The Cathedral of Santiago in Saltillo faces the Plaza de Armas where young couples relax on iron benches surrounded by manicured gardens and children chasing pigeons. Streams of water rise from a fountain into gentle arcs in the sunlight, and a young man sells paintings of feathered Indians, the Virgin Mary, and Mexican villages with […]
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A cool waterfall rushes over rocks into a pool surrounded by Boston ferns, split-leaf philodendron and magnolias in the desert of the northern Mexican state of Coahuila. Turtles bask on the shore, iguanas stare through a window into the herpetarium in the next room, and dinosaur eggs lay nestled beneath lush foliage. The biodome of […]
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Recently I had the pleasure of visiting with some of my wife’s family in northern Mexico. The old house where we stayed is approaching 100 years in age. I won’t say the plumbing was poor, but the real estate was obviously dated and there were some noted problems and historical issues with the plumbing. Although […]
Continue ReadingAbstract In the past, environmental conservation has emphasized the protection of the physical environment through the exclusion of humans. As a result, the local inhabitants in and surrounding protected areas often perceive conservation policies to be a threat to their land-use rights and source of livelihood. The objective of this project was to examine the […]
Continue ReadingMiguel Hidalgo y Costilla had the unique distinction of being a father in three senses of the word: a priestly father in the Roman Catholic Church, a biological father who produced illegitimate children in defiance of his clerical vows, and the father of his country. Though Guadalupe Victoria was, like Washington, his country’s first president, […]
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History of Mexico: time-line overview resource page. Born Doroteo Arango in San Juan del Río, Durango, in 1877 (1879 according to some sources), the man most of the world knew as Pancho Villa spent much of his life in Durango until, at age 16, he killed a man who had raped his younger sister. Little […]
Continue ReadingBecause I volunteer a few days each month as a Mexican genealogical consultant at the Los Angeles Family History Center, many people have asked me for assistance in tracing their indigenous roots in Mexico. For three hundred years, Mexico was blessed with an exceptional record-keeping system. For the most part, Spanish padres in the small […]
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Interactive Map of Chihuahua The map shows the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico. The state capital is the city of Chihuahua (2020 population: 1,050,000). Chihuahua is the largest state in Mexico in area: 247,087 square kilometers (95,401 square miles). The state’s population is about 3,700,000. Ciudad Juárez is the state’s largest city and Mexico’s […]
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Map of Zacatecas and Aguascalientes states: Zacatecas, Jerez, Fresnillo, Aguascalientes, Mexico The state of Zacatecas is in the region of North Mexico, along with the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Durango and Aguascalientes. The state has an area of 75,200 square kilometers and a population of 1.7 million (2017). The state […]
Continue ReadingI have worked as a reporter for the Monitor newspaper in McAllen, Texas, since October 1998. I began traveling in Mexico in Feb. 2001, driving to Saltillo, Coahuila, exactly twice before deciding that buses and taxis were much more reliable (and less exhausting) than driving on my own. My explorations of Mexico began initially to […]
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