The carnival in Coyolillo, a town in the coastal state of Veracruz in Mexico, dates back more than 100 years. This non-religious festival includes parades, dances, music and feasting and is the heritage of sugar cane workers and slaves of African origin freed from farms. The event is known for the colourful robes, capes and animal masks – of bulls, deer, goats and cows – worn by participants. As such, the carnival is a unique expression of African-Mexican folk art
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How Trump’s immigration policies hurt people’s lives – in pictures
Exhibit at the Bronx Documentary Center, the first in a year-long series, aims to document the current president’s overturning of decades of American immigration policy and law, and its profound effects on American society and the lives of immigrants
Continue reading...How the American dream died on the world’s busiest border
It is a place where worlds converge, a vast melting pot of different peoples, all in search of a better life. Yet the US-Mexico border is also, increasingly, a focal point for human suffering
Milson, from Honduras, sits with his 14-year-old daughter, Loany, on the reedy riverbank beside the bridge connecting Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, with downtown Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande.
On the far reach – a few yards but another world away – is a vast tent (officially a “soft-sided facility”) erected to cope with the sheer numbers seeking asylum in the US. In a few weeks’ time, on the date stipulated on their “notice to appear” document, the people staying here will have their “credible fear interview” by video link.
Continue reading...‘It fills us with rage’: Mexican activists protest femicide at presidential palace
Demonstration stemmed from outrage over killing of Ingrid Escamilla and publication of photos of her mutilated corpse
Dozens of activists gathered outside Mexico’s presidential palace on Friday to protest against violence against women, chanting “Not one murder more” and splashing one of its large, ornate doors with blood-red paint and the words “femicide state”.
Related: 'Why did she have to die?' Mexico's war on women claims young artist
Continue reading...Critic accidentally destroys $20,000 artwork at Mexico fair
Avelina Lésper said it was almost as if Gabriel Rico’s piece knew how much she disliked it
An art critic has destroyed a contemporary piece at Mexico’s premiere art fair, sparking a debate about what constitutes art.
Critic Avelina Lésper said she accidentally shattered the installation on Saturday at the Zona Maco art fair in Mexico City when she placed an empty soda can near it to express her disdain for the piece: a sheet of glass with a stone, soccer ball and other random objects suspended inside.
Continue reading...Fear in Mexico as twin deaths expose threat to monarch butterflies and their defenders
The deaths of two butterfly conservationists have drawn focus to a troubling tangle of disputes, resentments and violence
The annual migration of monarch butterflies from the US and Canada is one of the most resplendent sights in the natural world – a rippling orange-and-black wave containing millions of butterflies fluttering instinctively southward to escape the winter cold.
The spectacle when they reach their destination in central Mexico is perhaps even more astonishing. Patches of alpine forest turn from green to orange as the monarchs roost in the fir trees, the sheer weight of butterflies causing branches to sag to the point of snapping. Tens of thousands of the insects bounce haphazardly overhead, searching replenishment from nearby plants.
Continue reading...El Chapo’s daughter is married at majestic Mexican cathedral
Ostentatious wedding to groom with underworld links is seen as reminder of bride’s family’s power
It was the society wedding of the year in Mexico’s drug cartel heartland: Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán, daughter of the convicted kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, tied the knot with the kin of another member of Mexico’s underworld.
And in the ostentatious style of a family accustomed to getting its way, they were married in a closed-door ceremony in the cathedral of Culiacán – the city at the centre of the Sinaloa cartel’s criminal empire.
Continue reading...Mexico: defender of monarch butterflies found dead two weeks after he vanished
- Homero Gómez González was found floating in a well
- Activists say death could be over illegal logging disputes
A Mexican environmental activist who fought to protect the wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly has been found dead in the western state of Michoacán, two weeks after he disappeared.
Homero Gómez González, a former logger who managed El Rosario butterfly reserve, vanished on 13 January. His body was found floating in a well on Wednesday, reportedly showing signs of torture.
Continue reading...Trump border wall between US and Mexico blows over in high winds
Steel panels being installed between Calexico and Mexicali are part of the US president’s attempt to enhance the border barrier
A section of Donald Trump’s much-vaunted border wall between the United States and Mexico has blown over in high winds, US border patrol officers have been reported as saying.
The steel panels, more than nine metres (30ft) high, began to lean at a sharp angle on the border between the Californian town of Calexico and Mexicali in Mexico amid gusts on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Hundreds of Central American migrants rounded up by guardsmen at Mexico border – video
National guardsmen in riot gear have blocked the path of hundreds of Central Americans near the town of Frontera Hidalgo in southern Mexico.
Security forces corralled the migrants and hauled them on to buses, as Mexico continues with efforts to contain mass migration under pressure from the Trump administration.
Central American migrants meet with armed guardsmen at Mexico border
Mexico continues with efforts to contain the procession under pressure from the Trump administration
National guardsmen in riot gear have corralled hundreds of Central Americans and hauled them on to buses as Mexico continues with efforts to contain mass migration, under pressure from the Trump administration.
Security forces blocked the migrants’ path near the town of Frontera Hidalgo on Thursday afternoon, after hundreds had swept into Mexico across the Suchiate River that divides the country from Guatemala.
Continue reading...American Dirt: why critics are calling Oprah’s book club pick exploitative and divisive
Latino writers say Jeanine Cummins’ novel uses stereotypes and exploits the suffering of Mexican immigrants
American Dirt, the third novel by Jeanine Cummins, begins with a group of assassins opening fire on a quinceañera cookout. We watch Lydia’s entire family get killed, one by one. Only Lydia and her eight-year-old survive.
The scene is one of many depictions of graphic violence in American Dirt and it has sparked an intense conversation about “pity porn” and writing about the Mexican immigrant experience.
Continue reading...Scuffles erupt between migrants and troops at Guatemala-Mexico border – video report
Scuffles have broken out between hundreds of Central American migrants and National Guard agents at the border between Guatemala and Mexico. The troops formed a barrier to stop the migrants from entering deeper into Mexico as they attempted to cross into the US
Continue reading...Mexico: Amlo sought to sell presidential jet, but nobody wanted it
Luxurious plane will be returned to Mexico after a year on sale in the US where it piled up $1.5m in maintenance costs
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has made selling off the luxurious presidential jet a centerpiece of his austerity program, but there’s just one problem: nobody wants to buy the white elephant.
López Obrador said on Tuesday the Boeing Dreamliner will be returned to Mexico after a year on sale in the United States, where it piled up about $1.5m in maintenance costs.
Continue reading...More than 300 human rights activists were killed in 2019, report reveals
Colombia was the bloodiest nation with 103 murders and the Philippines was second, followed by Brazil, Honduras and Mexico
More than 300 human rights defenders working to protect the environment, free speech, LGBTQ rights and indigenous lands in 31 countries were killed in 2019, a new report reveals.
Two thirds of the total killings took place in Latin America where impunity from prosecution is the norm.
Continue reading...Mexico: two killed after 11-year-old opens fire at school
- Five children and teacher also injured, police chief says
- Torreón mayor: ‘It is very serious, so, so sad’
At least two people have been killed and six injured after an 11-year-old boy entered a school in northern Mexico with two handguns and opened fire.
The shooting took place on Friday morning in the city of Torreón, in Coahuila state.
Continue reading...More than 60,000 people are missing amid Mexico’s drug war, officials say
Mexican authorities admit the number is far higher than previously estimated as murders continue to rise
The devastating human toll of Mexico’s security crisis was laid bare on Monday as authorities admitted nearly 62,000 people had vanished since the start of its catastrophic war on drugs in 2006.
The figure – far higher than a previous estimate of about 40,000 – spoke to the scale of the challenge facing Mexico’s leftist leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took power in December 2018 vowing to pacify his country.
Continue reading...US sends asylum seekers to Mexico to await hearings held 350 miles away
Authorities are expanding the Remain in Mexico program, which critics say puts migrants into dangerous border towns
The US government has started sending asylum seekers back to Nogales, Mexico, to await court hearings that will be scheduled roughly 350 miles (563 kilometers) away in Ciudad Juárez.
Authorities are expanding a program known as Remain in Mexico that requires tens of thousands of asylum seekers to wait out their immigration court hearings in Mexico. Until this week, the government was driving some asylum seekers from Nogales, Arizona, to El Paso, Texas, so they could be returned to Juárez.
Continue reading...Mexico’s Amlo says El Chapo ‘had the same power’ as past presidents
López Obrador took a blow at his predecessors while claiming Mexico’s era of corruption is ‘gone to the garbage dump of history’
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, closed out 2019 with a parting shot at his predecessors, saying the imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera had once wielded the same power as the country’s president.
In a video message from the southern city of Palenque on Wednesday, López Obrador recounted his administration’s successes in its first year and highlighted its challenges foremost surging violence.
Continue reading...Spain orders Bolivian trio to leave as diplomatic row deepens
Government in tit-for-tat retort after Jeanine Añez said she would expel diplomats over alleged plan to extract former Morales aide
The Spanish government has declared three Bolivian diplomats “personae non gratae” in a tit-for-tat move as a diplomatic spat deepened with Madrid’s former colony.
Related: Latin America's tumultuous year turns expectations on their head
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