With tariffs and trade in the spotlight globally, last weekend’s Expo Auto Estrenos seemed a bellwether of the auto industry in Mexico. President Claudia Sheinbaum just announced a move, still unapproved by Congress, to raise tariffs to a whopping 50 percent on imports of Chinese and some other Asian cars, car parts and various products. 

The scent of sizzling pupusas and hot tamales mingled with the smoky tang of pho-seasoned chicken wings. Music spilled into the courtyard of a 400-year-old monastery-turned-Secretariat of Culture headquarters in downtown Guadalajara, where a crowd gathered beneath colorful banners. On stage, a Chicano rapper who goes by Wombay welcomed the audience with a freestyle, his rhymes weaving between English and Spanish. Around him, stalls brimmed with Cuban, Salvadoran, Peruvian, Indian, Vietnamese, Palestinian, and Mexican dishes.

This was the 3rd Feria Gastronómica y Cultural, held on September 21 to mark the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Organized by The Rhizome Center for Migrants, the festival brought together more than 30 chefs, artisans, musicians, and community leaders, each one carrying a story of migration, resilience, and belonging.

This week, Mexican citizens celebrated the 217th anniversary of the nation’s independence with jubilant patriotic spirits. Did you ever wonder what happened in the early decades following the 11-year struggle against Spanish rule?

The auditorium at the ITESO university was filled to capacity on the evening of September 2 as students, faculty, civil society leaders, and an international delegation from Loyola Marymount University gathered for the inauguration of Guadalajara’s new Clínica Jurídica de Migración Binacional (Binational Migration Legal Clinic). Applause broke out again and again as speakers underscored both the urgency of the moment and the hope embodied in this innovative cross-border initiative.

José Luis Zambrano Flores has pulled plastic six-pack rings off the necks of seabirds. He has freed sea turtles tangled in fishing nets. In the open ocean, the professional diver from Tabasco was horrified to see plastic bags with fish swimming inside them, trapped.

Zambrano wasn’t a scheduled speaker at Sunday’s Green Action Week workshop in Parque La Calma; he didn’t even know the organizers. He had simply shown up to learn about plastic packaging. But as he stood to share what he’d witnessed beneath the waves – “mountains of plastic, floating islands of waste” – the afternoon transformed from a scheduled workshop into something rawer and more urgent.

It was overcast in Guadalajara, and oddly for summer, there was a chill in the air. My boyfriend and I zipped up our jackets and joined the current of fans headed toward Estadio Panamericano, home of the Charros de Jalisco. It was the final game of the summer season, and the energy in the air was unmistakable.