Mexico City: Many cities in one
Also in this edition: Running 50 km in huaraches. No goals in the first match. The “Donroe” Doctrine, more of the same? New exhibition by Mariana Yampolsky.
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All major metropolises, like Mexico City, are many cities within one, made up of villages, immigrants, neighborhoods, and blocks born from modern coincidences and decisions, as well as others with centuries of history. In the series Tu Colonia, (almost) every week La Jornada explores the history and the characteristics that make one of the capital’s neighborhoods unique, along with what its residents have to say.
The surprises of a city that began as a Nahua capital and, 500 years later, has become one of the world’s great metropolises can be found in every neighborhood. There are nearly 22 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area of the Valley of Mexico, about 9 million of them in Mexico City itself, each with countless stories about where and how they live.
To mention just one, the Gertrudis Sánchez colonia, originally surrounded by rivers and bearing the name of a general from the Mexican Revolution, developed in the northern part of the city partly as a result of migration from Michoacán during World War II.
“Anyone who doesn’t live in Tacubaya doesn’t know where Tacubaya is,” say its residents, some of whom know the long history of this neighborhood, which includes episodes stretching from the colonial period to the present, and which was the birthplace of figures such as Javier Solís, the king of ranchera music, the artist Nahui Ollin, and world champion boxer Ricardo “El Finito” López.
Further south, the Portales neighborhood has 200 years of history, combining an entrepreneurial spirit with hundreds of small businesses and a bustling market, as well as calmer streets, Parque de los Venados, and a monument honoring the women who defended the country against the U.S. invasion of 1847. It was home to figures like the great troubadour Óscar Chávez and the beloved writer, chronicler, and cofounder of La Jornada, Carlos Monsiváis.
Archaeological remains of a pyramid, a hacienda that produced pulque, and what was once the largest psychiatric hospital in Mexico define the Mixcoac neighborhood—“where the serpent of clouds is revered.”
“Blow by blow of the hammer, out of the lava fields of the Xitle volcano,” 20 families built the Pueblo Quieto neighborhood in what is now Tlalpan. Men originally from Guanajuato worked in the quarries to help build Mexico City.
The name of the Olivar del Conde colonia comes from being the place where the first olive trees and vineyards were cultivated in 1528, shortly after the Spanish conquest. In the Obrera, you can still feel echoes of textile workers, labor solidarity, nightlife, and traditional pulquerías. It’s said that on its streets, the Flores Magón brothers developed the ideas that later gave rise to the Mexican Liberal Party.
San Felipe de Jesús is home to a 7-kilometer-long street market visited by 500,000 people a year, as well as an open-air theater. Several members of the band Panteón Rococó are said to be from this neighborhood, along with an Olympic medalist in synchronized swimming.
In the centrally located Del Valle, there’s a 450-year-old pirul tree called “El Guapo.” Luis Buñuel, Pedro Infante, and Chespirito all lived here.
The worlds within Mexico City hold secrets, mysteries, ancient stories, shouts and whispers, revealed at times by residents and storytellers, some identified as such and others just being those who have memories and know how to tell them. La Jornada reports almost every Sunday what they reveal and what is discovered while wandering through these neighborhoods.
The Quote:
There are so many of us in Mexico City that even the most eccentric thought is shared by millions.
—Carlos Monsiváis
In Case You Missed It
◻️ Running 50 kilometers in huaraches. Nine years after capturing widespread attention, ultramarathon runner Lorena Ramírez has achieved the unthinkable: bringing visibility to the Indigenous sport from the heart of the Tarahumara Sierra in Chihuahua. In 2017, Ramírez gained national attention when she won the Cerro Rojo race, a 50-kilometer course that traverses mountains, rivers, slopes, and cross-country trails in Puebla. Winner of the National Sports Award this year, her goal now is for new generations to be able to follow in her footsteps. VIDEO ▶️ Trailer for the documentary Lorena, la de pies ligeros.
◻️ Frijol farmers refritos. Mexico is producing 1.2 million tons of beans this year, a higher volume than last year. However, large packing companies and wholesale market operators collude to accumulate extraordinary profits, while thousands of small-scale bean farmers face ruin and are forced to sell their harvest for less than 10 pesos per kilogram. Producers are subject to even greater pressure because of the constant import of this staple food from the United States.
◻️ No goals in the first match. President Claudia Sheinbaum and President Donald Trump had their first encounter during an event that was more about politics than sports, the FIFA draw for the 2026 World Cup. The two presidents, along with their Canadian counterpart Mark Carney, in representation of the three host countries, gathered to oversee the draw and chat while watching the show, which ended with the U.S. president’s favorite song, YMCA. Sheinbaum did not dance with her host but described the meeting as “very positive.” A couple of days later, Trump threatened to impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexico if it refused to deliver water to the United States and once again did not rule out ordering a military strike against drug traffickers in the neighboring country.
◻️ The “Donroe” Doctrine, more of the same? President Trump and his administration declared that the Monroe Doctrine, first promoted in 1823, will serve as the guide for the United States’ national security strategy in the Americas and the Caribbean in the 21st century. This strategy is based on U.S. supremacy and dominance over the hemisphere, in what the president called the “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. At least, one can appreciate the honesty. But as La Jornada noted, “Monroe never left,” recalling two centuries of U.S. interventionism and concluding that “the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ is no longer a declaration of the capabilities of an emerging power, as it was two centuries ago. Instead, it reflects the aftershocks of a superpower in rapid decline, of which Trumpism is both the clearest symptom and the most powerful catalyst.”
◻️ The rich get richer. Seventy-five percent of the world’s wealth is in the hands of 10 percent of the population, while the poorest 50 percent own just 2 percent, according to a new report. At the same time, developing countries paid $741 billion more in principal and interest on their external debt than they received in new financing between 2022 and 2024—the largest gap in half a century—according to the World Bank’s new International Debt Report 2025.
◻️ Sor Juana in song. Javier Aranda writes about the enduring presence of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in Mexican culture: “How wonderful that the storyteller Magos Herrera now sings the greatest story of the Jerónima nun; the one that narrates the journey of the soul driven by the desire for knowledge,” referring to the work Primero Sueño.
◻️ Mariana Yampolsky: La mirada contra el olvido. An exhibition at the Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco in Buenos Aires brings together the most iconic images of the photographer, thanks to the initiative of Mexico’s ambassador to Argentina, Lilia Rossbach. Yampolsky’s work has been recognized as part of Mexico’s documentary heritage by UNESCO.
