In the Montaña region of Guerrero, 40,000 pesos (about US $2,000) is enough to buy a young bride.
An umbrella organization of children’s rights groups has condemned the federal government for downplaying the seriousness of Mexico’s child trafficking problem, which includes the sale of young girls for marriage.
The Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico (REDIM) said Tuesday that human trafficking, including the sale of girls, is a crime that the Mexican state must investigate and eradicate.
“We condemn the prevalence of this practice, which under the argument of laws and customs of indigenous communities objectifies girls and adolescents in several entities of the country, such as the Montaña area of Guerrero,” REDIM said in a statement endorsed by executive director Tania Ramírez Hernández.
REDIM rejected the federal government’s “permanent disregard” of its responsibility to guarantee Mexican children’s rights. “It’s unacceptable that the authorities, with an adult-centric vision, minimize and downplay situations as serious as the sale of girls,” it said.
REDIM charged that the government’s attitude has led to “an intentional failure of the state to deal with this terrible practice,” referring to the sale of girls, which it said precedes crimes such as sexual violence and child marriage.
It also came shortly after a case came to light in which a 15-year-old girl sold into marriage at the age of 11 was jailed for 10 days after she fled the home of her father-in-law, who allegedly attempted to rape her.
Visiting the Montaña region last Sunday, López Obrador said a media campaign had made the sale of girls for marriage or prostitution appear to be a bigger problem than it really is.
“I’m not here to look at that because it’s not the rule,” he said. “There are a lot of moral, cultural and spiritual values in the communities. It might be the exception, but it’s not the rule.”
REDIM said in its statement that child trafficking is an underreported problem but nevertheless a growing one. Statistics show that at least 1,463 minors — 1,054 girls and 409 boys – were victims of human trafficking between January 2015 and July 2021, the organization said.
REDIM also said that the number of child trafficking victims increased 45.8% to 261 in the first eight months of 2021 compared to the same period last year. Just under 70% of the victims between January and August this year were girls.
“The minimization of this problem is unacceptable” given that statistics show that 2020 and 2021 are the worst years ever for femicides, human trafficking and child pornography, REDIM said.
It also said that 6.8% of girls aged 15 to 17 and 0.6% of girls aged 12 to 14 were married or living with their partner in 2020. The figures for boys of the same age were 2% and 0.3%, respectively.
The percentages are higher in certain states, including Guerrero. Data from the National Statistics Institute shows that 11.8% of girls in Chiapas aged 15 to 17 are married, while the figures for Guerrero and Michoacán are 11.1% and 10.2%, respectively.
Migrants say a prayer together before leaving Huixtla early Wednesday morning. Ben Wein
The migrant caravan traveling north from Tapachula, Chiapas, hiked 17 kilometers to Villa Comaltitlán on Wednesday after making slow progress due to an unusually large contingent of pregnant women and children. Organizer Irineo Mújica confirmed that most caravans reach Huixtla on the first day: this time it took three days.
The convoy assembled at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday outside Huixtla’s Catholic church. Many migrants spent Monday night at a cramped sports facility, but were transferred Tuesday to the streets outside the church, where women and children were provided shelter.
Mújica prevented the caravan from leaving Huixtla until the trash on the streets was cleared. He then led a prayer, with each line called back by the crowd: “Our father, we are leaving from this town … touch the hard hearts of the politicians … don’t criminalize our liberty … a government that demands respect but imprisons you without conscience … and the women and children too, who are condemned to live in the streets, to suffer from hunger … [the government] is taking its dollars stained in blood,” he said.
The caravan approached a National Immigration Institute (INM) checkpoint some three hours later, where the migrants halted, fearing repercussions. After a short standoff, the convoy surged forward unopposed and the barrier was raised, sparking celebrations and cries of “Freedom! Freedom!”
Migrants pass through an INM checkpoint in Chiapas on Wednesday. Ben Wein
Soldiers, immigration officials and private security guards admired the spectacle of the enormous crowd, taking photos and videos on their phones as it passed the checkpoint barrier, about 10 kilometers north of Huixtla.
A private security guard named Eric who worked at the station said he was on the side of the migrants. “They should be free to transit … so that their dreams can be realized,” he said.
Numerous travelers collapsed on the highway under particularly intense heat, with temperatures above 38 C, the news agency EFE reported. There was only one Health Ministry ambulance available to serve at least 2,000 people, although organizer Luis Rey García Villagrán quoted a much higher total of 4,000 migrants, 1,250 of which were minors, he said.
The organizers instructed the convoy to pause about four kilometers from their destination, where they rested under mango groves for a few hours before arriving at Villa Comaltitlán around 5 p.m.
Here they were met with an unexpected welcome — the corpse of an unidentified man lying in the park where they set up for the night. But municipal police officers removed the body from the park, where most of the convoy stayed, while others were housed by a Catholic church after it opened its doors to women and children.
Rights organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) appear to have left the convoy; representatives from the Mexican Human Rights Commission (CNDH) and INM medics were present in Villa Comaltitlán, but not readily available on the highway. Chiapas rural health organization Mother Earth Mexico provided medical attention and water at the entrance to Villa Comaltitlán.
Terminal 1 of the future Felipe Ángeles International Airport.
Volaris is the first airline to confirm that it will operate services to and from the new Mexico City airport currently under construction on an air force base north of the capital.
The low-cost carrier announced Wednesday that it will begin flights to and from the Felipe Ángeles International Airport on March 21, 2022.
That’s the date by which the federal government has said the airport – which the army is building on the Santa Lucía Air Force base – will be ready to begin operations. Volaris said it will initially operate daily flights to and from Tijuana and Cancún.
The airline said in a statement that its decision to begin using the airport was based on a “comprehensive analysis” that considered a range of factors including construction progress, advances in the certification process and safety.
“The airline concluded that operating at this airport will be viable,” Volaris said. The airline said the new flights to Tijuana and Cancún will be additional to services it currently operates out of the existing Mexico City airport.
It said there is a market of 4.8 million potential passengers in the immediate proximity of the new airport, located about 45 kilometers north of central Mexico City in the México state municipality of Zumpango.
Volaris, which operates at 43 Mexican airports and flies internationally, said it currently transports about 25 million passengers per year.
“Our leadership in the domestic Mexican market and experience in operational safety were crucial in the decision to reach a new destination to continue democratizing air transport in Mexico,” said Volaris general director Enrique Beltranena.
The army general responsible for the construction of the new airport welcomed the airline’s decision.
“Receiving the support of the airline with the greatest growth in the national territory … is an honor,” Gustavo Ricardo Vallejo Suárez said.
Tickets for the first flights to arrive at and depart from the new airport are on sale on the Volaris website.
If the CFE becomes a monopsony, it could determine the price of electricity, who is permitted to buy it and any conditions for its sale, says one critic.
Carbon emissions and power generation costs will both increase substantially if President López Obrador’s proposed electricity reform passes Congress, according to a United States government agency.
Sent to Congress at the start of October, the constitutional bill would guarantee 54% of the power market to the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, said in a report that giving the CFE a bigger share of the electricity market – the company says it currently holds 38% – would cause a decline in the use of energy generated at Mexico’s wind and solar farms.
As a result, Mexico’s emissions would increase between 26% and 65% and electricity generation costs would rise between 32% and 54%, the NREL said.
A draft of the agency’s study seen by Bloomberg News said the electricity reform “could potentially distort the principle of economic dispatch, increasing production costs, and threatening the country’s short-term climate change commitments.”
Mexico has pledged to reduce greenhouse emissions by 22% by 2030. But the NREL’s study said that emissions “significantly increase under all scenarios” if the electricity reform is approved by Congress.
Before sending the bill, López Obrador took several steps to increase state control over the energy sector.
“The government wants to return to a gasoline monopoly,” said energy sector sources cited by the newspaper Reforma.
The NREL’s findings were rejected by López Obrador at his regular news conference on Thursday.
“With all respect they don’t have information about what is being done in Mexico,” he said.
Asked explicitly whether it is false that carbon emissions and power generation costs will go up, the president responded:
“It’s false, false, false and it doesn’t sound logical, it sounds metallic. What doesn’t sound logical sounds metallic.”
López Obrador said the aim of his reform is to “put order” to the electricity sector.
“Among other things politics was invented to put order to chaos and to avoid war. What we’re going to do is put the electricity market in order,” he said.
“… If this disorder, this chaos, continues, then we could have blackout problems and above all increases in the cost of electricity,” López Obrador said.
President López Obrador called the NREL’s findings false at his Thursday press conference.
The NREL’s findings were also dismissed by a CFE director who spoke with Bloomberg. Mario Morales Vielmas, director of intermediation of legacy contracts, said the CFE doesn’t expect any increases in power generation costs or higher emissions if the electricity form passes Congress.
He also said the CFE would have ample capacity to meet customers’ energy needs if the reform is passed and its market share is increased. “We see clearly that it’s a benefit for all,” Morales said.
The reform won’t force private companies out of the electricity market but it will level the playing field, according to the state-owned firm.
However, the reform would revoke existing power generation permits. It would also give national grid priority to energy produced at CFE’s aging hydroelectricity plants, which the federal government plans to modernize.
Power generated at CFE’s nuclear and gas-fired plants – which also burn fuel oil, a highly contaminating energy source – would also be above privately produced electricity in the national grid pecking order. Power generated by private companies using renewable sources such as wind and solar would be close to the bottom of the list, just above privately generated fossil-fuel power.
Montserrat Ramiro, former head of the Energy Regulatory Commission, said the CFE would have majority control of the electricity market, and be the sole purchaser of privately generated electricity as well as the only power retailer.
Therefore, there would be a monopsony in the electricity market and the CFE would be able to determine the prices it pays for the power it buys from suppliers and the conditions under which it makes those purchases, Ramiro said.
Having only one power retailer would be dangerous because the CFE could decide not to sell electricity to businesses that were exercising some kind of political pressure and continually complaining about service, he said.
The CFE could switch off the lights in an entire state or industry, Ramiro warned.
Óscar Ocampo, energy coordinator at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a think tank, said the reform would increase electricity prices and the prices of other products would increase as a result.
Unsurprisingly, private and foreign energy companies that operate in Mexico are concerned about the proposed reform. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Mexico said earlier this month that the reform will have “dire consequences” if approved by Congress, asserting that it will destroy investments of Canadian companies in the electricity sector and other areas of the economy.
However, there is no guarantee that the bill will get through Congress as constitutional reforms require two-thirds support. The ruling Morena party lost its lower house supermajority after elections earlier this year and has never had a supermajority in the Senate.
López Obrador said earlier this month that the government will attempt to convince all opposition political parties to support the reform – with the Institutional Revolutionary Party a particular target – but none has indicated they will.
In addition to predicting higher emissions and electricity generation costs, the NREL said the reform could increase the probability of blackouts by 8% to 35%. It used Mexican power system generation data from September 2020 to August 2021 to complete its study, which was conducted on behalf of the 21st Century Power Partnership, an initiative of the Clean Energy Ministerial, a high-level global forum to promote policies and programs that advance clean energy technology.
Bloomberg noted that the study took into account production costs, emissions and system reliability to generate various scenarios under the proposed reform.
Mexico could have a new Grand Prix location in Cancún if a Saudi-backed group of investors is successful.
A Saudi-Arabian backed group of entrepreneurs wants to bring the Grand Prix to Cancún, Quintana Roo, and hopes to tie up a five-year deal.
The Mexican investors — alongside five foreign investors — plan to present a letter of intent at the Mexican Grand Prix on November 6-7. It will be addressed to Jean Todt, president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), and Stefano Domenicali, the CEO of Formula 1 (F1).
LP gas magnate Tomás Zaragoza of Zeta Gas and Eduardo Orozco, president of restaurants Wendy’s México and Applebees, are leading the investors.
Senator Antonio Garibay, the father of F1 driver Sergio “Checo” Pérez, said he met last weekend in Austin, Texas, with Todt to see the details of the new circuit. He added that, if approved, construction would begin in a matter of months.
The newspaper Reforma speculated that the events could be hosted in the 2025-2030 seasons. The newspaper also said the group would not look to stage the event early in the season, in order to avoid any clash with the Mexican Grand Prix in Mexico City.
The president was all smiles when he took a little time to brag about his second-place showing in a Financial Times list of most popular world leaders.
President López Obrador set aside a few minutes for boasting at the tail end of his morning press conference on Wednesday, presenting a graph published in a British newspaper that showed he is the second most popular of 13 world leaders.
“This is to show off to you a little bit,” he told reporters before flashing a broad grin.
“… A newspaper, which is like Reforma, it’s called The Financial Times, now recognizes … that we’re in second place, we have the silver medal, the government of Mexico. Only the president of India is beating us, look,” López Obrador said, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by an incorrect title.
A graph projected onto a screen showed the latest figures from the Global Leader Approval Rating Tracker, developed by the data intelligence company Morning Consult.
The tracker, whose approval ratings are based on a seven-day moving average of the results of surveys conducted with adult residents in 13 countries, currently shows that López Obrador’s approval rating is 65%.
With an approval rating of 71%, Modi is the only leader who is more popular than AMLO, as Mexico’s president is widely known. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has the third highest approval rating, followed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and United States President Joe Biden.
The Brazilian, British, Japanese, French, Canadian, South Korean, Australian and Spanish leaders are also included on the tracker.
“Can’t you enlarge it, really, really big?” López Obrador asked an aide, referring to the projected graph.
“This is for the file of vanities. Our adversaries will say ‘He’s an egomaniac,’ but our adversaries – those high up, the elites, consider a newspaper like this the Bible,” he said.
The president said that “fifís” – a buzzword he uses for people with money — hold newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Reforma, a Mexican broadsheet he frequently rails against, in similarly high esteem.
“But look, we’re in second place; there it is,” López Obrador said, his gaze fixed on the graph.
“I emphasize this because it’s not me. It’s the trust of the people, and it’s pride for Mexico. Our country is well-rated in the world, and it’s an honor to be Mexican, an honor,” he said.
Jorge Alcocer appears before the Chamber of Deputies on Monday.
Health Minister Jorge Alcocer has once again claimed that COVID-19 vaccines could inhibit the development of children’s immune systems.
“… Children have a wonderful immune system compared to the later phases … of their life,” he said during an appearance in the lower house of Congress.
In that context, “hindering” the “learning” of a child’s immune system – the “cells that defend us our whole lives” – with a “completely inorganic structure” such as a vaccine is not the right thing to do, the health minister said.
Health regulator Cofepris has approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine to inoculate youths aged 12 to 17 but the federal government hasn’t made the shot widely available to minors, and hasn’t indicated it will do so.
However, it has begun inoculating adolescents with underlying health conditions that place them at risk of serious COVID-19 illness, and vaccinated minors who obtained injunctions ordering they be given shots.
In other COVID-19 news:
• Amid criticism from opposition lawmakers for the government’s response to the pandemic, Alcocer said that Mexico is on the path back to normality. He said that case numbers have been on the wane for 11 weeks and noted that the majority of Mexico’s 32 states are low risk green on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map.
• The Health Ministry reported 4,538 new cases and 392 additional COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday. Mexico’s accumulated tallies are currently just under 3.79 million and 286,888, respectively. Estimated active cases number 27,618.
• More than 118 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Mexico after over 815,000 shots were given Tuesday. Almost 71 million Mexicans have had at least one shot, and 77% of that number are fully vaccinated.
One of Mexico's climate-friendly energy projects, the Villanueva solar power plant in Viesca, Coahuila.
Mexico will push for greater funding for developing countries at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26), which begins in Glasgow, Scotland, on Sunday.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Monday that Mexico and other Latin American and Caribbean nations will demand that rich countries provide additional money so that developing countries can meet their climate goals.
“… It was announced some years ago that there was going to be US $100 billion to help [developing] countries, but of that money, nothing has been spent that we know about,” he said.
Developed countries pledged in 2009 to mobilize $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020. The goal was reiterated in the 2015 Paris Agreement, but OECD data released last month showed that developed countries made virtually no progress toward it.
Ebrard said that Latin American countries need to make an “enormous effort” to reduce their use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy sources but lamented that the region’s capacity to access resources is extremely limited compared to the United States and European nations.
“Access to financing is not proportional or equitable, nor does it correspond to the amount of emissions each country generates,” he said.
Mexico will be represented at COP 26 by a delegation of federal officials, including Environment Minister María Luisa Albores and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Martha Delgado.
Mexico has pledged to reduce greenhouse emissions by 22% by 2030 and 50% by 2050, but there are doubts that those targets can be met under current policy. President López Obrador sent a constitutional bill to Congress earlier this month that seeks to guarantee 54% of the electricity market to the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission, which relies heavily on fossil fuels.
Jorge Villarreal, climate policy director at the Mexico Climate Initiative, described Mexico’s 2030 emissions reduction target as unambitious.
“We’re the 13th largest emitter in the world. Without adequate climate change policies, we’ll have emissions in 2030 that could be greater than those of the United Kingdom or Germany or similar to those of Japan,” he said.
“… The goal of reducing emissions by 22% is not ambitious, and in that sense, there is a wide window of opportunity for Mexico to reorient its policies,” Villareal said.
Biodiverse and rich in natural resources, Latin America seems an obvious climate champion. Its mighty rivers power some of the world’s biggest hydroelectric dams and the Amazon rainforest stores enormous amounts of carbon.
Yet the presidents of the region’s two biggest nations will be absent when world leaders gather for a crucial climate summit in Glasgow next week to try to limit global warming. Neither Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil nor Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador want to attend — and with good reason.
Deforestation in Brazil surged last year to its highest level in over a decade as Bolsonaro slashed environmental enforcement and encouraged development in the Amazon. In a country with one of the world’s cleanest energy sectors, thanks to abundant hydro power and the widespread use of bioethanol as fuel, deforestation is now its main source of carbon emissions.
In Mexico, López Obrador has spent billions of dollars building a giant oil refinery and boosting oil production. He now wants to change the constitution to favour state-run electricity generation powered by dirty fossil fuels and choke off a private sector-led renewable energy boom.
“For those two countries, I think definitely things are going in the wrong direction in terms of emissions,” said Lisa Viscidi, a climate expert at the Interamerican Dialogue in Washington. As for Latin America as a whole, “not nearly enough progress has been made” in cutting emissions targets ahead of the Glasgow conference.
‘Environmental villains’ Bolsonaro and López Obrador.
The backsliding by Brazil and Mexico is particularly concerning as both nations had previously followed greener paths. Brazil’s Forest Code remains one of the developing world’s tougher conservation laws (despite a weakening in 2012); Mexico had also promoted big investments in solar and wind power.
Elsewhere in Latin America, many governments remain addicted to ever greater fossil fuel production to power economic development, despite the increasing reluctance of western oil majors to fund new oil and gas projects as their industry seeks a greener future.
Argentina is still touting its giant Vaca Muerta shale deposits, Brazil wants billions of dollars to exploit huge offshore oil reserves, Venezuela’s opposition plans a massive expansion of oil output to fund reconstruction if it ousts Nicolás Maduro, and Ecuador’s new president Guillermo Lasso wants to double oil output.
The news from Latin America is not all gloomy. Climate activism is growing, young people are far more environmentally aware than their parents, and mid-ranking economies such as Chile and Colombia are aggressively pursuing renewable investment and greener economies (although deforestation in Colombia remains worrying).
Chile stands out in particular. Its unusual geography gives it some of the world’s most intense solar heat and most reliably strong winds. It hopes to harness both to become a leading exporter of green hydrogen, if the technology to produce this profitably at scale can be mastered. The government is also moving to shut down coal power plants.
But elsewhere in the region, too many governments are trying to pretend that global warming is a problem to solve tomorrow, while pumping out ever more carbon today.
The evidence that this is a bad idea is multiplying. Fierce droughts are draining Brazil’s hydro dams and damaging its crops. Chile, Paraguay and Argentina are also suffering prolonged periods without rain. More frequent and more potent hurricanes are wreaking havoc in Central America and the Caribbean. Andean glaciers are disappearing.
The conference’s British hosts are putting a brave face on the climate backsliding in a continent that is home to the world’s biggest remaining rainforest. They point to helpful positions from countries like Costa Rica and Colombia, and enthusiasm for greener policies from some of the region’s megacities. Still, as one official said: “I’m not for a second saying that it’s all going in the right direction”.
Bolsonaro and López Obrador’s energy policies should be relics of a bygone era — but are instead proving alarming durable in the 21st century.
Day of the Dead visit to a graveyard in Mexico City's San Gregorio Atlapulco. Bringing food and music the deceased enjoyed is typical.
I was afraid of graveyards when I was a kid. OK, that’s not completely true. I was, in fact, terrified of them.
Once as a teenager driving around with some friends, I naively mentioned this. The next thing I knew, the driver was pulling into a graveyard. At night. What are friends for, right? I started freaking out and, when I couldn’t get the door open, started pounding on the side window. The driver took the hint and turned around.
I don’t know when I first heard about Day of the Dead, but I was still pretty young and I simply couldn’t fathom why people would willingly spend the night in a graveyard. But as strange as it seemed, there was something intriguing about the ceremony, and when I made my first trip to Mexico in 1997, it was to photograph the holiday.
I ended up in Metepec, México state, with Olivia, a friend of the friend with whom I was staying in Tepoztlán. We arrived at the graveyard at dusk, and it quickly became clear that photographing would be difficult. With no lights as it got dark, it became impossible. I couldn’t see anything. Olivia suggested taking a break and returning in the early morning.
When we drove back there in the pre-dawn darkness, a golden light hovered over the graveyard’s walls. I hurried out of the car, annoyed because I thought I’d missed people building a bonfire. But it wasn’t a bonfire. It was the light from hundreds of small fires and thousands of candles ringing the graves. There was so much light, I was able to see clearly enough to write in my notebook.
In San Agustín Etla, Oaxaca, the Day of the Dead tradition comparsa involves men dancing in the streets for hours wearing coats covered with sewn-on mirrors.
On the bus back to Tepoztlán, I struggled to write down my feelings. Although I’d thought I was only there to photograph, something had touched me deeply. I came away feeling as if I’d somehow participated in the ceremony.
I initially wrote, “It was like a religious experience.” As soon as I wrote that, I knew it was wrong. I crossed it out and wrote, “It wasn’t like a religious experience, it was a religious experience.”
My next Day of the Dead wasn’t until 2003, and it wasn’t what I expected. Not at all. I was working on a project documenting the lives of coffee growers in Mexico but made a side trip to San Agustín Etla, a pueblo outside Oaxaca city, to photograph the holiday. I stayed with Fernando, a local artist. Once I’d settled in, I asked, “What do you do for Day of the Dead?”
“Comparsa,” he answered.
“What’s comparsa?” I asked.
“Comparsa is … comparsa.”
I thought it might help if I were more specific, so I asked when we would go to the cemetery.
“We do not go to the cemetery,” was the reply.
“Oh. So what do you do?”
“Comparsa.”
“Comparsa” is the only answer I ever got when I asked about what happened on Day of the Dead in that pueblo, and it was like being in the middle of Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First” skit.
Comparsa began at dusk on November 1 with lots of food and drink and a 14-piece band blasting away in someone’s yard. There were many men — and it was only men — in costumes, dancing. Some wore long coats onto which small mirrors had been sewn. One person told me that the mirrors attracted the deceased. Someone else told me that they kept the devil away. I’m not sure which was correct — maybe both.
A traditional Day of the Dead bonfire in Santa Ana Tlacotenco.
At some point, the procession began and made its way through the pueblo with the band playing and men dancing. There were stops in front of houses — more food and drink — where skits were put on, mostly about the dead and about dying. Whenever the band started playing, the men started dancing.
The procession continued until about 9 a.m. the next morning. Comparsa had lasted more than 12 hours and I was exhausted just from walking. I asked one man how he could continue dancing after so many hours. He didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Faith,” he said.
Day of the Dead in Santa Ana Tlacotenco, a Mexico City indigenous pueblo in Milpa Alta, is different from what I’d witnessed in other pueblos like Metepec and the Mexico City town of San Gregorio Atlapulco, where people spend the night in a graveyard. People in Santa Ana visit the cemetery during the day. At night, they build fires, called fogatas, in front of their homes.
“Years ago, there was a fire in front of every home,” said José Ortiz Rivera. “Now, not so many. We are losing the tradition.”
I asked several people why they have fogatas and got different answers. One was that it was to bring people together, and I certainly saw that. Another was that the fires guided spirits back to their homes. But the answer I got most often was the one I got from Ortiz.
“It is because when our grandparents return,” he said, “they will be cold. The fires are to warm them.”
I’ve now been in Mexico for four Day of the Dead celebrations. While that certainly doesn’t make me an expert, I have seen enough to clearly recognize the differences in the attitude toward death between the United States and Mexico.
Mexicans seem more accepting — or maybe it’s resigned — to the inevitability of death, and Day of the Dead is a perfect example of that. While most people in the U.S. would try to avoid coming in contact with spirits, Mexicans welcome them, using the petals from cempasúchil (Mexican marigolds) and other brilliantly colored flowers to make paths to guide the spirits back to them.
These paths can be seen outside homes all over the country. The graves and altars in homes have food, drink, cigarettes and other things that the departed liked in life.
In the U.S., death’s a much more somber occasion. I wouldn’t call Day of the Dead festive (unless you go to the Catrina procession or other parades in Mexico City), but there’s music — often small bands traveling from grave to grave, playing music the deceased enjoyed in life. In the graveyards and immediately outside, there’s food and drink and laughter but overall I’d say there’s a melancholy feeling.
Like many things in Mexico, there’s a lot of regional variation on how Day of the Dead is observed. In San Gregorio Atlapulco, November 1 is for remembering children who have died and November 2 is for adults. There are also other days for remembering people who died violently and in accidents. I’ve come to think of it as “Days of the Dead” — or as my friend Karla puts it, “Month of the Dead.”
I’m happy to say I’ve finally overcome my fear of graveyards, and I feel privileged to be able to attend Day of the Dead in Mexico. It’s changed my attitude toward death. I mourn when someone I know dies, but I no longer wrestle with the question, “Why?” Since attending Día de Muertos ceremonies, I see death more clearly as part of the continuum of this thing we call life, and I have come to accept it.
