An Interpol red notice was issued after the death of 10 miners in El Pinabete, Coahuila last year. The bodies of the trapped miners have yet to be recovered. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
The owner of a Coahuila coal mine where 10 miners died last year has been arrested in Nuevo León on an illegal mining charge, the Federal Attorney General’s Office announced Thursday.
The miners became trapped in the El Pinabete mine in the municipality of Sabinas last August, when excavation work caused a tunnel wall to collapse. Efforts to rescue the miners failed, and their bodies remain underground almost 10 months after the accident occurred.
Despite intensive rescue efforts by an international team, the trapped miners could not be rescued. (Especial/Cuartoscuro)
The FGR said in a statement that Luis Rafael García Luna Acuña, the majority owner of the mine, had been ordered to stand trial on a charge of “unlawful exploitation of an asset that belongs to the nation.”
It said that the charge was related to the events that led to the miners becoming trapped on Aug. 3, 2022.
The FGR said that on May 18 it applied for and obtained a search warrant for a property in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, to complement a warrant issued for the arrest of García. The mine owner was subsequently arrested at the property.
The FGR said that a Coahuila-based federal judge who ordered García to stand trial set a period of one month and 15 days for prosecutors and defense lawyers to prepare their cases.
The suspect will remain in preventive detention in a Coahuila prison as he awaits trial.
Another owner of the El Pinabete mine, Cristian Eloir Solís Arriaga, was arrested on an illegal mining charge last September and remains in preventive detention.
Mexico will need to rely on migration to fill the gaps left by an aging population, says the World Bank. (Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
Mexico’s population is no longer growing and may soon need more foreign workers, the World Bank has said in its 2023 World Development report, entitled “Migrants, Refugees, and Societies.”
While the country’s population “is still relatively young,” the report says that it is aging rapidly. Its demographic pyramid “has begun to assume an inverted shape and is projected to become even more lopsided by 2050,” the report said.
While Mexico’s demographics remain relatively young, a slowdown in population growth means that there could be a shortage of workers by 2050. (Margarito Perez Retana/Cuartoscuro)
Traditionally a country with high levels of emigration, the report also notes that Mexico’s fertility rate has dropped to just above replacement levels.
According to the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (INEGI), in the last 70 years Mexico’s population has grown from 25.8 million in 1950 to 126 million in 2020. Between 2010 and 2020 alone, the population increased by 14 million inhabitants.
However, in 2020, Mexico’s population stopped growing and started to shrink. The World Bank expects it to decrease from 127 million in 2022 to 116 million by 2100.
With the world’s population becoming grayer at an unprecedented pace, many countries are “increasingly reliant on migration to realize their long-term growth potential,” the report says. This is especially true for wealthy and middle-income economies.
Mexico is an important part of the migrant route north to the United States.. (Cuartoscuro.com)
Many middle-income countries, traditionally the main sources of migration, will soon find themselves competing for foreign workers, a phenomenon already seen in Mexico, Thailand, Tunisia and Turkey, where populations have begun to shrink.
Wealthier nations like Germany, the United States and South Korea are already struggling to replace their aging populations.
Meanwhile, nations with lower average incomes, like Nigeria and the Sub-Saharan African countries, are expected to continue to grow in population, the report said, leading to higher levels of unemployment – already an issue for such nations.
For people in low- and middle-income countries, international migration has proved to be a powerful method of poverty reduction, the report says. When migrants’ skills and attributes strongly match the needs of their destination society, they can bring great benefits.
A new government work visa program, designed to aid in the completion of flagship projects, may help Mexico to capitalize on the number of migrants who travel through the country en route to the United States. (Moisés Pablo Nava/Cuartoscuro.com)
“Migration can be a powerful force for prosperity and development,” said World Bank Senior Managing Director Axel van Trotsenburg. “When it is managed properly, it provides benefits for all people — in origin and destination societies.”
Mexico is in a unique position, as an origin, destination and transit country for migrants. In recent years, the number of Central American migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has increased, and for most, crossing Mexico remains an essential part of that journey.
Not all migrants decide to continue on to the United States, and many choose to settle in other Latin American countries — with Mexico being a common destination.
This week, President López Obrador announced a program offering temporary work visas to immigrants from Central America, arguing that the government needs workers to complete a number of flagship infrastructure projects.
“We need a workforce for these projects, especially… skilled labor,” he said, while promising that migrants wouldn’t be taking job opportunities away from Mexicans. “Fortunately, there are jobs,” he said.
According to the World Bank, there are around 184 million migrants worldwide, representing 2.3% of the global population. Of these, 43% live in developing countries.
With places like Malaysia, Mexico, and Turkey becoming destination countries for migrants from lower-income economies in the same region, “policies will have to be adapted to these changing circumstances, thereby requiring a shift of perspective for policy makers and society at large.”
U.S Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo (left) and Mexico's Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro (right) at a recent meeting. (Economy Ministry/Twitter)
There have been 117 investments announced in Mexico by private companies so far this year, worth a total of US $48 billion, the Economy Ministry (SE) said.
Around US $30 billion of this will be invested throughout 2023, and the rest will be injected into Mexico’s economy over the next three years.
Mexico has benefited from investment fueled by “nearshoring” especially in automobile manufacturing, such as this Audi facility in Puebla. (Carlos Aranda/Unsplash)
Nearly US $30 billion will go to the manufacturing industry, US $15 billion to transport, US $2 billion to commerce and US $433 million to mining.
“This demonstrates Mexico’s competitive advantages: stability in its public finances and strength in its currency; social and political stability: a robust air, rail, sea and land infrastructure that connects us with the whole world; a young and skilled workforce; significant tax incentives; and the development of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises,” theSE said on Twitter.
By nationality, the United States leads the way in foreign investments in Mexico, accounting for more than US $30 billion of the total. Other countries in line behind the U.S. include, in order of rank, measured in U.S. dollars:
China, with US $3.7 billion
Argentina, with US $3.6 billion
Germany, with US $2.5 billion
Taiwan, with US $2 billion
Netherlands, with US $1.6 billion
Canada, with US $875 million
Belgium, with US $800 million
The USMCA trade agreement has helped Mexico to attract significant investment in 2023. Here, finance ministers from the three countries meet, with Mexican Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro on the left. (Twitter)
Excluding these two transactions, FDI in the first quarter of 2022 would be nearly 50% lower.
“The behavior observed in the first quarter of 2023 represents the confidence of investors to maintain and expand their investments in the country,” the SE said this week.
The main driver for this strong performance is likely to be companies’ “nearshoring” operations from Asia to the Americas — a trend that has been boosted by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
The trilateral free-trade agreement has particularly benefited Mexico’s automotive industry, which registered record FDI in the first quarter of 2023.
Archaeologist Erika Lucero Robles Cortés analyzes the remains of a crocodile. (Mirsa Islas)
Seeking to unravel some historical mysteries, archaeologist Erika Lucero Robles Cortés’ research into the remains of Mexica-era crocodiles has taken her in unexpected directions.
Robles was fascinated by the remains that late-20th-century excavators had found in the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlán, in what is now modern-day Mexico City. There have been 21 remains found within the site, along with eight pendants incorporating crocodile teeth, all dating back about 500 years.
Archaeological zone of the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlán in modern-day Mexico City. (Mirsa Islas)
The remains were unearthed in ritual deposits and offerings, as well as in a dignitary’s tomb.
In most cases, their skin had been painstakingly kept intact.
Robles has studied the crocodile’s significance in contemporaneous sources such as codices and has noted that the reptiles are not endemic to central Mexico. Their natural habitats in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean were hundreds of miles away from the Mexica (Aztec) capital.
“Airplanes, and all the ways of transport we have now, didn’t exist,” Robles said. “We can imagine it was very difficult to transport all the animals from other parts of the empire to the center of Mexico.”
Rain God Tlaloc on a crocodile in the Codex Borgia, an important 16th-century Mexica manuscript.
Yet, she added, “It was difficult but I suppose very important to the Mexica.”
For over a decade, Robles worked for the Templo Mayor Project as a researcher. She published her findings on crocodiles as a book in August 2022.
To research how and why the Mexica brought these large, dangerous reptiles to Tenochtitlán in pre-Hispanic times, Robles researched present-day crocodiles before branching into other fields, including biology. Her experiences included learning about how crocodiles are trapped and transported today.
Joining biologists for a catch-and-release expedition on the Banco Chinchorro island in Quintana Roo, she saw the species’ full range of size — from diminutive hatchlings to an awe-inspiring nearly nine-footer.
She even participated in a nighttime trapping journey, watching as the beady eyes of a massive reptile broke the surface of the water before it was captured.
Trying to catch a crocodile can be deadly for both the hunter and prey. As Robles wrote for the Harvard University publication ReVista in February, a roped crocodile can break free with enough force to dislocate a human arm, while a captured specimen can become so frightened that it suffers a lethal glycemic shock.
A crocodile sold as food in San Juan Market in Mexico City. (Michelle De Anda)
Another discovery came after she discussed crocodiles with a taxidermist in Tapachula, Chiapas, who happened to have hunted a relative of the species — the caiman — in the 1970s. As explained in the ReVista story, although the hunter and his colleagues used modern equipment such as shotguns, they killed smaller caimans with a blow to the head, leaving the pelt intact.
In her book, Robles marveled at the fact that a crocodile pelt from the Templo Mayor also had a pair of head wounds, one of which may have been the death blow.
“I think it was very difficult in the past,” Robles said. “If the person wanted a crocodile alive, they had to know about the behavior of the animal and different techniques of catching them.”
As for why it was so important to bring the animals to the Templo Mayor, she noted their significance in the Mexica’s cosmology and religion.
“The crocodile symbolized many things,” Robles said. “For example, its mouth represented the underworld. The plates all over the back represented the earth. Also, the crocodile represented the fertility of the earth.”
Their remains were placed in Aztec ritual deposits to represent the earth, joining other terrestrial or semi-terrestrial reptiles such as turtles and snakes.
The remains of a juvenile crocodile made as an offering to the gods. (Mirsa Islas)
She added that cipactli (thorny being), one of the Nahuatl names for the crocodile, is also the name of “the first day of the calendars of [peoples] in Mesoamerica. And so the animal is linked with the earth, with the underworld, with fertility, with the days in the calendar, with creation and also with water.”
Even today, Robles noted, “In many towns, the people think crocodiles can call the water, the rain.” She cited contemporary festivals in which residents dress as crocodiles to ask for rainfall and a festival in San Pedro Huamelula, Oaxaca, involving a symbolic marriage between the mayor and a reptile variously described as a crocodile, caiman or alligator.
Underscoring the crocodile’s continued significance, its body parts are sold in Mexican markets, sometimes for magical purposes — as Robles learned from visits to places like the Mercado Sonora in central Mexico City, famed for its sales of animal parts (and live animals) for rituals.
While these excursions deepened her knowledge, she had to go elsewhere to understand the skeletal composition of crocodile remains from the Templo Mayor. She mentioned the Tapachula taxidermist as among the helpful sources in this regard.
“I made many trips to … Tapachula [and] Quintana Roo to understand the animals’ behavior, techniques, [and] understand the bones,” Robles said. “I had the opportunity to go to a zoo in Toluca and another in Chiapas to know the animals. At the Toluca zoo, I had the opportunity to take a course about handling these animals.”
Robles captures a crocodile during a study project at Banco Chinchorro, Quintana Roo.
“All these things gave me another lens to understand these animals,” she said.
Rich Tenorio is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily.
"Gateway to the Underworld" is considered to be one of the most important pieces of pre-Columbian Olmec art. It has recently been returned from the United States. (INAH)
“Gateway to the Underworld” (Portal del Inframundo), one of Mexico’s most sought-after artifacts of Olmec culture, has been returned home after it was removed from Mexico more than 50 years ago.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard first shared news of the piece’s recovery in April.
The monumental piece, which depicts an earth monster, a recurrent theme in Olmec art, weighs more than 1 ton and measures approximately 1.8 meters high by 1.5 meters wide. The figure’s jaws, which are opened like the mouth of a cave, represent the entrance to the underworld.
Its return to Cuernavaca International Airport was the culmination of an 18-year search, Mexican officials told the Denver Post as the artifact was being loaded Friday onto a Mexican Air Force C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft in Denver.
It was stolen from Morelos decades ago under mysterious circumstances. According to archeologist David Grove — who published an article in 1968 on Olmec carvings at the Chilcatzingo archeological site in the journal American Antiquity — the artifact had been stripped from the site by then and was in the hands of a private collector Grove did not name.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York exhibited the work from July 1970 through February 1971 as part of its “Before Cortes” exhibition, according to a museum spokesperson cited by the Post. The spokesperson told the newspaper it had been on loan to the museum from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard welcomed the artifact back to Mexico at Cuernavaca Airport. (Marcelo Ebrard/Twitter)
Mexican officials told the Post a breakthrough in their search came when they approached the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office with evidence that it had been stolen from Mexico. The unit began an investigation, according to Alejandro Celorio, principal legal advisor for Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.
The unit eventually tracked down Monument 9 in Colorado, in a private collection, Mexican officials said. They declined to name the collectors.
“They got a settlement,” Consul General of Mexico in New York Jorge Islas López told the Post. “They’re super famous, super wealthy people.”
After the monument’s arrival in Cuernavaca, it was transferred to the Regional Museum of the Peoples of Morelos in the colonial-era Cortés Palace, where it will be displayed.
It was examined by the head of the National Coordination for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage María del Carmen Castro Barrera, restoration expert Ana Bertha Miramontes Mercado and archeologists Mario Córdova and Carolina Meza, who reported that the artifact “is in a stable condition of conservation and was not affected during its transfer to Mexico.”
In a ceremony led by the head of the National Institute of Archeology and History (INAH) Diego Prieto Hernández on Thursday morning, Monument 9 was officially delivered to the people of Morelos.
“Gateway to the Underworld,” now back home in Morelos, will be exhibited permanently at the Regional Museum of the Peoples of Morelos in Cuernavaca. (Margarita Pérez Retana/Cuartoscuro)
The piece is now properly assembled and will be exhibited at the museum, INAH said.
Since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in 2018, the Government of Mexico has recovered more than 11,500 pieces considered to be part of the country’s national heritage. The government has battled auctioneers in cities ranging from New York to Paris to Rome, where Mexico’s stolen history has been put up for sale.
The value of Mexico's non-oil exports only showed a 0.2% decline compared to the same month in 2022, but the value of oil exports fell 32.8%. Depositphotos
The value of Mexico’s exports declined 2.9% in April compared to the same month of 2022, the national statistics agency INEGI reported Thursday.
On a more positive note, the value of exports in the first four months of the year increased 4.2% to US $187.3 billion.
Automotive manufacturing exports brought in US $12.9 billion in April, which is a 2.7% decline compared to the same month last year. (Gob MX)
INEGI published preliminary data that showed that exports were worth US $46.22 billion last month, with over 90% of that amount coming from non-oil products.
Preliminary data showed that the value of oil exports fell 32.8% last month to US $2.62 billion, while the decline in revenue generated by non-oil exports was just 0.2%.
The drop in the value of oil exports was largely caused by an annual decrease in Mexican crude prices. The newspaper El Economista reported that the average price for a barrel of export-grade Mexican crude in April was US $69.32, compared to US $102.05 in the same month last year.
The value of oil exports has declined due to falling prices for exported Mexican crude. (Jaochainoi/Istock)
INEGI said that the value of non-oil exports sent to the United States actually increased 0.3% annually in April, but revenue from shipments of such products to the rest of the world declined 2.7%.
Mexico has benefited from strong demand for manufactured goods in the United States as well as the relocation of companies that make those products for sale in that market, a growing phenomenon known as nearshoring.
Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis at the Mexican bank Banco Base, said that the decline in exports in April was expected due to to a slowing U.S. economy.
Manufactured goods brought in the lion’s share of Mexico’s export revenue last month. The value of non-automotive manufactured goods rose 0.8% to US $27.81 billion. Automotive exports were worth US $12.9 billion, but their value declined 2.7% annually.
Agricultural exports fell 2.9% to US $2.04 billion, while mining exports increased 18.1% to US $860 million.
Preliminary data also showed that imports to Mexico fell in April, dropping 3.3% to US $47.73 billion.
The newspaper El Financiero reported that it was the first decline in imports since February 2021 and “could be a sign of weakness in the internal economy.”
Non-oil imports actually increased 0.1% in April, but that was the weakest growth in over two years. Oil imports fell 27.5%, the biggest drop since January 2021.
INEGI’s data also showed that Mexico recorded a trade deficit of US $1.51 billion in April, and a deficit of US $6.3 billion in the first four months of the year.
Marco Aurelio Ramírez Hernández was a veteran crime reporter for El Heraldo de Mexico newspaper and other media outlets. (Internet)
A reporter who covered crime for decades was shot and killed in Tehuacán, Puebla, on Tuesday, becoming the third journalist to be murdered in Mexico this year.
Marco Aurelio Ramírez Hernández, who also worked as a lawyer and served for a brief period as an official in the Tehuacán municipal government, was gunned down early Tuesday afternoon while driving, shortly after leaving his home.
The 69-year-old, who worked for various media outlets during a 50-year career in journalism, was reportedly shot multiple times by a single gunman in another vehicle. Ramírez’s car came to a halt when it veered off the road and crashed into a tree.
The veteran journalist, who sustained a gunshot wound to his chest, was dead when police and paramedics arrived on the scene. The motive for the murder hasn’t been established.
The Puebla Attorney General’s Office said on Twitter that it has begun an investigation and pledged to carry it out “promptly and effectively.”
The Mexico office of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for a “swift and transparent investigation” to determine “whether the homicide was related to his work as a municipal official or to his practice of journalism.”
Ramírez, left, in younger days with fellow Mexican journalist Sergio Vicke. (Marco Aurelio Ramírez Hernández /Facebook)
According to the Tehuacán journalist Juan Gámez, Ramírez received threats while working as the general director of the municipal government under mayor Felipe Patjane, who is currently serving a six-year prison sentence on an abuse of authority conviction.
“He knew perfectly well where the crime hotspots in Tehuacán were. He wanted to contribute to improve security, but he ran into reality, threats started and he quit [in 2019],” Gámez said.
Patricia Flores, another journalist, noted that several high-ranking members of the Bigotonas crime gang were arrested in Tehuacán while Ramírez was working in the municipal government.
Gámez noted that Ramírez had a talent for crime writing from the beginning of his career in journalism, an industry he was born into because his father founded the Tehuacán newspaper El Cuarto Poder.
“We learnt the trade from our respective fathers,” said Gámez, whose father founded a rival local newspaper called La Escoba.
“… We grew up amid the smell of ink and paper. The instruction we both received was ‘the truth above all else.'”
Fellow Tehuacán journalist Juan Gámez recalled that Ramírez grew up surrounded by journalism: his father founded the newspaper El Cuarto Poder. (Marco Aurelio Ramírez Hernandez/Facebook)
Although he also worked as a lawyer and in local government, journalism was Ramírez’s greatest passion, Flores said. He wrote for newspapers such as El Heraldo de México and Periódico Central and more recently contributed to a radio program.
His slaying on Tuesday was the first murder of a journalist in Tehuacán since Adrián Silva was killed in 2012, the newspaper El País reported. No one has been arrested in connection with that crime.
Two other journalists have been killed in 2023, one in Hidalgo in February and another in Guerrero in May. At least 17 journalists were murdered in Mexico last year, making the country the most dangerous for media workers in 2022 ahead of Ukraine and Haiti, according to UNESCO.
According to RSF, over 150 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 2000, and most of those crimes have gone unpunished.
Reverend Kochi Todaka first moved to Mexico for a business expansion project in 1971, but found his true calling in expanding consciousness.
The first time I saw Rev. Kochi Todaka, he was sitting on a raised platform in the auditorium of the Nikkei-Kai Association of Guadalajara.
In a low melodic voice, he intoned Buddhist sutras as members of the audience walked forward and lit sticks of incense in memory of their dead loved ones. It was August of 2022, and I had been invited to attend what was dubbed the “Japanese Day of the Dead” by the Nikkei Center’s president Francisco Kobayashi.
Reverend Todaka gives a class on Buddhist philosophy and meditation at Alba Edison University in Puebla, Mexico.
Todaka, who serves as a reverend for a Buddhist temple in Mexico City, is often called upon to travel between Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara, where the country’s largest Japanese-Mexican communities reside. He performs Buddhist “mass” (as he calls it), weddings, funerals and services like the one for Day of the Dead.
Most of the communities he serves are the descendants of immigrants who were forced away from Mexico’s borders and ports under pressure from the United States government during World War II. Like in the U.S., Japanese immigrants in Mexico had their property and possessions taken from them and were obligated to establish themselves in major cities like Guadalajara and Mexico City. Thriving communities of families still exist in both cities, and many maintain the ancient customs that their ancestors brought with them to Mexico.
“Not all of them are Buddhist,” Todaka tells me one afternoon as we sit in the garden of the Eko Ji temple in Mexico City’s Nápoles neighborhood. “For them, it’s more about respecting their ancestors, which is very important in Mexico. It’s also about checking in with the community, seeing how people are doing that you haven’t seen in a while.”
Rev. Todaka is 78 years old. His stick-straight hair and beard are streaked with gray, and his Spanish is still heavily laced with a Japanese accent. His speech holds pauses intermingled with bubbling laughter when he says something that amuses him.
He has been serving as the reverend of the Eko Ji temple since 2004.
The Nikkei-Kai Association of Guadalajara’s celebration of “Japanese Day of the Dead.”
Rev. Todaka arrived in Mexico in 1971, sent by the Japanese company he worked for that owned and operated ice factories and constructed industrial refrigerators for commercial fishing vessels. They were looking to expand their foreign market, and Todaka — being a project-oriented person — was right for the job. In 1976, his company wanted to transfer him to Chile or Cuba — two countries he felt were risky at the time — so he quit.
Already married to a young Mexican woman named Maria Guadalupe, Todaka stayed in Mexico. A few years later, he was offered a job with Mitutoyo, a Japanese company now famous for the development of extremely exact measuring equipment.
The company was founded by Yehan Numata, the third son of a priest of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism, one of the 13 main Buddhist sects in Japan. Numata traveled to the United States at the turn of the century to do missionary work and was passionate about the promotion of the Buddha’s teachings. After several failures to start a temple in San Francisco (he graduated with a degree in Economics from Berkeley College), he decided to start his own company in 1934.
“He realized that without money, he wouldn’t be able to spread the word of the Buddha,” Says Rev. Todaka, “and he didn’t want to be bothering donors all the time.”
Reverend Todaka with members of the Eko Ji temple in Mexico City.
Mitutoyo gave Todaka a job in 1980, and in 1985 they founded the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai de México, a regional arm of their organization dedicated to the teachings of Buddha. It would eventually found the Mexico City temple.
At first, they brought Buddhist ministers from Japan to serve at the temple. Later, they started looking for someone local, and Todaka decided that he would study to be a minister.
“Since I was 3 or 4 years old, I was very attracted to nature, and Buddhism is very nature-based. There is no god, no powerful being, no myth about who created the world in Buddhism; all is just cause and effect; the rest isn’t important. You are born, grow, live, age and die; it’s all part of a natural cycle.”
From 1997 to 2001, Todaka studied through a correspondence course and spent a month each year in Kyoto, eventually graduating with a degree in ministry and teaching in the Jodo Shinshu tradition of Buddhism. In 2004, he took over leadership of the Mexico City Eko Ji temple.
“I can’t give you advice because I don’t know you,” he says about his role as reverend. “I feel very irresponsible telling people what to do. Only through my own experience can I say, this is what happened to me. Not ‘do it this way.’ It’s your choice, and if you have any doubts, I am here for you.”
The teachings of the Buddha form the core of the temple’s activities. Todaka explains that their temple doesn’t pick and choose sutras, or scriptures, as do some sects of Buddhism. Rather, they provide all the Buddha’s teachings to their community at the temple. There are kids’ activities, yoga and martial arts classes but all with a spiritual foundation.
Incoming reverend Shaku Bokusho tells the story of Dr. Ota, one of the first immigrants from Japan to arrive in Chiapas, Mexico.
Todaka brings me the 577-page teachings of the Buddha in Spanish and English. Learning is like medicine, he tells me: you have to actually take it for it to make a change.
But the reverend also makes it clear that he doesn’t think everyone is a worthy case for instruction. As opposed to other religions, he tells me, Buddhists don’t hold out hope for everyone.
“Delinquents, for example. I don’t go and teach in jails,” he says. “They are not ready, they don’t have the capacity. How many people are alive today? 8 billion? You have to choose wisely who to teach.”
“Of 100 students that are learning something, it depends on each individual, how they learn and if they are interested,” he says. “If your heart isn’t prepared, you’ll never learn.”
I ask him about the recent controversy surrounding the Dalai Lama and his inappropriate remarks to a young boy at one of his events.
“It worries me a little that Mexicans see him as the father of Buddhism, which is not true,” he says. “[His is] a Tibetan sect, and they are very particular, mixed with the Tibetan religion that believes in the reincarnation of the Buddha. In the teachings of Buddha, there is no reincarnation.”
The Eko Ji temple has been shuttered for the past year and a half due to problems with the local city government over the building’s renovation. Last year, as a way to keep the community engaged, the temple leaders opened a cafe next door where diners could get a taste of Buddhist cooking as well as sit in the beautiful backyard where we are chatting on this Friday afternoon.
To minister Shaku Bokusho, promoting Buddhism is about more than just getting people to practice it. “Our goal is world peace, and the teachings of the Buddha are meant to end suffering,” she says.
Todaka is particularly fond of wild forests, and this garden suits him just right. Lush and overflowing, it has birds that trill in the top branches and bees that buzz around the flowers below. There is little intervention in the garden’s design, and endemic plants grow wild.
By spring, the cherry blossom tree will drip heavily with pink petals just like its ancestors in Japan. Hopefully, by then, the temple will be open and running once again. Rev. Todaka will have retired by that time, and a new reverend, Shaku Bokusho, will have taken over everyday operations.
“We promote Buddhism for more [reasons] than just to do it,” says Bokusho when we talk later on the phone. “Our goal is world peace, and the teachings of the Buddha are meant to end suffering. There is suffering because there is ego.
“But when something comes along that’s different from what we know, we all have our own prejudices; that’s what causes war between countries and people.”
In order to circumvent people’s prejudices, she says, their mission and activities are two-pronged. The Temple Eko Ji is the religious side of their organization, and the Eko Ji Cultural Center is the civic side. Through activities like Buddhist cooking classes, traditional dance workshops, martial arts, Japanese calligraphy, yoga and meditation, Bokusho says, they promote acceptance of diversity.
“Through these cultural activities, we believe it’s easier to create mutual understanding,” says Bokusho.
She has been working with the temple since 2019 when she was sought out by Todaka to replace him as minister. Now, with her at the helm, Todaka has no anxiety about letting go of his post after nearly 20 years.
“I always think that whatever day I am having is the best day. Like right now, here talking to you, that’s the best moment I could be having,” he says.
I ask him what he will do after retiring.
“I want to start a museum with my collection,” he says and pulls out his phone to show me photos of the multicolored butterflies that he has collected in the southern forests of Mexico, as well as in Ecuador, Peru and Panama.
Bugs are his passion, he tells me, but Buddhism has shaped his life.
Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of Mexico City Streets: La Roma. Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at www.mexicocitystreets.com.
The pipeline explosion occurred at the presumed site of an illegal tap of a Pemex pipeline near the municipality of Polotitlán. (Cuartoscuro)
Seven people have been reported injured after a state oil company pipeline exploded in México state on Wednesday afternoon.
The blast occurred at the presumed site of an illegal tap on a Pemex gas pipeline in Polotitlán, a municipality in northern México state that borders both Querétaro and Hidalgo.
Emergency response team at the site of the explosion. (Secretaría de Salud del Edo de México/Twitter)
Polotitlán Mayor Teresa Sánchez Bárcena said that three of the seven people injured are local Civil Protection personnel who responded to the explosion. The victims suffered burns and were taken to a local hospital, according to municipal authorities.
Video footage showed large flames and thick clouds of black smoke emanating from the pipeline.
Sánchez said in a video message that residents of the communities of El Tesoro, where the explosion occurred, and Celayita had evacuated. Shelters were set up to accommodate those with nowhere to go.
Sánchez said that authorities of all three levels of government responded to the explosion and that the situation was being brought under control.
La explosión de un ducto de Pemex ubicado en la comunidad denominada El Tesoro en Polotitlán Estado de arrojó un saldo de 7 personas lesionadas por quemaduras de acuerdo a los primeros informes de fuentes en el lugar se realizaba robo de combustible. pic.twitter.com/QX1gDFxPwV
Shein is currently expanding into new markets as part of a localization strategy. Reuters has reported the company is looking to build a factory in Mexico. (Shein)
The Chinese fast-fashion online retailer Shein, based in Singapore, is considering opening a factory in Mexico, according to Reuters.
The move is part of the giant e-retailer’s plans to localize production closer to points of sale and follows a recent statement by the company that it plans to build a manufacturing network in Brazil.
Mexico already has a large garment manufacturing industry, worth US $4.3 billion in exports in 2021, according to Statista. (Cuartoscuro.com)
Reuters quoted sources familiar with the matter who said that a final location for the factory site has not yet been decided.
Founded in China in 2008, Shein manufactures most of its products there. It sells inexpensive apparel and other items (US $5-$10 dresses and tops, for example), targeting the Gen-Z demographic. It has taken market share from other low-cost fashion retailers like H&M and Zara, and is now considered one of the biggest online fashion retailers in the world.
Shein will use funds from its recent US $2 billion capital raise from investors including Mubadala and Sequoia China for the expansion. One source added that despite a valuation cut to US $66 billion in its latest funding round, the retailer still posts annual revenue growth of 40%.
In an emailed statement, Shein declined to comment on the alleged move to Mexico but said it is committed to localization as it expands to new markets.
Shein has been accused of plagiarism by artisanal Mexican designers, shown on the right here, with Shein design in the background. (YucaChulas)
“Shein’s localization strategy allows us to shorten delivery times to customers while expanding product variety and supporting local economies,” chairman of Shein Latin America Marcelo Claure said in the statement.
Shein is “continuing to explore nearshoring options,” he added.
In Brazil, Shein has recently offered an online marketplace platform that allows third-party merchants to sell their products through the Shein app and website. The company plans to launch a similar marketplace in the United States before rolling the functionality out worldwide. According to sources, the Mexican factory would not house items from third-party vendors.
Claure confirmed that Shein is considering bringing “its marketplace model to other markets across Latin America.”
Shein has faced criticism in markets including India, Brazil and the U.S. for its supply-chain links in China. As the company eyes an initial public offering (IPO) in the U.S. for next year, its environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns could be an obstacle, reported Bloomberg in 2022.
A bipartisan group of two dozen U.S. representatives called on the Securities and Exchange Commission in May to halt Shein’s IPO until the company verifies it does not use forced labor; in April, a U.S. federal commission reported that Shein sourced cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, which is banned in the U.S. due to ties with Uyghur forced labor.
The Uyghur and other religious minorities in China have been persecuted by the government in the Xinjiang region since 2017, according to Human Rights Watch. Beijing denies any rights abuses and Shein denies shipping from the Xinjiang region.
Shein has previously said that it has “zero tolerance” for forced labor and requires suppliers to follow the International Labor Organization’s core conventions.
