All Stories: 187
Stories
Sort by:
Pyramid of the Moon
The Pyramid of the Moon is located in the ancient city of Teotihuacan some thirty miles northeast of Mexico City. Although smaller than the site's famous Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon…
Harald Wagner Teotihuacán Murals
The mysterious people that built the ancient city of Teotihuacán are still revealing their secrets to us today. The ruins of that historic urban center are located approximately 25 miles northeast of…
Iconic Cuisine: Tamales of the Maya
Tamales are a simple mixture of corn masa (dough) – sometimes filled with sweet or savory fillings and then wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks for cooking. In the hustle and bustle of today’s…
Pre-Columbian Midwifery Practices
Throughout history and across all cultures women have arguably held the most significant role in society: motherhood. This role has required every culture group to create medical practices, as well as…
Impacts of Milk Consumption on Child Development in 1960s Mexico
Though milk consumption is vital to child development, it was not always easy to access in Mexico during the 1960s, which caused negative health impacts for children. During this period, mothers had…
The Red Queen of Palenque
During the Classic period, Palenque was one of the most important Maya cities. Archeologists have uncovered some of Palenque’s greatest secrets, including two sarcophagi, that contribute to Palenque's…
Mitla and its Cultures
Twenty-four miles outside the city of Oaxaca, in the town of San Pablo Villa de Mitla, a group of ruins subsist in a state of repose, waiting to be encountered. The site’s original name in Zapotec is…
Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco
Mexico is one of the most ecologically diverse countries today. However, Mexico is also one of the most rapidly deforesting nations in the world as well. Some historians argue that the colonial…
The Smallpox Vaccine
Although it has now been eradicated, smallpox, named for the pus-filled blisters that often rendered the disease-ridden individual unrecognizable, left a devastating and indelible mark on the New…
John Steinbeck and his Voyage to The Gulf of California
“Below the Mexican border the water changes color; it takes on a deep ultramarine blue – a washtub bluing blue, intense and seeming to penetrate deep into the water."[1] This quote is from "The Log…
Ed Ricketts: Life, Friendship, and Adventure
“Half-Christ and half-goat,”[1] this was how Edward Flanders Ricketts was described. He was a marine biologist, based in Monterey, California on Ocean View Avenue. He is known for his book, “Between…
San Diego’s “Opportunity Exposition”
As visitors entered the gates of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, they heard “the deep notes of the outdoor organ, the trill of the birds in the tall trees, the cooing of doves in…
Texture of the Centuries
Indigenous blouses, better known as huipiles, in Oaxaca, Chiapas reveal as much as they hide. They tell a tale of fertility, enchantment and seduction with the intricate design using the colors of the…
Chapultepec: The Seat of Power
Chapultepec, seed of power through the centuries. Nothing could be more true as you walk up the middle of chapultepec park in the heart of Mexico City, up the hill to the breathtaking view of the…
White Slavery in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
From the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico maintained a reputation as a vice capital. Americans flocked to the city for drinking, gambling, and…
Legacy and Lexicon: A Look into Operation Wetback's Impact on Immigration
In the summer of 1954 the United States government carried out a mass deportation of over one million people. [1] This was Operation Wetback. In recent years there has been increased concern…
Midwifery: An Art of Maya Women
In Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, midwifery has traditionally been a thriving practice amongst the Maya peoples. Midwives have had an important place in rural indigenous communities because they…
John F. Kennedy and the Politics of the Virgin of Guadalupe
During a brief trip to Mexico City in 1962, President John F. Kennedy attended mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. What at first may appear to have been little more than a gesture of good…
"Rebels of the Grains": Zapatistas and Rock and Roll
Rage Against the Machine is a rock band based out of Southern California that consists of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford, and drummer Brad Wilk.[1] The four…
Xoc: A Broken Past
In December 2015, the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City recuperated the Bas-relief known as Xoc. An Olmec sculpture, just over 2 meters tall, once sat in the Lacandon jungle of Chiapas…
Tulúm's El Castillo
Resting beautifully on a cliff overlooking the turquoise blue waters of the Caribbean Sea is El Castillo of Tulúm, its castle. Originally presumed to be a temple El Castillo reflects the glory of Maya…
San Cristóbal de las Casas
San Cristóbal de las Casas during colonial times has been largely described as in Thomas Benjamins’ A Time of Reconquest: History, the Maya Revival, and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas, a “small…
Temple of the Feathered Serpent
After the explosive volcanic eruption of Mt. Popocatépetl located deep southern Mexico, people hurriedly raced for refuge to escape the ash cloud plumed across their skies. When having traveled so far…
Finding Tollan at Xochicalco
Over the course of centuries, beginning with Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's mention during the sixteenth century, the ancient Mesoamerican site of Xochicalco, which is in the state of Morelos, Mexico,…
A True Confluence of Civilizations?: The Involvement of Latin Americans in HemisFair ‘68
HemisFair, held in San Antonio, Texas in 1968, was the first and only world’s fair to be held in the American Southwest. Jerome K. Harris (a local San Antonio business owner) originally proposed the…
Braceros in Texas
Cruz Leon Martinez was just a newlywed when he was approached by his friends with a way to earn extra money. He and five of his friends traveled to Mexico City to obtain contracts for agricultural…
A Syncretic Religion: Maya and Catholic Practice at Izamal and in the Northern Yucatán
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Maya people in the northern Yucatán Peninsula, especially around the region of Izamal, experienced a process of conversion to Christian Catholicism…
The Miracles of Izamal
The streets of Izamal, a small town about 70 kilometers south of the capital Mérida on the Yucatán Peninsula, are filled with tourists and natives alike to see a tradition that dates back decades. The…
The San Lorenzo Head in Houston
On a hot, June day of 1963, a large flatbed truck drives through the metropolitan area of Houston, Texas carrying cargo in a steel cage. Within the unbreakable enclosure resides not a living creature,…
Environmental History of Howler Monkeys
Deep in the lush jungles of Central America lives an abundance of unique wildlife. The sounds of the jungle thrive and harmonize as the tropical birds, frogs, and insects call to one another. Within…