December 2019

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”

William Penn

We are getting ready to bid farewell not only to a year but to an entire decade. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, “2019? Surely that can’t be right.” I’m sure you have the same moments, maybe when you find a new wrinkle on your face or when social media throws you a memory from five years ago that you are sure happened just last week. Continue reading Editor’s Letter →

By Brooke Gazer

A unique new radio station is broadcasting over this region’s airwaves. 

Radio Mar Huatulco 106.3FM, is a “social community concession.”  Edith Barrera, one of the station’s hosts, explained that unlike a private commercial radio station, a social community concession does not expect to create a profit and listeners might notice that there are no formal commercial interruptions. Of course, running a radio station is not without expenses, so there is paid content. This takes the form of program information or announcements that are interspersed into the commentary – much like the “public radio” networks of the U.S. and Canada.  Continue reading Radio Mar:  A Fresh New Voice in Huatulco →

By Julie Etra

Before I started assessing President Andrés Manual López Obrador’s management of the Mexico City and vicinity airports, my conversations about AMLO (as the President is better known) with Mexican citizens from many walks of life have been for the most part positive.   However, recent polls indicate a decline in support, most citing the continued cartel violence.  Continue reading AMLO and the Airport Wars →

Fun, Food, Singing, Dancing Coming Soon!

It’s time once again, actually, it’s the FIFTH time, for The Dream Festival (Festival del Sueño).  Save the date – Saturday, January 25, 2020, from 5 to 10pm – to come to Guelaguetza Park (right next to Marina Park Plaza), have a lot of fun, and support the work of the Bacaanda Foundation / El Sueño Zapateco.  Admission tickets are $150 mxn each, tickets for food and games are $10 mxn each, and raffle ticket prices depend on the raffle – there are several! Continue reading Save the Date:  January 25, 2020 →

By Carole Reedy

At this time last year Claudia Sheinbaum took the reins from Miguel Ángel Mancera to become the first woman elected mayor of la Cuidad de México, one of the largest cities in the world.

Sheinbaum was part of the election sweep of MORENA (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional), the new party headed by now-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She won, as did López Obrador, by an overwhelming margin. In fact, the entire country expressed its dissatisfaction with the corruption of the PRI and PAN parties, shocking conservatives by electing the MORENA party in all sectors. The party now has majorities in the Senate and House, including many governor positions. Continue reading Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo: One Year after Victory →

By Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D.

In No Word for Welcome: The Mexican Village Faces the Global Economy (University of Nebraska Press, 2011), author Wendy Call, a self-described grassroots organizer and researcher, makes an impassioned plea, if not for halting the invasion of the global economy into Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec, then for proceeding only after critical evaluation of environmental and cultural impact studies.  Ms. Call spent two years living and working in the Isthmus, in addition to shorter visits totaling a further year.   Continue reading Globalization in Oaxaca: Isthmus of Tehuantepec Case Study Review →

By Deborah Van Hoewyk

Last spring, after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, had managed to get his first-year plans and budget issued, The Eye ran an article on whether the change in government would produce any changes in tourism (May/June 2019).  Much had been made of AMLO’s reductions in the budgets of various tourism programs, his cancellation of the airport (see article elsewhere in this issue), and the feasibility (or not) of his pet project, the Tren Maya, which was intended to connect Palenque in Chiapas to Cancun in Quintana Roo, going up the Gulf of Mexico and then coming down the Riviera Maya side of the Yucatan peninsula, and back over to the Gulf side. Continue reading A Train to Nowhere?  AMLO and Tourism, One Year In →

By Vivian Kadelbach

Bradley Narduzzi Rex, an American born in Connecticut in 1967, studied architecture at Columbia University in New York City. In 1992, he was awarded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship Award which allowed him to work and study in Venice, Italy. Life is full of coincidences that determine our paths. While in Italy, Bradley familiarized himself with furniture design, which later led him to manufacture his own contemporary furniture in Mexico, where he has been living full time since 1999. Bradley’s biography is long: solo and group exhibitions, fellowships and art prizes. But who is he really?  Continue reading Functional Art →

By Richard D. Perry

As the mother house of the Dominicans in the region, the grand priory of Santo Domingo in Oaxaca City exerted a major influence on everyday life and society in colonial Oaxaca, both religious and secular as well as on its art and architecture.

Most of the original wall and ceiling ornamentation inside the church, as well as the adjacent convento and Rosary chapel, features painted stucco relief dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, much of it created by artisans and stucco workers from Puebla. Continue reading Santo Domingo →