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Last week, La Jornada celebrated its first 42 years of existence, during which it has remained faithful to its founding principles. The newspaper, along with its supplements and other publications, has managed to hit the streets every day, director Carmen Lira Saade explained, “because we have always been guided by three principles: resistance, absolute independence, and preserving our readers’ trust.”
Along with societal support, the reporters, columnists, cartoonists, photographers, designers, editors, cleaning staff, secretaries, opinion writers, drivers, security guards, and the drivers and workers at our printing plant have all been essential to this publishing house. To mark this anniversary, we offer a small selection of treasures from our more than four-decade-old archive of opinion writers, including perspectives from the La Jornada community on Mexico and the world. In the coming months, we hope to compile a more complete archive of the newspaper’s opinion pieces, allowing readers to consult the work of some of the important voices that have appeared in our pages.
Among them is the essential writing of Carlos Monsiváis, who described how the Mexican government’s ineffectiveness in responding to the September 19, 1985 earthquake—which occurred on the very day of La Jornada’s first anniversary—once again revealed the power of ordinary Mexicans and led to the coining of the term “civil society,” which found a voice in the pages of our newspaper.
In 1987, we launched Doble Jornada, a monthly supplement on women. “They say that on Mondays not even the hens lay eggs, but on the first Monday of every month, we receive another Doble Jornada, which we welcome with joy because it gives us an account and a record of the everyday lives of many other women and their work in nongovernmental organizations,” Elena Poniatowska praised a decade later.
Monsiváis, who, along with Poniatowska and dozens of others, was one of the newspaper’s founders, also provided the context in which we launched the first supplement in Latin America devoted to the fight against AIDS, the rights of sexual minorities, and extensive, essential information about sexual politics around the world. “The product of a generous idea by Carmen Lira, director of La Jornada, and the tireless work of Alejandro Brito, its director, Letra S has been and remains a unique publication in Latin America, and an example of a responsible and systematic approach,” he wrote.
For readers of La Jornada International in particular, it is worth noting that the newspaper became a key point of reference in international political and social debate, with contributors such as Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Immanuel Wallerstein, Adolfo Gilly, Naomi Klein, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Howard Zinn, and many others. Just two months after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Noam Chomsky clearly explained the new war on terror. “The evidence regarding Osama bin Laden’s culpability is of no interest to the United States; its objective is to establish its right to act whenever and however it pleases and to clearly establish its credibility as a global bully,” Chomsky wrote in one of his many articles for the newspaper.
And since this Saturday marks the 12th anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college, it is worth remembering how Eduardo Galeano—another contributor who helped found this newspaper—beautifully described the worldwide solidarity with the families and left no doubt about the government’s responsibility.
In the face of the genocide in Gaza, the newspaper’s editors have insisted on prioritizing Palestinian voices and providing a clear space to address, day after day, the reality of the genocide carried out by the Israeli government and the complicity of the U.S. government. “The governments of the most powerful countries in the Western world have lost their dignity and any respect they may have had. One more time,” Arundhati Roy wrote. “But the millions of protesters in the streets of Europe and the United States are the hope for the future of the world.”
“We owe a debt of loyalty to the artists, intellectuals, academics, journalists, politicians, and writers who took part in founding the newspaper, as well as to the students, workers, homemakers, professionals, farmers, small-business owners, human rights advocates, merchants, poets, and unemployed people who decided to risk the only thing they had in their pockets—the equivalent of twenty or thirty dollars at the time—and become shareholders in our newspaper,” La Jornada recounts in Who We Are.
The Quote:
“This newspaper was not born to satisfy the professional needs of a group of journalists. It did emerge from a project promoted by them, but one embraced and brought to fruition by millions of Mexicans who, at this decisive moment in the nation’s history, have placed their faith not in those who called for it, but in the plural democracy of which this newspaper aspires to be a part and a driving force.”
La Jornada founding editorial, September 19, 1984
In Case You Missed It
◻️ Resistance in the paradise of Honduras. For seven weeks, nearly 300 activists have maintained a protest camp outside Honduras’s Supreme Court of Justice, demanding an end to dispossession policies affecting dozens of Garifuna communities along the Caribbean coast under a new law backed by the country’s right-wing president that favors large private developments over the rights of farming communities. Despite police and judicial repression, Indigenous and Garifuna people continue defending their territory and social rights, report activists interviewed by Blanche Petrich. At the end of her trip, as she was about to board her flight back to Mexico City, Petrich was intercepted, detained, and assaulted by Honduran authorities for several hours.
◻️ Mayors save the world. In New York, a summit of mayors from 34 countries in the Group of 20 addressed affordability, climate change, migration, and the rightward shift in their countries. Host Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that “the work of making our cities belong to everyone, regardless of how much someone earns or where they come from, is a shared purpose … from Copenhagen to Milan and Mexico City.” Clara Brugada, head of government of Mexico City, insisted: “There is another way to address the global housing crisis.” During her visit, she held her first bilateral meeting with her New York counterpart, “an occasion worthy of celebration because of the common ground between two progressive leaders,” amid a binational relationship marked by tensions, in the opinion of La Jornada.
◻️ The deadliest region for land and environmental defenders. In 2025, at least 124 environmental and land defenders were killed worldwide, with 85 percent of the deaths occurring in Latin America and the Caribbean, the region that has ranked as the deadliest since 2012, according to Global Witness.
◻️ Ayotzinapa report to be presented this week. A report on progress in the investigation into the forced disappearance of the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college students will be presented this week and does not cover up for the Army, President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo said. Luis Hernández Navarro summarizes the state of the investigation and assesses its progress, writing that, in the face of infinite sorrow, “the families … keep the flame of hope alive to learn where their children are.”
◻️ CNI: 30 years of organization, struggle, and resistance. Three decades after its founding, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) remains a national reference point for the struggle and resistance of Indigenous peoples in Mexico, writes Gilberto López y Rivas. “Despite the tenacious and tireless resistance of Indigenous peoples and this network … the exploitation, dispossession of their lands and territories, the pretense of recognizing their rights, and racism have all increased,” adds Luis Hernández Navarro.
◻️ The struggle over the world (dis)order. At the opening of the annual parade of leaders before the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres, the president of Brazil, and other heads of government emphasized the urgency of multilateral cooperation in the face of the existential crises confronting humanity, while Donald Trump threatened to “annihilate” a member state, proclaimed his nation’s supremacy, and declared that “to the victor go the spoils.”
◻️ Women earn less than men. Although the country has taken steps toward equal pay, women in Mexico earn an average of 19 percent less than men, in both formal and informal employment. More than half of employed women earn no more than the minimum wage, while the pay gap widens among those with upper-secondary and higher education, according to official data.
◻️ The Azcatitlan Codex tells the story through the Conquest and the early colonial period. After remaining outside Mexico for nearly 200 years, the Codex will be on display at the National Museum of Anthropology.
📚 What We Are Reading
Front pages that make history: La Jornada 1984-2014
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Edited by David Brooks and Jim Cason in the United States, Tania Molina Ramírez in Mexico City, of La Jornada, and Elizabeth Coll in Tokyo, under the direction of Carmen Lira Saade and Guillermina Álvarez. More information.