Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Cannes recognizes 2 films that relate the terror of violence in Mexico

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Prayers for the Stolen
Prayers for the Stolen is a story of young girls growing up with narco violence in Guerrero.

Two Mexican films recounting tales of violence have been awarded prizes at the Cannes Film Festival.

La Civil and Prayers for the Stolen (Noche de Fuego) were recognized in the Un Certain Regard (from another angle) category where 20 films with unusual styles and non-traditional stories are presented.

Prayers for the Stolen tells the story of three girls in the Guerrero Sierra who live amid a backdrop of gunshots and narcos, while they battle to maintain their innocence.

The 110-minute film was awarded a special mention by the jury and Salvadoran-Mexican director Tatiana Huezo dedicated the prize to Latin American women who are “teaching [their daughters] that they can be free.”

La Civil tells the true story of Míriam Rodríguez, a mother in Tamaulipas who searched for her daughter after she was kidnapped by a cartel. The 140-minute film, directed by Romanian filmmaker Teodora Mihai, received an eight-minute standing ovation after its screening. It was awarded the Courage Prize by the Cannes jury.

Trailer de Noche de fuego — Prayers for the Stolen subtitulado en inglés (HD)

Rodríguez was able to collate sufficient evidence to bring her daughter’s murderers to justice, only for them to escape from prison in Ciudad Victoria along with 29 other inmates. She led a collective of families searching for their disappeared children before being murdered herself on Mother’s Day 2017.

Director Mihai dedicated the award to families who are searching for their loved ones. “It seemed like a topic that needed to be given a platform,” she said.

The film stars Mexican actors Arcelia Ramírez, who plays the mother, Cielo, and Álvaro Guerrero who plays the father. Following the screening, the actors spoke of the importance of publicizing the issue of violence in Mexico, and expressed hope that it could effect change.

“It is very important to be here and that this issue is seen around the world, that it is talked about, that it continues to be made visible,” said Ramírez.

“It is a subject that moves me and touches me deeply. There is so much to do … I hope this helps in some small way,” Álvaro said.

According to the National Search Commission almost 90,000 people have disappeared since 2006. Identifying bodies — usually discovered in unmarked clandestine graves.

With reports from El País

Chiapas communities rally behind new self-defense force, reject elected leaders

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Los Machetes were presented to citizens on Sunday.
Los Machetes were presented to citizens on Sunday.

Thousands of residents from 86 communities in Pantelhó, Chiapas, gathered on Sunday to show their support for a new self-defense force that intends to protect the municipality from organized crime.

The Tzotzil Mayan residents also declared that they don’t recognize the legitimacy of the current and incoming municipal governments and will choose new authorities.

A self-defense group made up of some 100 men armed with assault weapons and machetes was presented on Sunday to the residents of Pantelhó, a municipality in the Altos de Chiapas (highlands) region where several crime groups operate.

Called Autodefensas del Pueblo El Machete, the self-defense force announced its formation on Saturday, saying it would expel sicarios (gunmen), drug traffickers and other members of organized crime from the municipality in order to avoid more deaths of indigenous residents.

The locals offered their support to the group, denounced the presence of organized crime in their communities and expressed their desire to live in peace and freedom, the newspaper Milenio reported.

Los Machetes are armed with assault weapons and machetes.
Los Machetes are armed with assault weapons and machetes.

They blamed a criminal group called Los Herrera for a recent wave of homicides and asserted that it has links to the municipal government. Residents also denounced another armed group called Los Capotes and accused municipal police of constantly harassing them.

Los Ciriles, a group allegedly linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, also operates in Pantelhó.

A spokesperson for Pantelhó residents said the “narco-council” has been murdering Tzotzil people for the past two decades, forcing locals to take up arms. He said that sicarios linked to Democratic Revolution Party governments have controlled Pentalhó communities during the past 20 years, a period during which residents say almost 200 indigenous people have been killed.

Many people have been displaced due to the violence, although some returned to their communities this month after federal security forces were deployed.

During a meeting on Sunday, residents called on the Chiapas government to investigate Mayor Delia Janeth Velasco Flores for links to crime and annul the results of the June 6 election at which her husband, Raquel Trujillo Morales, was elected as the new mayor. Trujillo is in cahoots with organized crime and should be jailed, they said.

The residents said they intend to choose their own political representatives who will administer the municipality using a traditional from of government known as usos y costumbres.

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The head of the Commission for Dialogue with the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico attended the meeting and assured residents she would take their concerns to authorities. Josefina Bravo Rangel also said that authorities are committed to bringing peace to Pantelhó, located about 60 kilometers northeast of San Cristóbal de las Casas.

San Cristóbal Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar called on authorities to act to put an end to violence in Pantelhó and neighboring Chenalhó, where armed conflict has also caused large numbers of people to flee.

“… Thousands of people have decided to leave their homes. … There are many women and children among these people, pregnant women have given birth in this situation … of displacement. It appears that some people have returned to their places [of origin], we don’t know how many, but there continues to be thousands of displaced persons,” he said.

With reports from Milenio 

Cheering Spain and liberating Cuba: the week at the mañaneras

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lopez obrador
It was another jolly week at the morning press conferences.

A political animal, President López Obrador has represented three different political parties in his 46-year career. He joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1976, when Mexico was a one party state.

In 1989, he joined the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and became mayor of Mexico City in 2000 under its name. In 2014, he founded the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), which delivered him to high office in 2018.

Here’s a rundown of what AMLO, as the president is commonly known, has discussed in his morning conferences this week.

Monday

The president was feeling at home on Monday. The conference was broadcast from Tabasco, his home state, the culmination of a weekend whistle stop tour of the southeast to evaluate the progress of the Maya Train.

“We are really delighted to be here, on home ground … here there is more sun, more clarity: this is the tropics,” the president said, doing his bit for the local tourist board.

When the floor opened, Cuba came first. The way to resolve protests on the island was to end the U.S. trade embargo, the president said. “The truth is that if [the international community] really wanted to help Cuba, the first thing to do is suspend the blockade … as the majority of the world’s countries are demanding … That would be a truly humanitarian gesture.”

“No country in the world should be surrounded, blocked: that is absolutely contrary to human rights. You cannot create a fence and isolate an entire people for political reasons,” he added.

The next topic raised the tropical heat: since the president’s administration began, 56 activists had been killed.

“It’s more propaganda from our adversaries disseminated by Reforma,” AMLO said, lambasting his least favorite newspaper.

“Is it an attack to count the number of activists who have been murdered?” the journalist responded.

A stern looking security minister, Rosa Icela Rodríguez
Looking stern, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez waits her turn while Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell checks his messages.

And then, breakfast. The president listed the Tabascan delights that had made the menu: “chanchamito … tostones, torrejas, chipilín tamales.”

Tuesday

An update on the the third wave of the pandemic kicked off Tuesday’s mañanera. The deputy health minister explained that while the third wave had taken a similar shape to the previous two, hospitalizations and deaths were down around 75% thanks to the vaccination drive.

Back to political matters, a journalist announced that Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard had stated his ambition to run for the presidency. There were no backroom dealings involved, AMLO replied.

The unsold presidential plane returned to the forum. An English company had contacted a journalist to ask if the plane had to be sold outright, or whether it could be used for a “super VIP” per ticket service, allowing the grounded jet to take to skies once more.

The president saw an apt opportunity to deride his predecessor’s imprudence. “I fly [to different parts of the country] every weekend … we probably spend about 50,000 pesos return … per year 6 million pesos … In the last trip made by president Peña Nieto … 7 million pesos were spent just on the internet service,” the left-wing leader asserted.

Wednesday

AMLO had evidently drunk his morning coffee on Wednesday. The mañanera started with a long solo effort, which addressed a range of themes at a canter: media bias, humanism, neoliberal corruption and the new Mexican middle class.

When the fake news patrol rolled up, Ana Elizabeth García Vilchis offered an assurance to journalists in the room: “We insist that here no journalists or media organizations are stigmatized.”

Two “lies” were addressed. The first related to an investigation into the Sowing Life forestation project; the second to reporting on the government’s importation of Birmex, an anesthetic for Covid-19 patients.

Later, an unwelcome relative came knocking: Spain. Earlier in his term, the president had written to the King of Spain and the Pope to demand an apology for historic wrongdoing in the conquest, which the government of Spain then “vigorously” rejected.

A dual nationality journalist tried to mediate the dispute, and suggested that apologies were not an appropriate demand.

lopez obrador
The president reads his 1,000-word, two-year-old letter to Spain for the benefit of the uninformed.

“The Spanish were invaded by Muslim countries and they brought knowledge, they brought mathematics … The same goes for the Roman Empire when it invaded Spain … we didn’t ask them to apologize, rather we thanked them for it.”

The president, however, had been made to feel slighted. “I sent a letter … in a very respectful way, and they didn’t even have the manners to respond,” he said, and preceded to read the 1,000-word letter.

But the dispute was not purely historical, he conceded. “They abused us in the neoliberal period and committed acts of corruption on the part of Spanish companies, they saw us as a place of conquest and dedicated themselves to stealing.”

Thursday

Guerrero, one of Mexico’s most historically violent states, was back on the agenda Thursday. It was to be the president’s weekend destination.

“What is the strategy for Guerrero, where 19 paramilitary groups are serving 18 criminal organizations,” posed a journalist.

“The violence in Guerrero originates in a large measure from abandonment of the communities there … the best way to confront the violence is to create opportunities, work, well being,” the president replied,  pointing to the government’s success in providing fertilizers to farmers, which has helped lower malnutrition, and the Sowing Life project which had created alternatives to growing illicit crops.

“I maintain my philosophy, that human beings are not bad by nature, it is the circumstances that take some down an antisocial road,” AMLO added, exhibiting his Rousseauian world view.

Before finishing, he set himself a weighty challenge with regard to security. “If we don’t manage to pacify Mexico … we are not going to be able to call our government a success,” he said.

Friday

Security spilled over into the final mañanera. This time it was Guanajuato, the most violent state in the country.

An investigative journalist gave his perspective: “We have found constant … complicity … between officials who have been in for a long time, between politicians and an attorney general who has been in office for 12 years … we have been spied on … we are at risk, president,” he said.

AMLO agreed it was time for change. “Guanajuato is one of the states with the most violence and for quite some time … If he [the attorney general] were the manager of a company, with those results he would have been fired,” he affirmed.

Before the president could head for Guerrero, there was a disgruntled journalist to negotiate with. The man in question had written up an investigation into the Sowing Life project, which had been denounced by the fake news patrol two days earlier.

“Last Wednesday … with absolute lack of rigor and evident disregard for the truth, a text of my authorship was alluded to and entitled ‘False data from Sowing Life’ … it was branded as misleading. The ‘who’s who of lies,’ president, … is destined to be useless and tendentious if there is no trained person behind it,” the reporter seethed.

The Tabascan opted for hugs, not bullets. “Criticism is fundamental, it is basic, it helps us purify public life.” And then, a humble admission: “What is said here [in the mañaneras] is not the absolute, irrefutable truth,” he said, shortly before striding away to attend to the nation.

Mexico News Daily

Making your own mayo is easy and so delicious, you’ll never buy it again

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homemade mayo
Si se puede! Making your own mayonnaise is easy!

I’ve always been afraid to try to make mayonnaise. Even though chef friends said it was easy, and even though I’d watched numerous videos and cooking shows where both everyday folks and professionals turned eggs and oil into creamy aioli, I was sure it wouldn’t work for me. It would curdle or separate or just be glop.

All of that changed once I got an immersion blender. Now I make perfect delicious mayonnaise in literally a couple of minutes. It’s so easy, it’s ridiculous!

This short video shows you how.

There are some differences: mayo whisked by hand will be glossier and more of a sauce, and one made with a machine (a blender or food processor) will be thicker and creamier. But both are delicious; you choose.

Who came up with the idea to make what we know as mayonnaise? A handful of theories trace it to mid-1700s France, when references to an olive oil-based sauce began to appear in various accounts.

homemade mayo
Once you’ve made mayonnaise yourself, you won’t know how you lived without it.

Food historians point to bayonnaise, a specialty sauce of Bayonne, in the south of France, and say the word was eventually modified to “mayonnaise.” Others say it comes from the Old French word moyeu (egg yolk) or the word manier (to stir).

Whatever the case, it was as popular then as it is now and became a favorite all over Europe. Mayonnaise made its American debut in 1913 thanks to a German immigrant named — you guessed it — Richard Hellmann, who owned a deli in New York City.

The recipe for the creamy condiment actually came from his wife, Margaret Vossberg, who learned it from her mother, but credit was not given to either of the women until last year on International Women’s Day, when the company finally acknowledged their role in the creation of this timeless favorite.

Some tips: it seems that lemon juice makes the finished mayo taste better than lime juice; it’s subtle, but there is a difference. So do splurge and get yourself a limon amarillo if you can.

Also, be sure to use fresh oil — I’ve had the unfortunate experience of using slightly turned oil that probably sat on the shelf in my local tiendita for a few too many hot days and nights. It imparted a musty taste to the finished product that was distracting and irritating. Not rancid, just too noticeable — in a bad way.

And although one might think olive oil is the thing to use, the pros say a neutral oil (canola, vegetable) is best, as olive oil can get bitter when it’s blended at high speeds. (Unless you’re whisking it by hand, in which case olive oil will be fine.) Or use a mix: start with a neutral oil, and once it’s emulsified and stable, add some extra-virgin olive oil for flavor.

To all of you Kraft Miracle Whip lovers: It’s not mayonnaise, although you may use it as such. It’s got a cooked base and is legally labeled “salad dressing” as it doesn’t meet the standards for mayonnaise.

Two-Minute Mayo

  • 1 whole egg
  • 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon* juice for acidity
  • 1 cup neutral oil (canola or vegetable; olive oil gets bitter when mixed at high speeds)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Optional: 1 clove minced garlic

*You can use fresh lime juice instead but may need more than 1 Tbsp.

Using immersion blender, lower it all the way to the bottom, turn on to mix all the ingredients. As it spins, it draws the oil down. Slowly lift it and voilà! Fresh, tasty, beautiful mayo! — www.seriouseats.com

homemade mayo
An immersion blender is the quickest, easiest way to make perfect mayonnaise

Vegan Aquafaba (Chickpea) Mayonnaise

Aquafaba is the protein-rich liquid in a can of chickpeas.

  • 2 medium cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
  • 2 tsp. Dijon mustard
  • 3 Tbsp. liquid from 1 can of chickpeas, plus 12 whole chickpeas
  • ½ cup vegetable oil
  • ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

With an immersion blender: Combine garlic, lemon juice, mustard, aquafaba and chickpeas in a tall container just large enough to fit the head of an immersion blender. Blend at high speed until completely smooth.

With a regular blender: Place garlic, lemon juice, mustard, chickpea liquid and chickpeas in blender and process till smooth.

Next, with blender running, slowly drizzle in vegetable oil. A smooth, creamy emulsion should form. Using a rubber spatula, transfer to bowl.

Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Store in covered container in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Classic Mayonnaise

Careful! If you add the oil too fast, it will separate. “The first 30 seconds of adding the oil are the most crucial,” says chef Gordon Ramsay.

  • 2 egg yolks, at room temperature
  • 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
  • 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice (or white vinegar)
  • 1 cup neutral oil (canola, vegetable)
  • Salt and pepper

In a bowl, whisk yolks, then drizzle in oil very slowly. Once it starts emulsifying you can add the oil more quickly. Whisk for 3–4 minutes, then whisk in lemon juice and then mustard. Once thickened, add salt and pepper.

homemade mayo
After you make your mayo, you can add flavors like garlic or sriracha aioli or chipotle.

Making mayo in a blender/food processor:

  • 1 egg
  • 4 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 cup neutral oil

Process egg, lemon juice and mustard until well combined. With the motor still running, add the oil in a very slow, thin, steady stream and blend until mayonnaise is thick and smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add any of these flavors after your mayo is done:

  • Garlic aioli: add finely minced garlic
  • Sriracha aioli: add sriracha and lime juice to taste
  • Remoulade: add cornichons, fresh dill, capers, garlic and cayenne pepper
  • Lime: add minced red onion, lime juice and garlic
  • Chipotle/jalapeño: add minced canned chipotles or jalapeños.

Have you ever tried making your own homemade mayo? Did you find it worth the effort? We’d love to know!

Janet Blaser is the author of the best-selling book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, featured on CNBC and MarketWatch. She has lived in Mexico since 2006.

Are we ever sending our kids back to classrooms? Because mine needs it

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distance learning
After more than a year of staring at screens, many kids are simply over online learning. Shutterstock

It’s been over a year since my daughter has set foot on a school campus.

For this entire school year, she has been learning at home through Google Meet with her teachers and six other classmates. From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (with one break) Monday through Friday, she’s been sitting in front of an iPad, trying to follow along and do the work through which her teachers guide her and the other students.

There have been plenty of mornings that she hasn’t wanted to participate. She frequently stares blankly at the screen while the teacher tries to get her to answer a question (to be fair, she sometimes stares blankly at me).

When the teacher asks for them, she doesn’t always find the papers that the school has sent and that we’ve printed out. Her report cards have said things like “clearly smart but has trouble focusing.”

My first-grader is over online learning.

She’s one of the lucky ones. As a private school student at a school that has not had to close in the wake of the pandemic, we parents have had the privilege of being in constant communication with school personnel about our children’s education and expectations.

Under the circumstances, the education my daughter has received this year has been excellent. Her teachers are well-trained, prepared and attentive. Each class is planned out perfectly and made as dynamic and interesting as it possibly can be. They let us know ahead of time if they need special supplies during their classes.

But this is not normal and, at least so far, there’s no end in sight.

As well as things were going in the spring, I was feeling confident that students (OK, fine — at least my student) would finally return to school in the fall. But how?

Even if the entire country were at low-risk “green,” we have some unprecedented logistical problems to face: many of the country’s private schools have closed because they were unable to collect enough tuition to stay open during the past year and a half. Public schools were already overcrowded to begin with.

Both have been vandalized and have had needed supplies stolen as they sat empty and unguarded. Most school districts do not have the budget to replace what was taken.

It’s been nearly a year and a half, and after a hopeful gaze at the fall of 2021, there is, once again, no school opening in sight.

Why is no one talking about this? Few other countries have closed their schools for as long as we have, and from other countries’ examples, I don’t think we can confidently conclude that they suffered because they didn’t keep theirs closed as well.

If someone were to walk in and evaluate the situation, I think they’d easily come to the conclusion that we simply don’t care about education for children; at the very least, they’d conclude that while we may love our own children, we don’t care about children as a group.

Because if we were really serious about getting kids back to school, we’d prioritize that before anything else. Nothing — not bars and restaurants, not sports stadiums, not gyms, not malls, not for-profit play areas, not movie theaters (all of which are open for business in my state) — would be allowed to open until schools were able to open.

It seems that we have collective blinders on. As adults have opened nearly every other type of gathering place in the country, many of them — which are essentially playgrounds for grown-ups — a great number of actual playgrounds remain closed as our children sit at home, wander around or work.

The least lucky among them do so alone; the slightly luckier may have reluctant and possibly resentful extended family members taking over while their parents work; the luckiest have at least one parent who can be at home with them.

My daughter, fortunately, is in the last group. I work from home (though I struggle to get much done since writing isn’t something one can do with one eye and half one’s brain on a little one), and so does her father.

We do our best to let her interact with a limited number of other people and entertain her ourselves, but there are, of course, limits to this. She’s not supposed to just be hanging out with us. She’s supposed to be in a community, like all children are.

Many parents have said that they don’t want their children to return to school until it’s safe to do so … but studies and examples from other countries, I believe, should prove the precise level of risk that going to school would pose — and make a point of comparing that risk to others that we take all of the time.

Would anyone change their mind, for example, to know that the odds of their child dying in a car accident are much higher than of suffering serious effects from Covid-19? They’re gruesome statistics to be sure, but I feel we need comparisons to put things into perspective.

And now that most adults — grandparents already, and parents hopefully by the end of the summer — have received their vaccines, the line about not wanting students to “bring Covid home” will no longer stand.

It’s not that I want to put our children in danger. It’s that I think they’re in more danger from being out of school than from being in it.

And anyway, let’s get real: no one has kept their child sealed inside of their home for the last year and a half. They’re already out and about because we simply can’t keep them inside 24/7.

If we let that happen already, then I think it would be more prudent to let them be “out and about” in a structured, controlled environment where they can have at least some semblance of what’s left of a normal childhood.

These are scary times. The world is not safe. But the world was never safe. And at least for now, children’s mental and emotional well-being is at far greater risk than their physical well-being.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com and her Patreon page.

Mexico’s firefly tourism trend could end up a victim of its own popularity

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Ejido Santa Rita Sanctuary firefly sanctuary, Tlahuapan, Puebla
Fireflies at the Ejido Santa Rita Sanctuary in Puebla. Ejido Santa Rita Sanctuary Facebook

Dancing pinpricks of light on a summer night are a treasured memory of my childhood in New Jersey. Fascinated, we kids caught fireflies (we called them “lightning bugs”) in a glass jar with the idea of making a lantern.

Mexico has them too, but like in the rest of the world, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that populations have seriously diminished or have even been eradicated in some areas. Science has not yet backed that assertion up, but on-the-ground reports from the “firefly tourism,” sector — i.e. taking people to forests to see what I saw in my backyard — seems to support it.

For the moment, Mexico’s firefly tourism centers on Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala, at the Santuario de las Luciérnagas (Firefly Sanctuary), a 200-hectare reserve in an isolated valley two hours northeast of Mexico City.

Locals there tell stories of entire trees being lit up with the insects in the past in a way that doesn’t happen today, but even so, the shows the fireflies offer are still worthy of awe.

The vast majority of the lights are those of males flying through the air trying desperately to attract the attention of the relatively few receptive females on the ground on any given night. Even worse, males have only a roughly 90-minute window in the early evening to get the job done.

Ejido Bosque Esmeralda, México state
Reforestation efforts at the Ejido Bosque Esmeralda near Amecameca, México state, with the dormant Iztaccihuatl volcano in the background.

The main species in Tlaxcala is Photinus palaciosi (formerly Macrolampis palaciosi), which emits a greenish glow created when its biochemical substance called luciferin interacts with oxygen. It is one of about 2,000 species of fireflies found worldwide and 164 found in Mexico.

Most fireflies do not put on spectacular nighttime shows. The glow originally evolved to warn predators that they are toxic, with a few species using it for mating.

Firefly season at the Tlaxcala sanctuary attracts thousands of people each year. The state puts safeguards in place to try and keep visitors’ impact to a minimum. Firefly observers are limited to 27 watching stations along 12 paths, and there are only certain official tour concessionaries certified by the government: Canto del Bosque, Xoletilandia, Las 4E, Aires del Bosque and Glamping Octli.

Reservations are necessary to access the park, which is limited only to certain hours. Visitors are not allowed to leave the proscribed paths nor use lights, cell phones, reflective clothing or insect repellent. Last year, the sanctuary was closed due to Covid-19, but this year it was reopened to 30% capacity for the season running from mid-June to mid-August.

It is very difficult to get reservations to visit, says Mario Bastida of Canto del Bosque, both because of the limited capacity and due to the fact that many of the available spaces have taken by those who had to cancel trips in 2020. Peter Winckers of Azteca Travel Tours Art recommends making a reservation for mid-week to have the best chance of getting a slot and getting to visit with fewer crowds.

Firefly tourism is a very recent phenomenon in Mexico. As late as 2012, the fireflies of Tlaxcala were unknown to the general populace and barely known to the scientific community. Of course, they were well-known to locals, who have childhood memories similar to mine.

Santuario de las Luciérnagas in Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala
Tour group at Santuario de las Luciérnagas in Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala, posing in front of a mural dedicated to the insects. Azteca Travel Tours Art

It is not known how this tourism started in Nanacamilpa, but true to Mexico, there are multiple stories with multiple people taking credit. Organized tours were being done before 2012.

When the number of visitors per season reached about 4,000, the Tlaxcala Tourism Ministry began to promote the activity. Only five years later, those numbers would swell to almost 100,000, forcing the same agency to scale back out of concern for the habitat.

The fireflies remain the number two attraction for the state, which has prompted an explosion of restaurants, hotels, cabins (both rustic and luxurious) and more in a corner of a state no one paid attention to before. Nor has the success gone unnoticed — both by the neighboring state of Puebla and by México state.

The natural range of Photinus palaciosi actually extends south into these states, specifically to the holm oak, pine and fir forests of the western slope of the Iztaccihuatl and Popocatépetl volcanoes. Forests in these states suffered extreme degradation in part due to their proximity to Mexico City, but reforestation efforts of the past decades have slowly brought firefly populations back.

Since 2017, there have been efforts to add firefly tourism to already existing ecotourism efforts. The Ejido Santa Rita Tlahuapan in Puebla started its own firefly sanctuary open to the public, announcing many of the same measures that are in place in Tlaxcala. In Amecameca, México state, the main viewing option is the Bosque Esmeralda Sanctuary. The success of these fledgling enterprises on communal ejido lands has sparked talk of a “Firefly Route.”

The meteoric rise of firefly tourism in these forests has also prompted concerns about sustainability: large crowds mean more foot traffic in the woods and more building of tourism infrastructure. In addition, little is known about the life cycle of this insect — how long they live, where and how long they are underground as larvae and the possible effects of light and chemical pollution.

Many of the rules imposed by the firefly sanctuaries are precautions, with no knowledge of how effective they are.

It is known that females lay between 100 and 150 eggs and that the species needs areas with abundant leaf litter, moist places to burrow, foods such as snails and slugs and other elements of a healthy native forest.

On the plus side, firefly tourism increases interest in the conservation and rehabilitation of the holm oak/pine/oyamel fir forests that were decimated after the Conquest and are still in danger in the present day. In Tlaxcala, the insects have brought a major source of income with them where there was almost nothing.

In Puebla and México, the fireflies are a welcome addition to a number of ecotourism efforts that have been developing here for decades. Winckers recommends the ones in Tlaxcala and Amecameca as they have better amenities such as restaurants and bathrooms as well as good local guides who take better care not to disrupt the reproduction cycle.

Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.

Town’s innovative water treatment plant is so simple, its residents can run it

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ornamental plants
Buying ornamental plants for the wastewater treatment site José de Anda and the Environmental Technology Research Center built for Atequizayán, Jalisco’s residents.

Hidden away in rural Mexico are majestic waterfalls, meandering rivers and sparkling lakes. These are the pride of local people and their favorite places to go for a carne asada on a Sunday afternoon.

Unfortunately, the water in many of these streams and lagoons is contaminated, and every rancher or campesino (farmer) picnicking nearby laments the fact that they are being polluted by aguas negras (blackwater) pouring into them from the nearest town.

When you suggest they build a sewage treatment plant, they almost always give you the same reply:

“We already have a planta de tratamiento, sí señor! The government built one for us 10 years ago, but, sad to say, it’s no longer in operation. The building is over there at the edge of town, locked up and abandoned.”

Building a plant, I learned, is one thing. Maintaining it is quite another. A small community cannot afford the high operating costs, and even less the salary of an expert to run the place.

José de Anda
José de Anda discusses the water-treatment project with local representatives of the town of Atequizayán.

Having heard this same story again and again, I was all ears when a biologist at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara mentioned to me that techniques exist for processing human waste using ponds and flowers with no need for chemicals or expensive machinery.

“There is,” professor José Luis Zavala said, “a low-tech solution to the aguas negras problem, and country people can maintain these sewage treatment sites all on their own.”

A few weeks later, I was introduced to Dr. José de Anda of Jalisco’s Environmental Technology Research Center. He and the now-deceased Dr. Alberto López-López developed a passive system for treating raw sewage using a constructed wetland that they demonstrated in 2018 was able to reduce organic contaminants and coliform counts to well within national environmental standards.

De Anda took me to the small town of Atequizayán, Jalisco, located near Ciudad Guzmán, 100 kilometers south of Guadalajara.

“With the cooperation of the local people, we have built a demonstration wastewater processing system using what is called a constructed wetland,” said de Anda.

Before arriving at Atequizayán, I had imagined the wetland I was about to visit would be some kind of swamp spread over many kilometers.

wetland processor
This demonstration plant uses natural processes to treat the raw sewage produced by a town of 800 people.

To my surprise, I saw that the demonstration treatment plant consisted of a small building next to what looked like a clay tennis court minus the net.

“Where’s the water?” I asked de Anda.

“Under what you are calling a tennis court,” he replied. “But the red surface you’re looking at isn’t clay, it’s a bed of small volcanic rocks, which go by the name of tezontle.”

Tezontle is a Mexican word for cinder-like volcanic rock filled with countless little holes, originally formed by gas bubbles. Tezontle (scoria to geologists) is available from Jalisco to Veracruz, and it’s just about the cheapest rock you can find in Mexico, widely used for road construction.

“You mean this little building plus a swimming pool full of cinders is capable of processing the sewage created by 800 people?”

“Yes,” replied de Anda. “Before we set up this demonstration plant, Atequizayán had no wastewater treatment system of any kind. All their raw sewage went down a canal that, unfortunately, took it straight into La Laguna de Zapotlán.”

Dr. José de Anda
Dr. José de Anda gave up a career in private industry to seek environmentally sound solutions to modern problems.

“What’s special about this approach to treating sewage,” he continued, “is that it doesn’t use energy. We call this a nature-based solution, and we have been working on it for 10 years. It’s a combination of anaerobic processes and a wetland.

“It’s not quite complete, as we set it up only seven months ago and we still need to plant flowers in the wetland, which will absorb the excessive nutrients still present in the treated water, but the system you see right here is already successfully removing most of the carbon compounds contaminating the water.”

De Anda took me on a tour of the facility. We began at one end of the building, where a mixture of sewage and drainage from the town flow through metal grates, which catch rocks, into a sump that traps sand. The raw sewage is then pumped into a septic tank, and from there into a very curious upflow anaerobic filter, or biodigester, which is nothing more than a big container filled with tezontle.

Here, something amazing happens. The fecal matter in the wastewater is removed, using a completely natural system.

Tezontle stone,” explains de Anda, “is very special. It has a vast amount of surface area both inside and outside because it is full of holes. Every cubic meter of tezontle represents close to 300 meters of active surface. And this surface area happens to be the habitat of a lot of bacteria that work in favor of decomposing the contaminants that are in the wastewater.

“So these beneficial bacteria literally catch the contaminants and use them to grow on. Apart from this, tezontle also has the ability to absorb some metals and contaminants. So this volcanic rock is truly extraordinary.”

pile of tezontle
The “constructed wetland” is filled with inexpensive volcanic cinders, known as tezontle in Mexico.

“How frequently do you have to change the tezontle?” I asked him.

“Oh, it keeps on working for years. Once you have things set up, you can rest assured that these scoria rocks will give you service for at least 30 years without the use of any energy to treat the wastewater.”

The biodigester is the place where all this takes place, de Anda told me. Here, the very bacteria that we have in our own digestive system go to work. While the wastewater passes through the biodigester, 70% to 80% of its contaminants will be transformed into environmentally friendly compounds.

“Next,” continued the researcher, “to bring these partially processed aguas negras up to Mexican national standards for purified wastewater, we need a constructed wetland.”

To me, this “constructed wetland” looked very much like an Olympic-size swimming pool, but only 70 centimeters deep and completely filled with volcanic rocks about the size of lemons. It also contains water flowing from the biodigester, of course, but this reaches a maximum height of only 60 centimeters, meaning the carpet of rocks is dry on the surface and you can walk on it without sinking in.

The purification process is completed as the water moves through the rocks, “simply with the help of bacteria found in the environment,” says de Anda.

flowers growing in a pool filled with tezontle and water
Cultivating flowers growing in a pool filled with tezontle and water. Courtesy of de Anda et al

Here, the water will be oxygenated by plants.

“We could use reeds or cattails,” he says, “but we prefer to use ornamental plants like Agapanthus africanus (African lily), Canna indica (Indian shot) or Clivia miniata (natal lily), which have both an aesthetic and a market value.”

A clever gardener, of course, could create a beautiful design here by mixing flowers and colors.

The oxygenated water that flows out of the wetland is crystal clear, smells of tierra mojada (wet earth) and could be used to raise fish or to water corn, sorghum or avocado trees, for example.

The cost of building this facility was about 3 million pesos, an amount similar to the cost of a traditional treatment plant.

“But,” says de Anda, “once you have it, the operating and energy costs are negligible, and you don’t need to hire a rocket scientist to run it.”

water-and-tezontle-filled pool
The surface of the water-and-tezontle-filled pool is dry.

Hopefully, in the coming years, Mexicans will begin to see less water pollution and more Agapanthus across their beautiful country.

The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.

tezontle rock
Tezontle is filled with holes, creating a huge surface area where beneficial bacteria can interact with sewage.
African lilies
African lilies growing at a similar treatment plant outside Guadalajara. courtesy of De Anda et al
scoria cone in Mazatepec, Jalisco
This cinder cone (scoria cone) near Mazatepec, Jalisco is being mined for tezontle, cheap rock for road construction.

Covid roundup: Mexico City remains yellow, México state goes back to yellow

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vaccination site
Vaccinations will be ramped up next week in Mexico City to combat the rising number of new cases.

Mexico City will remain medium risk yellow on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map for at least the next week, while neighboring México state will regress to yellow from low risk green.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced Friday that the capital will remain at the yellow light level between July 19 and 25. Mexico City switched to yellow from green on June 21 and has remained at that risk level since despite an increase in new cases.

Many of the new cases in Mexico City are among young people but the capital has also recorded an increase in infections among people in their 50s and 60s, government official Eduardo Clark said Friday.

He added that the infections were detected in people who are not vaccinated, explaining that about 15% of adults who have had the opportunity to get vaccinated chose not to get a shot. Deaths are still at “relatively low levels,” Clark said.

Sheinbaum said the vaccination process will be ramped up next week, with all Mexico City residents aged 30 and over eligible for a shot as of Tuesday.

“Go get vaccinated, … getting vaccinated is fundamental so you don’t get the disease,” she said.

The mayor said she wasn’t planning to implement any new restrictions. “We’re not aiming to reduce any activities: social, economic or cultural. … The goal is to vaccinate,” she said.

Meanwhile, there are almost 1,900 Covid-19 patients in the city’s hospitals, a rise of about 650 compared to a week ago. There are more than 2,500 hospitalized Covid patients in the broader metropolitan area. Federal data shows that just over half of general care beds set aside for Covid patients in Mexico City are taken while just under 40% of those with ventilators are in use.

Mexico City easily leads the country for coronavirus cases and Covid deaths with more than 720,000 of the former and almost 45,000 of the latter.

México state Governor Alfredo del Mazo announced that his state would regress to yellow on Monday after remaining green since June 7.

“We have to strengthen the preventative measures, let’s not drop our guard,” he wrote on Twitter.

México state, which includes many municipalities that are part of the greater Mexico City metropolitan area, ranks second in the country for cases and deaths with about 270,000 infections and more than 28,000 fatalities.

In other Covid news:

• Mexico’s accumulated case tally rose to 2.64 million on Friday with 12,420 new cases reported, the third day in a row on which new case numbers have exceeded 12,000. The official Covid-19 death toll increased to 236,015 with 275 additional fatalities. There are just over 82,000 active cases across the country, according to Health Ministry estimates. The highly infectious Delta strain is now circulating in many Mexican states and likely driving the high case numbers currently being recorded.

• More than 637,700 Covid-19 vaccination shots were administered on Thursday, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell announced on Twitter. He said 53.3 million doses have been administered since Mexico’s vaccine rollout began just before Christmas.

About 41% of Mexican adults have had at least one dose of a vaccine, according to Health Ministry data.

• Jessica Ann Olsen, a United States woman who lives in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur (BCS), launched a petition on change.org that calls on Governor Carlos Mendoza Davis to make it compulsory for people entering the state to present a negative Covid-19 test result. The state has recently seen a steep rise in case numbers as the Delta variant of the virus takes hold.

Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio

The petition, which has a goal of attracting the support of 10,000 people, had  just over 9,200 signatures at 5:00 p.m. Friday.

“Enough already! The government has to act and protect our state with negative Covid tests to enter … BCS. Proof of vaccination is not enough as it doesn’t guarantee that we’re not going to get infected with the [new] strains and/or we could be carriers and a risk to vulnerable people,” says the petition, which appears doomed to failure.

Health Minister Víctor George Flores said the state doesn’t have the legal authority to require incoming travelers to show negative Covid test results, explaining that the decision is one for the federal government, which appears unlikely to set new travel restrictions.

• Two crematoriums in Los Cabos are overwhelmed with bodies of deceased Covid-19 patients, the newspaper Milenio reported. The crematoriums were inspected by Baja California Sur health officials after they received complaints about excessive black smoke from residents in the Ejidal and Arsenal neighborhoods in Cabo San Lucas.

“Corpses are lined up waiting to be cremated,” said health regulator chief Iván Núñez, adding that both inspected crematoriums were complying with regulations but were saturated with bodies.

• Mexicans spent US $325 million to travel to the United States to get vaccinated against Covid-19 between March and May, according to estimates by the Center of Research and Tourism Competitiveness at Mexico City’s Anáhuac University.

More than 900,000 Mexicans traveled to the U.S. in that period and the center’s director, Francisco Madrid, believes that a good number of them headed north to get vaccinated.  A comparatively slower vaccination rollout encouraged Mexicans of means to skip the queue here and travel to the U.S. to get a jab.

Florida, Nevada and California were among the most visited states by Mexicans who got vaccinated in the United States, where vaccines are widely available.

• The Pacific coast resort town of Puerto Escondido is facing a coronavirus outbreak that has left oxygen tanks in short supply. A growing number of people are seeking medical attention in public and private health care facilities, the newspaper El Imparcial reported. The majority of the cases are among young people, who are more likely not to be vaccinated.

El Imparcial also reported that 15 workers at the Puerto Escondido General Hospital, including medical personnel, have Covid-19, a situation that brought the hospital to “the brink of collapse.”

The health workers would have presumably been inoculated against Covid-19 at the start of Mexico’s vaccine rollout.

El Imparcial said that if coronavirus patients continue arriving at the general hospital at the current pace, the facility “will have to close its doors because there won’t be personnel in optimal health conditions” to attend to them.

• The Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca is also facing a large coronavirus outbreak that has left oxygen tanks in short supply. As demand has soared, so too have prices. A 10-liter tank with all the necessary accessories costs approximately 13,500 pesos (US $680) pesos in the Isthmus region but finding one for sale is not easy. Filling it costs about 1,300 pesos (US $65), up from approximately 1,000 pesos (US $50) a year ago.

“I sold my pickup truck so I could buy three [oxygen] tanks and medicine for three uncles, farm men, who got infected and died one after the other between June 1 and 3. Don’t go out, look after yourself,” one Isthmus region woman said.

With reports from Milenio, El Financiero, El Imparcial, El Universal and Reforma 

The southern melting pot: Mexico has also welcomed many needing refuge

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Children in El Nacimiento, Coahuila
Children in El Nacimiento, Coahuila, an enclave of Mexicans descended from U.S. slaves who escaped to Mexico.

Last month, during a joint press conference with his Spanish counterpart, Argentina President Alberto Fernández said, “Mexicans come from the indigenous, Brazilians come from the jungle and Argentinians come from the ships.”

This statement upset Mexicans — and I am pretty sure Brazilians too — for many different reasons. Some Mexicans were upset because they don’t like to be reminded of their indigenous roots. Others were angry because it confirmed their belief that Argentines are too big for their britches and don’t want to be considered Latin Americans. Still others just had a good laugh at all the memes that came out of this incident.

I was not offended at all. Fernández’s statement is partially true after all: most of us have some degree of indigenous DNA; that is just a fact. The part that gave me some trouble was the oversimplification of what constitutes a modern Mexican.

Not acknowledging the history and the contributions of the different immigrants who came (and keep coming) to Mexico throughout its history is a terrible historical oversight. Official history books in Mexican public schools condense the story of who the modern Mexican is to a basic explanation: a native Aztec had a child with a bearded Spanish conquistador, and that is it.

There is much more, so let me take you through a quick and humble recap some of the most well-known immigrant inflows into Mexico.

Salvador Gutierrez of Chipilo, Puebla
Salvador Gutierrez of Chipilo, Puebla, is descended from 19th-century immigrants from the Veneto region of Italy. Joseph Sorrentino

Lebanese immigrants first arrived in Mexico during the last decades of the 19th century. Some were running away from the religious oppression of the Ottoman Empire. Others were just looking for a better life for their families.

The Lebanese diaspora rapidly integrated into their new land, and within a few generations their descendants thrived in Mexico.

Among the most prominent Mexicans with Lebanese heritage are ex-president Plutarco Elias Calles — known as “El Turco”— as well as former minister of energy Antonio Meade-Kuribeña. There are also the businessmen Carlos Slim and Alfredo Harp, as well as actors Salma Hayek, Mauricio Garces and Demián Bichir (you might need to ask a Mexican friend about those last two). In the world of sports, there is soccer’s Miguel Layún and boxing kingpin Jose Sulaiman.

But Lebanese Mexicans are not just an ethereal group of successful and beautiful celebrities; not all of them made it to the top of Mexican society. Some of them became just normal middle-class Mexicans who did not marry within the Lebanese diaspora. Growing up, it was fairly common for me to have classmates or professors with Lebanese last names but no other trace of their Lebanese heritage or customs.

American celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain once said that Mexico is the U.S.’s brother from another mother. In some cases in my elementary school in Ciudad Juárez, this was literally true. When you think about American immigration to Mexico, you might imagine thousands of snowbirds looking for sunny weather in Ajijic, Chapala, Oaxaca, Puerto Vallarta, or San Miguel de Allende, but American immigration into Mexico is not that simple — nor always pretty.

The first American immigrants to Mexico were the ones who accompanied Stephen Austin to Texas when it was still Mexico, but let’s skip that part because it gets controversial.

Carlos Slim in Lebanon 2010
In 2010, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim visited his family’s ancestral hometown in south Lebanon.

During the painful moment in American history known as Indian Removal, some American Indians of the Kikapoo and of Florida’s Seminole tribes took a detour south. These groups ended up establishing themselves in the northern state of Coahuila, where the Mexican government gave them concessions and land to populate the northern border and deter further expansionist attempts from the north.

Part of this group were black Seminoles, called the Mascogos after they settled in Mexico. These were escaped slaves who had previously disappeared into Seminole Indian groups. Right after the secession of Texas from Mexico, thousands of slaves, especially those in the south of Texas area, also looked for freedom in Mexico, where slavery was illegal.

Later, during the last decades of the 19th century, Mexican president Porfirio Díaz adopted a policy to attract immigrants to populate uninhabited regions of the country (word on the street is that there was preference for white settlers), and many Americans took this opportunity to come to Mexico to establish mining companies, machinery stores, railroad suppliers and other heavy industries.

But it does not stop there: another important influx of American immigrants came to Mexico in the late 1800s: a group of Americans from the Mormon church founded a town near what is now Nuevo Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. An interesting fact about this “colony” is that it is where George Romney — governor of Michigan in the 1960s and Mitt Romney’s father — was born.

The contributions of American immigrants are palpable in Mexico: a long list of prominent Mexicans with U.S. heritage — such as former president Vicente Fox and congressman Santiago Creel, companies established by Mexican-Americans and towns and products in Mexico bearing histories intertwined with American immigrants.

The bond between Americans and Mexicans is strong and goes beyond commerce, politics or immigration. If you are interested in reading more about this, you can read more in one of my older columns.

Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt, painted by Joseph Karl Stieler. Wikimedia Commons

When German explorer Alexander Von Humboldt returned to Berlin in 1827 after extensive exploration of Latin America, he described Mexico City as elegant as Turin or Milan. This over-romanticized description of the city, and the mysticism with which he described the country, attracted the first German settlers to Mexico.

Later on, thanks to Porfirio Díaz’s modernization plans and open immigration policies, many Germans came here to work as public lightning technicians, engineers and specialized labor.

One of these specialized labor immigrants was Frida Kahlo’s father, Guillermo Kahlo (originally Wilhelm) , who came to Mexico in the late 19th century and was one of the Díaz regime’s official photographers.

In 1922, another big wave of German immigrants came to Mexico, when president Álvaro Obregón gave a set of concessions to a group of Mennonites to settle in the northern state of Chihuahua. The influence of this group in my home state was so wide that Mennonite products became staple items in many Chihuahuans’ diet.

Then, during the Second World War, just like in other countries of Latin America, many German Jews escaping the Nazi regime found opened doors in Mexico.

German immigrants are manifest in many areas of Mexican life. For example, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate Bavarian music from an Old School northern Mexican redova.

Redova norteña is difficult to distinguish from the music of Bavaria.

 

Hernán Cortés and his crew, of course, arrived in Mexico in 1519, establishing the colony of New Spain. During three centuries of colonization, the Spanish mingled with the natives and, thus, we mestizos were born.

But Spanish immigration into Mexico did not end with Mexico gaining its independence. The first important wave of Spanish immigrants to Mexico after the end of New Spain, happened during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz and his open immigration policy to populate the vast unpopulated regions of Mexico, the policy that brought many immigrant groups.

Many poor Spanish farmers who came to Mexico looking for new opportunities established themselves mostly in the states of Jalisco and Durango. During the second half of the 19th century and all through early 20th century, Mexico became one of the biggest hosts of Spanish immigrants and refugees.

Among these refugees were thousands of Sephardic Jews rescued by Mexican diplomat Francisco Bosques during the Second World War.

Also during this same period, Mexico opened its doors to Spanish refugees fleeing Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Among these refugees were the “children of Morelia,” a group of thousands of unaccompanied minors sent alone to Mexico and welcomed in the city of Morelia.

The legacy of these last immigrants in Mexico can be seen in businesses and institutions founded by them, such as the Hospital Español in Mexico City, the publisher Editorial Porrua, Bimbo (the biggest commercial bakery in the world), Churreria El Moro (maker of churros), the Mundet beverage company, the Soriana supermarket chain and many others.

Unaccompanied refugee boys from Spain arriving in Veracruz in 1937
Unaccompanied refugee boys from Spain fleeing the Spanish Civil War, arriving in Veracruz in 1937, on route to Morelia.

Mexico has Italian immigrants as well. When I lived in Milan, I came across an invitation to celebrate the Veneto language of the town of Segusino. I learned that their dialect of the language is only spoken in this small town and in its sister city of Chipilo, Puebla.

Like other immigrant groups, Italians came to Mexico mostly during Porfirio Díaz’s presidency. During those years, according to some Italians in Segusino, an invitation from the Mexican government to white, northern, Catholic Italians (the racism in line with the times) to come to live in Mexico somehow made it to the Veneto region.

These first Italians in Mexico established vanilla and dairy farms in Veracruz and Puebla and later moved to Chipilo, a town still famous in Mexico for its good cheese, pizza, and gelato.

This is just a sampling of the different immigration waves that reached Mexico. There are others — such as the Greeks, Chinese, French and Russians in Tijuana and the escaped African slaves in Oaxaca and Veracruz. Also, thousands of immigrants and refugees keep coming to Mexico from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras and many other countries.

Mexico is a diverse country, and it is has always been an immigrant destination. Genetics are so unpredictable here that almost every family has that kid that looks different and ends up with a nickname based on their looks, such as el güerito (light skinned or blonde), el canelo (“cinnamon-colored”), la rubia (also for blondes), and others designating their country of descent — el chino, el ruso, etc).

If you meet a Mexican who does not fit your concept of what a Mexican is supposed to look like, please don’t tell them that they don’t look Mexican; that is not a compliment — let’s shake off our stereotypes.

Greek Mexicans celebrating Greek Independence Day in Mexico City.
Greek Mexicans celebrating Greece’s Independence Day in Mexico City.

Mexico is a melting pot, a melting pot of chile con carne, to which we keep adding spicy ingredients.

Alvaro Amador Muniz describes himself as a Rednexican who hails from Ciudad Juárez, an adopted Tennessean, an amateur historian and an average basketball player currently living in Costa Rica. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via Twitter @AlvaroAmadorM.

Government announces plans to build world’s 8th-largest solar farm in Sonora

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Enel's solar farm in Coahuila, currently the largest in Mexico.
Enel's solar farm in Coahuila, currently the largest in Mexico.

The federal government’s antagonism toward renewable energy – which is mainly generated in Mexico by privately-owned projects – appears to be waning.

Along with the Sonora government, it is in the early stages of planning the construction of the world’s eighth largest solar farm, which could be located near Puerto Peñasco.

The US $1.68-billion, 1,000-megawatt project would be a joint venture between the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and the Sonora government. The former would take a 54% share, the latter 46%.

President López Obrador, who has been critical of private renewable companies that operate in Mexico, gave his blessing to the project this week.

If built, the plant will have a capacity one-third greater than that of the 754-megawatt solar farm operated by the Italian company Enel in Coahuila, which is currently Mexico’s largest and occupies 2,400 hectares. It will significantly increase CFE’s solar capacity as the state-owned utility only has very minimal solar assets.

Sonora governor-elect Alfonso Durazo said Tuesday that there is a 2,000-hectare property in the municipality of Puerto Peñasco where the new facility could be located. He met with López Obrador and others from CFE and the Finance Ministry this week to discuss the proposal.

The president’s support for the project comes as something of a surprise as he has championed the ongoing use of fossil fuels and denigrated the value of renewables. In addition, the government has adopted a hostile attitude toward renewable companies already operating or seeking to operate in Mexico, a move that has triggered extensive legal action against it.

Sunny Sonora appears on the surface to be a good location to build a new solar facility – some 20% of Mexico’s 7,000-megawatt installed capacity is located there – but there is already ample electricity supply in the state, making it an unwise choice for additional investment, according to two energy experts who spoke with the newspaper El País.

“There is so much generation capacity in the northwest that if you build a [new solar] park, … the return on the investment will take a very long time, with little income,” said Víctor Ramírez.

“Sonora is not the place that needs more investment. It’s needed more in Baja California, Yucatán or the Bajío, where there is constantly growing demand [for electricity] and insufficient supply,” said Casiopea Ramírez, spokesperson for the Mexican Solar Energy Association.

For his part, Durazo said that energy could be supplied from the solar farm to Baja California, which borders Sonora in the north but is mostly separated from it by the Gulf of California.

Ramírez rejected any suggestion that the announcement of a new solar farm represented an environmental awakening for the federal government.

“It’s an idea that seeks to change the government’s narrative but it seems to me to be more of a political issue [than an environmental one],” he said.

It is unclear when construction of the solar farm might begin and when it could be expected to begin operations.

With reports from El País