¡Viva Mexico!: Nogales, Mexico - A Few Steps, and a Whole World Away

NYTimes.com: "A SIMPLE painted sign on a wooden board — “To Mexico” — was propped near the door in the fence, but it was the fence itself that fascinated me. Some masterpieces are unintentional, the result of a freakish accident or an explosive act of sheer weirdness, and the fence that divides Nogales, Ariz., from Nogales, Mexico, is one of them." read more

¡Viva Mexico!: For Some in Mexico, Trash Is a Treasure Worth Defending

NYTimes.com: " Pablo Téllez Falcón has long ruled supreme over one of the world’s largest dumps at the edge of Mexico City. He was born in garbage, he likes to say, and he intends to die there.

A few weeks ago, though, the city closed its giant Bordo Poniente landfill for good, padlocking the gate and trucking the garbage to distant new dumps. Officials have optimistically outlined fast-track strategies to recycle, burn and compost all but a fraction of the garbage that the city now generates. 

But that European-style vision of handling garbage stands in sharp relief to the needs of the 1,500 trash pickers, or pepenadores, who rely on the refuse at Bordo Poniente every day for their livelihood. “The garbage will never run out,” predicted Mr. Téllez" read more

Mexico Economy: A face among Mexico's 14 million informal workers

latimes.com: "Street vendors belong to an army of off-the-book workers who now make up a record 14 million Mexicans pumping money into the informal economy, the national statistics institute reported last week. The number of informal workers in Mexico has increased by 1.6 million since 2010, the statistics agency reported. Overall, informal laborers make up nearly a third of all those employed in Mexico." read more

¡Viva Mexico!: Mexico City modern metro meets ancient Aztec life

AP/CBS News: "In a flat-bottomed boat tied to a willow tree, Crispin Matteos Galicia hauls up sediment in a plastic bucket to fertilize squash seedlings for his chinampa, an island farm built in the shallow waters flowing from the Lake of the Aztec Kings. It's a routine that's played out for hundreds of years in the waters that used to cover the Valley of Mexico. But just over the treeline, the future is coming.

Inside a freshly built train yard about a mile to the north, a massive crane lifts a gleaming orange train car from a flatbed truck bed and lowers it onto the tracks of the city's new subway line, a $1.7-billion project running 15 miles from the semi-rural borough of Tlahuac into the southwestern part of fully urbanized Mexico City." read more

Mexico Politics: Mexico bicentennial tower a monument to its failings, critics say

latimes.com: "If Mexico's bicentennial tower knew what people were saying, it might slink off and hide (if 341 feet of stone could skulk, that is). Since opening last month, the soaring twin slabs made of translucent quartz panels have been scrutinized, argued over and widely jeered. Some people already want to tear the monument down." read more

¡Viva? Mexico!: Santa Muerte: Mexico's Devotion To the Saint of Death (PHOTOS)

 A look, with pictures, at the cult of Saint Death in Mexico--and beyond

Huffington Post: "While tens of thousands of Mexicans have lost their lives in the ongoing drug war, millions more have become devoted to death. Saint Death (Santa Muerte) is a skeletal folk saint whose cult has proliferated on both sides of the border over the past decade. The Grim Reapress (she's a female figure) has rapidly become one of the most popular and powerful saints on both the Mexican and American religious landscapes. " read more ; see slide show

¡Viva Mexico!: Reclaiming Mexican Holidays North of the Border

A somewhat rambling but worthwhile look at the mixing of Mexican and U.S. customs and commerce along the border, and elsewhere.

Frontera NorteSur: "The El Paso-Ciudad Juarez borderland was hopping with activity in recent days....
In the reconverted quarters of an old garment plant now rechristened Mercado Mayapan, La Mujer Obrera (The Woman Worker) staged its annual Christmas posada. El Paso’s Mariachi Gala entertained a crowd that enjoyed a corn and chocolate drink called champurrado and bunuelos, sugary pastries, all for free." read more

¡Viva Mexico!: Mexico's UNAM aims to put it all online

latimes.com: "the 100-year-old National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, is placing its work on the Internet. All of it.

In an effort of staggering scope, UNAM hopes to upload everything it has — from 18th century newspapers and vintage films to hundreds of thousands of student theses and a still-to-be-gauged sea of classroom teaching items — and let the world have it free of charge. The project, called Toda la UNAM en Línea (All of UNAM Online), made its debut last month with an interactive website (www.unamenlinea.unam.mx) following a year of planning and preparation." read more

Drug War Collateral Damage: Mexicans flood home for Christmas, wary of crime

AFP: "Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans have been clogging crossings at the US-Mexico border, braving bandits and corrupt authorities in a perilous migration south to be home for Christmas.
This year, travelers are taking greater precautions to avoid being robbed or kidnapped as they head through areas where violent drug gangs have been active, and migrants have been massacred." read more

¡Viva Mexico!: Mexico City's microbuses offer cheap thrills and spills

Los Angeles Times: "Life in this hive of 20 million people is much about movement. There are subways, fast-lane buses, light-rail trains, far too many cars and taxis and a small but encouraging number of publicly lent bicycles for the stout-hearted.

But no part of the transit grid captures Mexico City's air of barely checked catastrophe quite like the little buses known as micros." read more

Crossing the Border to Viva Mexico!: The Big Plans Of A Small Mexican Border Town

Fronteras Desk: "The little border town of Naco in the Mexican state of Sonora, is getting into the game. It's promoting itself as the gateway to rural Mexican tourism along the banks of the Río Sonora. Recently, a few hundred locals lined the rough main street. They are part of a fiesta cooked up by business and local political leaders to showcase the offerings of this little border town.

Gus Ruffo helped ... about 50 Americans onto a bus in Arizona and ushered them across the border to show them his plans for turning this tiny town into a gateway to the rarely visited Sonoran villages just down the road. This trip is all about samples of good tequila, enormous plates of carne asada, songs and dance." read more

¡Viva Mexico!: 'Day Of The Dead' Crosses Borders

This article has a very nice slide show of typical Day of the Dead images. 

Huffington Post/AP: "Once a little-known and misunderstood tradition celebrated in Southern Mexico and Latin America, the Day of the Dead is crossing over into mainstream U.S. culture with a whirlwind of exhibitions, parties, educational projects, art classes and parades throughout the country.

In parts of Latin America, Dia de los Muertos is celebrated Nov. 1-2 with families remembering the dead with graveside picnics, all-night vigils and prayer gatherings. They decorate the graves of loved ones with marigolds, candles, sugar-coated skulls and the favorite dishes of the departed. The pre-Columbian tradition combines themes and rituals drawn from indigenous practices and Roman Catholicism. In fact, the holiday coincides with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.

But the burgeoning Latin American population in the U.S. and increasing influence of Hispanic culture have propelled the tradition well north the border and given it new flavor and flourishes." read more

¡Viva Mexico!: Mexico’s Day of the Dead evolves into a week of whimsy, partying

A wonderful slide show of these fantastic creatures accompanies the article.

The Washington Post: "Along with the national holiday vibe in Mexico City— and sales of sugar skulls and votive candles — comes the world’s largest display of folk art animals called “alebrijes,” fantastic creatures with claws and wings and tails, the surreal made real with chicken wire and paper mache.

... For the past five years, the Museum of Popular Art in Mexico City has staged a contest, a parade and display of hundreds of the towering beasts. They began appearing a few weeks ago on Paseo de Reforma, the city’s premier avenue, and on Sunday before dawn they were moved to the central plaza, the Zocalo, the Aztec heart of the city now ringed by the old national palace, cathedral and city hall." read and see more

¡Viva Mexico!: Peaceful Canadian community thrives amid a Mexican drug war

torontostar.com: "Ajijic has been luring snowbirds from the United States and Canada since the 1970s and is believed to be the largest concentrated community of expat Canadians in the world. The local Canadian Club estimates 8,000 Canucks — just over half of the village’s population — call Ajijic home most of the year." read more

¡Viva Mexico!: 'Day Of The Dead' Expanding In US

AP/Fox News: "Growing up in South Texas, Kiko Torres saw the Day of the Dead as an obscure holiday celebrated in southern Mexico. Few people dared to discuss it in his small but strongly Catholic, Mexican-American community. But that's changing. In the last decade or so, this traditional Latin American holiday with indigenous roots has spread throughout the U.S. along with migration from Mexico and other countries where it is observed. ...

... The Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, honors departed souls of loved ones who are welcomed back for a few intimate hours. At burial sites or intricately built altars, photos of loved ones are centered on skeleton figurines, bright decorations, candles, candy and other offerings such as the favorite foods of the departed. Pre-Columbian in origin, many of the themes and rituals now are mixtures of indigenous practices and Roman Catholicism.

The holiday is celebrated in Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil and parts of Ecuador. Leading up to the day, bakers make sugar skulls and sweet "bread of the dead," and artists create elaborate paper cut-out designs that can be hung on altars. Some families keep private night-long vigils at burial sites." read more

Mexico Drug War: Mexico steps up security as host of Pan Am Games

Los Angeles Times: "The stakes are high as Mexico prepares to kick off the games, the nation's first since 1975. The games will unfold amid a nearly 5-year-old drug war that keeps setting new thresholds for violence." read more

¡Viva Mexico!: Violent Mexico city tries selling its bright side

The Associated Press: "Borrowing an idea from Tijuana, another violence-plagued border city, Ciudad Juarez on Thursday was opening a 16-day festival of concerts, ballet and speeches by figures such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.
Organizers want to catch the world's eye at a moment when the fearsome local crime rate is plunging, down about 50 percent over the last six months."

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¡Viva Mexico!: Rural Women Organise to Weather Multiple Crises

IPS ipsnews.net: "the ... rural women in Mexico, since 2008, have suffered the combined effects of the economic, food and climate crises, compounded by the spiral of drug-related violence in different regions in this Latin American country. In the face of their hardships, women have come up with ways to organise themselves to tackle the problems they face as small-scale farmers, such as collectives that defend their rights.

"Women are finding that there is less food, and of lower quality," Rosa Govela, a member of the National Network of Rural Promoters and Advisors (RedPar), told IPS ahead of the International Day of Rural Women, celebrated Saturday Oct. 15. "They have diversified their work on their plots of land and in their backyard gardens," said the rural organiser, whose group works for the rights of rural women in Mexico."

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¡Viva Mexico!: Researchers Find Aztec Temple Platform in Mexico

ABC News: "Archaeologists say they've found a round stone Aztec ceremonial platform studded with carvings of serpents' heads at Mexico City's Templo Mayor ruin site. Archaeologist Carlos Javier Gonzalez says the stone platform measuring 45 feet (15 meters) in diameter was probably built around 1469. He says it could be the spot where Aztec emperors were cremated and buried."

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¡Viva Mexico!: Human footprints dating back up to 25,000 years found in Mexico

Fox News Latino: " National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, specialists have discovered five human footprints in northern Mexico's Sierra Tarahumara that could be between 4,500 and 23,000 years old, officials said. The find took place in the northern state of Chihuahua after a local resident notified the authorities about the imprints, which were probably left by some of the first humans to populate that region of northern Mexico.

INAH said in a communique that these are "the first human footprints to be found" in Chihuahua and that if their antiquity is verified, "they will be added to the few footprints left by the earliest inhabitants of the American continent that are preserved in Mexico.""

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