal Civil War. The defeat of the French on Cinco de Mayo was a blow to the Confederates, who had counted on their French ally’s support from neighboring Mexico.
Instead, leveraging the unforeseen defeat of the French, Mexicans in the western United States used the victory to rally together to support the Union army and Mexico’s efforts to battle continued French invasion. The community — uniting under both Mexican and U.S. flags — formed “juntas patrióticas mexicanas” (patriotic Mexican groups), which provided financial and political support, along with army recruits for the two causes. The juntas continued to support Mexican immigrants and Latino communities in the United States following the Civil War.
The events of Cinco de Mayo have become part of the U.S. narrative of resistance against oppression and have drawn parallels to struggles from many groups, including the Chicano movement. (Luke Harold/Wikimedia)
The 1862 battle gained symbolic prominence among Latin-American communities over the years in their struggles against racism and inequality. During the 1960s and 1970s Chicano Movement — during which Latino communities fought against discrimination and for equal rights — activists evoked the victorious Cinco de Mayo battle as a metaphor for overcoming white oppression.
Cultural identity and commercialization
The meaning of the Cinco de Mayo Battle of Puebla has continued to evolve among Latino communities in the United States as a proud celebration of Mexican cultural heritage and history. More recently it appears that the day has become incorrectly known by many in the States as Mexico’s Independence Day (actually the 16th of September) — a day in which the people of Mexico began a lengthy revolt against Spanish rule in 1810, under the leadership of Mexican priest Miguel Hidalgo.
Since the 1980’s, the holiday has also been leveraged commercially by businesses and brands, nurtured strategically in part by alcohol companies implementing Cinco de Mayo marketing campaigns and limited edition products around the holiday. Mexican restaurants partake in the celebratory atmosphere often hosting Cinco de Mayo events offering Mexican-themed music, cocktails and foods.
Preservation, tradition and recognition
In Puebla, the location of the original Cinco de Mayo victory, events commemorating the battle take place. But ultimately, the widest expressions of this holiday are owned by proud Latino communities in the U.S., celebrating their rich cultural heritage, the achievements of Latinos, and the interconnectedness of Mexican and United States history.
The people of Puebla still commemorate victory over the French – though the holiday pales in comparison with the party atmosphere of the United States. (Hilda Ríos/Cuartoscuro)
For an authentic flair during the holiday, indulge in some local fare from Puebla, including mole poblano and pulque, a traditional Mexican alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the agave plant.
What are your favorite ways to celebrate Cinco de Mayo?
Monica Belot is a writer, researcher, strategist and adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design in New York City, where she teaches in the Strategic Design & Management Program. Splitting her time between NYC and Mexico City, where she resides with her naughty silver labrador puppy Atlas, Monica writes about topics spanning everything from the human experience to travel and design research. Follow her varied scribbles on Medium at https://medium.com/@monicabelot.
The Maya Train promises to bring prosperity to a deprived region of Mexico - but the Indigenous population is not happy with what they see as the destruction of their ancestral lands. (Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
With ramifications that ripple through the entire country and across the world, one story that has come out of Mexico in the past years has gripped the global media: the Maya Train. One of the most expensive and ambitious infrastructure projects in Mexican history, the biodiesel-powered tourist and freight train has begun to snake its way around the Yucatán peninsula, connecting locations in Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas, allowing people to visit the ancient archaeological sites, colonial cities and cenotes of southeastern Mexico.
Heavy machinery clears a section of the jungle to make way for the Maya Train. The project has been repeatedly criticized for the environmental damage it has caused. (Greenpeace/Paola Chiomante)
Documentarians set out to record the Maya Train and the environmental damage
Might the Maya Train be ruining the lands of the modern Maya? This is the argument of “El Tren y La Peninsula,” a 2023 documentary that depicts the dispossession of the descendants of the peninsula’s ancient civilizations. The documentary is available free on Mirada Natava and will debut on Mexico’s Canal 11 this summer.
“We set out to investigate the unknowns of this mega project, in the midst of the pandemic and ended up with what is now being called a historical document,” explains Sky Richards, who co-directed the film with Andreas Kruger. “Our agenda was to have no agenda, to be truly transparent with what we experienced.”
El Tren Y La Península [Doc Trailer]
Their ode to nature and the Maya legacy, is a beautifully shot and intimate portrait of a way of life. But it omits what Richards says he observed: people who have little autonomy or land rights, displaced between ancient and modern forms of development. Sky found a people confronted with a generational curiosity for globalization, caught between the perks of its trajectory replacing their way of life. He continued, “Most of the images in the film no longer resemble the current landscape. The train’s construction has changed everything for miles around the track, basically overnight.”
Revolution and collapse
This area will not let us forget that social injustice leads to upheaval. The late 19th/early 20th century Caste War of Yucatán was a precursor to the Mexican Revolution — an uprising famously fought on trains. The Caste war is now known as the Maya Uprising, according to documentarian Richards and in this fight too, the peasantry resorted to using trains to combat other trains.
But misery was definitively visited upon the modern Maya by another maritime disruption; World War II. The industrial pressures put on tire production which required rubber trees, parachutes made of silk and marine ropes made out of natural fibers from Mexico, forced the invention of cheaper synthetic fibers. Nylon gave the coup de grâce to the thriving monopoly on fibers produced in the Yucatan. These fibers were traditionally manufactured from a prehistoric looking cousin of maguey and agave, henequen, which was transported from the plantations to the ports by the original railway systems of the area.
The Yucatán Peninsula is one of the most impoverished areas in the Americas. The scarce job opportunities available are for the most part menial jobs in the coastal tourist industry, and the Maya have all but abandoned their crafts and agriculture since they have ceased to be financially viable. For survival, they have sold off their land for pennies and have walked right into the factories on Mexico’s northern border.
The peninsula’s hidden Maya cities themselves may also represent an environmental cautionary tale. One of the most solid theses that attempt to explain the mysterious decline of the Classic Maya civilization points precisely to a man-made ecological catastrophe: the over-exploitation of natural resources to feed the golden age of Maya civilization.
Will the Maya Train offer salvation for Indigenous communities?
Could the train offer access to more viable and dignified local employment? The United Nations Human Settlements Program projects the positive figures of one million more jobs by 2030 and double the economic growth in local townships where the train passes through by that year — which could far surpass the economic growth of the industrial north. In late 2022, the National Tourism Fund (Fonatur) reported that the train had already created more than 140,000 jobs in southeastern Mexico — making it the top job creator in the region — and could create another 715,000 by 2030.
Previously inaccessible treasures of Maya culture will become a viable adventure for national and international travelers, who thus far could only dream of these sacred cities, depicted by only the most daring explorers. The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) now has not only the means but the incentive to better protect and further explore the ancient Maya world, and has constructed new museums to house the treasures unearthed during development.
Might the resurrection of this railway be a harbinger of prosperity for the region’s Indigenous peoples, who could recover their traditional arts, crafts and world-famous cuisine by catering to new patrons? That could keep the locals from having to sell their lands and migrate north. Agriculture would be re-established, requiring clean sources of water, which might, in turn, cause pressure to mobilize political mechanisms of equitable and sustainable regulations.
In the grand scale of things, throughout ecological apocalypse and social upheaval, Maya peoples have fiercely defended their way of life and their surroundings. The political vitality of Mexico and the world’s increasing fascination with the Yucatán Peninsula and the Maya Train may prove auspicious for the peninsula’s Indigenous peoples yet.
Henrietta Weekes is a writer, editor, actor and narrator. She divides her time between San Miguel de Allende, New York and Oxford, UK.
![El Tren Y La Península [Doc Trailer]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-KSTNSMzl_o/0.jpg)
