Whether they are loom weavers, rebozo makers, ikat technique practitioners, cotton dyers or clothing designers, Mexico's textile artisans are admired worldwide. (Google Arts & Culture)
Mexico’s federal government and Google are turning a national textile fair into a year-round digital showcase, using a new edition of “Tejidos de México” to spotlight artisans and their work.
The “Tejidos de México” project — hosted on Google Arts & Culture as part of the broader Crafted in Mexico initiative — brings together 32 short photo-and-video stories about artisans from six states.
Colorful, intricately patterned and rich in tradition, crafted dresses are so connected to the culture that ordinary people around the world who see one are likely to say immediately, “That’s Mexico!” (@ccurieldeicaza/X)
Though the name of the online exhibit translates literally to “Textiles of Mexico,” it is billed in English as “Crafted in Mexico: Empowering stories of Mexico’s craft history, culture and communities.”
It walks viewers through techniques such as loom weaving, natural dyeing and resist-dye patterns, while tying those processes to family histories, community leadership and local economies.
The artisans featured are from Coahuila, México state, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Querétaro and Tlaxcala.
The collection focuses on creators linked to “Original, the Mexican Textile Art Encounter,” a major event organized by Mexico’s Ministry of Culture that brings together artisans from across the country to showcase and sell traditional textiles, promote fair trade and prevent plagiarism.
Held in late November, it gathers more than 400 master artisans from all 31 Mexican states and Mexico City.
The event was framed as a celebration of traditional textiles and live music.
Culture officials describe “Tejidos de México” as both documentation and economic strategy.
The online platform is designed to promote manual labor, collective ownership and fairer relationships between the fashion and design industries and the communities that safeguard cultural heritage.
El tejido colectivo: 50 mujeres, un corazón
In practice, that means framing each profile around named artisans and collectives and pointing audiences toward ways to support their work under conditions officials say are more equitable.
The stories feature figures such as rebozo weaver Camelia Ramos Zamora (Malinalco, México state), who maintains a family workshop; weaver Crescencio Tlilayatzi Xochitemol (Santa María Tlacatecpac, Tlaxcala), who preserves an intricate ikat technique that can take months per piece; doll maker Josefina Pascual Cayetano (Amealco de Bonfil, Querétaro), who helped her collective, Artesanas Döngu, rethink the way in which Otomí dolls were valued in order to recognize the true price of their time and craft; and Verónica Lorenzo Quiroz (San Juan Colorado, Oaxaca), who grows and dyes native coyuchi cotton.
Officials say the collaboration also includes training in social media and digital commerce and is expected to expand to more artisans in future editions.
Sharp increases in the minimum wage, totaling 135% since 2018, have helped Mexico reduce its poverty rate more than any other Latin American country. (Félix Márquez/Cuartoscuro)
Mexico leads Latin America in poverty reduction, owing primarily to recent increases in the minimum wage, according to a newly released United Nations report.
The U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) states in its annual report that Mexico finished 2024 with its population living in poverty reduced by 3.1 percentage points.
Mexicans whose jobs are at the low end of the pay scale have been earning a little more in recent years, helping nudge Mexico’s poverty rate down. Inequality, however, remains a major problem, as 10% of Mexico’s population controls one-third of the national income, while the poorest 10% receive just 2%. (Edgar Negrete Lira/Cuartoscuro)
“Two of those percentage points can be explained largely by the sharp increase in the minimum wage, which was around 135% in real terms between 2018 and 2025,” said ECLAC’s executive secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, during the Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2025 presentation.
Poverty rates fell last year in Latin America as a whole as well, which the ECLAC report attributes mainly (60%) to Mexico’s performance and to a lesser extent (30%) to Brazil’s.
Inequality remains a major concern in Mexico and throughout Latin America despite a 14% fall in economic inequality in Mexico over the last decade. According to the report, 10% of Mexico’s population continues to control one-third of the national income, while the poorest 10% receive just 2% of the income.
Mexico’s Gini coefficient — an indicator that measures inequality and social deprivation —decreased from 0.50 to 0.43 during the period, although there are fears that this trend could stall due to the current challenges facing the global economy.
Poverty in Latin America: Down but not nearly out
Around 25.5% of the Latin American population (162 million people) lived in income poverty in 2024, which was 2.2 percentage points lower than in 2023 and the lowest figure since comparable data has been available, according to ECLAC.
Meanwhile, extreme poverty affected 9.8% of the population (62 million people), marking a decrease of 0.8 percentage points compared to 2023. However, these levels are 2.1 points higher than those recorded in 2014.
There has been a decrease in multidimensional poverty — which includes non-income factors such as health and education — from 34.4% of the Latin American population in 2014 to 20.9% in 2024, largely owing to improvements in housing and services.
Yet Latin America and the Caribbean region continue to experience the second-highest level of economic inequality in the world, after Sub-Saharan Africa, despite the gradual decrease in inequality in recent years.
Across the region, the richest 10% hold 34.2% of total income, while the poorest 10% receive just 1.7%.
“More comprehensive measurements, which incorporate information from surveys, tax records, and national accounts, suggest that inequality is even greater: the share of the richest 10% would exceed 50% of total income on average in the region,” Salazar-Xirinachs said.
Several challenges persist in further reducing inequality. For example, in 2023, 28% of the Latin American population aged 20 to 24 had not completed secondary school. Meanwhile, 47% of the region’s employed population was working on an informal basis.
ECLAC has offered the following suggestions for reducing inequality and poverty in Latin America:
Free universal secondary education, implementing inclusion policies for disadvantaged groups and strengthening the role of teachers
Formalizing the labor market by creating quality jobs
Advancing gender equality to increase young women’s participation in the job market
Introducing policies to increase the participation in the workforce of people with disabilities, Indigenous populations and migrants
In a rare public appearance, former president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador posted a video to announce his new book, which he said would recast history to recognize the Indigenous as generators of Mexican culture. (YouTube)
In his first public address since leaving office in October 2024, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador presented his latest book, “Grandeza” (“Greatness”), in which he proposes a reinterpretation of Mexico’s cultural history.
In a video posted on his social media accounts, López Obrador explained that the book constitutes the first part of a larger publishing project, based on what he calls “the twin pillars of Mexican humanism.”
“Grandeza” (“Greatness”) is the first part of a larger publishing project, based on what its author calls “the twin pillars of Mexican humanism.” The next part (“Gloria”) explores Mexico’s political history. (YouTube)
“Grandeza” — which will be published by Planeta publishing house — focuses on the first pillar: Mexico’s rich cultural legacy.
López Obrador (AMLO) described his new book as a vindication of Mexico’s cultural richness from an Indigenous perspective.
“Thanks to the legacy of knowledge, values, customs, traditions and art [the Indigenous] left behind, Mexico, despite everything, continues to be a cultural power in the world,” he said.
López Obrador makes the argument that what we’ve been told about these civilizations is a “false, simulated history,” constructed from the vision of the conquerors and perpetuated by the oligarchies.
In “Grandeza,” the former president seeks to replace that traditional reading with a narrative that recognizes the greatness of Indigenous cultures, their relevance and their impact on national life.
“This book is the story of our cultures, of our civilizations,” he said. “The goal is to dismantle, to tear down the history created by the invaders and maintained during centuries of elite domination.”
AMLO’s announcement included a familiar critique of the Spanish conquistadores, and of Spain itself. “Greed and corruption,” he said, “were brought here by the Spanish.”
To illustrate the charge, he invoked a historical passage about Hernán Cortés to illustrate the difference between the Indigenous worldview and the mentality of the invaders who “simply came to plunder.” When Moctezuma gave gold to the conquistadors, they reacted “like monkeys,” López Obrador said. When asked why it mattered so much, Cortés is said to have responded: “We have a disease of the heart that can only be cured with gold.”
The former president is already working on “the second pillar of Mexican humanism,” which will be entitled “Gloria.” Scheduled for publication next year, the book will address Mexico’s political history.
American bison were once found in the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Durango, but are now considered an endangered species. (Fundación Pro Cuatrociénegas/Facebook)
Absent from the central Coahuila desert for 160 years, the American bison has returned to the region as part of a 25-year biodiversity conservation effort in northern Mexico.
This latest initiative — sponsored by the Pro Cuatro Ciénegas Foundation — aims to repopulate the valley, contribute to soil regeneration and rainwater retention and complete a cycle in the food chain that allows other species — such as the puma and the black bear — to thrive in these lands.
Bison — also referred to as “ecosystem engineers” — were once found in the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Durango, but are now considered an endangered species. The absence of the bison in Mexico’s northern region is primarily due to human impacts that occurred in the late 19th century: excessive hunting, agricultural and livestock expansion and habitat loss.
The Pro Cuatro Ciénegas Foundation considered the return of the large mammals known for their muscular build, humped shoulders and shaggy fur as a key step toward recovering ecological processes that had been interrupted.
“It’s not just about bringing in a charismatic animal,” said Pro Cuatrociénegas Foundation director Gerardo Ruiz Smith. “It’s about restoring critical ecosystem functions that no other species can perform.”
The return of the bison is important for the restoration of the great native grasslands of northern Mexico. Their capacity to capture CO2, equal to wetlands and boreal forests, helps restore grasslands, enhance biodiversity and shape the landscape.
The bison prune the grasses evenly, helping to increase the diversity of plants on the ground. They also assist with the regeneration of ecosystems by carrying seeds from one place to another in their digestive tract and defecating them.
Bison also contribute to the conservation of other species. Its considerable weight flattens the grassland in its path, an alteration that helps rodents such as the Mexican prairie dog, as short grass helps them keep watch for predators. The hair shed by the bison is used by birds for their nests.
The new arrivals were welcomed to their new home with a ceremony directed by the indigenous Ndé (commonly known as Apaches), who view the bison as a fundamental element of their worldview.
“The return of the bison is not only an ecological achievement; it reconnects the Ndé Nation with a brother that is part of our identity, our spirituality and our collective memory,” said Juan Luis Longoria, who is also the Director of Culture for the Pro Cuatrociénegas Foundation.
Longoria said the ceremony sought to bless the herd and give thanks for its return.
According to the National Defense Ministry, 135 people were detained in Michoacán between Nov. 10 and Nov. 28. (Juán José Estrada Serafín/Cuartoscuro)
The federal government’s efforts to pacify Michoacán with a new “peace and justice” plan are off to a positive start, with homicides declining significantly in November compared to the previous two months.
Wellbeing Minister Ariadna Montiel shared on Friday that a state-wide census of nearly 1.3 million homes is underway as part of Plan Michoacán. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
The plan — under which additional federal troops were deployed to Michoacán — was unveiled on Nov. 9, and has now been in effect for three weeks.
On Sunday, National Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla Trejo reported that there were 58 homicides in Michoacán between Nov. 1 and Nov. 28, representing a decline of almost 50% compared to the number of murders in each of September and October.
The reduction compared to the 111 homicides recorded in September is 47.7%, while the decline compared to the 108 murders in October is 46.3%.
Morelia and Uruapan, Michoacán’s two largest cities, are among the municipalities where homicides declined in November.
Morelia, the state capital, recorded 3 homicides between Nov. 1 and 28, a decline of 86% compared to the 22 murders registered across the month of October.
Uruapan, considered the world’s “avocado capital,” recorded eight homicides in the first 28 days of last month, a reduction of 60% compared to the 20 registered in October.
Trevilla noted that an additional 1,980 federal troops were deployed to Michoacán last month, bringing the total number of troops on the ground in the state to 10,506. He also highlighted that the federal government’s security operations in the state are supported by more than 1,000 military vehicles, five helicopters and 18 drones, among other equipment.
In addition, Trevilla said that the Mexican Army will provide more than 1,000 G3 rifles to the Michoacán state police, and 70 to police in Uruapan, where military engineers will build National Guard barracks.
During a national security press conference on Sunday, Trevilla announced that the Mexican Army will build a National Guard barracks in Uruapan. (Daniel Augusto/Cuartoscuro)
The defense minister said that the decision to build the new barracks came after a Nov. 13 meeting with Uruapan Mayor Grecia Quiroz — who replaced her husband as mayor after his assassination — and the municipality’s public security chief.
135 arrests in Michoacán since new plan took effect
Trevilla reported that 135 people were detained in Michoacán between Nov. 10 and Nov. 28.
Trevilla outlined a range of other results achieved by Plan Michoacán for Peace and Justice in the past three weeks. They included:
The seizure of 57 firearms and almost 7,000 cartridges.
The seizure of 444.5 kilograms of narcotics and 28,800 liters of “chemical substances intended for the production of synthetic drugs, mainly methamphetamine.”
The seizure of 110 vehicles and 89 improvised explosive devices.
The seizure of 629,055 pesos (US $34,445).
The destruction of “eight camps occupied by organized crime.”
More than 900 arrests in Michoacán for ‘high-impact’ crimes during Sheinbaum administration
Federal Security Minister Omar García Harfuch reported that 932 people have been arrested in Michoacán for “high-impact” crimes since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office on Oct. 1, 2024.
Among the offenses classified as high-impact crimes are murder, kidnapping, rape and extortion.
Federal Security Minister Omar García Harfuch leads a major crackdown on high-impact crimes in Mexico. (Daniel Augusto/Cuartoscuro)
García Harfuch also reported that almost 23 tonnes of drugs have been seized in Michoacán since Sheinbaum became president, while 924 firearms have been confiscated and 17 methamphetamine laboratories have been dismantled.
Beyond gun violence, extortion targeting producers of avocados, limes and other crops is a major problem in Michoacán, the hub of Mexico’s lucrative avocado industry. The state is also coveted by crime groups because precursor chemicals used to make synthetic drugs, including fentanyl, are illegally imported via the Lázaro Cárdenas port on the Pacific coast.
García Harfuch stressed that security in Michoacán is “a national priority.”
“We’re working with intelligence, coordination and zero impunity to recover peace in each municipality,” he wrote on social media on Sunday.
Sinaloa Cartel operative killed by navy
At Sunday’s press conference, Navy Minister Raymundo Morales announced that two members of the “Chapo Isidro” faction of the Sinaloa Cartel had been detained in Sinaloa.
Another alleged member of that faction, Pedro “El Pichón” Insunza Coronel, was killed by navy personnel during an anti-cartel operation in the northern state. On social media, García Harfuch wrote:
“In an operation led by the Navy Ministry, … properties and laboratories were located where weapons, vehicles, drugs and precursor chemicals were seized, and two operators of this criminal cell were detained. Upon attacking naval personnel, Pedro ‘N,’ Pichón, lost his life.”
Insunza, identified as a high-ranking operative in the Sinaloa Cartel faction led by Fausto Isidro Meza Flores (aka El Chapo Isidro), was wanted in the United States, along with his father, Pedro Inzunza Noriega.
En una operación encabezada por la Secretaría de Marina @SEMAR_mx mediante labores de investigación. Se ubicaron inmuebles y laboratorios donde se aseguraron, armas, vehículos, drogas, precursores químicos, se detuvieron a dos operadores de esta célula delictiva y al agredir al…
“Pedro Inzunza Noriega and his son, Pedro Inzunza Coronel, are charged with narco-terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering as key leaders of the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO), a powerful and violent faction of the Sinaloa Cartel that is believed to be the world’s largest known fentanyl production network,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in May.
It noted that an indictment against the two men was “the first in the nation to charge alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel with narco-terrorism and material support of terrorism in connection with trafficking massive amounts of fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin into the United States.”
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson acknowledged the death of Inzunza Coronel in a social media post.
“Congratulations to the Mexican Security Cabinet on their successful operation in Michoacán against the Sinaloa Cartel. Pedro ‘N’ (Pichón) was killed and two other cartel members were arrested in a major operation conducted by Mexican Naval Forces to seize illegal narcotics, vehicles, laboratories, weapons, and chemical precursors,” he wrote.
“Pichón was accused of multiple crimes in Mexico including murders, kidnappings, torture, and violent collection of drug debts. He was also wanted in the U.S. for multiple crimes.”
Christmas is a time of frequent feasting in Mexico. (Universidad Anáhuac Querétaro)
¡Feliz Navidad! This month, we’ve got a lineup of delicious Christmas dishes. It’s a time for warming atole or champurrado with crispy buñuelos. Crispy, creamy apple salads with your glazed ham lunch. In Mexico, traditional dishes you look forward to all year.
I asked three of my Mexican friends, “What is Christmas to you, in food?” The answers came thick and fast, with everyone sharing their favorites. No matter where in Mexico they came from, a few recipes were universally recognized, such as ponche. So, this month, I’m including my friends’ traditional favorites.
Harbinger of the season: A Christmas tree in downtown Guadalajara. (Cuartoscuro)
Romeritos Navideños
Very popular in central Mexico, this is my friend Sof’s favorite. It has been around since the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico, and is still a favorite of many a Mexican family today. Originally known as revoltijo (jumble), it’s a delicious, hearty stew everyone will love. It may seem like a lot of work, but it is worth it.
This recipe is made in three parts, but it is well worth the effort.
Ingredients:
Romeritos and mole sauce
3 cups of washed and dried romeritos (seepweed)
2 cups of baby potatoes, cooked, peeled and halved
1 ½ cups of cooked nopales, diced
⅔ cup of sun-dried shrimp (camarón seco)
1 cup mole poblano sauce (homemade or store-bought)
⅔ chicken broth to prepare the mole sauce
1 tablespoon of salt
Tortitas
4 large eggs
⅔ cup dried shrimp powder (camarón en polvo or camarón molido)
Oil for frying
Part 1 — making the romeritos and mole
Soak the dried shrimp in hot water for 20 minutes. While they soak, wash the romeritos and cover with water in a pot. Bring to a boil, then remove from the stovetop to prevent further cooking. Drain in a colander.
Mix the mole and two cups of chicken broth in a large saucepan to form a paste. Cook on medium heat until the fat floats to the surface. Then reduce the heat and simmer until it’s a nice paste, not too runny, as the romeritos will release more liquid while cooking.
Romeritos navideños are a seasonal favorite in Mexico. (Mexico in My Kitchen)
Part 2 – making the shrimp patties
Heat the oil over medium heat. While it’s heating, use an electric mixer to whip the egg whites into stiff peaks. Add in the egg yolks and gently mix. When mixed, add in the shrimp powder and fold through.
Place a large spoonful of the mixture into the hot oil to form the patties. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side until lightly golden, then place on a paper towel to drain.
Part 3 – assembling the main dish
Drain the soaking shrimp. Remove skin, heads and tails, and add them to the pot with the mole. Add in the potatoes, nopales and romeritos, and mix. Simmer together for about 10 minutes to allow the flavors to combine.
Serve on a plate with two to three shrimp patties on the side.
Bacalao (salted cod)
This exquisite blend of flavors is my friend Renata’s favorite. Her family makes it every year and has done so for generations. It’s better the next day, so you may want to make this one on Christmas Eve for serving on Christmas Day. Plus, the cod needs hours to soak, so it’s easier that way. Or if you want to make it on Christmas, you can soak the cod for eight hours overnight, making it nice and tender.
Ingredients:
¼ cup olive oil
1 ½ pounds (lbs) of salted cod
1 large onion, sliced
2 lbs of tomatoes
1 pound of small potatoes
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 red peppers, roasted and cut into strips
1 cup parsley, chopped
¾ cup pitted olives
6 pickled guëro peppers (banana peppers) — jalapeños are fine if you can’t find guëros
⅓ cup raisins
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
1 ½ teaspoons of dried Mexican oregano
Salt and pepper to taste — remember the cod came salted, so taste the sauce before adding more salt.
Bacalao, or salted cod, is a Christmas favorite in Mexico. (Gobierno de Mexico)
Soak and prepare the cod
Cover the cod in water and rinse three times. On the third rinse, the water should be clear. Leave it to soak in this water for six to eight hours. Once soaked, it will be tender. Drain and add to a pot, then cover in clean, cold water. Simmer over medium heat until tender, about seven minutes.
Drain and set aside. Keep some of the cooking liquid to add to the sauce later.
Tomato sauce
Roast the tomatoes on a hot griddle for about 10 minutes while the fish is cooling. Once the tomatoes are roasted, add them to a blender and process until smooth. Then pour through a sieve to remove excess seeds.
Once the fish is cool enough to handle, shred it finely.
Make the bacalao
Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Sauteé the onion until translucent, then add garlic and cook for a couple of more minutes. Pour in the tomato sauce and simmer for five to seven minutes to allow the flavors to infuse.
Add the shredded cod, and once it’s simmering again, slowly add the olives, raisins and capers. Cook for a few minutes so that the flavors blend, then add the potatoes.
Bring back up to simmering, then add the peppers, oregano and parsley, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Remember to taste the sauce first; it may not need any more salt. Simmer for 10–15 minutes until the sauce thickens.
Serve and enjoy!
Mexican Apple Salad
Fresh yellow apples and other fruits, plus heavy cream, are the stars of this holiday favorite. (Gobierno de Mexico)
Along with the delicious Christmas punch known as ponche, this is my friend Ana’s favorite. A heavenly mix of fruits and cream, it is an eagerly anticipated holiday delight. This recipe has been passed down from Renata’s abuela to her aunt, who shared it with me. Something I’m very grateful for!
Ingredients:
8 yellow apples, cut into small cubes
1 can of pineapple in syrup, cut into small cubes
1 can of peaches in syrup, cut into small cubes
Pecans, chopped (or your preferred nut)
500 milliliters heavy cream (crema para batir)
Red cherries, sliced (optional)
White/yellow raisins (optional)
Peeled, seedless grapes (optional)
Make the salad
Combine apples, drained peaches and pineapple cubes (save the syrup of each) in a large bowl. Add the nuts.
Mix cream with two tablespoons of syrup from the canned fruits. Stir into the fruit mixture, along with any optional add-ins you’d like, adjusting the syrup for desired creaminess.
Chill for three to four hours before serving.
¡Feliz Navidad y Buen Provecho!
Mexico Correspondent for International Living, Bel is an experienced writer, author, photographer and videographer with 500+ articles published both in print and across digital platforms. Living in the Mexican Caribbean for over 7 years now, she’s in love with Mexico and has no plans to go anywhere anytime soon.
Astrophotographers, get ready! The year’s final full moon before the winter solstice is just around the corner — and December opens in Mexico City with a supermoon! (Jesús Toledo/Pexels)
As a child, one of my favorite things about the last months of the year was watching the moon from the segundo piso in Anillo Periférico. “December moons are the most beautiful of the year,” my father used to tell me. And he was right about that.
I remember clearly coming back from dining at my grandma’s and being absolutely taken aback by the moon’s enormous, copper face on a December night. I even thought it was a big light bulb, and was moved when I realized it was actually the moon, peeking from behind skyscrapers and billboards. It was as if we were playing catch with her, racing away across Periférico.
During supermoon season, the full moon tends to be around 14% brighter than on ordinary nights. (Andrea Hinojosa/Pexels)
Little did I know back then that what I was seeing in Mexico City’s night sky was a supermoon. Over 15 years later, capital dwellers will experience the exact same phenomenon this December! Here’s everything you need to know about the 2025 supermoon in Mexico City, and some tips to enjoy your astronomical observation to the fullest this year.
What is a supermoon and is it a rare phenomenon?
A supermoon is not a common occurrence in the night sky. According to NASA, this phenomenon happens “when the moon’s orbit is closest to Earth (known as perigee) at the same time as a full moon.” This explains why these full moons appear larger from Earth’s perspective. It looks that way because it’s closer to us.
Not only does it look bigger, but it’s also more brilliant. The brightness of a supermoon is 14% greater than that of an average full moon, according to NASA’s records. Even during Mexico City’s misty December nights, this is a sight to be seen. The best part is, you don’t need any specialized equipment to get a glimpse of it this month!
When to watch December’s supermoon from Mexico City
Observation platform StarWalk’scalculations estimate that the December supermoon will be visible to the naked eye from anywhere in the country. So save the date! The night of December 4, however, will be a spectacular one for Mexico’s night skies.
The supermoon will begin at 11:14 p.m. GMT, or 5:14 p.m. in Mexico City. It will reach its peak around 9 p.m., the ideal moment to undertake astrophotography endeavors. However, there are some obstacles that observers from the capital might encounter that night.
Clouds and storms are a supermoon’s worst enemy — and light pollution, of course. (Fernando Paleta/Pexels)
Supermoon obstacles
First and foremost, the fact that Mexico City suffers from terrible light pollution is a result of “the inefficient, unnecessary and extreme use of artificial light sources,” per the Institute of Astronomy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). This makes it practically impossible to see the Milky Way — or any stars, really — from my chaotic hometown.
Second, the fact that 2025 has been an extremely rainy year. We even had therainiest summer in decades! Given that we have had some heavy clouds in the afternoons recently, it would be a shame — yet, very possible — that a stormy night might interfere with the observation of the supermoon.
If we do get a rainy night on December 4, however, do not worry. There are several alternatives for a clear and safe observation. First, UNAM and NASA usually broadcast supermoons from their official social media accounts. You can join the observation journey online at any time that day.
The other option is to simply wait until the storm ends. Usually, supermoons are most beautiful at dawn the next day.
So, if you’re an early bird like me — and lucky enough to get a clear morning — you’ll get to feast your eyes on the supermoon’s last glows around 5 a.m. on December 5. Nothing beats seeing the full moon with the sky in soft, pink hues in the background.
Whales from around the world are flocking to watch humans in their natural habitat, as "human season" is officially opened in Baja California Sur.
BAJA CALIFORNIA COASTLINE — From now until April, thousands of adult humans will gather along fluorescent-lit office cubicles, open-plan coworking reefs, and suburban strip-mall habitats of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, providing bored whales with unparalleled opportunities to observe the strange primates in their natural environment.
Migration and mating habits
Every November, humans return from remote “work-from-home” feeding grounds to congregate in dense herds near printers, coffee machines, and malfunctioning conference-room projectors. They will remain there through the cold months, engaging in complex rituals such as “budget season” and “Q1 strategic alignment,” before fleeing to warmer leisure waters with the first hint of spring PTO.
Marine biologists report that adult humans use this season to perform elaborate mating displays, including “Secret Santa,” “ugly sweater contests,” and loudly explaining cryptocurrency at holiday parties. Dominant males are often identified by their willingness to speak for 47 minutes in meetings that could have been an email, while dominant females can be seen effortlessly managing three projects, two children, and one collapsing civilization at once.
Responsible human-watching guidelines
To protect this fragile, emotionally unstable species, authorities have issued strict guidelines for visiting whales observing humans from offshore glass-bottom boats.
Do not remain in the viewing zone (open-plan office) for more than 30 minutes, as prolonged exposure to corporate jargon may cause disorientation, nausea, or sudden desire to purchase a standing desk.
Avoid surrounding or chasing solitary humans attempting to eat lunch alone; this is a critical “doomscrolling and microwaving leftovers” behavior necessary for the species’ mental health.
Do not attempt to feed humans, especially with unsolicited diet advice, multilevel marketing schemes, or links to their own company’s press releases.
Experts also emphasize respecting the humans’ right to rest, especially new parents and junior staff who have not slept since the last product launch. Under no circumstances should whales tap on office windows, send “quick Slack pings,” or schedule Friday 4:45 p.m. meetings, which are considered forms of harassment under international conservation law.
Human Fest 2025 announced
To celebrate the return of dense human pods to their office habitats, Baja California’s tourism board has announced “Human Fest 2025,” a three-day festival in Los Cabos, featuring live music, workshops, and guided tours titled “Observe the Commuter in the Wild” and “Introduction to the Inbox Panic Response.” The festival’s stated goal is to promote sustainable tourism and economic recovery in regions recently devastated by hurricanes, pandemics, and poorly thought-out rebrandings.
Workshops will train visiting whales to identify key human calls, such as “circle back,” “touch base,” and the endangered “let’s log off early,” while also teaching best practices for minimizing stress on humans, including never asking “So what do you do?” more than five times an hour. Conservationists hope that with proper guidelines, both species can continue peacefully coexisting: humans staring at whale videos to escape work, and whales staring at humans to remind themselves it could be worse.
Hope still remains that Imperial woodpecker has not yet gone extinct in Mexico, but a decades long hunt remains tantalisingly without success. (Audubon Society)
For the dedicated ornithologist, there are a few types of holy grail sightings that would crown any bird-watcher’s career, and one of these is waiting to be found here in Mexico: the imperial woodpecker, or Campephilus imperialis, which we will get to in a moment.
These three types of sightings would get any ornithologist into the history books:
To achieve the holy grail of bird watching, all you have to do is discover a new species, like the ones of Banda Myzomela recently discovered in Indonesia. (James Eaton/Wikimedia Commons)
Sighting a species previously unknown to science. Even in our modern world, there might still be small, isolated populations of a never-before documented bird species in some thick mountain forest or on a remote island. A good example is the Banda Myzomela (Myzomela boiei), a small, beautiful bird with a bright-red head found across Indonesia’s Banda Islands, discovered in 2025 to consist of three separate species.
Finding the fossil of a previously undiscovered bird species. The existence, for example, of the Baminornis zhenghensis — a pigeon-sized bird from the Jurassic Period — was discovered only this year. It might change our whole understanding of bird evolution.
Bringing a bird back from the dead. This means spotting a bird previously thought by science to be extinct. This does very occasionally happen: The night parrot, a brilliantly colored nocturnal bird once common in Australia, was until recently believed extinct — a victim of humans and the feral, predatory animals that hitched a ride with them. The bird’s existence was confirmed, however, in 2013 — after 23 years without a sighting — when a ranger discovered a night parrot egg.
A sighting of Mexico’s imperial woodpecker — which hasn’t been provably documented since 1956 — would fall into this third category.
The imperial woodpecker: A tragic tale of human-driven extinction?
The imperial was — and hopefully still is — a remarkable bird, bright-red and black, and the biggest of all the 241 species of woodpeckers found worldwide.
It is officially listed as “critically endangered (possibly extinct)” by both the IUCN and BirdLife International because there has not been a confirmed sighting of the imperial woodpecker since 1956, and the weight of evidence edges towards extinction. The story of this bird’s discovery — and its demise — is both a fascinating and tragic tale.
Mounted specimens of Imperial woodpeckers, female (left) and male, are displayed in the Wiesbaden Museum in Germany. (Fritz Geller-Grimm/Wikimedia Commons)
The imperial woodpecker was once widespread throughout the Sierra Madre Occidental, that mountain range that runs through much of northern and central Mexico. It fed on the forest region’s insect larvae, which it found under the bark of dead pine trees.
A healthy forest has only a few dead and rotting trees at any one time, so specialist eaters such as the woodpeckers require a large area to search for food. As a result, the imperial woodpecker population was never numerous, and, even in happier times, its mountain home probably only supported a few thousand individuals.
The imperial woodpecker’s discovery
Although obviously known to locals, the bird didn’t come to academic attention until 1832, when John Gould presented some dead specimens to the Zoological Society of London. He had not collected these himself and was vague about where they originated, believing them to come from somewhere near Southern California, and details about the woodpecker species would remain a mystery for several more decades. It was 1892 before Edward Nelson and his young assistant, Edward Goldman, became the first outsiders to see living examples.
Unusually for woodpeckers, the imperial species was often reported flying in small flocks — most likely because they tended to gather on the same dead trees to feed.This fact made them vulnerable to hunters, as the Edwards showed by dropping several out of the sky with a single shotgun blast. Adding to their vulnerability was the fact that — despite being hunted for their plumage, for medical properties and sometimes just because their loud noise upset people — the birds weren’t scared of humans.
In the first half of the 20th century, as loggers opened more paths in the region, more guns arrived in the villages, and the imperial woodpecker’s numbers declined. When ornithologist Arthur Allen and his wife hiked through these forests in 1946, they only found a solitary female. William Rhein, a dentist by trade and a bird-watcher by passion, made three expeditions into the region in the 1950s and saw only a few. The region was still a wild and at times dangerous area, and foreign visitors remained rare. When James Tanner and his son came to Durango in 1964, they sought a bird not spotted by an outsider for a decade.
Tanner was a woodpecker expert who earned his PhD studying the ivory woodpecker in the United States. He interviewed locals — who knew of the bird by its Mexican name, pitoreal — but even they had not seen one for four or five years. Villagers, however, did know of a remote area they said might still be untouched.
If you can get a photo of the Imperial woodpecker shown in this illustration, you’ll be a bird-watching legend. (Public Domain)
Despite warnings that bandits made the area dangerous, theTanners employed a local guideand headed there, but there was no sign of the elusive bird. Tanner did collect new information about the species, however, noting that the young nestlings were considered a local delicacy — probably another reason for their dwindling numbers.
While the ivory woodpecker had suffered primarily from the loss of habitat in the U.S, Tanner noted that, by contrast, forests of the Sierra Madre had not yet been stripped bare. He believed that hunting had taken a higher toll on the imperial woodpecker than had habitat loss.
A renewed search
A handful of unconfirmed sightings continued between 1965 and 1995, but nothing definitive enough to convince scientists that the imperial woodpecker was still alive. Then, in 1995, Dutch woodpecker expert Maurits Lammertink was in Cornell University’s archives going through old letters exchanged between Tanner and Rhein. In these letters, he found reference to filmed footage of the bird.
Lammertink visited Rhein in Pennsylvania and viewed the footage shot by Rhein in 1956. A few seconds of the grainy film included distant but clear views of the imperial woodpecker, presenting new information on the bird’s flight pattern: It had, for example, a fast wing flap rate compared to other woodpeckers. Lammertink also documented information on the bird’s favorite perches.
The footage inspired Lammertink to enter Sierra Madre Occidental in 2010 with wildlife photographer and author Tim Gallagher.Gallagher hadbecome a birding legend in 2004 by documenting an ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas — a living example of the species had not been seen in the U.S. since 1944. Lammertink and Gallagher retraced Rhein’s route through the Sierra Madre Occidental, heading for the area where Rhein had shot his footage.
Back in the 1950s, this region still consisted of old-growth forest with abundant large and dead trees. Since then, the area had been regularly logged, and locals told the pair that logging firms in the 1950s had encouraged rampant poisoning of woodpeckers. Despite Lammertink and Gallagher’s best efforts — which included trying to attract birds with a small device that mimicked the characteristic double-knock drum of many woodpeckers — no imperials were spotted, and the interviews of locals suggested that the bird had become extinct around 1960.
Imperial Woodpecker 1
Could the imperial woodpecker still be alive?
It seems unlikely — but it’s not impossible — that this bird still survives in the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental. While it hasn’t been provably sighted since 1956, the area today is a center of the criminal drug trade, so scientists and ornithologists seldom venture there. As Gallagher wrote, “Why would anyone go looking in such a terrifyingly dangerous place for a bird that might not even exist?”
While logging in Mexico continues to take its toll on the region’s forests, it is possible that enough patches of old forest survive today to form a last refuge for the imperial — or that the birds have been able to adapt to life in a secondary growth habitat. But while rediscovering an extinct bird might bring headlines, it doesn’t guarantee a happy ending: When a bird is spotted after such a long gap, it generally means that too few have survived to maintain a breeding population.
Even if a living example is found one day, it is probably too late at this point to save the imperial woodpecker. But Mexico has nearly 100 other endemic birds considered endangered. Perhaps there is still time to learn from the imperial woodpecker’s story — and to spare other Mexican species from a similar fate.
Bob Patemanis a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life-term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.
Mexican artist Pedro Friedeberg in the 1960s. (Paulina Lavista/Pedro Friedeberg)
You may not have heard of Mexican artist Pedro Friedeberg: The 89-year-old artist has kept a relatively low profile compared to many of his art-world colleagues over the last several decades.
Yet Friedeberg’s work is held in the permanent collections of over 50 museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Musée du Louvre, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He has participated in over 100 exhibitions and continues to collaborate with brands like Montblanc, Jose Cuervo and Corona.
Friedeberg is still active today, creating new art and giving interviews. (Pedro Friedeberg/Facebook)
Born in Florence in 1936 to Jewish parents fleeing Mussolini and escaping the Holocaust, Friedeberg arrived in Mexico City as a 3-year-old. His grandmother, who had settled in Mexico years earlier in 1911, introduced him to art books, featuring works such as Arnold Böcklin’s “The Isle of the Dead.”
These early influences — including Renaissance architecture, Gothic forms and, later, the Aztec codices he discovered in his adopted homeland — would create the visual vocabulary and symbology that permeate his work.
In 1957, Friedeberg enrolled in architecture school at Universidad Iberoamericana but resisted his professors’ insistence on strict symmetry and conventional forms; instead, he leaned toward his imaginative impulses.
He began drawing fantastical, impossible architectural designs: houses with artichoke roofs, and buildings that appeared to twist and fold in on themselves. These sketches caught the attention of Mathias Goeritz, a renowned painter and sculptor who encouraged Friedeberg to leave his architectural studies to pursue art.
Friedberg’s often eye-popping work is a mix of architectural precision, optical illusion and straight-up whimsy. (Pedro Friedeberg)
Through family connections, he met surrealist artists like Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington, becoming part of Los Hartos (The Fed-Up Ones), an irreverent collective that rejected the political and social realism dominant in postwar Mexican art, in favor of art for art’s sake.
The romantic tumult of his personal life — four marriages, including one to Polish countess Wanda Zamoyska that he described as surreal, as a circus and as crazy, but tiring — eventually melted into a quieter domestic rhythm.
With his last wife, Carmen Gutiérrez, whom he described as “a very serious woman,” he raised two children. Fatherhood changed him, curtailing the nights of drinking and worldwide travel that had characterized his earlier years.
Practical yet absurd
Friedeberg is most famous for his work “Hand Chair” of 1962. The piece is both furniture and sculpture, practical and absurd: a giant wooden hand inviting you to sit in its palm, using the fingers as backrest and armrests.
The chair exemplifies Friedeberg’s philosophy of useless beauty, transforming a functional object into something delightfully impractical. Today, giant Hand Chairs sit atop prominent buildings in Mexico City, while authorized and unauthorized reproductions are carried in design showrooms and flea markets around the world.
Pedro Friedeberg’s famous “Hand Chair” sculpture sits in Alameda Central park in Mexico City. (Eduardo Ruiz Mondragon/Wikimedia Commons)
But to focus only on “Hand Chair” would be to miss the breadth of Friedeberg’s prolific practice. His work spans a wide variety of ideas and influences: paintings filled with optical illusions and hybrid symbols, intricate prints drawing on everything from the Torah to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, furniture that appears to sprout human appendages, psychedelic album covers and montages where impossible architecture incorporates symbols from Catholicism, Hinduism and the occult.
Each piece is produced with detailed technical precision. Friedeberg works entirely with traditional media, using rulers, pencils, erasers and protractors, like the craftsmen of another time.
“I admire everything that is useless, frivolous and whimsical,” Friedeberg once said, and this philosophy extends to his opinions on contemporary art. He hates minimalism with a passion, calling it “a hoax,” and insists that art should not be reduced to the abstract.
This stance put him at odds with figures like Luis Barragán, whose colorful, simple modernist architecture Friedeberg has openly disdained.
Friedeberg wouldn’t call himself a surrealist, per se. It’s a typical response from an artist who has spent his career humbly resisting categorization, even as the label “the last living Surrealist” follows him. But perhaps the resistance to classification makes sense: Friedeberg’s work — with its geometric precision, architectural impossibilities and almost psychedelic imagery — feels like the meticulous constructions of a trained architect who simply refuses to acknowledge the laws of physics.
What makes Friedeberg so fascinating is this contradiction: He’s an artist of incredible technical skill who dismisses meaning and symbolism in his own work, a surrealist who rejects the label, a creator of impossible architectures who never completed his architecture degree, a maker of useful objects designed to be useless.
Friedeberg posing with his tequila bottle design for Jose Cuervo. (Jose Cuervo)
In an art world often dominated by conceptual gestures and theoretical abstractions, Friedeberg offers something increasingly rare: pure craft in service of pure whimsy, meticulously rendered worlds where nothing makes sense — and that’s the point.
A 2022 Netflix documentary simply titled “Pedro,” tells the tale of how filmmaker Liora Spilk Bialostozky spent a decade documenting the artist’s life, capturing both his public persona and the more tender, private self. The film offers an intimate portrait of a man who describes his work as “a commentary on other people’s art,” even as his technical genius and originality remain undisputed.
It’s worth watching for anyone interested in one of the last true intellectuals of our time, an artist who consults the I-Ching daily and maintains a collection of saints despite identifying as an atheist, who creates art that references centuries of visual culture while remaining stubbornly, unmistakably his own.
Still building impossible worlds
At 89, Friedeberg shows no signs of slowing down, still granting interviews and maintaining his rigorous studio practice, while his work continues to be displayed in new gallery showings. Friedeberg lives in the same Colonia Roma home where he works in Mexico City, a maximalist sanctuary he once jokingly called “un museo de basura” (a museum of garbage) filled with art by Man Ray, José Luis Cuevas and Rufino Tamayo alongside his own creations and collected curiosities.
A 2022 Friedeberg biography for Netflix told the story of Friedeberg’s life and art. For a decade, filmmaker Liora Spilk Bialostozky captured intimate moments with the Mexican artist. (Calouma Films)
It seems Friedeberg will keep doing what he’s always done: creating his fantastical worlds, one impossible structure, one absurd hybrid creature, one useless beautiful object at a time. For an artist who insists that art is dead and nothing new is being produced, he seems committed to proving himself wrong.
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 medium.com/@monicabelot.
