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SMA March 2026
SMA February 2026
Wearing My Roots: A Queen’s Journey Through the Vela 27
By Daira Moreno —
When I reflect on my roots, I picture myself beautifully dressed in Tehuana attire. It brings me back to my ancestors, especially my grandmother. The beauty of these dresses lies not only in their embroidery, but in the way they are passed from one generation to the next. Today, only a few artisans still know how to make Tehuana attire in its traditional form. The Zapotec language, along with the traditional techniques, is at risk of disappearing. Wearing the dress is an act of resistance, a way to keep our identity alive. The reaffirmation of Zapotec identity through the figure of the Queen of the Vela 27, embodied in my own experience of wearing the Tehuana dress, is a form of empowerment for the people of my town, the Ixtepecanos. It is also a way of preserving our culture at a time when many traditions are being lost in an increasingly globalized world.
Ciudad Ixtepec’s cultural identity lives within its traditional attire, the Tehuana dress, and in the fact that only a few artisans continue to make it in the old way. This fragility, of both language and dressmaking, shows how urgent it is to preserve these parts of our heritage. The Tehuana attire has also found its place in the larger story of Mexico. Iconic figures such as Frida Kahlo and Salma Hayek embraced it, drawing inspiration from Isthmus women and, in Hayek’s case, from her own Ixtepecana roots. Lupe Vélez immortalized the style in her film La Sandunga, helping introduce Oaxacan culture to national and international audiences. Many consider the Tehuana costume the most beautiful in Mexico. These cultural references strengthen the idea that Zapotec identity carries a significance that must be protected.
In this piece, I offer a brief reflection on my experience as queen of the Vela 27 and on the meaning of a Vela, with special attention to the clothing I wore throughout the five-day celebration which culminates in the coronation, where I step into the same role my mother and cousin once held, continuing a legacy begun by my grandmother, one of the festival’s founders.
This year, I served as queen of the Renombrada Vela 27, held in honor of San Jerónimo Doctor. It is characterized by dancing throughout the entire night, waiting for dawn to arrive. “Vela” is the name given by the friars to the indigenous festivities dedicated to the deities called “Za” or “Binnizá,” meaning “men of the clouds,” according to the agricultural calendar. With evangelization, these rituals were transformed into patron-saint festivals dedicated to Catholic saints, following the mission and religious order of the friars during the colonial period. The word vela comes from velar, meaning “to stay awake, to keep vigil all night,” which remains at the heart of the celebration today.
One of the most striking parts of the Vela is that all attendees must wear the Tehuana gala dress; otherwise, they are not permitted to enter. Women showcase their finest traditional gala dresses and high heels, each one striving to look as spectacular as possible. Men must wear a plain white guayabera with no floral embroidery.
The use of gold, coins, and ornaments in the festivities has its roots in practices of prestige and offering. In the case of coins, their presence is more recent, linked to the arrival of the Trans-Isthmus Railway and the port of Salina Cruz in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Gold in women’s attire also symbolizes the empowerment of Isthmus women, as well as well-being, economic stability, and even wealth. The use of minted coins changes the meaning significantly, which is why I emphasize empowerment.
Many of the pieces I wore are family heirlooms, and when I put them on, I feel the presence of my grandmother, my mother, and the women in my family who have kept these traditions alive. Each garment reflects the work of artisans whose techniques are at risk of disappearing.
To understand the significance of each day and the meaning behind every outfit, it is helpful to look at the schedule of the Vela 27 and the Tehuana attire I wore throughout the celebration.
The Vela 27 Schedule:
September 26 (evening): The festivities begin with the Calenda (traditional street parade) at 8 p.m., continuing until 2 a.m. The streets of Ixtepec come alive with dancing, fireworks, and music, announcing the start to the Vela 27. That evening, I wore a coordinated skirt and huipil made with the cadenilla technique, featuring pink and yellow greca designs crafted by the artisan Francisco Javier Reyes Vázquez from San Blas Atempa. My hairstyle followed the traditional style of the women of Ixtepec: two braids intertwined with a pink ribbon and adorned with artificial flowers. To complete the muda, I wore a three-strand espejito azucena necklace with a calabaza pendant in pearls and gold filigree, along with matching earrings and a bracelet made from 2.5-peso Mexican coins embellished with rubies and alejandrina.
2nd Day of Activities:
September 27 (morning): The queen’s Mañanitas begin at 7 a.m. and include serenades, prayers, and dancing. The organizers of the Vela attend, making it one of the most beautiful moments of the celebration, filled with emotion as the family prepares for the day. Breakfast is offered at the queen’s home to those who came to serenade her, and gifts are given to the attendees. This festivity also commemorates the birthday of the patron saint, San Jerónimo Doctor. For my muda during the Mañanitas, I wore a circular stylized yellow rabona skirt with a hand-stitched cadenilla huipil. I accessorized with a choker made of hinged coins and matching cross-shaped earrings.
September 27 (evening): The most significant and symbolic day of the Vela 27 gathers about 3,000 people. It begins at 9 p.m. and lasts until 7 a.m. The highlight of the event is the queen’s coronation, which includes her arrival, her first dance, and her speech. Past queens, as well as the queen from the previous year, also make their appearances. After the ceremony, the community spends the rest of the night dancing. On the day of my coronation, I proudly wore an original, hand-embroidered traditional dress crafted by the artisan Antonia Morales Lobo from the town of Santa Rosa de Lima. This community is distinguished by its mastery of the Tehuana gala dress, an art practiced by both its women and men. The making of this outfit was commissioned a year in advance.
The dress is a replica of one of my mother’s gala dresses, which she wore when she served as queen in 1985, although for my version I chose a garden of yellow Castilian roses. The outfit consists of the enagua (skirt) and the huipil (blouse). I also wore a gold fleco made of gusanillos and canelones, a distinctive accessory that sets the queen apart from the general public. My hair was styled in gathered braids with a rosette at the nape of the neck and a floral adornment on the left side, leaving the top free for the crown. The crown and its matching scepter were crafted exclusively for my reign by the master goldsmith Hugo Charo from the town of San Blas Atempa. My Tehuana attire was complemented by a set of gold doblón dos María jewelry and a matching ahogador, along with a bracelet, rings, earrings, and a hair brooch. All of these are family heirlooms in gold, passed down from generation to generation.
September 29: The lively and colorful Regada de Frutas fills the streets with decorated buses carrying the queens or captains, who toss food and gifts to the townspeople. Horses, bulls, and captains in traditional attire parade alongside, accompanied by children’s orchestras playing music from the buses. This day symbolizes giving back to the community.
During the Regada de Frutas, we rode on a float designed to match the colors and floral motifs of the outfit I wore that day. With great pride, I wore a huipil and enagua featuring multicolored orchids. This traditional ensemble from Salinas del Marqués, an agency of the municipality of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, was crafted by the artisan Francisco Gallegos. The design itself was created by my mother, making it especially meaningful. The technique used for this dress is crochet work with yellow filled stitching. The outfit was completed with a two-strand lazo, a choker (ahogador), earrings, a bracelet, and a ring.
October 1 (noon): A mass is held in honor of the Vela 27’s patron saint, San Jerónimo Doctor. Afterward, the queen and princesses take a long walk accompanied by the music group until they arrive at the lavado de olla, where the founding members and the community await them. To enter the church and offer floral arrangements to San Jerónimo Doctor, I wore a yellow velvet Tehuana dress created with two traditional techniques known as flor en medio. The central floral motif was made using crochet work, while the edges featured geometric stitched patterns. I also wore the traditional gold fleco, and on this occasion the jewelry I used included a doblón necklace and a choker (ahogador) of great sentimental value, as both pieces belong to my mother. This dress was crafted by the artisan Francisco Javier Reyes Vázquez from the town of San Blas Atempa. This Tehuana dress uses an ancient technique that is now being revived, since velvet (terciopelo) is rarely used in contemporary Tehuana dressmaking.
As the final notes of the Vela faded, I realized that this experience was not only a personal honor but a reminder of the responsibility we carry. The Tehuana dresses, the rituals, the music, and the devotion of the community showed me how culture survives through practice, through memory, and through each generation choosing to keep it alive. Serving as queen of the Vela 27 strengthened my belief that our heritage is not something of the past, but a living tradition that continues to shape who we are.
December 2025- The Eye Huatulco
A French Touch in the Heart of Oaxaca: Chef Israel Loyola’s Culinary Dialogue
By Jane Bauer
Culture is not static—it is always transforming. As much as we might wish to preserve certain traditions and claim them as part of our identity—especially in times of nationalism and cultural divide—food reminds us that nothing remains fixed. Many people take comfort in declaring a certain dish, ingredient, or way of living as “theirs,” drawing boundaries between themselves and others, whether based on class, religion, or geography. But cuisine has always been porous. Before colonization, the diet in North America centered around the “three sisters” of agriculture—corn, beans, and squash—foods still essential in many parts of Mexico today. And yet, what we now think of as Mexican cuisine has evolved through centuries of influence: German, Chinese, Lebanese—and perhaps most significantly, French.
One chef who embodies this interplay is Chef Israel Loyola. For him, cooking isn’t just about technique—it’s about people. “A cook can’t just be a cook,” he says. “A chef has to be the sum of everything—kitchen, service, dishwashing, even working the register. It includes the people who arrive early to prep before the restaurant opens. It’s a team effort, and that’s what we try to reflect in every dish.”
That spirit of collective craftsmanship lies at the heart of El Parián Atelier, Loyola’s restaurant in the center of Oaxaca City. Located just steps from the rhythm of daily life, the space feels both elegant and grounded, welcoming locals and visitors alike to experience thoughtful cuisine shaped by memory, migration, and collaboration.
The name Parián is more than a nod to historic Mexican markets. It honors a nearly abandoned Mixtec town once known as the “port of the Mixteca,” a place that flourished during the railway boom of the Porfiriato but all but disappeared after privatization in the 1990s. Today, the original Parián has fewer than ten inhabitants—mostly memories and nostalgia. That emotion infuses Loyola’s cooking. Atelier, the French word for workshop, completes the name and reflects the constant creative process behind every plate.
His team, like his menu, brings together diverse roots. Half are from Oaxaca, the rest from across Mexico. “Many came to Oaxaca to grow—culturally, yes, but professionally, too,” he says. Many have formal culinary training, often in the French tradition.
That French influence in the kitchen is no accident. During the Porfiriato, the long presidency of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911), French culture was consciously adopted as a model of modernity and refinement. Díaz himself was famously Francophile, and under his rule, Parisian aesthetics permeated architecture, fashion, and especially cuisine. French chefs were invited to Mexico to cook for the elite, and French cooking techniques became the standard in upper-class kitchens and newly formed culinary academies.
Sauces such as béchamel and velouté began to appear alongside traditional Mexican moles, and pâtisserie methods influenced everything from breadmaking to wedding cakes. Table service became more formal, plating more intentional, and an appreciation for technique—mise en place, precise knife work, structured courses—began to define what it meant to be a “professional” cook.
Even in the world of drinks, the Porfiriato left its mark: two foundational books on distillation and cocktail-making were published during this era. “We inherited a whole structure of formality from that time,” says Loyola. “The way we plate, the way we move through the kitchen—it still carries echoes of that period.”
After the Porfiriato ended, much of that French culinary refinement faded from everyday food culture, and traditional Mexican mixology—particularly curados, or infused spirits—was nearly forgotten. But today, Loyola sees a revival. “All of that is coming back,” he says. “We’re not just following global cocktail trends. We’re reclaiming what was already ours.”
At El Parián Atelier, every element—from the name to the ingredients to the way the team works together—tells a story. “We’re not just making food,” Loyola says. “We’re making something living. Something that speaks to memory, migration, and the ever-changing shape of culture itself.”
The Art of Belonging: How to Live Like a Local in Mexico City
By Carole Reedy—
Famed author Maya Angelou once said: “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”
Wherever we are, most of us yearn for connections, familiarity, and comfort. You can find these feelings even while traveling … if you are armed with knowledge and savvy.
Here are some tips to assist you on your journey in one of the grandest cities of the world. If you have the luxury, allow yourself time to wander, absorb the culture, history, way of life, and routines of the locals.
Before the more practical recommendations, let’s reflect on a philosophical perspective. Despite the hustle bustle of the city, take time to roam (or as my friends and I say “flaneur”) through the neighborhoods (called colonias) that sprinkle the Valley of Mexico. Don’t pack too much in a day, as traveling around the big city takes time and energy, too.
Enjoy the unexpected and unanticipated joys of the moment. Look up and around … at the trees, sky, and skyscrapers. There are surprises around every corner. If you are fortunate enough to come in March, the jacarandas will be in full bloom.
Be open to the people on the street and metro or while shopping. Unlike the French, Mexicans will welcome you even though your Spanish may be not quite correct, or even if it’s nonexistent.
If you are like other visitors to this bewitching city, your memories will remain vivid long after you depart. Here are some practical ways to make your sojourn uncomplicated and rich.
Greetings!
First impressions are said to be the most important, and none is more so than the first words out of your mouth when greeting someone on the street, entering a room or a store, or addressing a waiter.
Friends visiting Mexico City (Ciudad de Mexico) are often surprised at how, in this heavily populated city, people take the time to greet one another. Americans in particular have a tendency to always appear to be in a rush, speaking rapidly and without the formality of a greeting.
The first words out of your mouth when entering a room, a meeting, or store, or simply on the street, should be buenos días (good morning), buenas tardes (good afternoon), or buenas noches (good evening or night). Another useful phrase is just buen día, short for que buen día (literally, may it be a good day – Spanish loves the subjunctive).
A smile goes a long way and is always appreciated. Mexicans always take time for a formal greeting before the chatter begins!
Time and pace
No hay prisa is a good motto to practice during your visit, be it for a week or a year. Literally the phrase means “there is no hurry.” Although some actions and attitudes may be interpreted as “slow and lazy” by some foreign cultural standards, Mexicans are deliberate and formal in their manners, which is actually considerably more sane than the frenzied manners of many foreigners.
Mexicans are patient. Often you will see lines of people waiting for a service. No one is yelling or complaining. People just wait and chat, somehow knowing that stress, and therefore raising their blood pressure, doesn’t do anyone any good or make the line move any faster.
“Why is everyone always late?” They aren’t. The concept of time is different south of the border. If you are invited to a party at 7 pm and show up at exactly 7 pm or, God forbid, earlier, you will be alone and your hosts may not even be dressed yet. It seems that guests stroll in when they want, and everyone thinks that is just fine. Not to worry. No one else will! You won’t miss dinner. If you’re invited for 8 pm, you may not eat until 11.
You may notice that if a business advertises its opening at 9 am, employees may not show up until 9:30 or so. Banks that open at 9 am (an institution you may think would be punctual) may open their doors on time but the employees will just be strolling in and preparing their desks for the day. Go with the flow.
Most entertainment events do not start exactly on time, but they do make an effort to begin within the half hour. Movies do begin on schedule, as do bullfights. When you’re at a supposedly sold-out live concert and you look around 10 minutes before it begins, you may wonder where everyone is. Look around 20 minutes later, and you will see a full house. Arriving early is neither the norm nor fashionable.
Ahorita is the most confusing Spanish word for foreigners. Literally, it means RIGHT NOW. But it never actually does. It can mean anywhere from five minutes to two hours, or even tomorrow morning. If a worker tells you he will return ahorita, the fact is you don’t know when that will be. Take it with a grain of salt. He may as well be saying “who knows?” If you do need a definite answer, ask a more definite question.
My Mexican friends know our northern habits, and therefore they do try to arrive close to the designated time when meeting me. You may not be able to change your lifelong habits, but wait patiently, and if you are on time by your standards, enjoy the ambience or, as I do, always carry a book with you!
Transport, Traffic, and La Hora Pico
Mexico City has a fine public transport system used by millions of people every day. The most used and popular are the Metro (mostly underground) and the Metrobus, which is a bus with its own lane. Cars NEVER drift over to the Metrobus lane; the fine for disobedience of this law is huge. Ambulances are allowed though.
Both systems are easy, and both use the same card for entrance. The metro is 5 pesos and the Metrobus is 6 pesos (basically 25 cents in US currency). The cards are available at all metro stations. There are maps online. Plus, there are actually two apps, chock full of information: Metrobus CDMX and AppCDMX.
The most important information to keep in mind, however, is La Hora Pico, or rush hour. It is a horror in Mexico City, and even the person who experiences no form of claustrophobia may experience a small panic attack when you observe the crushing hoards in action on public transport.
The hours to avoid public transport or driving: weekdays 7 am to 10 am and then again 5 pm to 9 pm. This applies to all areas of the city. Arrive at your destination early and enjoy a cappuccino if need be.
Metrobus and Metro cars are clean and efficient. The first car of each transport train is designated for women, children, and the elderly. Please honor this, as all of us do.
City buses are available in many parts of the city. There are lots of bike lanes, and it appears more people use them daily. If you travel north in the city or far south you may see cable cars as public transport. In Ixtapalapa, the home owners paint creative designs on their roofs for the enjoyment of the cable car riders.
Do beware of bikes and motorcycles. They seem to believe traffic laws are not written for them, running red lights and essentially just doing as they please. Helmet laws are in effect.
If you are an Uber user, you should be quite content with the service here. The cars are clean and well maintained, unlike many taxis. The drivers are, for the most part, a delight and very often talkative, some speaking English. If you do speak some Spanish, this is a good way to practice. Strike up a conversation; they too enjoy practicing their English.
In every way, Ubers are better than taxis, including reasons of safety and the price of your journey. Do not enter a taxi that accepts only credit cards; it is a scam that will charge your card more than the actual price. I do have a taxi sitio (taxi stand) in my neighborhood that I trust, but for the most part Ubers are the better choice, an important factor being that you are not watching the meter run while sitting in traffic.
Ubers know the quickest and safest routes. You can call them right on the street as well as from a designated location.
Banking
Here are a few money-saving and helpful tips about ATM withdrawals.
First of all, to avoid fraud, always use a bank ATM. A big money saver is to refuse the rate of exchange the bank ATM offers you when you enter your card. Most ATMs provide instructions in both Spanish and English. Just press NO when it reads “Do you accept this rate of exchange?” That way you will receive the exchange rate of your personal bank, which will be assuredly less.
It is best to do your cash withdrawals during weekdays. The ATMs run out of money on the weekends and especially during puentes, three-day weekends.
The cost of an ATM transaction also varies by bank, so if you are not happy with the rate at one bank, try another.
You will always get Mexican pesos at the bank ATMs. Should you need US dollars, you will need to visit a casa de cambio (money exchange).
The Joy of Eating
With the more practical matters out of the way, let’s end with a short discussion about Mexican eating habits and protocols.
The grand capital is replete with restaurants for every eating preference and idiosyncrasy. You may feel overwhelmed when you look online for your favorite. So, here are some general options to narrow down your choices.
The meals. Instead of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all of México enjoys desayuno, comida, and cena.
Desayuno is eaten before 10 am. Comida, the main meal of the day, begins as early as 1 or 2 pm and is served until 4 or 5 pm. Cena is a light evening meal offered from 7 to 10 pm. This is the habit in Mexican homes. Restaurants often adapt to foreign timetables for eating, and since restaurant times may vary, best to check hours on line.
Street food. To eat or not to eat? My guests’ favorite question, and my advice is benign: It is up to you. There are risks involved everywhere, but more so from street vendors. Often there is no running water in the puestos de comida (food stalls), and employees often handle money and food simultaneously.
The food is usually delicious, and it’s certainly quite cheap. Millions of Mexican workers eat it every day. I confess to eating street taco carnitas occasionally, even though I may experience gastrointestinal backlash the next day.
Market eating. Everyone enjoys the huge buildings that house mountains of fruits, vegetables, meat, and often household items. There are also small restaurants inside the markets. One of my favorites is Mercado Medellin (located in Roma Sur on Campeche and Medellin streets). The market has two locations for restaurants, so be sure to ask one of the vendors where to go.
Chains. Here are some unexpected spots that serve great Mexican meals.
The most famous chain store that also houses a restaurant is Sanborns, owned by the world-famous entrepreneur Carlos Slim.
To this day, the distinct dress of the Sanborns waitresses is famous, going back more than a century ago. Collector and dealer of folk art and archaeological artifacts Francis Davis was invited to open a Mexican curio shop inside the Sanborns Casa de los Azulejos, located in Centro. Davis designed a uniform for the servers and according to some, it was loaded with typical Mexican references. It adds such charm to the restaurant.
Sanborns has a good variety of Mexican food which is quite tasty and traditional. There are Sanborns shops located all over the city. There you will find books, scarves, pharmaceuticals, jewelry, perfumes, and electronics, with the merchandise varying from store to store. It is a practical place to shop, and it is a legend.
Another excellent chain for Mexican food is the Bajio restaurants. Like Sanborns, they are located all over the city. The food is outstanding with a good variety. I frequent the one in the Reforma 222 shopping center. Carnitas are a specialty.
Tipping. Waiters and waitresses receive very small salaries – thus they depend on tips. Some owners do not even pay a salary, the workers’ only compensation being tips. Twenty percent is traditional if the service is good. So please tip your wait staff.
Crème de la crème restaurant. Since I’m always asked about this, I will reluctantly address it here. Based on the reaction of my visitors and reviews, the best upscale restaurant is Rosetta, located in Roma Norte, with the Rosetta bakery, located on the next block, as the choice for the best cafe. Definitely the best pastry is the cafe’s Mil Hojas, covered at greater length in my article “Where the Locals Hang Out: The Unsung Treasures of CDMX” (February 2025).
Soak in the sunshine and joy of this city that is unlike any other.
“One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.” Hermann Hesse
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Sneak Preview 2025: A Few New Gems by Our Favorite Writers
By Carole Reedy
The end of the year creates a wondrous feeling of bookish anticipation that helps move us through the post-holiday doldrums. To whet your appetite for our upcoming reading pleasure, here’s a brief preview of new books by several favorite authors, both fiction and nonfiction. Publication dates are, as always, subject to change.
Fox: A Novel, by Joyce Carol Oates (July 2025)
Lolita for feminists! In yet another of her original novels, the prolific and amazing Joyce Carol Oates this time takes on Vladimir Nabokov’s classic Lolita (1955), shifting the perception to that of the woman in the tale, a temptress schoolteacher named Frances Fox.
I try to read everything Joyce Carol Oates creates. Despite writing more than 100 books, she still finds new, varied, and creative paths to entertain and captivate her readers.
Flashlight: A Novel, by Susan Choi (June 2025)
Susan Choi won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2019 for her novel Trust Exercise: A Novel (2019).
Her newest novel, Flashlight, tells the story of Louisa and her family after her father disappears when she is ten years old. By focusing every other chapter on a different family member, complicated stories are revealed through time, patience, and memory.
Sounds challenging and intriguing.
The River Is Waiting: A Novel, by Wally Lamb (May 2025)
We eagerly await new novels from this skilled writer of the best sellers She’s Come Undone (1992) and I Know This Much Is True (a Novel) (1998).
Advance press for Lamb’s new novel refers to a great deal of pain created by the protagonist’s own mistakes. He goes to prison, where, pondering his errors, he wonders if he can ever be forgiven. Is there a possibility of atonement for the unforgivable?
Fever Beach: A Novel, by Carl Hiaasen (May 2025)
With 14 novels and many best sellers – Skinny Dip: A Novel (2004), Sick Puppy: A Novel (2000), and Squeeze Me: A Novel (2020), among others – under his belt, Hiassen returns with two unique characters who continue yet another laugh-out-loud adventure story in the author’s home state of Florida.
Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie, by James Lee Burke (June 2025)
Burke, who spent most of his life in the US South, is one of the most popular mystery writers of our time. Currently splitting his time between Montana and Louisiana, he says the greatest influence in his life was the 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.
His latest takes place in Louisiana and New York City and is told through the eyes of 14-year-old Bessie Holland. Holland finds solace in her mentor, a suffragette English teacher who encourages her to always keep fighting, but the challenges presented at the beginning of the 19th century seem almost insurmountable.
Warhol’s Muses: Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine, by Laurence Leamer (May 2025)
Bestselling biographer Leamer explores the lives of 10 superstar women Andy Warhol manipulated for his own artistic benefit while also revealing the mysteries of Warhol’s turbulent life and work. Surely meant to sensationalize!
Leamer is the author of Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era (2023), Hitchcock’s Blondes: The Unforgettable Women behind the Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession (2023), and The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family (1996).
Men in Love, by Irvine Welsh (July 2025)
This much-anticipated sequel to the 1993 cult classic Trainspotting joins the two existing sequels, Porno (2005) and Dead Men’s Trousers (2018), but this new novel takes place immediately after Trainspotting.
Recall the characters in Trainspotting (Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, and Begbie) were heroin users in Edinburgh. In this new novel, the crew is dispersed to Scotland, London, and Amsterdam where they try to substitute love for heroin. The author tells us he has never stopped writing about these strange, beloved characters from Trainspotting.
Three years after Trainspotting was published, Danny Boyle converted it into a successful movie starring Ewen McGregor, Robert Carlyle, and Johnny Lee Miller.
Vianne, by Joanne Harris (May 2025)
We know Joanne Harris for her multi-million-copy bestselling Chocolat (1999). Vianne is the story that takes place six years before the famous chocolaterie opens.
It appears this newest novel is equal to its predecessor both in its sensuality and its ability to provoke thought.
Mark Twain, by Ron Chernow (May 2025)
Ron Chernow is the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer who has tackled the challenge of relating the varied and exciting life of the famous journalist, satirist, and performer Mark Twain.
We know Mark Twain for his two novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), but there is much more to his life and story that comes via his thousands of letters and unpublished manuscripts.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens adopted the moniker Mark Twain and thus gave the world hundreds of hours of entertainment in his vast library of writing. More than a hundred years after his death, Twain, who travelled the world and wrote about it, is still voraciously studied in schools worldwide.
His clever use of words, description, and phrases is still quoted. Some of his most famous aphorisms include, “A classic is a book that people praise and don’t read.” Then there’s “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education,” as well as the popular, “Never put off until tomorrow what may get done the day after tomorrow just as well.”
Speak to Me of Home: A Novel, by Jeanine Cummins (May 2025)
Cummins is the author of the Oprah Winfrey-recommended and highly controversial novel American Dirt (2018), in which a woman and her son must escape their home in Acapulco when they are pursued by narcos. The journey through Mexico and the doubts arising from the purpose of their adventure are the basis for the book.
This new novel takes place in Puerto Rico and the US, telling the tales of fifty years and three generations of immigrants. It is ultimately a story of mothers and daughters and the decisions they face and are haunted by.
This is only a sampling. Many more book recommendations forthcoming over the next few months.
Happy Reading New Year 2025!
Love, Telenovela Style
By Deborah Van Hoewyk
When we first arrived in Huatulco, in the winter of 2004-05, we stayed in a long-gone B&B in La Bocana and ate in the next-door restaurant, Los Güeros, which is still there. It was a quiet, magical place – apparently, however, not magical enough for the family that ran Los Güeros, as they gathered every night to watch a TV suspended from the ceiling. Sparsely lit by circular fluorescents, the blue-painted restaurant seemed to pulsate to the flickering movement on the screen.
The family was devoted to telanovelas – prime time, melodramatic, soap operas. Immensely popular in practically all Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking countries, telenovelas are “maxi-mini-series”; unlike U.S. soap operas, they almost always complete their story arc in less than a year, often less than six months. The shorter duration doesn’t keep telenovelas from having complicated plots rife with reversals and revenge, drama and deceit, usually driven by love, be it forbidden or happy-ever-after, or maybe both.
Telenovelas also differ from U.S. soap operas in that they are set in a social, political, and economic framework; they acknowledge poverty, factory layoffs, class differences and conflicts. Indeed, doomed love between an honorable-but-struggling young woman and a wealthy man is a favorite theme, especially in earlier telenovelas. (Don’t worry, they usually get together in the end – think Cinderella!)
How Did Telenovelas Come To Be?
The direct ancestor of the telenovela is the radio-novela, and the ancestor of the radio-novela was born in Cuba, in a 19th-century cigar factory. El lector de tabaco, the tobacco reader, read many things to the cigar-makers, but among them were novels, presented chapter by chapter, day after day. It was thought to entertain the workers, to relieve the tedium of factory work and ensure they would show up to hear more.
Cuba made its first attempt to win its independence from Spain in the unsuccessful Ten Years’ War (1868-78); cigar makers and workers who fled the war moved to Mexico, specifically the state of Veracruz, ideal for growing tobacco, and Florida in the U.S. The tobacco reader came along. Soon there were readers in textile and other factories as well.
Once the lectores began to include labor issues in their readings – seen by some historians as leading to the labor movement (a story for another time), they were on their way out. Factory owners did not like having their workers educated on what they saw as socialist, communist, or anarchist themes. Mexico banned lectores in its factories, although whether that was a total ban is unclear. In the US, the tobacco factories in Ybor City, part of Tampa, staged multiple strikes – the live readings ended with the strike of 1931 – but there are still lectores in Cuba today.
Radios Replace the Readers
As soon as radio became available, it, too, was put to work in factories to entertain workers. In her doctoral work at the Free University of Berlin, researcher Hanna Müssemann studies “every-day media,” and has confirmed that radio broadcasts, and then radio-novelas, were intended to entertain factory workers, among other audiences, and to keep workers coming back for “the rest of the story.”
Radio arrived in Mexico at 8 pm on September 18, 1930, when station XEW began broadcasting from the Olimpia Cinema on Calle 16 de Septiembre, right off the zócalo (main square) in Mexico City. Intended for broadcasting music, XEW also produced theatrical works on the weekend; when XEW put out its first radio-novela in 1932, they followed in the steps of the tobacco readers, and broke up the French novel The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas, 1844) into 15-minute segments.
That there was a cliff-hanger element to the radio-novela was made quite clear when XEW writer Vicente Leñero put together guidelines for creating radio-novelas: the plot should have “mild suspense” (suspensos suaves) before commercials, “disturbing suspense” (suspensos inquietantes) for the end of the episode, and “frightful suspense” (suspensos tremebundos) at the end of the week.
XEW’s radio-novelas didn’t really take off until March of 1941, when they put on Ave sin nido, la vida apasionante de Anita de Montemar (Bird without a Nest, the Passionate Life of Anita de Montemar). Anita de Montemar is a student at a nunnery who falls in love with Carlos Miranda, an engineer who handles the mechanical needs of the nunnery. Carlos and Anita marry, only to discover that Anita cannot have children. Carlos’s old friend Carlota is experiencing hard times, and gives her daughter to Anita and Carlos to raise. It turns out, of course, that Alicia is actually Carlos’s daughter with Carlota, and Anita, destroyed, leaves her family. There you have it – the first radio-novela and all the themes that will become the telenovela: obstacles to love, love realized, poverty, deceit, illegitimate kid, and love in ruins.
with the success of Bird without a Nest, XEW began broadcasting five radio-novelas a day; enormously popular, they were the mainstay of Mexican broadcasting through the 1950s. Radio-novela casts included major stars from the big screen (the 1950s was the “Golden Age” of Mexican filmmaking). As in the US, they were sponsored by domestic products, mostly soap. The sponsors were particularly happy when a soap opera delivered a moral ending that listeners could apply to their own lives.
From the Radio-Novela to the Telenovela
Radio-novelas continued to be produced up until 1983, even though a more congenial medium – television – had arrived. Television actually started in Mexico on August 19, 1946, a mere 16 years after the country’s first radio broadcast. Not that it was an auspicious start – Guillermo González Camerano, an electrical engineer, broadcast the first television signal from his Mexico City bathroom. Nonetheless, on September 7, an experimental television station had started broadcasting artistic programming and interviews. In 1950, XHTV, Channel 4 in Mexcio City, became the first commercial station in Latin America. As other stations formed, they joined together as Telesistema Mexicano; in 1973, Telesistema joined with Television Independiente de México to create Televisa, which became the world’s largest producer of Spanish-language television content, including, of course telenovelas. (Televisa is now 45% of TelevisaUnivision, the largest U.S. producer of Spanish-language content.)
The very first telenovela was created in Brazil in Portuguese in 1951. Sua vida me pertence (Your Life Belongs to Me) contains the first on-screen kiss seen in Brazil. Relatively simple by current telenovela standards, it offered fifteen episodes, broadcast twice a week, and followed the story of a developing love affair between a young woman and an older man. In 1952, Cuba’s initial offering was Senderos de Amor (Paths of Love), which involved a repressed spinster who was in love, did bad things, and represented the evils of urban life as opposed to the morality of the countryside. The next year, Cuba and Mexico collaborated on Ángeles de la calle (Angels of the Street), in which a kindly grandma helps out street urchins (said urchins apparently were a popular theme at the time).
The Mexican Telanovela Industry
Mexico finally got going on its own when, on June 12, 1958, Telesistema started broadcasting Senda Prohibida (Forbidden Path), sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive Mexico. There were no poor-but-innocent heroines in this one – the great Silvia Derbez played Nora, who had been small-town poor and suffered for it, but was now an ambitious secretary who falls for her married boss, and despite his very nice wife and cutie-pie son, suckers him out of big gifts and fancy jewelry, which leads to his financial ruin. The 30-episode telenovela ends with Nora in her wedding dress, crying before a full-length mirror, her plotting unrewarded in the end. Silvia Derbez received hate mail, threats, and people waited outside the studio to curse at her and even attack her for being so evil. (Senda Prohibida was remade [refriteado] in 2023, with an emphasis on Nora’s creating conflict between boss father and now-grown son.)
Televisa went full-on into telenovela production, with 3 more productions in 1958, 8 in 1959, 239 titles in the 1960s, and another 550 through 2019. During and following the 1970s, the melodrama increased, sex (and sometimes nudity) appeared on screen, and crises like murder, incest and drug addiction began to appear. On the other hand, the Cinderella-type stories also appeared with increasing regularity.
One that’s got it all? Los ricos también lloran (The Rich Also Cry) tells the story of Marina, thought to be poor but swindled of her inheritance, who is asked to live with a wealthy family. She falls in love with the spoiled son of the family, and he with her, but he marries someone else; there’s a hit man, a fake pregnancy, a gangster, robberies and murders, a psych ward, real adultery, adultery misunderstood, a lost child, an adopted child – it just goes on and on through 248 episodes, all crammed into the four-plus months between October 16, 1979, and February 29, 1980. There is, of course, a happy ending. Los ricos is considered the first “global telenovela,” dubbed into 25 languages and sent off to Russia, Poland, Greece, Serbia, Japan, as well as English, French, and Portuguese.
Reflecting Culture, Shaping Culture
Recently, the academic community has turned its attention to telenovelas, which had generally been dismissed as “simply another example of the ‘mind-numbing’ mass-media programming” driven by copying American capitalistic and consumerist tendencies. That notion didn’t last too long, and now we have detailed analyses like Mexican Screen Melodrama: Unraveling Mexico’s Sociocultural Expectations and Ambiguities by Sofia Rios Miranda (2020), which looks at social change in Mexico and “Mexico’s ambivalence around socioeconomic background, race and religion, gender and worth, family and duty.”
Telenovelas are used, both indirectly by shaping the way people look at the world, and directly by imparting “public service” messages, as educational tools. A good example of indirect “education” would be how they shape the audience’s ideas about gender (telenovela heroines generally have light complexions, and their dress and makeup reflect upper-middle-class European standards). Health agencies have promoted more direct messages: Encrujiada: Sin salud no hay nada (Crossroads: Without Health, There Is Nothing), a telenovela about Alicia, a psychiatrist who dies of colon cancer. The series, created in 2012 for the Hispanic population in California, emphasizes the importance of early detection of cancer. There have been telenovelas designed to change attitudes toward homophobia, drug addiction, and domestic violence.
Romancing the Narcos
And then there’s the narco-novela. The 1970s were not just the time when telenovelas reached their height, it was when drug cartels became part of the fabric of everyday Mexican life. Popular music, with its narcocorridas (drug ballads), and narco-dramas in film and novels began to show people caught up – willingly or not – in the social and political violence brought by drug production and distribution.
The first narco-novela was a 2006 Colombian production, Sin tetas no hay paraiso (No Boobs, No Paradise). Catalina has a very small bust, which she believes is keeping her from marrying a rich drug lord, so she becomes a call-girl to pay for the breast implants that she sees as her path out of poverty. Needless to say, things do not go well – after participating in all manner of corrupt and murderous narco activities, Catalina arranges her own assassination to escape her misery.
Narco-novelas show drug lords with some admiration, and government and law enforcement as corrupt, inept, and underhanded. Like Sin Tetas, most narco-novelas have made some effort to portray the drug trade in a negative way. That gets a bit lost in the shuffle by the time we get to La Reina del Sur (The Queen of the South).
La Reina del Sur and El Chapo
Based on the 2002 Spanish novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, La Reina del Sur is the story of Teresa Mendoza, a Mexican woman who becomes the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain. Season 1 was produced by Telemundo, NBC Universal’s Spanish-language TV network, with other partners. Seasons 2 and 3 have been made by a Telemundo Global Studios – Netflix partnership. To date, there have been 183 35-minute episodes; there’s no indication there will be a Season 4. Teresa is played by Kate del Castillo, who started out in telenovelas, notably Muchachitas (Young Girls), a 1991 Televisa hit.
Yes, that Kate del Castillo, who arranged an interview for the American actor Sean Penn with Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera – El Chapo – the former head of the Sinaloa cartel. In 2012, del Castillo tweeted “Today I believe more in El Chapo Guzmán than I do in the governments that hide truths from me … Mr. Chapo, wouldn’t it be cool if you started trafficking with the good? Let’s traffic with love, you know how.” Two years later, El Chapo’s lawyers contacted del Castillo to explore putting the drug lord’s life up there on the big screen. They gave her a special phone that could text El Chapo.
So … she texts El Chapo to set up a meeting with Penn, El Chapo checks out Penn, and by October 2015, everyone is good to go. Except … the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had already tapped all of El Chapo’s communications, including Castillo’s “special phone,” and the Mexican marines were going to take out El Chapo at the same time as the meeting.
Bad weather stopped the marines, Kate del Castillo thinks Sean Penn took advantage of her, Mexican authorities investigated del Castillo to a fare-thee-well, Sean Penn planned to write an article for Rolling Stone, not make a film about El Chapo, the Mexican government was humiliated when the story came out – sounds like a narco-novela, ¿no?
Dragon Ladies
By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken
Dragons are among the most ubiquitous cross-cultural figures. They appear prominently in myths originating in virtually every part of the world. The belief in the existence of dragons was well established by the time the Chinese lunar calendar was created around 2600 BCE, incorporating the dragon as the only fictional animal in the cycle of years. One plausible hypothesis is that the universal awe of these creatures arose when humans began mining for metals and uncovered dinosaur bones; the dragon was born out of a need for explaining these phenomenal relics. With minor variations, cross-cultural graphic representations of these revered and feared creatures are very similar.
The Dragon Lady: A Very Different Origin
The dragon lady, a much newer concept unrelated to female mythological dragons, was initially a form of new world racial bigotry. The term was created by the media in the US around the end of the 19th century. Anti-Asian sentiment was endemic at that time, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), and the migration of many Chinese residents from the southwestern US to the border town of Mexicali, Baja California (see Van Hoewyk’s article elsewhere in this issue). The New York-based Asian American Writers’ Workshop credits (or perhaps discredits) The New York Times for first publicizing the term “Dragon Lady” in reporting about the Chinese Empress Tsu-Hsi (Cixi), who ruled from 1861 to 1908.
Dowager Empress Tsu-Hsi. Tsu-Hsi began as a royal prostitute serving the eighth Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Xianfeng; after giving birth to his first and only son, she was officially elevated to concubine status. Xianfeng ruled from 1850 to 1861, when he died young at age 30. After the Emperor’s death, he was succeeded by their son, who was five at the time; the Dowager Empress Tsu-Hsi thus wielded power in China from 1861-1908, although it was a checkered reign. Reportedly she was responsible for the death of eight ministers who were appointed as regents for the child, and then she had absolute control. She was described in The New York Times as “The wicked witch of the East, a reptilian dragon lady.”
Others credit the term Dragon Lady to cartoonist Milton Caniff, who authored the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. Published in the Chicago Tribune for about four decades, beginning in the early 1930, it included a central character who was a Chinese woman pirate called “The Dragon Lady.” The term took on the meaning of a Chinese woman who was wily and used her sexual allure to rise from obscurity to great power – but the term Dragon Ladies soon morphed to include any Asian women with those characteristics.
Madame Nhu. Perhaps the most famous Dragon Lady of the mid-20th century was Trần Lệ Xuân, aka Madame Nhu, the sister-in-law of Ngô Đình Diệm. As President of what was then South Vietnam, Diệm exercised the powers of a dictator from 1955 until 1963, when he died in a coup along with his brother and chief political advisor, Ngô Đình Nhu, Madame Nhu’s husband. During Diệm’s reign, Madame Nhu functioned as first lady and was herself elected to the National Assembly. Although she had converted from Buddhism to Catholicism to marry Nhu, she fought for reforms for women opposed by the Church, including divorce and the right to use birth-control. After the coup, she fled to Italy and remained there until her death at age 86, still being referred to as The Dragon Lady.
Non-Asian Dragon Ladies
It was not long before the term was applied to powerful women of other races. The politician who was a force to be reckoned with in the California Democratic Party, Carmen Warschaw (1917-2012), was called the Dragon Lady by other politicians in both parties. Warschaw was Jewish, so the term with roots in racial bigotry had nuances of antisemitism. Well-known within California for her philanthropy, especially to educational and medical institutions, she was the first woman to chair the California Fair Employment Practices Commission with the mission of fighting discrimination in housing and employment. She was named The Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Times in 1976.
With the rise of feminism, and the entry of women into careers from which women were formerly excluded, the image of a Dragon Lady, a fiery powerful woman, began to have international appeal. In Mexico, one of the best-known women in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) matches is Lady Dragon or Lady Drago; in her ten years of performing, the 4′ 9″ star has not revealed whether she was given another name when she was born. Muna Shrestha, from Nepal, also wrestles under the name of Lady Dragon. In the early 1990s, the American martial artist and actor Cynthia Rothrock was featured in a couple of films titled Lady Dragon.
And Last but Not Least!
Perhaps the best-known Dragon Lady in the 21st century is a fictional character in HBO’s medieval fantasy drama Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen, the mother of dragons (actually, it was three dragons that hatched from petrified dinosaur eggs). Based on the fantasy book series A Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin, the first of which is A Game of Thrones (1996), the series is viewed in 207 countries and territories. Adored by millions of fans, Daenerys filled the stereotype of the Dragon Lady, a beautiful woman rising from obscurity to achieve the ultimate in power. Well, almost. In the final episode, to the horror of people all over the world, Daenerys went mad and, with her dragon Drogon breathing fire, devastated whole cities and people – which may reset the meaning of the term Dragon Lady.
In spite of Daenerys’ ignominious end, modern Asian-American women are reclaiming the appellation as meaning power with a socially approved implication. Some years ago, the book Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire (1999), edited by Sonia Shah, presented writings of Asian-American feminists. The book has become an inspiration to many women who, rather than finding the accusation of being a dragon lady noxious, revel in the term Dragon Lady as recognizing their power and their ability to exercise their skills.
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