Remittances to Mexico jumped almost 40% in April, posting the sharpest increase in nearly two decades, according to the Bank of México.
Cash sent from abroad hit US $4.05 billion, a rise of 39.1% on the same month in 2020, when uncertainty sparked by the pandemic dented the flow of transfers. The percentage jump was the biggest since 2005.
In the first four months of 2021 remittances totaled $14.7 billion, 19% higher than the equivalent period in 2020.
So far this year March has counted the highest receipts, with an unprecedented $4.15 billion.
However, the average remittance payment was $4 higher in April than March, rising to US $375.
Banorte experts said the level of remittances sent from nationals abroad has been driven in part by the economic support of the United States government to families, and the recovery of employment among Mexicans abroad.
The country is on track to surpass its record 2020 year for remittances and Banorte estimates that payments could be up 10% at year’s end.
Son of Monarchs director Alexis Gambis behind the scenes of his film. Photos courtesy of Alexis Gambis
In a forest in Michoacán, two young children, Mendel and Simon, walk past towering colonies of monarch butterflies that have completed their epic migration from Canada. Each colony has a different shape. One colony, Mendel says, looks like a bear. His brother Simon replies that it looks more like a hanged man.
Fraternal dynamics and the monarch butterfly migration are two of the themes in a new, ambitious feature film, Hijo de monarcas or Son of Monarchs by French-Venezuelan director Alexis Gambis.
The film has been making several successful United States festival showings in 2021, among them Sundance in January, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan 2021 feature film prize; the Seattle International Film Festival in April, where it won the grand jury prize for new American cinema and at the Atlanta Film Festival and Milwaukee Film Festival in May.
“In every film I make, an animal is kind of the centerpiece,” Gambis said. “In this case, I was really interested in the monarch butterfly migration from Canada to the U.S. arriving in Mexico. They have multiple identities.
“The butterflies are both a scientific curiosity and also a spiritual one, linked to politics because of everything happening at the border.”
Lead character Mendel as a child. The scene was filmed at Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve with special permission.
The film interweaves the monarchs’ story with Mendel’s narrative. The character is played by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta Mejía (Narcos: Mexico). The child version of the character emulates his namesake, Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics, by becoming a biologist in present-day New York.
“Working with Tenoch was unbelievable,” Gambis said. “He is very interested in science.”
So is Gambis. A trained biologist, Gambis went on to become a filmmaker, creating several shorts in Mexico. Son of Monarchs premiered at the Morelia International Film Festival in the fall of 2020.
This November, around the time of the monarchs’ arrival in Mexico, the director said the film will be distributed in the U.S. on a yet-to-be-disclosed streaming platform.
“Science is a big part of our lives right now because of the pandemic, the virus,” Gambis said. “Everybody realizes the importance of science and research.”
In the film, Mendel works in a lab to influence the genetics of the very monarch butterflies he grew up admiring, through the game-changing gene editing technology called CRISPR. Meanwhile, he increasingly feels the influence of his Mexican heritage, especially after his beloved grandmother Rosa dies and he returns to Michoacán for her funeral.
The adult Mendel working on gene-edting of monarch butterflies in a New York lab.
“I couldn’t ask for a better partner in crime [than Huerta] for this picture,” Gambis said. “There’s a really powerful way he depicts being an immigrant trying to figure out his path in the world.”
That path begins in Michoacán, with scenes filmed in multiple locations in the state, including the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, where Gambis received a permit to film the butterfly colonies.
He had to arrive early in the morning and could only use natural light for shooting.
“It was a very stunning experience,” he said, “millions of butterflies having come from different parts of the U.S. and Canada, all arriving in the area. It was magical.”
He also filmed in the town of Angangueo, a key destination for the insects’ migration, where children honor the annual event by dressing up as monarchs for school plays. The monarchs normally arrive at the beginning of Día de los Muertos [Day of the Dead]. The holiday is beautifully recreated in the film in a scene that took all day to shoot.
“We had a special Mexican crew involved in all the production of everything that goes with El Día de los Muertos, from cempasúchil [Mexican marigold] flowers to building monuments,” Gambis said. “It was quite a remarkable day.”
Before he made movies, film director Alexis Gambis studied to be a biologist.
Overall he calls it “a film about Michoacán, a love message to Michoacán.” Yet there is also pain in the film caused by a tragedy that estranges Mendel from Simon and causes him to leave Michoacán for a science career in New York.
Gambis describes Mendel’s lab as “a place of refuge. When he is not well, when he needs space, he goes to the lab.”
There, he works with CRISPR, using it to alter the color and pattern of butterflies. The film features lab footage shown from New York University with real-life scientists.
“What’s amazing about CRISPR is it’s a new, high-precision tool that allows us to understand our genetic identity,” Gambis said. “It’s microscopic scissors that do a very, very precise type of editing, both very promising and very scary if it’s in the hands of the wrong people.”
In the film, Mendel starts thinking along a more metaphysical plane. His girlfriend, Sarah, is a human-rights lawyer with a unique hobby, taking trapeze lessons. Watching Sarah in class, Mendel starts thinking about how butterflies use flight to transcend borders.
“Monarch butterflies fly over any border,” Gambis noted. “During [the debate over] DACA repeal [the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy in the U.S.], monarch butterfly signs were put up: ‘Everybody is a monarch butterfly; we all have the right to migrate.’”
The character of Mendel is played by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta Mejía, who recently appeared in the TV series Narcos: Mexico.Mendel also recalls his abuela (grandmother) teaching him about another insect, la gran cochineal. He explores incorporating monarch pigment into himself through butterfly-wing-pattern tattoos.
“The idea of him becoming a butterfly, I was always fascinated with. There are elements of magical realism, and a blend of science fiction also,” Gambis said, although he explained that it was a conversation with a real-life butterfly scientist that gave the idea further shape.
Gambis is concerned with the monarch butterflies’ situation. Their population has gone down around 80% over the last 10 years, he said. “Everybody’s fascinated with butterflies,” he said, but “not at the attention of other endangered species. They’re an insect. We don’t spend so much [time on them].”
Gambis identified “multiple issues” monarchs face on their 3,000-mile migration route from Canada and the U.S. to Mexico. In Mexico, he said, there is deforestation and mining, and “all the contaminants of mines that affect the forests.”
And, Gambis said, “climate change affects the migration. They used to arrive on Day of the Dead, right on the day. Because of climate change, there have been changes, breaks with tradition. They don’t arrive exactly in early November but [now] in the middle of November.” He also cited a big snowstorm a few years ago where all the butterflies became frozen and “everything happening around Michoacán, the violence.”
When Mendel returns to Michoacán for his grandmother’s funeral, he sees how the area has changed. He grimly predicts that the land will become a desert and is worried about the mining industry, which employs his brother Simon. He mentions the devastating snowstorm in a voiceover.
Gambis’ film won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at Sundance, which awards films focusing on science or technology as a theme.
Yet there are also scenes involving more hopeful messages, including one with Mendel and Sarah and the monarchs, all having reached their destination.
“[Mendel is] returning to his roots, talking about how, in the last voiceover, for centuries people have been migrating,” Gambis said. “There’s a story about elders trying to join the younger generation. They would rest at the bottom of trees. The branches lowered themselves and said, ‘I will help you reach your destination by turning you into butterflies.’”
Rich Tenorio is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily.
The Finca La Carrodilla in Baja California was one of the Mexican winemakers to win gold.
Four Mexican wines have triumphed at a Spanish wine competition, taking home gold medals.
Producers from Guanajuato, Querétaro and Baja California were on the list of 32 gold-medal winners, which excelled among 1,692 entries.
Bacchus Wines 2021 saw 83 international experts take part in blind tasting sessions, which ended Thursday in Madrid.
From Baja California two Ensenada vineyards were awarded gold medals: a 2017 tempranillo from Finca La Carrodilla and a 2019 chardonnay from Chateau Camou.
From Dolores de Hidalgo, Guanajuato, a 2019 nebbiolo-sangiovese from Tres Raíces vineyard took home the prize, as did the 2019 Tío Neto from Parque Enológico Puerta del Lobo in Querétaro.
Thirteen countries were represented at the competition, which predominantly featured still white and red wines, as well as sparkling wines, rosés, dessert wines and vermouths, among others.
Mexico made news on the international stage in 2019 when two vineyards won grand golds at the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, a wine contest often referred to as the United Nations of Fine Wines.
A study has documented 20 years of cases of sexual abuse of students by educational staff members.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation rings have operated in public and private schools in at least seven states during the past 20 years, according to a civil society organization, the Office of Defense of Childhood Rights (ODI).
The children’s rights advocacy and defense group said in a new report that teachers, principals, administrative staff and maintenance workers have all participated in the abuse of children inside and outside schools in Mexico City, México state, Jalisco, Baja California, Morelos, San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca.
Entitled It’s a secret: child sexual exploitation in schools, the report details a wide range of abusive practices over the past two decades. They include adults inappropriately touching children and forcing children to touch each other, rape, teachers indecently exposing themselves to students, tying children up, sexual abuse in which urine, feces or vomit was used, forcing children to watch sex acts between adults, gagging children with tape and the filming of children while forced to engage in sex acts.
Children as young as three have been subjected to heinous sexual abuse, according to the ODI, which has provided legal assistance to families of students from at least 18 schools.
“Numerous preschools and primary schools have been captured and used as spaces for the commission of child sexual exploitation crimes,” the report said.
“… Consistently, boys and girls described being penetrated with syringes filled with water, with drinking straws and with dirty papers, including ones stained with excrement,” ODI said.
The organization said that children have also reported being filmed and photographed and being forced to harm their fellow students.
The report said that more than 100 cases of sexual abuse and exploitation have been reported to authorities but didn’t indicate how many people were arrested or how many investigations were ongoing.
One facility where sexual abuse was rife was the Andrés Oscoy preschool in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa. Hundreds of children aged between three and five were allegedly sexually and physically abused, but the families of just 30 students filed formal complaints.
The federal Attorney General’s Office contacted the ODI in 2011 to seek legal assistance for the victims and their families. Children identified 10 people as “direct aggressors,” including teachers, the teenage son of one of the teachers and the preschool’s principal. Children were sexually abused in the school’s bathrooms, the principal’s office, classrooms and other locations.
The victims also described “grotesque rituals” that were passed off as games, the ODI report said.
The report also cited a 2008 case at an unidentified private preschool. A five-year-old girl and other young children were removed from the school and taken to a house occupied by six adults they didn’t know. The young students were allegedly drugged and sexually abused by the adults. The five-year-old girl said that babies were also abused at the home.
The ODI report also cited numerous complaints filed in 2011 against staff at the Laura Elena Arce Cavazos public preschool in Cuautitlán, México state.
Acts of “unheard-of cruelty” were perpetrated against young children, the report said. “Three children showed cuts on their legs that they say were inflicted by a teacher with a knife during an attack. Three of the 10 declarants said that they were photographed or filmed.”
Similar cases of sexual abuse and exploitation occurred at other schools in Mexico City, México state, Jalisco, Baja California, Morelos, San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca, the ODI said. The organization also documented other cases in which young children were removed from their schools and abused at private homes. Many acts of abuse were recorded on film.
“While this fact might not be important for a boy or girl who lacks understanding of issues of digital sexual exploitation, it’s an extremely important element in order to understand possible explanations for what happened,” the report said.
The ODI suggested that child sexual abuse was streamed online to people who paid to watch it from around the world.
As it is unclear how many teachers and other school staff were investigated and prosecuted, it is not known whether the people involved continue to work in educational settings.
ODI director Margarita Griesbach Guizar told the newspaper El Universal that more thorough and competent investigations are needed to ensure that people perpetrating sexual crimes against children are arrested and jailed.
“I don’t dare to say that there is a [sexual abuse] network, many networks or simply a new modus operandi, a new form of crime. What is clear is that we’re facing complex criminal behavior and because of this, an investigation with a broad outlook is needed to understand what is happening in Mexico with these crimes,” she said.
“I believe that incompetence is the best friend of corruption and impunity because what happens over and over again, both with criminal investigations and the intervention of the Ministry of Public Education, is that there is incompetence … in the selection of teachers [and] in investigations,” Griesbach said. “… And there are cover-ups [of sexual crimes].”
Despite repeated stop-work orders, illegal construction work has continued in recent months at the Teotihuácan site in México state.
The National Guard and Federal Police were dispatched Monday to an outlying section of the Teotihuacán archaeological site to seize land where illegal construction work has continued in recent months despite stop-work orders.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the Ministry of Culture said 250 National Guard troops and 60 agents of the Attorney General’s Office participated in an operation to seize two parcels of land in Oztoyahualco, an area of the México state site that is known as the “old city” because it is believed that the Teotihuacán settlement began there.
In March, INAH suspended projects being built on private land in the area, one of which is believed to be an amusement park, and in April it filed a complaint with the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) against the illegal construction. The Culture Ministry also issued stop-work orders but construction work with heavy machinery continued, endangering at least 24 pre-Hispanic structures that haven’t been excavated.
INAH and the Culture Ministry said the FGR seized land in Oztoyahualco on Monday because the owners began construction work without authorization and caused “irreparable damage to the archaeological heritage of Mexico.”
The government departments said that once the land was officially secured, Teotihuacán municipal police were deployed to guard the property. Those responsible for the work could face criminal charges.
A group of 250 National Guard troops and 60 federal agents seized the two parcels of land in Oztoyahualco.
The Associated Press said the delay in shutting down the amusement park project “underlined how Mexico’s unwieldy, antiquated legal system makes it hard to enforce building codes and zoning laws or stop illegal construction, even on protected historical sites.”
The seizure of the land came a week after the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) warned that Teotihuacán, renowned for its two large pyramids, was at risk of losing its UNESCO World Heritage designation.
The council said that work with bulldozers threatened to destroy as many as seven hectares and that looting of artifacts had occurred. The Mexico branch of ICOMOS wrote to federal Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto and México state Governor Alfredo del Mazo to demand urgent action to stop the work.
Its plea and ongoing pressure from INAH and the Culture Ministry appeared to spur the FGR to shut it down.
That illegal construction was not stopped sooner at Mexico’s most visited archaeological site raises questions about the ability of authorities to protect lesser-known sites in more remote areas. Construction work has damaged sites such as Los Baños de Nezahualcóyotl (The Baths of Nezahualcóyotl) in Texcoco, México state, and looting of artifacts has occurred at many sites.
Featuring the 65-meter-high Pyramid of the Sun and the 43-meter-high Pyramid of the Moon, the Teotihucán site — which was once inhabited by more than 100,000 people but abandoned before the rise of the Aztecs in the 14th century — was visited by some 2.6 million people per year in pre-pandemic times.
Workers caught on camera working on the private land parcel in early May.
Archaeologists continue to study the site and have made numerous new discoveries in recent years, including fragments of murals on the ancient city’s outskirts.
Olympic committee president Carlos Padilla said the presidential plane would be ill-suited to transporting athletes.
The Mexican Olympic Committee (COM) has turned down the government’s offer for transport to Tokyo next month on the presidential plane.
Finance Minister Arturo Herrera had indicated that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner would take athletes to the Olympic Games, and had been flown to the U.S. for maintenance work in preparation.
However, COM president Carlos Padilla said that the number of flights and athletes in question made the plane logistically ill-suited to the task.
The transport operation will involve more than 120 flights, meaning a single aircraft would be insufficient and more costly. Athletes will also be required to return the day after completing their participation in the competition.
Some competitors will head to the games from outside of Mexico, such as those traveling straight from tennis, golf or softball tournaments, and the timing of arrival will be defined in the days prior to the event, since each athlete has to undergo health screenings in order to diminish the risk of Covid contagion.
Given the logistical complexity, COM has a contract with the Japanese airline All Nippon Airways (ANA), which will be in charge of transporting the 73 male and 46 female competitors.
Padilla nevertheless thanked the government for the offer, and said that they would use the presidential plane if it were urgently required.
The plane was bought by former president Felipe Calderón for US $218 million and used by his successor, and has been on the market for three years.
Esmeralda Falcón will be Mexico's first ever Olympic boxer.
For the first time ever, Mexico will have a female boxer among the members of its Olympic team at the 2020 Tokyo Games to be held this July and August.
Esmeralda Falcón of Mexico City will represent her nation in the women’s lightweight (57–60 kilograms) division of the boxing competition at the Summer Olympic Games, which will start in the Japanese capital on July 23, a year later than originally planned due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 25-year-old’s journey from schoolgirl to elite athlete can be traced back to the living room of her childhood home in Santiago Tulyehualco, a town in the southern Mexico City borough of Xohchimilco. It was there that her father put on Bruce Lee movies for the viewing pleasure of his children, unwittingly placing his daughter on a path to sporting glory.
“… Since I was a girl, I wanted to be like Bruce Lee, jump like Bruce Lee, defend and attack like Bruce Lee,” Falcón told the newspaper Milenio.
To emulate Lee, Falcón wanted to learn Chinese martial arts, or kung fu, but in her search for a gymnasium, she first found one where boxing was the sport of choice. And she decided to stay.
Falcón came to the sport first seeking martial arts training. She stayed because she noticed few women in boxing.
“It really stood out to me that there were almost no women. All the [training] material was for men,” Falcón recalled, adding that she saw the male-dominated environment as “a kind of challenge” to overcome.
Another challenge was convincing the other female members of her family that she wasn’t being reckless in getting into the ring.
“In the beginning, my mother and my sister didn’t agree [with my decision to box] because they said that it was a dangerous sport … and I could get hurt,” she said.
The male members of her family were initially more supportive, she said.
“My dad and my brothers told me to think carefully about the decision but that if it was what I wanted, they would support me,” she said.
At the age of 18, Falcón decided to take her passion for boxing to another level and dedicate even more time to training with the aim of succeeding in competitive boxing.
“A lot of people said to me that I was already [too] old [to become a competitive boxer] but I told them that I could do it,” she said.
And indeed she could. In the same year that she turned 18, Falcón became the national champion in her weight division and would later go on to win a gold medal at the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games and a bronze medal at the 2019 Pan American Games.
Also in 2019, the boxer achieved another dream by joining the navy and beginning a physical education teaching degree at the Naval University in Mexico City. “Since before I was a sportswoman, my intention was to study in the navy,” she told Milenio.
While continuing to study for her degree, Falcón is training hard for her Olympics debut, which is now less than two months away. She qualified for the games after triumphing in one of the most difficult bouts of her career. Her opponent? Covid-19.
Falcón, an asthmatic, got sick last year after contracting the virus, an episode that forced her to stop training and caused her to lose the physical conditioning she had worked so hard to build up. But determined to win a spot on the Olympic team, she got back in the ring after recovering and gradually rebuilt her strength and fitness.
Now Falcón has her sights set firmly on not just competing in Tokyo but in future Olympic Games.
“I want to compete in the next Olympic Games [after Tokyo]. I want to be an Olympic medalist in the medium term; I don’t want to settle for just participating,” she said. “And I want to finish my degree in order to move up in the navy and exercise my services as a teacher.”
As for Falcón’s mother, she has well and truly overcome her initial doubts about her daughter’s dream.
“She told me that she’s very proud [of me],” the boxer said. “She told me to keep working hard, to not drop off [in my training]. She told me that [making the Olympics] is a great achievement but also a great responsibility and that I had to be mature, responsible and keep my feet on the ground.”
Lime juice and nopal's natural hint of tartness mix well with creamy panela cheese in these stuffed avocados.
Nopal, or nopales — the “paddles” of the prickly pear cactus — are one of Mexico’s most iconic, and to many of us, unusual foods to find in the mercado. (The bright red-to-purplish fruits, called tuna, are also edible, but that’s another story.)
They’re also one of those ancient foods that have been “discovered” to be full of health benefits: nopales are rich in antioxidants, magnesium and Vitamin C; are beneficial for gut health and have immense antiviral properties.
Research has also shown that eating nopal can help regulate blood sugar levels and reduce cholesterol.
Some say eating nopal before a night of drinking can help alleviate the effects of a hangover; you’ll have to be the judge of that!
The word nopal comes from the Náhuatl nohpalli, and there are more than 100 known species of this cactus in Mexico alone.
Don’t fear the needles: most markets will make cactus safe and ready to cook.
While you can find them bottled or canned, there’s no reason not to buy them fresh — every mercado and grocery store will have someone cleaning the paddles of thorns, slicing or cubing them, and selling them in bags.
Usually, there are also cooked fresh pieces available too, making it effortless to add them to whatever you’re cooking. They have a not-unpleasant, slightly sour-tart flavor similar to string beans, and, like most veggies, are at their most tender in the spring.
Before nopales can be used in any recipe, they must be cooked to get rid of some of their mucilaginous liquid. There are many ways to do this.
The simplest is to cook the fresh paddles, thorns removed, in a pot filled with water to cover. Add 1 tablespoon of salt, bring to a rolling boil and cook for 10 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water, rubbing with your hands until all sliminess is gone.
Some say add a few tomatillo husks to the water or a tablespoon of baking soda.
Once you start playing around with nopales, you’ll find lots of ways to use them: chopped and mixed with cheese stuffed inside chicken breasts or rolled skirt steak; diced in omelets, salsa and salads; inside tacos, huaraches and quesadillas or grilled as a simple side dish with meat or poultry.
Nopales with Eggs
Here’s a basic recipe — add other ingredients as you like.
⅔ cup nopales, chopped and cooked
2 eggs, whisked
1 Tbsp. olive or vegetable oil
2 Tbsp. chopped onion
Salt
In a frying pan over medium heat, sauté onion in oil for 1 minute. Add nopales, cook 2 minutes more. Add eggs and cook until tender, stirring gently. Add salt to taste.
Salsa de Nopal
1 lb. nopal, cleaned, cooked and diced
3 Roma tomatoes
1 purple onion
1-2 jalapeños
1 cup cilantro
1-3 limes
1 Tbsp. cumin
1 tsp. sea salt
Chop all ingredients. Mix with nopal. Season with salt, lime juice and cumin.
Nopales Asados (Grilled Nopal)
Once cooked, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to three days.
4 nopal paddles, thorns removed
2 Tbsp. olive oil
½ tsp. salt
Heat grill to 400 F. Rinse and pat dry cactus; brush both sides with oil, sprinkle with salt. Cook on hot grill for 5 minutes each side until cooked through but still tender-firm.
Place all ingredients in blender; process until smooth.
Nopales, Potato and Chorizo
Enjoy this on its own, in tacos, or as a side dish.
2 cups cooked nopales
6 oz. beef or pork chorizo, uncooked
1 medium potato, peeled and cubed
1½ Tbsp. vegetable oil
½ cup finely diced onion
1½ cups diced fresh tomatoes
1 serrano pepper
⅛ tsp. ground cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Cook tomato, serrano and 1 cup of water in a saucepan on medium heat until tender, about 15 minutes. Strain out veggies and process in blender with about ¼ cup of cooking water until you have a smooth sauce. Set aside.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add potato and cook, stirring, until browned. Add onion, cook 3 minutes more. Add chorizo (casings removed) and cook, stirring, about 8–10 minutes more. When chorizo is cooked, add nopales, then add sauce. Simmer a few minutes to blend flavors, adding more water if needed. Season with salt and pepper.
Regular old salsa is easily livened up by adding a bit of nopal.
Stuffed Avocados
4 nopal paddles, cleaned and cut in cubes
¼ cup salt
½ red onion, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, cubed
1/3 cup panela cheese, cubed
1-3 tsp. fresh lime or lemon juice
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 avocados
1 Tbsp. minced fresh coriander
In a bowl, mix nopales with salt; rub vigorously with your hands. When the cubes change color, rinse well and drain.
Mix nopales with onion, tomato, panela, citrus juice, oregano, cilantro and olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Slice avocados in half, remove pit and peel. Fill with salad, sprinkle with more lime juice and serve.
Nopales Salad
6 nopales paddles, cooked and chopped
1½ cup chopped tomato
1-2 serrano peppers, minced
½ cup chopped onion
¼ cup radish rounds
2 Tbsp. lime juice
½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper
1 tsp. oregano
⅓ cup olive oil
1 avocado, sliced or cubed
½ cup crumbled queso fresco
Corn tortillas or tostadas to serve
In a large bowl, gently mix nopales, tomato, onion, radishes, serrano peppers and cilantro. In a separate bowl, mix lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, salt and pepper. Add dressing to nopales mixture; stir.
Mexico’s presidential plane, which has gone unused since President López Obrador took office in 2018, will be used to transport Mexican athletes to the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, this summer.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been on the market for three years and a buyer has yet to be found.
It was flown to Victorville, California, this morning to undergo maintenance.
Finance Minister Arturo Herrera said he expects the plane to return at the end of June in time to take athletes to the Games, which begin on July 23.
He also confirmed that the plane is still up for sale, and that the United Nations continues to assist in its sale.
In Victorville, the aircraft has returned to a second home: the plane was previously stored at the airfield for about 19 months awaiting a buyer.
It was brought back to Mexico in July 2020 for a raffle, for which it had been named as a prize but in the end cash sums of the plane’s equivalent value were awarded to winners.
The plane was bought by former president Felipe Calderón for US $218 million and was used by the leader of the last administration, Enrique Peña Nieto.
The 2020 Olympic Games, delayed for one year by the Covid-19 pandemic, are set to go ahead despite protests in Japan amid a recent wave in infections and low vaccination rates.
The Mixtec-made garment is on the left. The item sold by the clothing company Zara is on the right. Government of Mexico
The federal government has accused three international fashion brands of cultural appropriation of indigenous Mexican designs.
The Culture Ministry said in a statement it had sent letters to Zara, Anthropologie and Patowl in which it laid out its opposition to “improper cultural appropriation” and called on each company to provide a public explanation detailing “on what basis it could privatize collective property, making use of cultural elements whose origin is identified in several communities of Oaxaca.”
The ministry also called on the global brands to detail “the benefits that will be returned to the creative communities.”
It said that Zara, a Spanish brand, used a distinctive Mixtec pattern in one of its dresses. The pattern in question comes from San Juan Colorado, a municipality in the southwest of Oaxaca.
Inditex, the world’s biggest clothing retailer and the owner of Zara, rejected the cultural appropriation accusation in a statement sent to the news agency Reuters.
“The design in question was in no way intentionally borrowed from or influenced by the artistry of the Mixtec people of Mexico,” it said.
The Culture Ministry also accused Anthropologie, a United States brand, of using “elements distinctive and characteristic of the culture and identity of the Mixe people of Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca.”
The ministry said the offending garment was the brand’s Marka embroidered shorts.
In the case of Patowl, another U.S. brand, several printed shirts were identified as “faithful copies of traditional clothing of the indigenous Zapotec people of the community of San Antonino Castillo Velasco, Oaxaca, where pieces are made by hand with the technique called ‘hazme si puedes’ [make me if you can],” the ministry said. “This name reflects the complexity of the manufacturing process, which consists of several steps.”
Reuters said that neither URBN, the owner of Anthropologie, nor Patowl responded to its requests for comment.
The Culture Ministry said its letters, signed by Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto, are part of its actions in “defense of the cultural heritage of indigenous communities to avoid the plagiarism of their elements of identity by national and transnational companies.”
The federal government and other authorities have previously accused several other international brands of plagiarizing indigenous Mexican designs.
Some like Herrerra and Marant have said that their designs were done in tribute out of admiration for Mexican culture (although Marant eventually apologized for appropriating Purépecha work). Holt insisted she had done nothing wrong, that she pays individual Oaxaca artisans above market price for the rights to their designs. One company, Louis Vuitton, has changed tactics by connecting their customers with Oaxacan artisans, who receive payment directly from those customers for the work they do on Vuitton products.
