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Mitla and its Cultures
Twenty-four miles outside the city of Oaxaca, in the town of San Pablo Villa de Mitla, a group of ruins subsist in a state of repose, waiting to be encountered. The site’s original name in Zapotec is…
Midwifery: An Art of Maya Women
In Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, midwifery has traditionally been a thriving practice amongst the Maya peoples. Midwives have had an important place in rural indigenous communities because they…
Mexico: 2018 Presidential Election
The purpose of this entry is to give a better understanding of the political parties that exist in Mexico and the current candidates. This year's presidential election is controversial because the…
Mexico, the Agave, and the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893
There was a strange sight to behold on the shore of Lake Michigan, in Chicago, days before the May 1 opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. An agave plant in night caps was inside the…
Mexico on Display at the World’s Fairs
This paper examines how Mexico put their national identity on display while undergoing many changes in leadership from 1876-1939.
Mexico City Zocalo
The Zocalo has served as the historical, cultural, and ceremonial center to the past and present occupants of Mexico City. It is the main square of the entire city and the center which is next to…
Mexico at the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition 1897: A Time of Race, Space, and Place
The Latin American presence in the World’s Fairs evoked interest in international trade and commerce. Countries such as Cuba, Peru, and Venezuela participated as often as their political, social, and…
Mexico and Hurricane Katrina
The Ejército Mexicano (Mexican Army) rolled into Nuevo Laredo on September 8, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina slammed into southern Louisiana after making landfall in New Orleans. A line of forty-five…
Mexican Socialist Thought
A socialist revolution is rarely succinct or adhesive to a single strict ideological interpretation. When Mexico experienced its 1910 revolution, the rule of President Porfirio Díaz, the man the…
Mexican Nationalism and Fashion
Over the last century, Mexican fashion designers such as Armando Valdés Peza, Henri De Châtillon, and, most remarkably, Ramón Valdiosera created a legacy that still influences Mexican fashion today.…
Mesoamerica and the Big Apple: Mexican Nationalism at the 1964 World’s Fair
For twelve months between 1964 and 1965, Mexican and Mesoamerican culture invaded the economic heart of the western world, New York City. Grand displays of Mesoamerican art steeped in the mystic…
Merle Greene Robertson at Palenque
One of the most important Maya sites is Palenque. With its unique characteristics, it has kept some of the best quality bas reliefs in the whole Maya world, and with the work that Merle Greene…
Mayan Ritualistic Use of Tobacco
Balamkú cave in Chichén Itzá holds high numbers of Maya artifacts. The connection between the Maya and the Underworld being intertwined in the inner earth is not a new revelation, but what rituals…
Maya Medicine
The Museo de la Medicina Maya is located in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas. On Avenida Salomón González Blanco 10 this site is marked by an arch leading into what appears to be a small hamlet.…
Maya Bloodletting and Piercing
Throughout the various empires and cultures in ancient Mesoamerica, the act of human and animal sacrifice was a common occurrence. The Maya practiced human and animal sacrifice as well, but had more…
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
There are few Mexican photographers more influential and well known than Manuel Alvarez Bravo. He was an artist, not just of photography, that focused on the principles of the Mexican people and its…
Maize God
The origins of the Maize God was born from a Mayan myth that goes back to the Classic Period of Mesoamerican history. The story of the reincarnation of the Baby Jaguar as the Maize God shows the…
Life in the Fast Lane: The Rise and Untimely Death of Mexico's Greatest Driver
Pedro Rodriguez was born to go fast. Indeed, his early life involved two things that all great race drivers understand; change and competition. To succeed in auto racing, a driver must adapt to…
Leopoldo Méndez’s Revolution: Social Activism through Graphic Art
Born on June 30, 1902, in Mexico City, Leopoldo Méndez would become one of Mexico’s most significant and beloved graphic artists of the twentieth century. Méndez was one of eight children in a poor…
Legacy and Lexicon: A Look into Operation Wetback's Impact on Immigration
In the summer of 1954 the United States government carried out a mass deportation of over one million people. [1] This was Operation Wetback. In recent years there has been increased concern…
Las Pampas Ranch
One of the main factors that caused the 1910 Mexican Revolution was agricultural workers not being able to own the land they worked on. Mexico had far too many large, individual land holdings making…
Kinich Kakmó
North of the main plaza of Izamal is the temple of Kinich Kakmó, an artifical limestone pyramid in the Yucatan dedicated to one of the area's most important and notable deities of the same name.…
John Steinbeck and his Voyage to The Gulf of California
“Below the Mexican border the water changes color; it takes on a deep ultramarine blue – a washtub bluing blue, intense and seeming to penetrate deep into the water."[1] This quote is from "The Log…
John Galindo: Palenque and Copan
Copan was a Maya civilization that took place in the classical era of 300-900 AD. This civilization had many political, religious or civil issues. The Maya leader of Copan was Yax Kuh Mo, he…
John F. Kennedy and the Politics of the Virgin of Guadalupe
During a brief trip to Mexico City in 1962, President John F. Kennedy attended mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. What at first may appear to have been little more than a gesture of good…
Japan and Mexico - Before 1939
Japanese in Mexico did not face the intense discrimination other Asians did during the first half of the twentieth century. Mexican intellectuals were impressed with Japan in the late nineteenth…
Jackie Kennedy in Yucatán, 1968.
What is the image you think of when thinking about a Former First Lady? Perhaps it is the image of a prim and proper woman fashionably dressed sipping tea. Jackie Kennedy was a fashionably dressed…
Institute of Public Education
The Institute of Public Education of Oaxaca (IEEPO) serves as the center of education located in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico. It has currently been in the news as a result of the ongoing teachers’…
Impacts of Milk Consumption on Child Development in 1960s Mexico
Though milk consumption is vital to child development, it was not always easy to access in Mexico during the 1960s, which caused negative health impacts for children. During this period, mothers had…
Iconic Cuisine: Tamales of the Maya
Tamales are a simple mixture of corn masa (dough) – sometimes filled with sweet or savory fillings and then wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks for cooking. In the hustle and bustle of today’s…