As US protesters deface monuments of once revered leaders, they are drawing from an ancient tradition used by both marginalized people and those in power.
Zapotec farmers return from their ‘milpa,’ the garden plots that provide much of the communities’ food, in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Jeffrey H. Cohen
The Zapotec people of southern Mexico have always relied on each other to solve problems when the government can’t, or won’t, help. That’s proving to be a pretty effective pandemic response.
The 18th-century Catholic missionary Junipero Serra at work in California.
Lawrence OP/flickr/St. Casimir’s church in Baltimore
Statues of the Spanish missionary Junípero Serra have been toppled by protesters in LA, San Francisco and Sacramento. Californians are questioning whether Serra was a saint or a colonizer – or both.
Situated on a plateau and surrounded by mountains, Mexico City – seen here in a haze on May 20, 2018 – is a ‘bowl’ that traps smog and dust.
AP Photo/Marco Ugarte
The Aztecs had a shining city on a lake, with canals, causeways and aqueducts – until the Spanish came. Mexico City is still suffering the consequences of their bad public health decisions.
In Mexico City, feminist groups spray-painted the names of Mexico’s murdered women on the pavement of the Zócalo, the capital city’s enormous main square, during the International Women’s Day March.
Mexicans living in the U.S. sent $4.02 billion home in March 2020, a 35.8% increase over March 2019.
Jane Russell/WallpaperFlare
The migrant laborers who staff American meat plants, construction sites and delivery services are working through the pandemic – and sending more funds back home than ever.
National Guard on patrol after gang conflict in Comunidad del Naranjo, Guerrero, Mexico.
EPA
Many governments can’t afford to offer the sort of economic stimulus we’ve seen in the west, and organised crime is only too happy to fill the gap.
Food and supplies, labelled with the name and image of Mexican narco Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, is distributed during the coronavirus pandemic in Guadalajara.
Francisco Guasco/EPA
It is not all democracies that struggle to deal with the coronavirus; it is those in which the people do not feel the system works for them.
A newly built power generation plant is seen near Huexca, Mexico, in February 2020. The power plant is part of a mega-energy project that includes a natural gas pipeline that traverses three states.
AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo
The behaviour of TC Energy, the company formerly known as TransCanada, in Wet'suwet'en resulted in a nationwide crisis in Canada. It should not be repeated in Mexico.
Undocumented migrants climb on a train known as ‘La Bestia’ in Las Patronas town, Veracruz state, Mexico, Aug. 9, 2018, to travel through Mexico and reach the U.S.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images
The US may be in sight from the border towns of Sonora, Mexico, but the trip is far from over. Cartels control the desert territory that divides the two countries – and no one gets through for free.
President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the press briefing room at the White House on March 15, 2020.
Getty/Tasos Katopodis
Usually when a leader handles a crisis poorly, it’s politically costly. But President Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus crisis is not likely to hurt him, says an expert on health crises.
Women in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh neighborhood are protesting a new Indian citizenship law that they say will discriminate against Muslims, women – and, particularly, Muslim women.
Burhaan Kinu/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
A round-the-clock strike of Muslim women in a working-class neighborhood of Delhi is India’s most enduring pocket of resistance to religious discrimination, inequality and gender violence.
More than 35,000 people were killed in Mexico in 2019, the deadliest year on record. Violence has spiked as a result of the government’s ongoing assault on drug cartels.
Leonardo Emiliozzi Ph / Shutterstock
A researcher who fled crime-beset Mexico returns to interview the drug cartels behind so much of the violence, asking 33 ‘narcos’ everything about their lives, from birth to their latest murder.
A Congolese family approaches the unofficial border crossing with Canada while walking down Roxham Road in Champlain, N.Y., in August 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Charles Krupa.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Charles Krupa
Canadian leaders have desperately tried to preserve the country’s image of liberal humanitarianism at our border, but the reality is Canada’s immigration history is built upon exclusion.
Anti-government protesters in Chile defend themselves against a police water cannon, Santiago, Nov. 15, 2019.
AP Photo/Luis Hidalgo