Mexico

18 in Latin America: When Economic Turmoil Threatens a Promising Career

Leer en español This article is adapted from AQ’s print issue on youth in Latin America. At 18, Andrés knows exactly what he wants: a job in an analytical chemistry lab and a beautiful wife. It sure is hard to get there, though. Reaching that first goal — becoming a chemist — means getting up at 4 a.m. in … Read more

Pardinas: Mexico Needs an International Commission to Explore Espionage Claims

Mexico is experiencing a dramatic crisis in leadership and should call an international commission to investigate reports that spyware bought by federal agencies to uncover criminal activity was instead turned on critics like lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists, said Juan E. Pardinas, one of Mexico’s leading transparency advocates and one of the espionage targets. Pardinas … Read more

If NAFTA Ends, Ford’s Move to China Will Be Just the Start

Ford announced this week that instead of building its new Focus – the best-selling car in the world – in a new $1.6 billion dollar Mexico-based plant, it will ship cars for North American customers from China. Ford has promised that its decision won’t reduce its workforce. Yet even if that is true, American workers … Read more

AQ VIDEO: A Mexico Border Tour With Alfredo Corchado

“This is the Ellis Island of the Southwest,” says author and journalist Alfredo Corchado. He knows from experience. Born in Mexico, Corchado’s family moved to El Paso when he was a boy, and he was a waiter in their restaurant just two blocks from the border itself. In this short video, Corchado shows AQ Editor-in-Chief Brian Winter how … Read more

Mexico Can’t Fix Its Criminal Justice System Alone

This month, facing public outrage over a spate of killings of journalists, Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto responded with promises of institutional change and improved cooperation between federal and state investigators. For Mexicans, this kind of official rhetoric has become part of a time-worn routine that does little to correct the country’s national crisis of … Read more

Trump Deportations Hit Immigrants With Strong U.S. Roots

This article has been updated It didn’t feel much like a homecoming when Luis Fernando Ortiz, 22, stepped off the plane in Mexico City after a decade away. His wrists and ankles were rubbed raw, chained for the duration of a 12-hour journey by bus and plane from Kentucky. His car, apartment, and family – … Read more

Why U.S. Tax Reform Threatens Mexico’s Financial Future

While tweets and speeches may continue to cause consternation in Mexico and Canada, the existential threat to NAFTA seems to have passed. President Donald Trump is now talking about giving “renegotiation a good, strong shot” rather than rescinding the free trade agreement entirely. On the docket will be intellectual property, labor rights, e-commerce, rules of … Read more

Does AMLO Have a Venezuela Problem?

This story has been updated, and a correction has been appended below. Attack ads comparing Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the late Hugo Chávez helped sink his first bid for the Mexican presidency over a decade ago. Now, with 14 months to go until the 2018 presidential election, he is once again the front-runner and … Read more

Tijuana Is for (Opera) Lovers

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Leave the stereotypes aside. Tijuana’s annual Ópera en la Calle is a symbol of the city’s rich and evolving cultural identity.

Trump’s Border, As Seen on TV

This article is adapted from AQ’s special issue on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receive AQ at home, subscribe here. Those looking for affirmation of President Donald Trump’s “bad hombres” idea of the border are more likely to find it in fiction than in fact. Through much of its history, Hollywood has portrayed U.S.-Mexico relations through a lens of antagonism, or … Read more

Curating on the Divide

This article is adapted from AQ’s special issue on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receive AQ at home, subscribe here. Over the last two decades, inSite has established itself as a pioneering curatorial and artistic program for contemporary art in Latin America. In five editions held at the Tijuana-San Diego border, inSite has supported more than 150 commissions by Mexican and … Read more

Border Beat: Tijuana’s Homegrown Electronic Sound

This article is adapted from AQ’s special issue on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receive AQ at home, subscribe here. “Fusion” is often less than the sum of its parts, whether in music, food or anything else (I’m looking at you, Snuggie). But that’s not the case when it comes to Nortec — a merger of traditional northern Mexican and electronic sounds that … Read more

I Visited Flint, Michigan and a Mexican Boomtown to Study NAFTA’s Effects. Here’s What I Found.

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Hundreds of miles from the border – in either direction – U.S.-Mexico interdependence is a fact of life.

DREAMers and Asylum Seekers: The Other Faces of Deportation

This article is adapted from AQ’s special issue on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receive AQ at home, subscribe here. Claudia Amaro and Hector Yamil Yaujar lead the same quiet, law-abiding lives as most of their neighbors in Wichita, Kansas. Amaro is a teacher; Yaujar runs a home repair company. Their son, Yamil Jr., 17, excels in school and wants to become an … Read more

Why a ‘Great Wall’ Won’t Stop the Cross-Border Gun Trade

This article is adapted from AQ’s 2017 special report on the U.S.-Mexico relationship. To receive AQ at home, subscribe here. That Mexico’s drug cartels get their firepower from the United States is no longer much of a mystery. Even President Donald Trump has acknowledged that the U.S. should do more to curb the flow of arms across its southern border. But Trump’s plan … Read more