9781422278864

CUSTOMS AND CULTURES OF THE WORLD

MY TEENAGE LIFE IN

MEXICO

CUSTOMS AND CULTURES OF THE WORLD

My Teenage Life in AUSTRALIA My Teenage Life in BRAZIL My Teenage Life in CHINA My Teenage Life in EGYPT My Teenage Life in GREECE

My Teenage Life in INDIA My Teenage Life in JAPAN My Teenage Life in MEXICO My Teenage Life in NEPAL My Teenage Life in RUSSIA My Teenage Life in SOUTH AFRICA Our Teenage Life in the NAVAJO NATION

CUSTOMS AND CULTURES OF THE WORLD

MY TEENAGE LIFE IN

By Betsy Cassriel with Ricardo Mora Series Foreword by Kum-Kum Bhavnani MEXICO

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First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3899-8 ISBN: 978-1-4222-3907-0 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7886-4

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M E X I C O

C ontents

Series Foreword by Kum-Kum Bhavnani, UCSB..................... 6

Mexican Customs .............................. 34 Ricardo’S Free Time..........................42 Mexico’s Economy and Politics......... 44 Ricardo’s Country.......................... 52 The Future of Mexico. ........................ 54

Meet Ricardo!....................................... 8 Mexico: An Introduction..................... 10 Ricardo’S School Life.......................20 Time to Eat!.........................................22 Mexican Culture................................. 24 Ricardo’S Town.................................32

Text-Dependent Questions..................................................... 60 Research Projects.................................................................. 61 Find Out More......................................................................... 62 Series Glossary of Key Terms................................................ 63 Index/Author........................................................................... 64

Key Icons to Look For

Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills.

Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

M E X I C O

S eries F oreword Culture: Parts =Whole C ulture makes us human. Many of us think of culture

Culture is also about how we live our lives. It is about our lived experiences of our societies and of all theworldswe inhabit. And in this series—CustomsandCulturesof the World—you will meet young people who will share their experiences of the cultures andworlds they inhabit. How does a teenager growing up in South Africa make sense of the history of apartheid, the 1994 democratic elections, and of what is happening now? That is as integral to ourworld’s culture as the ancient ruins in Greece, the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the Himalayas above Nepal, and the Amazon rain forests in Brazil. But these examples are not enough. Greece is also known for its financial uncertainties, Egypt is

assomethingthatbelongstoaperson, a group, or even a country. We talk about the food of a region as being part of its culture (tacos, pupusas, tamales, and burritos all are part of ourunderstandingof food fromMex- ico, andSouthandCentralAmerica). We might also talk about the clothes asbeing important toculture (saris in India, kimonos in Japan, hijabs or gallibayas in Egypt, or beaded shirts in theNavajoNation). Imaginetryingtosumup“American” cultureusingjustexampleslikethese! Yet culture does not just belong to a personorevenacountry. It isnot only about food and clothes or music and art, because those things by them- selves cannot tell the whole story.

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known for the uprisings in Tahrir Square, China is known for its rapid developmentof megacities,Australia is known for its amazing animals, andBrazil isknown for theOlympics and its football [soccer] team. And there are many more examples for eachnation, region, andperson, and some of these examples are featured in these books. The question is: How do you, growing up in a particular country, view your own culture? What do you think of as culture? What is your lived experience of it? Howdo you come to understand and engage with cultures that are not familiar to you? And, perhaps most importantly, why do you/wewant to do this?Andhowdoes reading about andexperiencingother cultureshelp you understand your own? It is perhaps a cliché to say culture forms the central core of our humanity and our dignity. If that’s true, how do young adults talk about your own cultures? How do you simultaneously understand how people apparently “different” fromyou live their lives, and engage

with their cultures? One way is to read the stories in this series. The “authors” are just like you, even though they live in different places and in different cultures. We com- municatedwith these youngwriters over the Internet, whichhas become the greatest gathering of cultures ever. The Internet is now central to the culture of almost everyone, with youngpeople leading thewayonhow to use it to expand the horizons of all of us. From those of us born in earlier generations, thank you for opening that cultural avenue! Let me finish by saying that culture allows us to open ourminds, think about worlds different from the ones we live in, and to imagine how people very different from us live their lives. This series of books is just the start of the process, but a crucial start. I hope you enjoy them. —Kum-Kum Bhavnani Professor of sociology and feminist and global studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an award-winning international filmmaker.

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M E X I C O Meet Ricardo!

My name is Ricardo Mora and I’m 15. In my family, we are five: my mother Erika; my father Juan Carlos; my sister Sophie; my older brother Leonardo; and me. The thing I like the most of my family is the blind trust that we all have at every moment. The support of my father and mother and brothers is the main reason why I love my family and my home.

My mother and father are in the veterinary business. My father right now has a store that sells food additives for cattle, and my mother just started a framing shop in Querétaro, where we live.

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M E X I C O

Querétaro

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Mexico City

Mexico Ricardo’s hometown is north of Mexico City, the capital of the country. That large metropolis is located on a high plateau, with parts of the city being more than 7,300 feet (2225 m) above sea level. Home to more than 21 million people, the urban area surrounding Mexico City is the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Mexico is made up of 31 states and is about three times the size of Texas. Large parts of the country are dry and desert, but several mountain ranges cut through the land. It also has extensive coastlines on the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, providing many popular tourist destinations.

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M E X I C O

Mexico: An Introduction

“ M exico” is a word that comes from the word Mexica (pronounced “Me-shee-ka”). The Mexica, or the Aztecs, were the indigenous group that settled in central Mexico centuries ago. The name gives a hint of Mexico’s diversity of people and landscape. Mexico is located inNorthAmerica and bordered by theUnited States, Belize, and Guatemala. It is about 760,000 square miles (2 million sq km), or three times the size of Texas. Even though Mexico and the U.S. share a very long, almost 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border, Mexico is often identified as being part of Central and South America.

Words to Understand conquistador  Spanish word for “conqueror,” given to Spanish soldiers who came to the New World indigenous  native to a place literacy rate  the percentage of people in a group who can read

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Mexico City is atop a large plateau that is itself surrounded by high mountains. It’s one of the most populous urban areas in the world.

The country has a very diverse physical landscape of mountains, deserts, beaches, and jungles. Two enormous mountain ranges run north and south in Mexico and meet in the center of the country. This is where MexicoCity is located, aswell as other big cities suchas Leon, Guadalajara, and Puebla. The north of the country is known as the frontier. Much of it

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M E X I C O

is still rural and populated with indigenous people, but cities like Ciudad Juarez have grown along the U.S.-Mexico border. To the east and west of the large mountain ranges lie humid coastal plains. Finally, the Yucatan

Popocatepetl is one of several active volcanoes in Mexico. Known as Popo, it looms above the skyline of Mexico City, often venting smoke from its heated interior.

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Peninsula is in the southeast, and it is the only very flat area of the country. The country of Mexico has a population of 122million. Mexico City is the fifth largest city in theworldwith 21million people living in the metropolitan area. Spanish was estab- lished as the dominant language when Spain colonized Mexico (see below). Mexico is one of the many countries in the Pacific Ring of Fire. This area of theworld is one of themost active tectonic regions, which means there are many volcanoes and frequent volcanic and seismic activity inMexico, especially on its western, or Pacific, coast. Twohuge, snowcappedvolcanoesreaching more than 17,000 feet sit side by side outside of Mexico City. They are named Popocatepetl

Flag Talk What is that image on the Mexican flag? According to legend, the Aztecs were wandering through Mexico

looking for a place to build their capital city. They saw a divine sign: a Mexican golden eagle standing on a prickly pear cactus plant eating a rattle- snake. On this site the Aztecs built their capital Tenochtitlán. Today this image appears on the flag as a national symbol of Mexico’s indigenous history as well as a symbol of good triumphing over evil.

(Popo, for short), meaning “Smoking Mountain,” and Iztaccihuatl (nick- named Izta), which means “White Woman.” (There is an Aztec legend that tells the story of these two volcanoes. The story goes that Popo and Izta were at one time humans who were deeply in love. Izta’s father told the young warrior Popo that he must fight the tribe’s enemy and return in victory in order to win his daughter’s hand in marriage. After Popo left for battle, false news returned, reporting that Popo had died. Izta was grief-stricken and died of a broken heart. Later, Popo returned home tri- umphant only to find that his lover was dead. He carried Izta’s body to the mountains and built a funeral pyre for her—and for himself. Popo died next to his lover. After seeing Popo and Izta’s great love, the gods turned the lovers into mountains so they could always be together.)

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History For thousands of years many different indigenous tribes lived inMexico. The Olmecs are the first known society of Mexico, living near Veracruz sometime between 1200 and 600 bce . The Teotihuacan people built their capital, whose ruins can still be seen today, near what is nowMexico City.

It is thought to have been the largest city in the world at the time. From 900 to 250 bce , the Mayans flourished. They are considered the most advanced ancient society of Latin America. TheAztecswere the last of Mexico’s great pre-Hispanic societies. They thrived between the years 1100 and 1500. Aztecs built an empire so big that they are thought to have ruled over nearly five million people. During the rule of theAztecs, the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes and his ships arrived in Veracruz, Mexico. They were in search of gold and converts to Catholicism. Moctezuma II, theAztec king, mistookCortes for the god-kingQuetzalcoatl,whowas expect- ed to return to earth. In 1521, Cortes’ forces, along with indigenous groups who opposed the Aztecs, conquered the capital of theAztec empire called Tenochtitlan. There continued to be bloody battles between Spanish soldiers and indigenous people. A turning point came in 1531, when an indigenous man named Juan Diego had a

Virgin of Guadalupe

In 1531, Juan Diego saw an image of a young woman surrounded by light on a hill near Mexico City. The woman told Juan Diego that a church should be built on the site of an Aztec temple. When Juan Diego told the bishop about his experience, the bishop didn’t believe him and told him to ask the Virgin for a miraculous sign. The Virgin appeared to Juan Diego a second time and told him to gather flowers, which were not in season, in his cloak, called a tilmatli . When Juan Diego opened his tilmatli before the bishop, flowers tumbled out and the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was imprinted on his cloak. At this miraculous sign, the bishop agreed to build the church.

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