The pact is presented as technical and non-binding, but opponents see it as a privatization move to provide business opportunities to Israeli companies. (Estrella Josento/Cuartoscuro)
A water cooperation agreement between the Chihuahua state government and the Israeli international cooperation agency MASHAV has become the center of social conflict and the cause of growing protests amid extreme water stress in the state.
On Saturday, protesters called by the Save the Hills of Chihuahua and the Feminist Assembly marched through the streets of the capital city of Chihuahua, accusing the state government and the Central Water and Sanitation Board (JCAS) of promoting Zionism and doing business with a government they accuse of committing genocide in Gaza.
In addition to the protests in Chihuahua aimed specifically at the water pact, anti-Israel marches took place across the country, including in Mexico City. (Estrella Josento/Cuartoscuro)
The demonstrations were part of a nationwide day of action involving at least 14 states, where protesters called for a ceasefire in Gaza and demanded that the Mexican government end diplomatic and trade relations with Israel.
At the center of the controversy is a signed cooperation agreement dated February 2023 between the JCAS of Chihuahua and MASHAV, part of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Valid until 2027, the agreement establishes the exchange of knowledge and technology for the design, construction and maintenance of water systems in crisis conditions, as well as improvements in the reuse of treated water, efficiency in drinking water, sanitation and sustainable agriculture.
The agreement allows participation of the Israeli private sector in water-related projects in Chihuahua. Although the agreement is presented as a technical cooperation plan, activists claim that it facilitates contracts and business opportunities for Israeli companies in the state’s water infrastructure.
Opponents also argue that the Chihuahua government did not register the international agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Relations (SRE), which would make it illegal in Mexico.
However, Governor Maru Campos Galván and head of JCAS Mario Mata Carrasco stated that the agreement is not a legally binding document and does not create any legally binding obligations or benefits for the parties involved.
Rather, they say it is a technical cooperation mechanism for sharing knowledge without granting rights, concessions or control over the state’s water — meaning there wouldn’t be an obligation to register the agreement with the SRE.
According to Mexican law, non-binding international agreements are not necessarily subject to the same registration requirements as treaties or other legally binding agreements. Nonetheless, the SRE suggests a similar registration procedure to ensure consistency with Mexico’s foreign policy, meaning such agreements wouldn’t necessarily appear in the SRE’s treaty database.
For the state government, this international agreement means an opportunity to learn from Israel’s experience in water treatment, reuse and desalination processes to strengthen the hydraulic infrastructure of Chihuahua, especially given the drought conditions the state is currently facing.
The former railroad that connected the remote Mexican silver mining town of Batopilas, Chihuahua to the outside world. (Crook1/Wikimedia Commons)
In 1938, Grant Shepherd, son of Alexander Robey Shepherd, “The father of modern Washington, D.C.,” published his memoirs. The book “The Silver Magnet — 50 Years in a Mexican Silver Mine” (E.P. Dutton and Co., 1938) gives us a first-hand look at life in a fabulously rich mine located next to an impossibly remote town around the start of the Mexican Revolution.
Fortunately, the historical value of Shepherd’s book was noted by the American Council of Learned Societies and digitally reformatted for the Humanities E-Book project, making it available from many libraries. This, however, does not mean “The Silver Magnet” is a scholarly work. Not at all. What we have here are rambling memoirs: the recollections of a man who, over a period of 60 years, lived life to its fullest in a remote corner of Mexico that — even today — is difficult to reach.
The ruins of the Hacienda San Miguel, built originally in the mid-17th century as a residence for mine owners in Batopilas. (Smallchief/Wikimedia Commons)
Anyone interested in Mexico and silver mines will find many a rich nugget here. Let’s take a peek at a few of them.
How to carry a piano down a canyon wall
In Shepherd’s day, to reach Batopilas, Chihuahua from the U.S., you had to ride 241 kilometers in wagons or oxcarts and then brace yourself for a further 300 kilometers on the backs of mules, ending in a narrow switchback trail down the labyrinthine gorges of the Copper Canyon, an elevation difference of 1,708 meters — greater than the average depth of the Grand Canyon.
So when the family decided to buy an upright piano, they faced the problem of how to transport it in one piece to Batopilas, a name that in Rarámuri means “river in a box.”
“All you need to solve a problem like this,” says Shepherd, is “a clever Mexican and an Indian … and if you leave it to them with no suggestions on your part, that cumbersome box will eventually arrive, and arrive right side up.”
Here’s the solution: Cut two long, straight pine poles. Put one on either side of the piano in its wooden box and tie them in such a way that the weight is balanced with no tendency to be top-heavy. Now put two men at each corner of the box.
“They get under the poles in a squatting position. At the word ‘Vámonos!’ they straighten up. The piano is off the ground, and the carriers move off with inward satisfaction of knowing that all they have to do now is to carry this great box for 185 miles in 15 or 20 days.”
For this, Shepherd adds, the men were paid US $1 a day plus first-class meals, which they considered fabulous pay for such an easy job.
How to filch silver from a mine
The ore at the Batopilas mines was very high grade, so there was always a chance that a miner would try to take a little of it home.
“Say, for instance, you wear your hair quite long … and you clean your hands to rid them of the mud caused by the cutting of the drill bit moistened by the water you squirt from your mouth into the hole; if you succeed in cleaning your hands by wiping them on your head, the long hair will get full of mud. When you go home and wash your hair in a basin, you will find that there remain in the basin fine particles of silver. After you become expert at it, you will be able to run it up to as much as 50 cents worth a day. If you are diligent, this will increase your weekly income by about US $3.”
Note that an unskilled laborer was paid a minimum wage of US $1.50 per day.
How not to turn on a lightbulb
Unbelievable as it may sound, in 1889, little Batopilas, population 6,500, was the second city in Mexico to get electric lights (after the capital), thanks to the Americans running the mines.
Shepherd recalls: “One of the men was told to go out and touch a button to light up the place that first night the electric light plant was put into commission. He got a box of matches and tried to screw off the glass bulb so he could apply a match to the wire — and put the bulb into the vise to hold it. There was a pop and a crack. He sprang back from this mysterious thing, fell over a wheelbarrow that was directly behind him, and broke his arm! For a long time afterwards, he was known as Luz Eléctrica, Electric light.”
How to remain invisible while bathing
Today, the sleepy town of Batopilas has only about 1,000 residents. Mining operations ceased about a century ago, in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. (Crook1/Wikimedia Commons)
Shepherd also describes customs of the day unrelated to mining:
“The extreme modesty of the Mexican women was never more apparent than when they were bathing in the river. They carry an ordinary sheet, squat down with the middle of the sheet on top of their heads, spread it out over them, remove all of their clothing, put on an ankle-length cotton slip. (All of this is done underneath the tent made from the sheet.) Then, walking down into the river in this squatting position … they perform their ablutions. No one ever saw so much as the point of one of their toes!”
Cardsharps and Pancho Villa
“The Silver Magnet” touches on many other subjects: buried treasure, dynamite, cockfighting, cardsharps, the vileness of Pancho Villa and the excellence of Porfirio Díaz, plus everything you ever wanted to know about saddles, stirrups and chaps … but not a word about silicosis, which killed the majority of full-time miners before middle age.
The book ends with the death of Shepherd’s father, whose body was hand-carried 300 kilometers up the winding trail by local people who volunteered to do this without pay.
“The Silver Magnet” was reprinted many times. With luck, you may find a physical copy on a dusty shelf of your local bookstore.
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.
A group of citizens dressed in white protests violence in Sinaloa's state capital of Culiacán in February. (José Betanzos Zárate/Cuartoscuro)
Insecurity and adverse weather conditions have wrought havoc on the economy of Sinaloa, a state where rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have been engaged in a bloody battle since 2024.
Among Mexico’s 32 federal entities, 20 recorded sequential contractions in the first quarter of the year, but Sinaloa’s economic result was easily the worst. On an annual basis, the northern state’s economy contracted 1.2% in the first three months of 2026, Sinaloa’s worst first quarter result since 2021.
Adriana García, economic analysis coordinator at the Mexico City-based think tank México ¿cómo vamos?, told the newspaper El Universal that the poor economic results in Sinaloa are mainly due to insecurity. Violence has dampened investment in the state and stifled the opening of new businesses, she said.
“Insecurity hinders economic activity,” García told El Universal.
Cristina Ibarra, president of the Mexican Federation of Collegiate Economists, also said that Sinaloa’s poor economic performance is linked to insecurity.
“The economic recovery strategy in Sinaloa simply hasn’t worked. Companies look for the best way to remain open, but there are a lot of disruptions caused by insecurity,” Ibarra told Espejo, a magazine based in state capital Culiacán, a city considered unsafe by more than 90% of residents, according to a recent INEGI survey.
The main cause of insecurity in Sinaloa is the ongoing feud between Los Chapitos and Los Mayos, rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere, according to Insight Crime.
Zambada was the leader of Los Mayos, while Guzmán López, a son of convicted drug lord and Sinaloa Cartel founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, was a leader of Los Chapitos along with three of his brothers.
The “war” between Los Mayos and Los Chapitos has claimed well over 2,000 lives and caused the disappearance of thousands more people since September 2024.
In addition to causing the Sinaloa economy to tank in the first quarter of this year, data shows that the cartel-related violence has affected employment in the northern state. Sinaloa shed almost 27,000 formal sector positions in the first half of 2026, the biggest loss of jobs among the 32 federal entities. As a result, the state’s informal economy has been growing rapidly.
“Establishments are closing or reducing their operational personnel due to insecurity,” García told El Universal.
“… Better security results are needed so that sinaloenses can return to their normal activities,” she said.
In early May, Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya decided to go on leave after he and various other officials were formally accused of drug trafficking by U.S. prosecutors. Three months later, Rocha hasn’t returned to the job.
Sinaloa primary sector contracts 16.6% annually
INEGI’s data shows that the primary sector in Sinaloa contracted 16.6% in annual terms in the first quarter of 2026. The secondary sector grew 5.2% while the tertiary sector expanded 0.8%.
“There was a lot less production in the state due to weather-related issues [including drought],” Jesús Rojo, president of the Sinaloa Confederation of Agricultural Associations, told the Espejo magazine.
“Not just in corn,” Rojo said. “In the mango sector, the orchards didn’t bloom sufficiently.”
Declines in beef and tomato production are weighing on Sinaloa’s agricultural output this year. (Carolina Jiménez Mariscal/Cuartoscuro)
Jesús Márquez Rojas, a research economist and assistant vice president with Banamex, told El Universal that beef production in Sinaloa is also down. In addition, high prices for tomatoes in early 2026 had an adverse impact on producers in Sinaloa, he said.
A decline in agricultural production levels in Sinaloa — nicknamed el granero de México, or Mexico’s breadbasket — affects other parts of the state’s economy, including the transport and packing industries.
How are other state economies performing?
Only 12 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities grew in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the final three-month period of 2025.
On an annual basis, Hidalgo was Mexico’s fastest-growing state in the first quarter of 2026, its economy expanding 7.4% in the period. Tamaulipas ranked second (+5.4%), followed by Colima (+4%), Tabasco (+3.3%) and Puebla (+2.7%).
The state that recorded the worst economic result in annual terms in the first quarter was Campeche, where GDP fell 5.2%. The next worst results were in Coahuila (-4.7%), Morelos (-3.1%), Quintana Roo (-2.9%) and Oaxaca (-2.8%).
Would you be happy here in Tulum, Quintana Roo? According to an Irish travel insurance firm, it's the happiest destination in the world. (Unsplash)
A detailed analysis of more than a million travel reviews has led an Irish travel insurance company to conclude that Tulum — one of the more laid-back beach resorts on Mexico’s Caribbean coast — is the happiest travel destination on earth.
The company, JustCover, pored through written comments on all kinds of tourist attractions — national parks, entertainment venues, scenic places and urban areas, as well as resorts — looking for vocabulary such as “happy” and “joy.”
Based on their research, they assigned a “Happy Place Score” to each destination on a scale of 0 to 100. Tulum ended up with a perfect 100 out of 100 score.
Tulum has indeed become extremely popular in recent years as a more tranquil option to bustling Cancún in Quintana Roo state. JustCover mentioned Tulum’s preserved Maya ruins, perched on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea, its nature reserves and picturesque views.
“Tulum also draws visitors with its thriving food, nightlife and wellness scene,” the company pointed out.
Tulum boasts several smaller resorts and boutique hotels, which many tourists are opting for over Cancún’s giant all-inclusive resorts and beach clubs. It also offers a wide range of adventure and eco-tourism attractions, including cenotes and a lazy river.
Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards 2025 list of the best resorts in Mexico featured both the Conrad Tulum Riviera Maya and La Zebra Tulum.
The town is also home to some of Mexico’s most well-regarded restaurants, with several spots mentioned in the Michelin Guide.
While Tulum came out on top in terms of happiness, Oaxaca was also given a high score for its “food, markets, and its deep Indigenous culture,” ranking in third place.
JustCover’s top 10 Happy Place Destinations are as follows:
The incident occurred at the Siglo XXI Migration Station in the border town of Tapachula, the largest immigration detention center in Latin America. (gob.mx)
Two migrants were arrested on charges of inciting a riot at an immigration holding center in the southern state of Chiapas on Saturday night. The two men were arrested and transferred to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital, where they were being processed for immediate deportation.
The incident occurred at the Siglo XXI Migration Station in the border town of Tapachula — the largest immigration detention center in Latin America — where approximately 40 migrants were being processed after being detained in different parts of the country.
Some 65,000 migrants — many of whom are deported from the U.S. and transferred by land to Tapachula or the INM station in Villahermosa, Tabasco — are stranded in southern Mexico awaiting resolution of their cases. (Damián Sánchez/Cuartoscuro)
The National Migration Institute (INM) said the two men in question — reportedly Venezuelan nationals — began displaying aggressive behavior, prompting a broader disturbance in the station.
The newly arrived migrants began demanding their immediate release, later claiming to be victims of systematic abuse and incommunicado detention.
While agents attempted to calm the tumult, the men are alleged to have attempted to set a mattress on fire.
INM agents, state and municipal security forces and emergency services required more than two hours to quell the uprising, but officials reported that no detainees were injured.
Luis García Villagrán, a human rights activist with the Center for Human Dignity AC, expressed skepticism about the incident, saying the INM often holds migrants incommunicado for periods of up to 10 days and denies them access to legal defense.
“There is a terrible lack of transparency about what is happening at this Immigration Station,” he told the newspaper La Jornada.
The organization said that some 65,000 migrants — many of whom are deported from the U.S. and transferred by land to Tapachula or the INM station in Villahermosa, Tabasco — are stranded in southern Mexico awaiting resolution of their cases. They are processed at these facilities and eventually released, but not permitted to travel outside the area.
The disturbance inside the facility reignited complaints about overcrowding, lack of due process and alleged human rights violations at Siglo XXI which is designed to hold up to 1,500 people.
There have been at least five previous incidents of riots and protests at Siglo XXI, including in April 2019, when migrants rioted, took control of the facilities, and nearly 1,300 migrants escaped.
The president has been using Mondays at the mañanera to present findings on social media use and its impacts on minors. (Saúl López/Presidencia)
Sheinbaum’s mañanera in 60 seconds
📺 Canal Once occupation ends: Education Minister Mario Delgado said that Canal Once workers peacefully retook the station’s facilities on Sunday, more than two months after IPN students began occupying them, forcing out six protesters; he said the station’s audiovisual archive appears damaged, with material “broken and disorganized on the floor.”
💰 Sheinbaum alleges paid protest: The president asserted that the protesting students had been paid to occupy Canal Once, saying investigations have not yet determined who made the payments, and called it illogical for a student movement focused on IPN improvements to seize the TV station for so long.
📱 Social media debate explained: Sheinbaum said the government opened a public debate on children’s use of social media because studies show excessive use — particularly infinite scrolling and short videos — creates addiction, though she stressed technology also has “extraordinary uses” like global communication and virtual museum visits.
🧠 Haidt warns of “digital pacifier”: U.S. psychologist Jonathan Haidt addressed the mañanera, calling children’s social media and touchscreen use a “public health problem” and urging parents not to give kids access to phones until at least age four to six, citing damage to cognitive development.
At today’s mañanera, Sheinbaum explained why the government initiated a public debate on young people’s use of social media. Two weeks ago, she said that a consultation process with experts, parents, teachers, young people and others should lead to “some scheme of regulation” on the use of social media by minors.
It is not yet known whether the government will seek to ban young people under a certain age from using social media as part of a legislative proposal that could be submitted to Congress later this year. However, Education Minister Mario Delgado, who was at today’s mañanera, said earlier this year that the Mexican government was exploring the possibility of imposing age restrictions.
Also of note at today’s mañanera were the remarks made by both Sheinbaum and Delgado about a lengthy student takeover of the public television station Canal Once.
Student takeover of Canal Once ends
A reporter noted that workers with Canal Once, a public television network owned by the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), returned to their workplace on Sunday more than two months after a group of IPN students began occupying the TV station’s facilities as part of a protest against alleged financial mismanagement at the university, among other alleged problems.
Sheinbaum asserted on Monday that the protesting students had been paid to occupy Canal Once. (Camila Ayala Benabib/Cuartoscuro)
Protesting students allege that they were violently forced out of Canal Once’s Mexico City facilities on Sunday.
Asked her opinion about the situation, Sheinbaum referred the question to her education minister.
Delgado said that “a group of young people” from IPN decided to occupy the Canal Once facilities on May 20.
“We made many attempts to establish dialogue with them,” he said before highlighting that discussions took place and asserting that none of the students’ demands were related to Canal Once.
Consequently, Delgado said that authorities asked the protesting students to leave Canal Once — which has an extensive audiovisual archive — but they repeatedly refused to do so.
He said that Canal Once workers on Sunday “decided to organize themselves” to “peacefully” retake the television station’s facilities. They achieved their goal, forcing six remaining student protesters out of Canal Once.
“Unfortunately, at first glance, there is damage to the archive,” Delgado said.
“There is material broken and disorganized on the floor,” he said.
“But we’re going to wait to see how serious this damage is. And we said to the young people that we’re going to continue with the roundtable discussions, but it’s not possible for a TV station that belongs to the people of Mexico to remain seized,” Delgado said.
He didn’t say whether the protesting students would face criminal charges for occupying Canal Once and allegedly damaging its archive.
Sheinbaum asserted that the protesting students had been paid to occupy Canal Once.
“On one occasion we presented here about how these students received resources, money,” she said, adding that investigations had not yet determined who made the alleged payments.
“It’s not logical that a student movement that is asking for improvements in the Polytechnic [Institute] occupies Canal Once for so long,” Sheinbaum said.
“… Fortunately, Canal Once never stopped broadcasting,” she said, explaining that the Ministry of Public Education lent equipment and studios to the public television station.
Sheinbaum: Technology has ‘extraordinary uses’ but social media is problematic
After presentations from experts on the impact of screen time and social media on children and adolescents, a reporter asked Sheinbaum her opinion about technology that can assist young people’s learning.
“What we’re seeing here are different studies that show that the excessive use of social media, particularly use linked to infinite scrolling … or [watching] short videos, creates addiction,” the president said.
She went on to say that no one can deny that technology has “extraordinary uses,” citing the ability to communicate with people on the other side of the world and virtually visit “the world’s best museums” as examples.
“The issue is that certain mechanisms of [social media] platforms are creating learning problems, cognitive development problems and addiction,” Sheinbaum said.
“… Mexicans can’t say ‘it’s OK.’ It’s something that we have to review for our daughters and sons, our granddaughters and grandsons,” she said.
“… That’s why we opened the debate,” Sheinbaum said.
U.S. psychologist Jonathan Haidt compared parents’ allowance of social media and touchscreens to resorting to a “digital pacifier.” (Saúl López/Presidencia)
Her remarks came after U.S. psychologist Jonathan Haidt — author of the 2024 book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” — addressed the mañanera.
Among his remarks, Haidt said that “now we know that it’s terrible to give a young child a touchscreen because they learn to get quick dopamine just by touching, touching, touching.”
“… That means that when they don’t have the phone, they now are very upset,” he said.
“… In the United States, 40% of two-year-olds have their own iPad or iPhone and this is a terrible thing which we now know is damaging their development when they arrive at school. What I’m recommending whenever I’m able to speak to governments around the world is treat this as a public health problem,” Haidt said.
“… This is a public health problem and it is important to educate new mothers, new parents, that they should not use a digital pacifier. They should not give … [their children] access to any phones until they’re at least four, five, six,” he said.
New efforts are underway to protect Guadalajara's Historic Center, and the city's "lungs," the Bosque La Primavera. (Gabriella Villareal/Unsplash)
This week, we report on a new proposal to protect the city’s green lung, the Bosque La Primavera (Primavera Forest), from real estate development, and a summer book sale. But first, let’s take a look at an exciting new cultural space in Guadalajara’s Historic Center.
Motor is a new cultural space in Guadalajara’s Historic Center
On Juan Manuel Street in Guadalajara’s center and protected cultural heritage zone, a historical gem dating back to 1850 has recently been restored and reimagined as a new cultural space for artists.
The new gallery space Motor, opened by local artist Claudio Limón, offers more than just another cultural attraction in Guadalajara. It’s also preserving historic architecture. (Ángel Llamas)
The building has a long and winding history. It initially served as a residence, but was later repurposed as a printing facility, and then a mechanical workshop. Its latest reincarnation is the work of local artist Claudio Limón, whose interest in architecture was sparked by his brother and romantic partner, both of whom are professional architects.
“My brother is passionate about the history of architecture, and he told me a lot about the Historic Center, about what has been lost and the different architectural styles of Guadalajara. Then I married an architect, too, and many of my friends are architects,” Limón recently told Mural.
Motor’s role in historic preservation
Dubbed Motor, the space represents not only a new venue for today’s local artists to create work, but Limón’s desire to contribute to the city’s historic preservation. The building now hosts a production studio, artist workshops (mostly allocated to locals, with one space for international residencies) and a space for rotating exhibitions.
The restoration process of the property where Motor is now located took seven months. The old mechanical workshop was preserved virtually intact and became the conceptual core of the project. The venue’s new name refers not only to the building’s industrial past, but also to a creative energy Limón hopes to trigger within the community.
“I want anyone who comes to an exhibition here to also visit the record store next door, buy books or get to know the neighboring businesses,” Limón explained.
Ultimately, the artist hopes Motor will stand as a counterpoint to the prevailing tendency toward tearing down and building anew, sparking enthusiasm for historic preservation in Guadalajara, where for decades the city has witnessed significant loss of its historical and artistic heritage.
A new proposal is introduced to protect a threatened part of Primavera Forest
The 20,000 oak trees in the Primavera Forest west of Guadalajara act as the city’s “lungs” and are essential to the water supply and mitigating air pollution. (Gobierno de Jalisco)
Like an incurable chain smoker, Guadalajara has been doing serious damage to its “lungs” in recent years — i.e., developing rather than conserving many of its important green spaces. Now, a local congresswoman representing the Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) seeks to shift the narrative.
Congresswoman Brenda Carrera García presented a proposal earlier this month to protect La Primavera Forest from additional real estate development. Her proposed legislation would block new residential construction on a 60-hectare plot for a project marketed as “Santa Anita Hill” in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga.
The developer has planned to build a new community right in the transition zone of the Primavera Forest, a biosphere reserve with UNESCO status and an area that’s increasingly viewed as critical to safeguarding the Guadalajara metropolitan area’s water supply. The land is home to 20,000 oak trees that are fundamental to recharging the area’s aquifers, absorbing seasonal rainfall and mitigating the city’s chronic air pollution.
An ‘environmental recovery zone’
According to Carrera, “If this construction is authorized, we will lose what nature took cycles to consolidate.”
She also noted that the land has been subject to various administrative anomalies in recent years, including changes in land-use status by municipal authorities following suspicious fires without observance of the required 20-year waiting period — a timeworn ploy by real estate developers to subvert building restrictions in protected areas, in violation of state-level conservation laws.
Instead, Carrera has called on the State Congress to designate the land as an “environmental recovery zone” and regulate its use to protect the public interest. This legislative proposal arrives at a time when thousands of area residents have filed complaints and grievances over ongoing encroachments to the Primavera Forest.
The fifth annual Grand Book Sale returns to Guadalajara
If you’re a voracious reader who finds the FIL (Guadalajara’s annual International Book Fair) a bit overwhelming and expensive, there’s a lower-profile alternative.
Happening now through Aug. 9, Guadalajara’s Historic Center will be transformed into a gathering place for readers looking to expand their book collections without breaking the bank. The event, which brings together Spanish-language publishers, bookstores and distributors, will feature a wide assortment of books for sale at discounts of 40% or more.
This fifth edition of the book sale (in Spanish, “Magno Remate de Libros”) features 100 booths offering a wide selection of books in various genres, including literature, graphic novels, comics and children’s books. During the 10 days of the sale, there will also be more than 50 literary and cultural activities, including presentations, workshops, author talks, performances and more.
If you’ve been on the hunt for discounted books, this is one of the best opportunities of the year to find new titles at affordable prices.
Dates: July 31 until Aug. 9, 2026. Hours TBD. For more information, visit Cultura Guadalajara’s Instagram.
Location: Paseo Fray Antonio Alcalde, across from Plaza de Armas in Guadalajara’s Historic Center.
Cost: Free and open to the public.
MND Writer Dawn Stoner is reporting from Guadalajara.
Viasat, Inc. is a provider of high-speed satellite broadband services and secure networking systems covering military and commercial markets. (Viasat)
Mexico’s Telecommunications Investment Promotion Agency (Promtel) and global communications company Viasat have agreed to establish a framework to foster the development of telecoms infrastructure, expand connectivity and strengthen coverage across the country.
Promtel and Viasat formalized an alliance that will allow both parties, in line with their respective roles, to partner on initiatives to close the digital divide and strengthen Mexico’s connectivity ecosystem.
The vast majority of internet users in Mexico access the internet via their cell phones, according to a 2024 survey. (Cuartoscuro)
This will include knowledge transfer, the exchange of technical expertise and resources, the development of specialized content and collaboration on training programs.
The goal is to accelerate broadband deployment in underserved communities while supporting smaller telecommunications operators with infrastructure, technical expertise and digital inclusion initiatives.
“This agreement represents an opportunity to combine strengths and expand connectivity to more regions of Mexico,” said Héctor Rivero, country manager of Viasat México. “At Viasat, we are committed to supporting initiatives that boost infrastructure and generate significant benefits for communities.”
In a statement, Viasat said the joint effort highlights the importance of collaboration between the public and private sectors with the goal of expanding access to telecommunications services in underserved communities, so as to contribute to Mexico’s social and economic development.
According to the national statistics agency INEGI, nearly 24% of Mexico’s population lacks Internet access. Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute has estimated that achieving nationwide internet coverage would require an investment of approximately 30 billion pesos (US $1.73 billion).
Promtel recently began providing support to hundreds of smaller telecommunications providers through financing mechanisms and technical assistance under its National Strategy for Small Operators.
The partnership with Viasat complements these efforts by making satellite capacity available to small operators who then can provide broadband access to communities, primarily rural, where commercial coverage is limited. This helps overcome the lack of fiber or mobile networks which remain impractical due to geography or deployment costs.
The agreement will be valid until 2030, with the possibility of renewal.
Promtel is a decentralized Mexican government agency dedicated to the expansion of nationwide mobile and broadband coverage, especially by fostering rural internet access. It also oversees the deployment of the Red Compartida program (a major wholesale telecommunications project designed to expand mobile internet and phone coverage, lower service costs and boost market competition)
Viasat, Inc. — a provider of high-speed satellite broadband services and secure networking systems covering military and commercial markets — is based in Carlsbad, California.
A view of Guanajuato's Zona Centro neighborhood at dusk. (Zheyu Huang/Unsplash)
Traveling is a quintessential part of the study abroad experience.
It is easy for the hordes of American college students who flood Europe every spring. The continent’s complex and wide-reaching network of high-speed rail and abundance of budget airlines make traveling from tourist city to tourist city exceptionally easy. A 20-year-old studying in Rome can reach Athens, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan or Paris in a matter of hours.
While Europe’s high-speed rail simplifies travel for U.S. students abroad, Mexico’s public transport system is surprisingly accessible without it, Jared Tucker writes. (Maxence Pira / Unsplash)
Part of that was knowing that Mexico did not have the best infrastructure for travel. High-speed rail is nonexistent, and highways travel is not recommended at night. The other part was simply not knowing what central Mexico has to offer. If my study abroad experience took me to Rome, I would have made a laundry list of cities I wanted to visit before I even started packing. I could have taken a train down to the Amalfi Coast, seen the ruins of Pompeii or even flown to Egypt.
Central Mexico, meanwhile, is off the beaten path. Few have been. Few want to go.
That’s why I had never heard of San Miguel de Allende until I applied for the internship, let alone Guanajuato city or Querétaro. Nobody that I knew had ever been here. The only place I knew I wanted to visit was Mexico City for the World Cup, which I got to experience after just 10 days in the country. From everything I had heard about Mexico in the United States, the center never seemed like a place that had destinations to visit. Even though I was coming, I felt just as ignorant as the rest of my compatriots.
Mexico is known as a tourist destination for Americans, but they rarely visit the center. Popular resort towns like Cancún, Cabo or Puerto Vallarta routinely take in the swarms of U.S. beach-goers and college kids on spring break. I was shocked when I went to Querétaro a couple of weeks ago — a town that I found beautiful, clean and historic — and saw it nearly untouched by international visitors.
Travelling through Mexico has been easier than I expected. The buses — which are clean, affordable and safe — can take you almost everywhere. Uber is unbelievably affordable and if you are traveling with a local, services like BlaBlaCar can cost less than $20 USD for a trip spanning multiple hours.
Mexico City has become an internationally renowned tourist hotspot. Querétaro has kept its colonial charm while simultaneously transforming into a high-end tech hub. San Miguel is known for its colorful streets, food and many churches.
But last week I went to a city that blew them all out of the water.
That city is Guanajuato. It is a city brimming with color. Where towering mountains force density, which manifests in beautiful winding alleyways. A city where sprawling tunnels are a primary form of transportation and a city with incredible churches, food and bars.
I was only there for about 24 hours, but I fell in love with the city. The hour-long drive from San Miguel weaves through canyons and mountains before reaching Guanajuato city. I was immediately struck by the streets, which felt like stepping into France or Spain. The churches and landmarks were some of the most picturesque that I have seen so far in Mexico.
Tunnels weave through and beneath Guanajuato city’s colorful houses. (Shutterstock)
And the viewpoints. Standing on top of the Pípila, overlooking the city and the rolling hills. Seeing the magnificent churches and the mines in the distance was breathtaking.
Like most of my experiences thus far in Mexico, visiting Guanajuato made me wonder why more Americans do not visit Mexico. I have been to some of the most famous European cities, and Guanajuato, while significantly smaller, was more impressive than many of them.
Guanajuato was not hard to get to. The city was walkable and accessible by ridesharing services.
Yet this beautiful city was unknown to me. Unlike Querétaro, Guanajuato is known for its abundance of Mexican visitors and tourism infrastructure. It is a place where Americans can see something truly unique — a place more colorful than any city in the U.S., with great food and nightlife. But they still don’t go.
Traveling to Mexico is easier than you think. Traveling in Mexico is easier than you think. And Mexico has the cities, the nature and the experiences that warrant the trip. Guanajuato is proof.
Guanajuato, Querétaro, San Miguel and my 24 hours in Mexico City are just the tip of the iceberg. There is pristine coastline to the east and west, Oaxaca to the south, and rainforest to the southeast. I have still seen so little of this beautiful country.
So why do more Americans not come here? Is it for lack of a sense of adventure? A lack of pre-packaged trips? I am still trying to find out.
Jared Tucker is a summer intern at Mexico News Daily in San Miguel de Allende and a rising senior at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is the sports editor for The Daily UW. He was previously a fellow at TheFulcrum.us, where he covered public participation in American democracy.
Despite being termed the "queen of misery," Reyna Grande resists that role in her new book, "Migrant Heart," but without flinching in the face of hard truths. (Reyna Grande)
There is a particular unease that arises from hearing stories about crossing a border you have also crossed, but in the opposite direction and under radically better circumstances. I savored Reyna Grande’s new memoir, “Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can’t Forget,” in the comfort of my home in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, a gorgeous town famous for its architecture, arts scene, climate and ever-growing expat population. Grande’s life story began only a day’s drive but a world away, in Iguala, Guerrero — a town most of the world now knows, if they know it at all, as the place where 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Teachers’ College disappeared in 2014, an atrocity that still hangs over Mexican public life like an unfinished storm.
The book itself deserves to be met on its own considerable terms, because “Migrant Heart” is not a polemic. It is something much rarer and better: a mid-career writer’s attempt to loosen her grip on the story that made her famous. Grande’s earlier memoirs, “The Distance Between Us” and “A Dream Called Home,” shared the traumas of her childhood and young adulthood, and relayed them so devastatingly that a friend of the author’s once suggested, not entirely as a joke, that the publisher bundle a box of tissues with each copy.
Reyna Grande is the ‘queen of misery’ no more
In this month’s edition of Mexico Well-Read, Ann Marie Jackson reviews Reyna Grande’s poignant new memoir, “Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can’t Forget.” (Reyna Grande)
In this new memoir-in-essays, Grande resists that role. She opens by recounting her experience of being crowned the “queen of misery,” and the whole book can be read as her working out what it might mean to put down that crown without abandoning the truths that earned it.
The 18 essays here range further afield than her previous work, into failing eyesight, gardening, motherhood, menopause and the peculiar vertigo of raising American children who will never fully understand her scars or carry her burdens. She writes about the Ayotzinapa disappearances not as distant news but as a wound in her hometown’s soul. She writes about losing fluency in Spanish as the price of gaining English, and about the complicated inheritance of colorism within Mexican and Mexican American communities — including, in one unsparing passage, her own mother’s hope that her grandchild would have blue eyes.
Grande has said in interviews that she has worried about repeating herself, about her writing calcifying into “immigrant trauma porn,” and in these essays you can feel her actively resisting that fate, reaching instead for the harder, less marketable material of an ordinary life continuing after the extraordinary parts are over. This is a writer who has spent two decades making readers weep; here, she seems more interested in proving she can let herself, as well as her readers, breathe.
In “Migrant Heart,” Grande again affirms that pain can be transformed into power. But she finally permits herself to set some careful boundaries, too, no longer feeling compelled to reexamine every wound for the reader’s benefit.
Not a comfortable read, but one filled with ‘hard truths’
For us expats reading this book in any of the beautiful, sunny Mexican towns that serve as havens for people fleeing not violence and brutal poverty but cold winters, polarized politics and high property taxes, “Migrant Heart” is not entirely comfortable reading, and I don’t think it should be. But it is essential reading precisely because our comfort here was built on a complicated history that these essays insist we look at directly. Living where I live, I could not read this without feeling implicated, gently but unmistakably, in the very economic and political inequities that produced both the author’s and my own radically different migrant experiences.
Grande has written a book about what it costs to leave home when you have no choice; the least those of us who have enjoyed that choice can do is read it all the way through and wrestle with some hard truths along the way.
Ann Marie Jackson is a book editor and the award-winning author of “The Broken Hummingbird.” She lives in San Miguel de Allende and can be reached through her website: annmariejacksonauthor.com.
