I don’t say this to depress you, but as an introduction for the movie topic of the day. “Nuestros Tiempos” (Our Times), a Mexican movie currently on Netflix. It’s a film that reminds us of the extent to which how we live, and even how we love, is shaped by the circumstances of time and place.

It’s also a reminder of how quickly things can change. It boggles my mind to remember that when my mother came of age, she couldn’t get a credit card (in the U.S.!) without a male relative co-signer. She grew up in a time when pants were not permitted as part of the dress code for girls, and she couldn’t take birth control pills. She certainly couldn’t count on being taken seriously at work.

Hell, the little girl who first stepped into a newly integrated school, Ruby Bridges, is still alive and not even that old! It happened before I was born and in my mind is ancient history. See? Nothing truly “exists” for us if we weren’t alive when it did.

Movie: Nuestros Tiempos (Our Time)

This movie, honestly, did not do super well with critics. It was a little Polyanna-ish, I’ll admit, with all nothing-but-earnest characters who were just a little too perfect and gracious. But I still thought it was sweet. It made for both a good story and a sort of “look how far we’ve come” reflection around women’s rights.

The story centers around a married couple, two physicists who are deeply in love. In 1966, they both work at the UNAM (Universidad Autónoma de Mexico) in Mexico City. Their main project is a time travel machine that the physics department has sunk a lot of money into.

While they both teach, the wife is allowed to more as a favor than anything, and has trouble getting her higher-ups to listen to her — they openly prefer to deal with her husband. When their boss comes to dinner, it’s she who prepares a homemade meal and answers the door while her husband relaxes with a cigarette and a newspaper.

As you can likely guess, they get their time machine working one night and are thrust nearly 60 years into the future. Lucky for them, the leader of the current UNAM is a former student who’d fan-girled all over la doctora in the past, and she helps them settle and continue their work on the time machine.

The crux of the movie is that, without the overly patriarchal system of the past to boost him, the husband finds himself taking a backseat to his wife’s popularity and brilliance. Given his advantages in the past, it’s not a place he’s accustomed to occupying. The husband is never painted as bad or a bigot — just a product of his time.

Some of the moments of them discovering the future together are adorable. The first stop outside of the time machine is at an OXXO. They assume the cashier is deaf because she’s wearing earbuds and not responding to them. The cashier assumes their staring means they’re trying to pick out flavored condoms from a display behind her. “How could I ask for condoms with two ladies present?” the husband responds. Their fascination with the modern smartphone and how it works is also endless.

Others are a bit more heart-wrenching. When the wife returns with goodies from a sex shop, the husband is impressed with the lingerie, but shocked at a “retardant” for him. “How could you have shared things about our intimate life with someone else?”

Later, when the wife is nominated to give a special talk on an International Women’s Day event, the loss of status proves to be too much for her husband. In one of the most cringey moments of the film, he pops up and goes to the podium when her name is called. He recites an extremely cringy poem that would have elicited warm nods and smiles in “his time.” In 2025, though, he doesn’t seem to notice the uncomfortable shifting and staring among the audience.

Soon after this experience, he decides he wants to return to 1966. He wants his wife to go back with him, but — you guessed it — she likes actually being able to do her work and be respected for it.

To me, the real magic of this movie is in answering this question: does love hang around when power dynamics shift? And it’s not as if his wife is now more powerful than him; she simply stands, suddenly, on equal footing.

In “his time,” the husband is an exceedingly kind and encouraging person. In modern times, he feels the frustration that his wife did. The difference is that she’d known no other life, whereas he felt the punch of sudden loss of power and respect all at once.

It’s easy to be gracious when you’re consistently in a position to show grace with no risk to your status. When the world around you has changed but you haven’t things get stickier.

I won’t give away the ending. Don’t expect fantastic acting, but it’s worth a watch, and an especially interesting to compare the different sensibilities of the times in Mexico.

I wasn’t there, of course. But I see how women who came of age in that time period behave today, and that tells me more than anything how different things are now.

For my older readers out there, I’d love to hear from you — what changes have you noticed over your lifetime when it comes to gendered behavior?

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

The post Mexican movies you need to watch: Nuestros Tiempos appeared first on Mexico News Daily

In the comments section, many readers took issue with the phrasing, particularly. I’d sum them up like this: “We learned Spanish, we treat people well, we’re involved in the community, we do volunteer work. How crass to equate our way of life with cheating!”

One of the topics I addressed was the inherent unfairness of the economic systems that make living in Mexico a “good deal.” Here’s what I mean.

As a U.S. citizen, I have access to online jobs — albeit precarious ones — that are only open to U.S. citizens. Because these jobs are for U.S. citizens who presumably live in the U.S., the pay is adjusted to the cost of living there. Mexican jobs, on the other hand, are paid considering the cost of living here, which is much lower.

In neither place are most average salaries quite enough to live comfortably, which accounts for some of the migration south.

That means that as a professional in my field, I can earn much more than a professional Mexican in my same field, despite that professional Mexican being just as smart, just as educated, and just as hard-working as I am. While I might live like a queen, they barely scrape by.

Here’s an example: one popular Mexico-based online job is to work as a phone interpreter. To do this job, you must be completely fluent in both languages, which trust me, is no easy feat. You also have to be computer savvy, extremely sharp, and quick on your feet. I myself am fluent in both languages, but wouldn’t dream of trying to work as a live interpreter: it’s too hard, and I’m too spacey. The wage for this extremely high skill that takes years to master? About US $850 a month.

“That’s not a bad wage here,” you might say. I suppose not, especially if you don’t have to pay rent and there are other workers in your household. But it’s nowhere near comfortable, especially if you live in a large urban area. Ask yourself honestly: how well could you live here on that amount, especially if you didn’t already own a home or vehicle?

Now, Mexicans do have plenty of “home field” advantages that offset some of this. Immediate family support and property is a big one, for example. Still, none of us can escape the need for money, and the more you have, the easier things get.

By extension, it means I — we — often have much more economic power than they do, despite not being measurably “better” or more deserving than they. We can buy more. We can afford to live in the best areas.

And while this is, let’s be honest, an inherently unfair system, it’s of course not the fault of any one individual. Building and maintaining a system is one thing; taking advantage of it as a worker is another, very human by the way, thing.

Like, I’m sure, many of you, I watched with dismay as the “anti-gentrification” protests played out in Mexico City last week. Most of the protests, let it be said, were peaceful, if a bit rude. “Gringo go home?” Ouch. But some parts were scarier, with actual violence. One particular video clip haunts me: a blonde woman who looks a lot like me ducking in a restaurant as angry protestors lurched toward her.

Yikes.

Any therapist will tell you: the emotion behind anger is always fear born of deep pain.

The issue at hand here is principally the question of who gets access to scarce resources. In this case, the “scarce resources” are the trendiest neighborhoods of Mexico City.

The last time I went to that area of Mexico City was in 2021 to renew my kid’s passport. It was a gorgeous urban landscape with parks and cute cafes everywhere. There were white people everywhere I looked. A trip to the panadería for what would have cost 35 pesos in our own city cost over 200 there, leaving our eyes watering at the checkout counter. “Wait, where are we?”

A place where only the rich can afford to live and play, that’s where.

And that’s the kind of thing that can make lots of people mad — especially if they’ve recently been priced out, which, according to reports, did not make up the majority of the protestors.

Was there some xenophobia at play? Certainly.

But officially, those present were protesting “gentrification,” the process by which an area becomes desirable. Once it does, more people move and open businesses there. As the area increases in popularity, alas, so do its prices. This is true in popular cities all over the world.

Now, I feel there’s an important point to make here: no one is moving to an area and insisting on paying higher prices there. Consumers, as a rule, do not set the prices of what they buy; sellers do. And most of the sellers and business owners in these areas are Mexican.

Really, these angry young people are protesting not against foreigners, but against something much more insidious: unregulated capitalism. It allows prices for basic needs like housing to skyrocket. It allows wages to stay much lower on one side of the border than the other for the same work. It ensures that the nicest, choicest parts of any city are reserved almost exclusively for the well-to-do.

But the protestors can’t see the people who are deciding to evict current tenants in favor of those who will pay big bucks for short-term rentals. They don’t see those who decide that a piece of bread from the panadería will cost 30 pesos instead of five. Capitalists everywhere are clever: they mostly stay out of view, away from any potential wrath.

What they can see are people from other places blithely enjoying these things that they cannot. The fact that some are oblivious to the culture and language surrounding them does not help the matter.

You can’t yell at the concept of real estate speculation or capitalism in the street. But you can yell at a foreigner.

It is obviously not nice for anyone to treat anyone else as a villain because of the way they look or as a result of their foreigner status. It is wrong, and it is sad. And it’s 100% something that white people from North America are not used to dealing with. I’m not saying we’re cosmically due, but it does seem a little unfair, in the grand scheme of things, that one group should be indefinitely exempt from xenophobic treatment.

It’s worth remembering too that Mexico City, with Claudia Sheinbaum as mayor, rolled out the welcome mat for these foreigners by partnering with AirBnB and UNESCO in 2022. Overall, it wasn’t a terrible plan. After all, Mexico depends on tourism for a significant portion of its GDP.

But tourism money coming in is not spread about equally. While you could argue that a low-paid hotel maid benefits from having a job, the real winners are always those who own the places where they land and play.

And when enough people take notice that those left on the outside looking in far outnumber those benefiting, people get upset.

And when lots of people are upset together, rationality does not reign. Be careful out there.

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

The post The awkward truth behind Mexico City’s ‘anti-gentrification’ protests appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Even as a young child I would daydream about the boys I thought were cute. We’d fall in love, even at the tender age of 13, stay in love — naturally — and get married once we were grown-ups. Every time we looked into each other’s eyes for the rest of our lives, sparks would fly. I was 100% sure of it.

When you’re young and love is new, the prospect of one’s feelings changing toward someone you’re infatuated with feels downright absurd. “Me? Not love him? That is literally impossible.”

The new feelings of romantic love are intoxicating; they absolutely bewitch us. No one but our beloved is as lovely, as interesting, as deep, and we basically become addicted to them. Such are our feelings of connection that we’ve invented the concept of the “soul mate,” which, if you think about for more than 10 seconds, is a mathematical probability so low that it might as well be an impossibility (I guess I’m a little less romantic now than I was.)

This is not by accident, but is, rather, a biological fact. Nature is trying to get enough of us to fall in love with each other to keep the species going. Human babies need more care for more time than any other baby creature on earth, after all. So nature doesn’t just have to get us to have sex with each other; it’s got to get us to cooperate enough to raise live children through adulthood. No wonder our brains get so pumped full of dopamine. “Nature’s shrooms,” I call it.

Anyway. Here we are, a bunch of lovey-dovey dopes who can’t predict future feelings or commitment. Even bad, sometimes horrible experiences aren’t enough to discourage us. Freddy Mercury said it best: “I’ve fallen in love for the first time / This time I know it’s for real.”

All this lead-up is to bring me to the surprising subject at hand: Jalisco’s proposal for temporary marriage contract.

Why the proposal?

Well, apparently their family courts are 90% stuffed with divorce proceedings. Yikes.

As someone who has been married and divorced in Mexico, I can attest to the difficulty of getting it done here, besides the regular run-of-the-mill difficulty already inherent in the process. It’s long, it’s expensive, it’s dramatic in the most unpleasant ways possible. I mean, you literally have to sue the other party if you don’t go through some sort of “alternative justice” mediation.

Could there possibly be a less pleasant way to kick things off?

That’s why I read about Jalisco’s proposal with excitement. Of course! Temporary marriage contracts. Brilliant.

While I know some conservative groups are against this — and there are certainly things to be said about how seriously we take marriage — I’m all for it. It’s a clear-eyed view of the on-the-ground reality of modern relationships. It proposes real solutions. And also, honestly, I’d love to simply be married without going through all the stress of an expensive wedding. Spending all my savings on one day where I have to be both the star and the host? Well, when you put it that way…

This is a proposal that recognizes the way people really live.

Most modern humans, for the most part, are what we call in sociology “serially monogamous.” We pair off, and we stay in those pairs for a while. We do our best to love and support each other, in good times and bad. Most of the relationships in our lifetimes simply don’t last…a lifetime.

This fact, to me, does not make them any less special. Is my friendship with my fifth-grade bestie less special because we don’t keep in touch? Of course not.

Romantic relationships, of course, are in a slightly more fraught category. They have to be, because the emotions are so much more intense.

But as any psychologist will tell you, those feelings of infatuation have a shelf life. And once they’ve faded back into the comfort of the everyday, you’ve got to actually like being constantly around who you’re with as a person. Marrying your best friend? Befriend your lover, I say.

So back to the proposal. Just because something isn’t forever doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be official. Contracts, as un-romantic as they sound, I’d argue are one of the most loving things you can draw up with another person. And a temporary marriage contract is extra romantic.

Why?

Because you’re actively looking out for a person who, in the future, you might not like very much.

People grow, people change. People fall out of love. Very unfortunately, being married and even in love doesn’t stop our eyes from wandering, and, well… some people have more self-control than others.

Whatever the reason, some relationships just aren’t meant to go the distance.

So when the tears are flowing and the emotions are all over the place, a contract is something that can save you. It’s a time machine from your former, in-love selves: they, the people who love each other, have already made the tough decisions for you.

First, the most important: what will happen to any children from the relationship?

What will happen to property you acquired together?

How will you relate to each other and set boundaries after the breakup?

And after the number of years you’ve established in the contract are up, how will you decide whether or not you want to continue or go your separate ways?

It’s had me wondering how things might have been different had my ex-husband and I had such a contract. If we had decided on all the “what-if”s when we were deeply in love. Chances are, a legal “check-in” every few years with a set, pre-established checklist might have even strengthened the relationship. At this point, there’s no way to know.

So good for Jalisco. I hope it passes because, ironically, I think getting people to sit down and really think about their future selves is a great way to set them up for marital success. Maybe even a lifetime of it.

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

The post Temporary marriages: a surprising proposal from a ‘conservative’ place appeared first on Mexico News Daily

But there’s another major reason as well, one that I’ve heard said over and over: “I just couldn’t afford to live in the U.S. anymore.”

Generations of US economic refugees in Mexico

I’ve most often heard this phrase from retirees. Whereas their monthly Social Security checks would have them living in virtual poverty in the United States, depending on where they are in Mexico, that money stretches just fine.

But retirees aren’t the only ones who have moved to Mexico at least partly as economic refugees. Increasingly, younger people and families with kids have taken the plunge and moved here. This is often couched in the language of “a more relaxed way of life,” or “slowing down and being able to spend time with my kids.” 

The only way you can have a more relaxed way of life, of course, is if you don’t have to work 60 hours a week just to put food on the table.

Economically, there are two major types of permanent and semipermanent immigrants from the north in Mexico.

There are retirees who mostly made their money at a time when a hard worker could, with reasonable effort, get the basics needed to live, plus some. In addition to working hard, labor laws were strong, and jobs with benefits and pensions were the norm. They mostly went to college when you could cover college payments with summer-job wages at McDonald’s. Housing was affordable, and buying a home was a reasonable expectation. This was especially true for college-educated people, but also true for many who’d simply “worked their way up” in their respective industries since high school.

At least until retirement age, the system worked for many the way it was supposed to.

As a result, those who wanted to were able to “cash out” upon retirement in the U.S. It’s a great deal: Proceeds from U.S. home sales can go quite far to buy or build in Mexico, and savings, pensions and Social Security stretch quite a bit further here than they do in the U.S. Though Mexican prices have been rising, just like they have in the rest of the world, things like healthcare and food are wildly inexpensive by comparison. And, of course, for many other noneconomic reasons, Mexico makes for the perfect retirement place.

I don’t begrudge these folks. They worked hard and are now enjoying the fruits of their labor in retirement, which is how it should be. I do think, however, that they should be able to enjoy retirement just as much in their home countries.

Alas, save for the wealthiest, the U.S. specifically is becoming less affordable by the minute. Thankfully, Mexico is a beautiful, affordable safety net for some well-deserved relaxing.

‘Gaming the system’ is decreasingly an option

But for my own generation of immigrants — younger people, some with families and kids —things are different, and getting different-er, fast. The willingness to work hard has not gone away. The education and skill level, if anything, have increased. But we’re in the unfortunate position of being workers during a time when “working hard” is simply not enough. 

Everyone can control how hard they work. Precious few can control how much they’re charged for basic things like housing. Everyone can apply for jobs they qualify for. No one can force someone to hire them. Another thing we can’t do? Oblige wages to keep up with the cost of living or inflation.

So, as many people my age have discovered, working online and living in Mexico offers a lovely reprieve. Time with your kids. Being able to afford going out to eat. Going to the doctor when you need to without waiting for months, only for insurance to later decide you don’t need the treatment after all, and now you have the choice of either buying it out of pocket or paying your rent.

But you can only “game the system” as long as the system stays stable. And this is not a time of great stability, my friends.

For many younger professional immigrants, including myself, the ability to work online was a godsend. While it hasn’t allowed me to purchase anything extravagant like a house, it has allowed me to comfortably pay rent and raise a kid, which is a lot more than plenty of workers in my home country can say. And while I personally would live in Mexico anyway, many others came, in part, because of this ability to earn good money relative to the cost of living.

This has generated some friction locally, especially given all the media hype about “digital nomads” during the pandemic. This is understandable. After all, if I were a Mexican just as educated and skilled as my U.S. counterpart, I’d feel resentful of the fact that, because of where I was born, my earning potential was roughly a fourth of theirs, thanks to their access to the U.S. job market. Add to that the norm becoming 100-peso lattes and inaccessible rents thanks to these newcomers and I’d be downright furious. At least they’ve got their families here for support.

But this temporary fix for the unaffordable U.S. economy is, I fear, coming to a close. Those online jobs? Suddenly, they’re not so easy to get, and the economic uncertainty brought on in part by all-over-the-place tariffs means that plenty of companies aren’t eager to do much hiring. Throw AI into the mix, and the situation gets trickier still.

Speaking of AI, it’s become the new bottom in the “race to the bottom” for companies looking to save on labor. AI predictably came for the translation jobs I used to make a living at, and it’s only a matter of time before it comes for what I’m doing now. Some AI experts predict that within only a few years, virtually all jobs that are done “in front of a computer” — that is, white-collar jobs — will be easily done by AI alone.

Whether in the U.S. or Mexico, this is bad news in a system where one must either already have money or earn money in order to get life’s necessities. The disadvantage that U.S. immigrants to Mexico have to Mexicans here, though, is the lack of family support systems that Mexicans rely on.

About a week ago, I was feeling very depressed. The prospect of a promised job contract seemed suddenly shaky, and I was worried, again, the way one might be while standing on a rock in the middle of a river and seeing the other rocks you might hop on to reach land sinking.

But then I went to a café, where I joined our small “foreigners breakfast” group. And it reminded me: I’m not alone. 

We’re not alone, fellow migrants. We can create new systems for ourselves; humans have certainly done it before. We can band together, and we can support each other.

You know, like Mexicans do.

The post Is ‘gaming the system’ in Mexico still a good economic solution for US citizens? appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Whether or not you know the child being celebrated is truly irrelevant. A party is something their parents throw, and they get a big say in who attends. This is only right because parties are expensive. Sure, at least some of the kid’s friends will be there too. But you’d be forgiven for peeking into a salón de fiesta and wondering why a bunch of beer-drinking grown-ups rented a bouncy house.

A central feature of the Mexican kid’s party — and Christmas party, and New Year’s party — is, of course, the piñata.

Piñatas, as you might guess, have been around for quite a while. Before the papier-mâché varieties of today, for example, piñatas were literally clay pots. For an excellent read on the history of piñatas, check out Leigh Thelmaletter’s excellent article on the subject.

As a parent, I have watched as my daughter and other guests have taken turns trying to smash many a piñata to smithereens. My voice has gone hoarse from singing the “dale dale” song; thankfully, I usually have a beer to soothe it. And of course, my heart has stopped many times as I watched particularly enthusiastic children swing with all their might, even as others rushed toward them, one or two pieces of candy on the ground already.

Piñata candy-collecting is not a sport for the weak. You either rush in there and scoopup  candy as fast as you can — or you don’t get candy. My daughter, whom I’ve infected with some of my gringa sensibilities, tends to hang back and grab stragglers, often sharing with smaller kids. This is kind, yes, but it’s also safe: She knows she’ll get a gift bag at the end of the party too. Under no circumstances will she go without.

You might think that once your kids get candy, you’ll get candy. This is true. There’s usually plenty to go around, along with — thank goodness — a big supply of local dentists.

Some of the candy is what we’re already familiar with, like chocolate. There are paletas (suckers) too, of course, and the little pieces of hard candy called caramelos.

But, oh, the variety. Everyone seems to love these things around here, so let’s have a look at what some of the less-familiar ones are!

Miguelitos

I have not met a Mexican who does not love miguelitos. My daughter loves them too. I, myself, would rather eat paint chips.

What are miguelitos, you may ask? Well, they’re little paper or plastic packets of powder that, since they’re sold as candy, you would think would be sweet. Basically, it’s a chamoy-flavored powder.

And what is chamoy, you may ask? It’s the stuff on the rim of your glass if you have a michelada, for one. It’s sweet, sour, salty and spicy all at the same time, and Mexicans go nuts for it. In powder or sauce, it goes on fruit, candy, popcorn, the rims of glasses or straight into the mouth. For a fascinating history of chamoy in Mexico, check out this video.

Pelón Pelo Rico

This is another favorite of pretty much every kid I know, including my daughter, and is in the tamarind candy category. Its presentation is silly: it’s a push-up goo made to look like a little green fellow’s red hair. It’s tangy and spicy, and also a little… salty? Not my bag, but it doesn’t have to be: It’s got tons of fans.

Tamarind is the featured flavor in a few other popular Mexican candies as well, like Pulparindo, which my partner calls his personal favorite. This one is just a bit heavier on the spiciness and saltiness — and it’s chewy, like a fruit roll-up. Salty fruit roll-ups, anyone? There’s also a kind of tamarind pulp sold in an actual plastic spoon to lick off!

Mazapán

Now that we’ve talked about some of the many things they put salt and chili in, let’s move on to something, in my opinion, much tastier. Mazapán — De la Rosa is the brand — is a round disk of ground peanuts and sugar pressed together. It’s technically a solid, but it has a way of both breaking off and then melting in your mouth that’s just so satisfying.

Obleas

I was very confused the first time someone handed me one of these. “Is this…two body-of-Christ wafers with caramel in the middle?” That’s exactly what it was.

The cream in the middle is cajeta, a gooey caramel made from goat’s milk; the similar dulce de leche is made from cow’s milk. There are also cajeta suckers, which are delicious, and rollos de guayaba filled with cajeta, which are also worth seeking out, though they can’t typically be found in a piñata. I just wanted to mention them because I love them.

Paleta payaso

If you’re lucky, there will be a few of these in the piñata. The paleta payaso is a chocolate-covered marshmallow on a stick with a candied smiley face.

Unwrapping one is always a comical event, because the face is always misshapen. I remember frowning at one for a good five seconds the first time someone handed me one. But it’s pretty good.

Which Mexican candies do you like?

This article isn’t a complete list — obviously. I tried to stick mostly to things that might seem foreign to… we foreigners.

Even after 23 years, there are some of these candies that I just don’t like: chili and salt with sweet and tart, for example, will never be okay in my book. But most candies, I do like.

So come on, out with it: What are your Mexican faves?

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

The post What’s inside that piñata? A guide to Mexican candy favorites appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Coca-Cola receives an incredible amount of positive attention and market reinforcement, actually, given the amount of harm they do.

I mean, there’s quite a bit to say about it negatively. It’s bad for us, which we all know: bad for our teeth, bad for our bodies. It’s too big: You’ve got at least a 50% chance that the drink you buy at a tiendita is made by the Coca-Cola company. It’s also, as we know, a big, big consumer of natural resources, particularly water.

Coca-Cola is a favorite worldwide villain. “The dark waters of imperialism,” some say. So it’s nice to see that they’re at least putting on a show of behaving.

Honestly, I have my doubts, unless the government truly does stay on top of them. I’m sure the government’s intentions are to do just that, but you’ve got to admit, there’s always a lot of competition for our top officials’ attention.

Still, I’ll concede to Coca-Cola that they have done some good things to make up for, well, their existence in the first place. According to the article cited above, it’s helped establish water collection systems in over 700 schools, for example.

Well, good. We’ve certainly all given them enough money to get all kinds of infrastructure off the ground. But the company’s number one priority is not to “do good.” It’s to make money and stay in business — to keep making more money — which is the purpose of any company.

And this company’s profits depend directly on its access to natural resources.

Now, before we go on, a disclaimer: I’ve had many an angry commenter at this paper accuse me of being a socialist. And I am! I claim it. My lifetime has been one gigantic museum of the results when guardrails meant to keep people safe from unbridled capitalism are removed.

Pay a living wage? Ha! Benefits? Pensions? Triple ha! Getting corporations to protect the natural environment they rely on extracting from to make a profit is even more laughable. And believe me, you haven’t felt power until you’ve threatened a major company’s ability to make money.

Remember that Joni Mitchell song? “They took all the trees / and put ’em in a tree museum / Then they charged the people / a dollar and a half just to see ’em.” For companies like Coca-Cola, privatizing access to natural resources and then selling it back to us mixed with delicious, addictive poison is literally their business model.

And oh God, are we addicted. Mexicans love Coke. I love Coke. It’s like an abusive boyfriend I can’t stay away from. None of us can, actually: Mexico has the highest per-capita average consumption in the world at a whopping 160 liters per year! Being saved from ourselves is literally the only way at this point.

MLK Jr. was right: “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

In other words, the powers that be don’t spontaneously decide to behave; they have to be forced.

I was heartened to read about, then, the National Water Plan, which aims to do precisely that. Among the actions are:

• A review of the water concessions (rights to specific sources of water) with the aim of taking back what’s not being used. For a truly chilling look at how much water private corporations use in Mexico City, have a look here.
• An inspection program to help detect “illegal, improper, and wasteful” use of water. Honestly, I’m not sure how this part is going to work. Will going to authorities be more effective than all the other times one might go to the authorities? But, hey, I’m prepared to be surprised.
• Changing the law to ensure that water concessions can’t be sold. “You are not allowed to make this water that’s for everyone into a business” seems pretty fair to me.
• New irrigation technology to ensure that the vast amount of water needed for agriculture is used as intelligently as possible.
• Infrastructure projects like dams and aqueducts. If they’d asked me, I’d have said “Plus, let’s have government subsidies for all housing units in the country to install water catchment systems, please, please, please!” They haven’t asked me, but I’m ready if they do.
• Cleanup initiatives, with special focus on the water supplies we have now that could use a good scrubbing.

One of the things I love about Mexico is that it’s not afraid to make institutions that exist solely to make a profit mad. It begins on principle and goes from there.

It starts at the most basic values: “Should our most precious resource, which rains from the sky, only belong to those who pay for it?”

Obviously, the answer is no. Water is a human right, period.

It grows from there. “Are there any parties taking more than their fair share of water, leaving others without?” Oh, yes.

So, good for Claudia for bringing this issue to the forefront.

If there’s anything that you shouldn’t have to have money to get, it’s water. What will they want to start charging for next — air?

That’s a joke, but I feel pretty certain that if it were possible, someone would do it.

In the meantime, I think we’re off to a good start. In this crazy world, it heartens me to see some governments acting logically and for the greater good rather than the greater profit.

And while Coca-Cola might be evil, it’s not dumb; it knows that its choices in one of its biggest markets on earth is to either play by our rules or not play at all.

I’m glad we’re forcing them to behave — kind of.

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

The post The relentless imperialism of Coca Cola and our rights to health appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Two “clásicos” that I recently rewatched were “Por la libre“ and “Y tu mamá también.” Actually, I only saw “Por la libre,” a few weeks ago for the first time. I might have been blown away by it had I seen it as a 20-year-old, but as a 43-year-old, I rolled my eyes more than once.

“Por la libre” came out in 2000, a time that felt like a new dawn for all of us, right? We had just the right amount of technology to be convenient but not overpowering, and we’d survived what we thought might have been a global crisis since computers wouldn’t know what to do after the year 1999, or something like that. 

The movie follows two late-teen cousins shortly after the death of their Spanish grandfather. The characters are familiar ones in movies of the time: One cousin is a pot-smoking slacker and writer (Hey-o!), while the other is a clean-cut preppy kid with the requisite hot guy, late-’90s haircut. Think the brothers of the TV show “Home Improvement,” and you’ve nailed it.

The minor characters — the rest of the family — form familiar tropes: There’s the angry uncle who wants to make sure he winds up with as much inheritance as possible. There’s the long-suffering unmarried aunt who’s taken care of her parents all this time and now faces a brother who wants to sell their home. And, of course, there’s another uncle/dad and his new girlfriend who we automatically know we should not take seriously because her nipples show through her sweater in a very obvious way.

The free-spirited, or maybe just old, grandfather — who’d been planning to drive to Acapulco for an indefinite stay — kicks the bucket. The slacker grandson decides to make off with his ashes since the rest of the family is stalling the grandfather’s request that they be sprinkled in the ocean there. His preppy cousin hops along for the ride.

“Por la libre,” of course, is a reference both to the kind of highway they took — the nontoll one — and an expression to emphasize they’re going the “free” way. Get it? In English, they called it “Dust to Dust,” which, in my opinion, is an inferior translation. Anyway.

Once in Acapulco, they have the kind of odd-couple misadventures you’d expect in a late ’90s Hero’s Journey story. This includes discovering a young, beautiful girl played by Ana de la Reguera and a chance to use one of the more comical props of the movie, “el condón del abuelo.” Yes, it’s what you think it is. Ick.

The two cousins make a shocking discovery at the end of the movie — I won’t give it away — and, as often happens, embark on a brand-new life stage, wiser and more experienced.

It’s fairly innocent as movies go. One gets the sense that the directors were going for a somewhat “American Pie” a la mexicana feel. It does have a couple of good one-liners, I’ll admit, but for overall edginess, a movie that came out shortly after, “Y tu mamá también,” takes the cake.

It officially took us from ’90s tropes to the 2000s “serious storytelling”; it was an immediate hit in Mexico, and people were still talking about it when I arrived in 2002.

I’ll be honest. Alfonso Cuarón’s “Y tu mamá también” kind of offended my romantic sensibilities when I first saw it at age 21. It’s a story told by two boys at the cusp of manhood — early roles for Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal — and it was edgy in the way that means, if you don’t like it, you’re a prude.

“If this is how boys really talk about girls, I really wish I didn’t like boys,” I remember thinking. “Gross.”

The movie has full-on nudity, and sex that appears very difficult to have faked. Especially for Mexico, this was a lot, and it was an immediate revolution that seemed to come just in time for Mexico’s celebration of democracy after many years of exclusive PRI rule.

Striking, too, was the film’s ability to not shy away from some of the pressing matters of the day — which are still pressing matters, if we’re honest: Sexism, machismo, classism, the pain of enduring socioeconomic inequality — it’s all there. The view constantly switches between the intimate interpersonal and the overall sociological, economic and political situations of Mexico.

It’s an authentic look at a few lives in a certain time in a certain place.

Here’s the premise: Two best friends, whose girlfriends are away for the summer, embark on a road trip to the beach in Oaxaca with an older Spanish woman they definitely did not expect to accept their invitation. But having just been told that her husband cheated on her — and waiting on some mysterious test results from the doctor — she takes them up on it. They hastily map out a route and pick her up.

The rest of the movie is a story of discovery of both the self and of the country as they roam the southern roads and highways of Mexico. The boys, of course, are mostly interested in having sex with Luisa. On the first night, they go to spy on her in her hotel room. Instead of seeing her naked, they see her crying on the bed. Later, as they’re driving and pass a group of police harassing poor people, she asks how they make love to their girlfriends.

And that’s what most of the movie is like: the bravado of youth juxtaposed against the reality of humanity.

The last 30 minutes are quite touching. Two young Mexican men, albeit drunk, transcend both the expected script of jealousy and the homophobia inherent in the culture.

Both of these movies represent a turning point in el cine mexicano. Many coming-of-age movies would follow, like “Temporada de patos” and “Amar te duele.”

But at the turn of the century, the coming-of-age movie was brand new in Mexico, with its whole future laid out before it like a long highway.

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

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I haven’t before because, honestly, I haven’t really known what to make of them.

I personally have never stood in front of a judge in a courtroom, or sat next to one on a witness stand. I hope I never do! 

Few of my urges are as primal as Not Getting In Trouble. In fact, I’d say many of my private and public actions are performed — or not — with this in mind. I am a natural rule follower as long as the rules actually make sense, and sometimes even if they don’t. If I haven’t followed a rule, believe me: I’ve definitely spent hours torturing myself over the right thing to do beforehand.

Suffice it to say that the figure of “judge” mostly exists in my imagination from what I’ve seen acted out in TV and movies.

But for many people, who happens to stand in judgement of the crimes they’re accused of matters greatly. Judges on both sides of the border have broad leeway to determine not just one’s freedom but also the degree of punishment. The difference between one judge and another could be the difference between a few years in jail or a couple of months of community service.

But if you’re like me, you don’t give much thought to how the judges got there.

Previously in Mexico, judges were appointed at various levels of the government. This would be done by presidents, state legislatures and other ruling bodies, depending on the level of the court. 

Typically, judges would move upward from clerking: a career path within the judiciary. Difficult exams would need to be passed, with qualifications and experience taken into consideration.

How did that go?

Well, we all know that Mexico is no beacon of justice. But that doesn’t mean that the reason it’s no beacon of justice is because judges have been appointed rather than elected. They are, literally, one of the very last stops on the long and winding road known as the justice system.

Former President López Obrador, however, seemed sure judicial elections would be the fix to all of the system’s problems. Unhappy with the courts trying to stop his various initiatives  — and with a supermajority of his Morena party in place in the legislature — a change to the Constitution seemed to him the ideal fix.

Honestly, he’s always been one to throw the baby out with the bathwater. A system that he didn’t invent has some flaws? Off with its head!

Executive branches in all nations have always had an uneasy relationship with the court system. It ultimately comes down to power: Who gets to decide how things are going to go in a country? Elected political leaders, or judges who interpret the letter of the law? Executive leaders often find themselves stymied and irritated when courts say, “Actually, you can’t do that.” Just ask Trump.

A caveat: I’m no legal scholar. Like most Mexicans who are being encouraged to go to the polls this Sunday, I’m a little confused. I don’t completely understand the system, and I haven’t thought deeply about the types of conflicts of interest judges might have or how those conflicts can be resolved. I assume judges know the law well. I assume they apply the law in what is at the very least a legally permissive way.

But I’ve definitely got some questions.

First, how on earth are the voters expected to know much of anything beyond the judges’ names? There are too many on the ballot. I’m reminded of a New York Times series: “We’re following these 10 undecided voters in the months leading up to the election!” Undecided. Between two drastically different people with international name recognition.

If that’s the norm, where’s the hope for the rest of us?

Second, what’s the difference in a judge’s ability to be influenced when it comes to being appointed versus being elected? The United States does both. 

The argument on the reformers’ side is that elected judges won’t be beholden to the politicians who appointed them. In theory, this should cut down on corruption.

This argument assumes, however, that the country’s all-powerful narcos won’t be able to bully judges into certain decisions. Not to be too graphic, but, “Do what I say or I’ll kill your family” is an argument stronger than even the best lawyer’s. We on-the-ground mortals can’t know for sure the degree to which this happens, of course, but I’d bet lots of money that it’s not zero.

We also know that the further you get “to the ground,” the greater a narco presence is in people’s day-to-day lives.

My guess is that not a whole lot will change with “democratically elected” judges. But I’m open to being proven wrong; I’m not married to my skepticism on this. The fact that most criminals in Mexico are never convicted, I believe, has much more to do with local law enforcement than it does with judges.

Honestly, I think voting for local police officers would be infinitely more effective.

Justice is messy, and ethical decisions are the hardest decisions of all. Impartiality is a myth, even when politics aren’t involved. And what are our politics anyway, if not our values? And it’s our values, ultimately, that help us determine what is fair and what is not, and what should be done about unfairness, which is the basic function of any justice system.

Even if we have different political views, I contend that there is vastly more agreement than disagreement. We’d all agree, for example, no matter where you are on the political spectrum, that murder is wrong and should be punished. We don’t think anyone should steal anyone else’s stuff. Most of us would like to be able to say what we want without being arrested for it.

So who makes those decisions about what is just or unjust matters. But the injustices that happen in Mexico mostly never even reach that point because the perpetrators aren’t even arrested. But, sure, let’s try something different. Why not?

I hope it makes a really positive difference.

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In fact, I’d say one of the ways that the rich stay rich is by charging everyone else as much as they possibly can while paying as little as they can. One way this can happen is through interest on credit, often needed these days even for the bare essentials. It also happens through late fees, payday loans and cash checking centers. In the United States, even the cap on social security taxes allows the rich to simply stop paying it after their income reaches a certain point. Plenty of other US tax policies allow wealth to stay concentrated, too.

Take me. Now, I don’t consider myself poor — not in Mexico, anyway. But around this time last year, I lost my “main” job. Odd jobs — and writing for this publication — kept me afloat somewhat with the essentials that had to be paid in cash. But for everything else, I used my credit cards. Luckily, I have US cards and pretty good credit, so especially compared to Mexico, interest rates I paid and still pay were and are fairly low.

Still, it’s been rough, and I’m in a hole that’s going to take me a while to dig myself out of. My cards are getting dangerously close to being maxed out. And though I make at least the minimum payments faithfully every month and have never missed a payment, my previously “excellent” credit is now simply “average.”

Add to that “processing fees” from services like Paypal and Stripe — employers often determine how one can get paid — and you’ve got a smaller chunk of change already, even before paying self-employment taxes. Nickled and dimed, indeed.

Luckily, I have what I think and hope will be a steady job for the foreseeable future, with better pay that I’m used to. Even so, it’s going to take sucking in my gut for the rest of the year to get out from under this mountain of debt, and a not-insignificant portion of my payments now are simply interest charges.

All this is to say that I know from very personal experience what a difference a five percent tax on remittances, like the kind proposed by the Trump administration in the U.S.,  could make on working people just trying to send money home. With prices ever-increasing and all our economic futures uncertain, every dollar or peso truly does count.

This is a situation that many people find themselves in all over the world. Salaries and wages have not kept up with inflation or the cost of living on either side of the border. Mexico is at least working on raising the minimum wage. But in the States, there are, sadly, many accounts of people working full-time jobs and living in their cars or in shelters. It’s just really hard to keep up for lots and lots of people.

Many of those hard-working people up north are immigrants. Many keep for themselves the bare minimum for survival, preferring to send the rest to family back home. Relatives back home, meanwhile, count on that money to get by; often, entire families do. And though not all workers have legal status, they do pay US taxes.

The proposed tax on remittances is deeply unfair, but it is also deeply unsurprising. After all, the overall policy of the new presidential administration seems to be a sort of reverse Robin Hood: take from the poor to give to the rich. As they work at figuring out how to pay for a gigantic tax break for the wealthy, they’re cutting off money for everyone else wherever they can. Essential social services are dwindling, even when they weren’t all that strong to begin with. Even people who thought they were safe are feeling this wealth transfer.

Programs that provided not only services but jobs are disappearing, no matter what contracts say. Major services are being decimated, stable jobs replaced with an overworked few, plus AI. My father is terrified he’ll stop getting his social security. Hopefully that won’t happen. But if a problem arises, who will be staffing the offices that might be able to help him?

Cutting services isn’t the only way the Trump administration is looking to pay for this tax cut, though. The world has been watching in horror as he’s levied nonsensical tariffs on allies and enemies alike, ignoring all previous agreements.

There’s a new Baby Godzilla in town, and the tantrum is in full swing.

We know that Trump considers tariffs a “great deal” for the U.S. But even more money is needed to fund that tax cut, and we are definitely not asking Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to pay it.

So who can we charge beyond all the people we’re already charging? One of the political right’s favorite boogeymen, of course: the immigrant.

Because it’s not enough that they’re already living in even more precarious situations than citizen workers are, especially with ICE now running around like the Gestapo. They need to be punished for having dared to enter the country in the first place. This goes for legal immigrants, too. “Everything you get to do here is a privilege, not a right,” the message seems to be.

In a perfect world, remittances would not be necessary. Everyone would be able to make the amount of money they need for them and their families to survive and thrive wherever they wished to live.

But that is not our world, and many families’ survival depend on that money sent back home. Let’s at least not pile on the cruelty.

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If you’re like me, you were snarky about it at first. When I was fresh out of college, I’d openly roll my eyes at any kind of religious displays. I watched and rewatched Bill Maher’s “Religulous“ and Ricky Gervais’ “The Invention of Lying,” which I still count as excellent movies.

Comedian Bill Maher’s film Religulous was part of the writer’s journey toward agnosticism.

Faith and belief, I thought, were for suckers, and those who promoted them were being dishonest. What did I think religion was? The opium of the masses, the sigh of the oppressed creature, to quote Marx a couple of times. It was also a convenient system for keeping women subservient to men — for the record, I still think this.

But as the years have passed, my views have softened, as has the veil that lies between what I say I believe and how I actually behave.

In the end, my ethics are indeed the product of the Judeo-Christian worldview and upbringing, no matter how many times I may have rolled my eyes. These can be summarized pretty easily:

• Love justice and your neighbor.
• Help those less fortunate than you, even when everyone else gives them the stinkeye.
• Turn the other cheek.
• Treat others the way you’d like to be treated.
• There is no greater show of love and devotion than sacrifice.

You don’t have to be Christian to be a good Christian, especially given there’s so much overlap among the world’s major religions — as well as basic humanist ethics.

A very particular strain of liberation theology has stuck with me — and, apparently, with the new pope, which makes me happy.

Now that I’ve grown even older, I lean a bit closer to Emile Durkheim‘s views on religion than to Karl Marx’s. Religion serves some important social functions, independent of actual belief.

The church is an important institution. At its best, it’s a true community, an extended family, a support group of people with shared values. It can provide meaning and purpose and be a source of feelings of true belonging. Without it, it’s easy for people to feel unmoored from each other.

That said, I am not part of a church. When I go home to Texas, I attend the Unitarian services when I can. It’s a nice community and a place where you go, feel welcome and aren’t expected to spend money. I joke that the Unitarian Church is the ideal religious home for agnostics: It serves the social purpose of a church without the dogma.

In my city, there is no Unitarian church. I occasionally go to Mass with my partner, though, a devout Catholic. The priest has never wowed me with his sermons, but I listen anyway and like being around people.

I also love watching all the gestures of the worshippers — crossing themselves and kissing their thumbs in a dizzying array of combinations. Having never attended catechism classes, I don’t know them myself, but who knows? Maybe I’ll learn eventually.

Though I’m not Catholic — or much of a believer at all — I recognize the importance the Church holds in Mexico. Its ceremonies and rites of passage mark important moments of people’s lives: baptisms, first communions, weddings, funerals, even pilgrimages. In an increasingly agnostic world, close to 80% of Mexicans say they’re Catholic. After Brazil, Mexico has the world’s greatest number of practicing Catholics.

So the election of a new pope is a big deal for practicing Catholics. Much to the world’s surprise, he’s American — a first. 

But there’s an important asterisk next to “American.” While Robert Francis Prevost grew up in Chicago, he spent much of his adult life in Peru and became a Peruvian citizen.

In that sense, I’d count him as “American” in the most expansive meaning of the word: a citizen of “the Americas,” not just the United States. The fact that a man who might represent both the U.S. and Latin America was surely a consideration in his election. He was a great choice.

It also makes me feel a kind of kinship with him. We both grew up in the States but have made our lives in Latin America, adopting the language and many aspects of the culture. Many of you, readers, have done the same. While we claim the United States as our own, we also claim Latin America. It is also our home, also part of who we are.

Robert Prevost giving his last media interview in Peru in 2023 as the archbishop of Chiclayo. He is speaking about Peru’s challenges in the aftermath of anti-government protests following the ouster of then-president Pedro Castillo. He called for peace and reconciliation.

Pope Leo XIV, when he addressed the public in St. Peter’s Square for the first time, did so in Italian. He said a few things in Spanish too — a special saludo to his Peruvian faithful, where he was the archbishop of Chiclayo. He did not speak in English. That is okay, and that is also telling. It was a message: “The U.S. may get special consideration for all kinds of other things, but not for this. In this case, it’s not more special than anyone else.”

So far, this new pope seems a lot like the old pope: unafraid to confront injustice and happy to stand up for those less fortunate, even if they’re not Catholics, or even Christians. His views seem to hew closely to liberation theology, as do my own.

Me and Bob do not agree on everything, I’m certain. But that’s all right. Though the dynamics of social media might have us think otherwise, you don’t have to agree on all the same things in order to respect or get along with another person, or wish them well.

For now, I’m just happy we seem to have gotten a good one: someone not just from “America,” but truly a child of “the Americas.”

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

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