US First Lady brings 'pep talk' diplomacy to Mexico

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
April 15, 2010

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama has marked the first full day of her Mexico City tour with a “yes-we-can”-style speech delivered to around 2,000 invited Mexican university and high school students.

During her first official, solo trip abroad as first lady, Mrs. Obama on Wednesday afternoon addressed a jam-packed pavilion at the Universidad Iberoamericana (Ibero, for short) in the city’s Santa Fe neighborhood. Her visit to the elite private university was preceded by a talk with low-income children at the Siete de Enero public elementary school in the Álvaro Obregón borough.

Mrs. Obama has been guided throughout her three-day trip by Margarita Zavala, the wife of President Felipe Calderón. The two ladies have developed a cross-border friendship since Mrs. Obama earned her ‘first lady’ title in January 2009. Both women are former lawyers, the mothers of young children and presidential wives who have made the well-being of youth their main concerns.

Outside the Ibero pavilion before the event, high school senior Rafael Leyva, 18, said that he looked forward to gleaning a bit of advice from the first lady. Leyva later joined about a hundred students selected to sit on stage behind Mrs. Obama during the speech as part of a recognition of the students’ academic leadership. Students from 15 Mexican universities attended the speech from crowded bleachers.

“Mrs. Obama has been a huge determining factor in, above all, the human development of her country,” he told The News. “If she has come here to give us part of the knowledge she has gained from her experience in all the fields she has been working in, it will be very enriching for all of us as Mexicans.”

Javier Reyes, 18, a classmate of Leyva’s, said that he was honored to have been chosen to sit on stage.

“We feel very proud; it is like our efforts (at school) are finally starting to bear fruit,” he said. “I hope to take her advice as an example to follow and to be able to arrive at a future as successful as the one she has achieved.”

Following an introduction by Ibero rector Jose Morales Orozco, Mrs. Obama recognized U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual and thanked Zavala for her hospitality throughout the official trip.

The U.S. first lady explained that she scheduled the Ibero visit for the same reason that her husband, President Barack Obama, visits schools and universities along with the palaces and parliaments as he swings by during his various foreign travels.

“This isn’t an accident. Today, we’re seeing what has come to be called a ‘youth bulge’ – an explosion of the youth population in nations around the world. Here in Mexico, nearly half the population is under the age of 25…and young people between the ages of 15 and 24 alone now make up 20 percent of the world’s citizens – the largest group in history making the transition to adulthood,” said Mrs. Obama.

“Soon, the world will be looking to your generation to make the discoveries and build the industries that will fuel our prosperity and ensure our well-being for decades to come,” she continued in her address to the students. “We’ll be looking to your generation to seize the promise of clean energy to power our economies and preserve our planet for your kids and grandkids.

“We’ll be looking to your generation to find the courage and patience to resolve the conflicts and heal the divides that plague our world. And I’m here today because I believe that all of you – and your peers around the world – are more ready than ever to meet these challenges.”

The first lady explained that presidents Obama and Calderón were working together to rebuild education systems and revive their respective economies in an effort to create more jobs for those fresh out of school.

She noted that she and her husband both overcame humble backgrounds by tapping into their own potential and defying expectations to become United State’s first black presidential couple.

Michelle Obama also pointed to the 19th-century Mexican modernizer Benito Juárez as an example of how an orphaned servant became “one of Mexico’s greatest presidents” by way of a Franciscan friar who helped Juárez receive a proper education at a local seminary.

“But this isn’t just about discovering those few extraordinary folks who will change the course of history,” she cautioned.

“It’s also about breaking down barriers across the globe so that all our young people can learn and work and be productive members of our societies.

“And in order to do this – in order to open up opportunities for more young people – those of you who already have a seat at the table must do your part to make room for others who don’t. Young people around the world must reach out to help others realize their talents and make their voices heard.”

In concluding her speech, she told the students, “We’ll need you to work as hard as you can, and do as much good as you can, driven by that belief that has always summed up the spirit of our youth – three simple words: “Sí, se puede!” (“Yes, we can!”)

Zavala then invited Mrs. Obama to an afternoon reception with women leaders held at the presidential residence, and the first ladies later dined with Calderón at the estate.

Mrs. Obama’s agenda on Thursday includes a private breakfast with U.S. Embassy employees and their families, as well as a talk with young Mexican leaders at La Hacienda de los Morales banquet hall. She is set to fly home to the White House this afternoon.

Wallpeople turns streets into community gallery

Foto: Courtesy of Azul Enzué Durán

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
April 14, 2010

Jorge Alba presses his palms to the dirty concrete surface and smoothes the tape adhered to his colorful photograph collage. Satisfied that the montage will stick, he steps aside as a swarm of outstretched arms approaches the wall with tape-covered snapshots, grainy printouts and pieces of personal artwork.

Half an hour later, the chipped white paint of a parking lot wall has transformed into an open-air art gallery surrounded by the heaving traffic and sour smells of Mexico City’s streets.

Wallpeople has made its mark.

The collaborative art project struck the city’s Roma neighborhood last Saturday as part of an international movement that encourages residents to get outside and revamp public spaces with acts of creativity.

Mexico City became the final urban center to join the Wallpeople project, which has 10 other bases in Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Lisbon, Rome, Nicosia, Budapest and Istanbul.

According to organizers, the group’s concept is to rescue the artistic spirit of mega cities, support physical works of art in a digital world, and give residents a chance to showcase their lives in a public space.

“Photographic exhibitions have always been indoor activities. Now is the time they come out to the street and convert walls into improvised and open-air museums where everyone can exhibit and observe the works of others,” they said on their Web site.

Mexico coordinator Fernando Figueros, 28, said the event called for photographs and posters in particular to demonstrate how artistic expressions other than graffiti and aerosol art can be exhibited on city walls. He noted that an outdoor group collage was an active alternative to passively posting images on file-sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr.

“People today are always so isolated by new technologies. The idea here is to get people out of their homes to retake the streets to make it a place where they can participate in collective activities,” said Figueros, whose friend, Pablo Quijano, developed the idea for Wallpeople in Barcelona last year.

“We hope that Mexico becomes more participatory, and that Mexicans become more involved in questions of art, collaboration and of going out on the streets. Our goals are the people be less sedentary and be more active, and we hope that (Wallpeople) can be a great start for many activities to come,” he said during a pause from organizing participants and soothing a policeman’s qualms about the growing crowd.

The coordinator said he expected around 200 children, teens and adults to plaster their contributions to the wall along the southern leg of Insurgentes Avenue. Participants on Saturday crowded onto the narrow sidewalk during the designated half-hour period for posting personal photos and posters. The massive collage remained up for two more hours before organizers peeled off the mural and restored the wall to its original gritty façade.

Alba, 35, said he had come out simply to be part of the massive public event.

“Here is a situation where you can establish yourself as a citizen and express yourself in a
cultural way,” he said.

He added that he selected images of his twin brother, his wife and his niece for his photomontage because, “The family signifies many things. It means support, understanding, friendship and companionship, even in the bad times. It’s a refuge.”

Ariana Torres, 23, passed around a communal roll of masking tape as she stood off to the side with a group of friends and waited for the call to hang up photos. She said she had printed off a headshot of herself so that passersby would know her face.

“I’m really interested in seeing everyone else’s photos. I like to see what other people are thinking and to see what’s inside their heads,” she said. “This mural is letting people know that we are interested in other things besides soccer, lucha libre (wrestling) and soap operas. It shows that in Mexico we are more than just these things.”

She said that she hoped Mexico’s participation in an international project would help shine a more positive light on her country across the world.

“I hope people can get to know us better and see that we’re all the same,” she said before scurrying toward an open space on the parking lot wall.

For more details on Wallpeople, visit www.wallpeople.org.

The Urban Three: Photo exhibit captures the Centro Histórico's modern history

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
April 9, 2010

To visitors passing through the shoulder-to-shoulder throngs in Mexico City’s historical center, it might seem impossible to find a singular moment amid the flurry of bodies, sounds and sights. But among the bustling rush down narrow streets and past colonial monuments, three capital city photographers have done precisely that.

A street sweeper moving his twig broom across the concrete. Sandal-clad tourists lugging backpacks and guidebooks. White-haired ladies ambling down an alley. All everyday and unremarkable visions that otherwise go unnoticed, the artists contend.

Benjamín Alcántara, Víctor Mendiola and Mark Powell have captured the people and peculiarities of the Centro Histórico in a collective exhibition titled “Tres Urbana” (“The Urban Three”) at the Archive Museum of Photography in the heart of the Federal District. The display, which opened March 6, will wrap up in one month on May 16.

Alcántara said the project began when the museum extended the photographers an invitation to display their works. Rather than put up previous images, however, the artists began clicking away in the streets surrounding the museum, which stands behind the Aztec empire’s Templo Mayor and the grandiose Metropolitan Cathedral.

“All the images that are hung by the windows have the same textures as the buildings seen through the glass,” he told The News. “It’s like an on-site exhibit; with all the sounds we can hear from the outside, it’s as if we were on the streets seeing the same scene. We wanted to create a dialogue with the museum and the images themselves.”

The artist said his third-floor “Entre Bárbaros” (“Among Barbarians”) display explores the city’s dynamic between international tourists and Mexican residents. His collection’s title is a play on the Greek word “barbaros,” or foreigner, and the modern interpretation of barbarians as invasive and uncivilized.

“I wanted to highlight the stereotypes that both groups have of one another, and also take an ironic look at this daily interaction between the two that does exist, but that we don’t always see,” he said.

In one image, a sour-faced Mexican woman in a black velvet “goth” getup poses with a silver-haired couple in town for an extended trip. Although the trio on the outside appears an uncomfortable match, Alcántara said the visitors had befriended the darkly dressed woman during their stay. A second photo shows a shaggy-haired tourist grinning amusingly between four Mexican men donning rubber masks of U.S. President Barack Obama.

While Alcántara’s collection shows the Centro Histórico’s more ephemeral inhabitants, Mendiola’s display, entitled “Somnolencias,” focuses on the city’s permanent and invisible residents. The photographer creates a portrait of the historical center during its quietest moments, when the first signs of life begin to appear as dawn bleeds into day.

Each image is paired with a short biography, such as the portrait of a street sweeper wearing electric orange pants and a reflective vest. The caption explains that the young man buses in from the State of Mexico every morning and works eight hours a day from Monday to Sunday to earn 900 pesos a week. The following photo shows a middle-aged woman holding a chicken in a dingy coop; on days that she doesn’t earn enough to eat, she’ll snap a chicken’s neck and subsist on the meat, the caption reads.

Mark Powell’s first-floor “Shelf Life” exhibit is a metaphor, extolling the idea that photographers are like cans of food that conserve memories, and that the photographs boast long expiration dates. In the image “Total Recall,” two frosty-haired ladies in matching patent leather pumps admire a bronze-gilded bust. Their stance at first glance gives the appearance of Siamese twins.

Unlike Alcántara and Mendiola’s works, however, several of Powell’s photos venture outside the museum’s parameters and travel east to the Iztapalapa borough, where Powell teaches digital photography workshops at the El Faro Oriente arts college. A second-floor exhibit at the museum features photos by workshop participants Fermín Guzmán and Alfredo Moreno, plus Irving and Jair Cabrera Torres.

Alcántara explained that aside from the unifying city themes in “Tres Urbana,” the three headlining photographers also belong to the same “sandwich” generation.

Mendiola and Alcántara were born in Mexico City in 1969 and are both members of the Via 69 photography collective. Powell, born in 1968 in Detroit, Mich., has lived and worked in Mexico City for more than five years. All three men have lived the transition from analog photography to digital technology, and the trio is surrounded by consecrated tradition on one end and innovative multimedia art on the other.

“In our generation, there are many photographers who are completely focused on conceptual photography, and others who are strictly photojournalists,” he said. “I think we (three) are contemporary documentary photographers who mix both strategies with traditional documentation.”

Alcántara noted that the photography museum has become an important hub in Mexico City in terms of its relevant exhibitions and an archive of more than a million negatives documenting the expansive metropolis.

Pharmacy law duels culture of self-prescription

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
April 7, 2010

With a prescription sheet in hand, Fernando Rodríguez disappears from behind various shelves stocked with pills, creams, syrups and serums and returns with a box of the customer’s order. Not quite a remarkable task for a pharmacy counter clerk in Mexico City, except for one tiny detail – the penned doctor’s order in his grasp.

As of last Thursday, the age of easy access to prescription drugs in Mexican pharmacies has come to a close, much to the chagrin of many Mexicans and ex-pats living on a budget. No longer can customers stroll into a nearby shop with just the tongue-twisting drug’s name scribbled down, effectively bypassing the expense of a doctor’s consultation. And they certainly can’t ask a counter clerk for the cheapest antibiotic in stock to treat a rash, cough or the inevitable stomach virus.

Partly a reaction to an increase in self-medication during last year’s H1N1 flu virus outbreak, the Health Secretariat last Thursday began enforcing a 25-year-old law that requires a doctor’s prescription for most antibiotics and amphetamines, as well as medications for diabetes, hypertension and depression. The changes carry the threat of closure for pharmacies that violate the rule.

The secretariat’s greatest concern, officials said, is a rising resistance to antibiotics among a population whose national culture reaffirms self-determined diagnoses. According to the Federal Commission for Protection Against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris), around 40 percent of adverse reactions to medications are related to self-treatment.

While countries such as the United States, Spain, Chile and parts of Europe have already put policies in place mandating prescriptions for certain drugs, many customers in Mexico until recently enjoyed the cost-saving benefit of going doctor-less.

Laura Yates, who moved to Mexico from the United States nearly two years ago, said that she now might try photocopying previous doctor prescriptions to use at her neighborhood pharmacy in Colonia Roma. Although her Texcoco-based office does offer on-site medical services in the State of Mexico, the ex-pat said the law gave her fewer alternatives at home in Mexico City.

“If I get sick over the weekend or during the hours (the doctor) isn’t here, I’m out of luck,” she said from her office. “If they are actually strict about enforcing this, it will be a big hassle, especially if I need to renew a prescription for something that I got from a specialist.

“Once I have already seen a doctor for something…there is no need to waste time and money going back to the doctor’s office to get him to write down what will probably be the same prescription.”

Rodríguez said that many of his customers at Farmacia Elite expressed similar sentiments to Yates’ and would often return without a prescription for refills or to find similar medicines. The clerk agreed with the secretariat, however, that too many clueless customers seek out antibiotics based on little more than family advice, online searches or medical guesswork.

He said that many people had been irked or bothered by the health law’s enforcement, although few in his pharmacy’s upscale Lomas de Chapultepec business district had been truly upset.
Residents of small towns and rural communities, on the other hand, would be hardest hit by the regulatory changes, he said.

Local media have also speculated that inaccessibility to antibiotics for some consumers could mean the rise of black market medications or falsified prescription sheets. Fear of higher medical bills even had some residents throughout Mexico in a frenzy, with throngs of people racing to pharmacies stock up on antibiotics and other drugs before April 1, the papers reported.

Rodríguez noted that many Mexicans had limited access to public health systems, such as the Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS) or the Seguro Popular health insurance program. (Participation in Seguro Popular actually went down 16 percent from 2008 to 2009 due to dissatisfaction, according to the program).

Consultations at private hospitals can cost anywhere from 300 pesos for a general doctor to more than 600 pesos for a specialist’s opinion – virtually pennies for many middle-class customers, but more than a day’s wage for others.

“In these tiny pueblos, pharmacies are the only access some people have to medications. We’re there only hope for treatment,” he said.

Guadalupe Tinoco, a counter clerk at the Farmacias del. Dr. Descuento (Dr. Discount Pharmacies) branch in the Cuauhtémoc neighborhood, said that most customers at the shop had reacted far more calmly than the frantic shoppers.

The chain, like many other discount franchises in the city, offers 20-peso consultations through resident medical professionals. The National Association of Pharmacies in Mexico (Anafarmex) has said that around 20,000 pharmacies have at least one medical professional on their staff.
The health secretariat is also expected to offer technical training to around 40,000 pharmacists and clerks in the next two years to facilitate consultations and sales control.

“Not only do we give out prescriptions, but also the security that what you’re taking is safe and will work effectively,” Tinoco said.

“Hopefully people will realize that this law is good for their health; it’s for their own good.”

Mexico's top chefs to cook for MAP

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
March 12, 2010

Open-faced torta sandwiches filled with spicy chorizo. Marinated jalapeno peppers stuffed with fiery shredded chicken. Veracruz-style vegetables smothered in a bold mole verde sauce. Oaxacan chocolate cake covered in cajeta.

Hungry yet ?

Mexican cuisine for centuries has been defined by a widespread regional diversity that offers richly flavored and heavily spiced dishes. The national gastronomy has evolved over the past 10,000 years from the basic “masa,” or corn dough, into the thousands of plates and meals that define the country’s cooking today.

At the Museum of Popular Art (MAP) in Mexico City, 10 of the nation’s most celebrated chefs will dish up a buffet of secret family recipes and traditional favorites as part of a fundraiser hosted by the civil group “Friends of the Museum of Popular Art (AAMAP) to support the cultural institution. The event, which takes place Monday, March 22 at 1 p.m., is titled in English, “Gastronomy in the History of Mexico: Dishes from the Era of Independence and the Revolution.”

Chef and food historian José N. Inturriaga explained that following the conquest of Mexico by Spain in 1521, a gastronomic amalgamation began as a pre-Hispanic and indigenous heritage blended with new ingredients and techniques from the Spaniards. He said the process peaked by Mexico’s independence in 1810, and that the country had consolidated characteristics that continue to define its cuisine in the 21st century.

“Many of the dishes in our presentation are the culmination of fusions during three centuries of colonial rule in Mexico,” he said, adding that waves of immigration from France, Italy, the Middle East and parts of Asia in the 19th century have also contributed culinary traditions to Mexican cooking.

Mónica Patiño said that the MAP event was in essence a rescuing of this era of “mestizaje,” or mixing. The chef next week will serve up a dish of chicken in a sauce of red and green tomatoes.

“The Spanish might have left, but we can still note the soul of their cuisine in our own,” she said. “Our cuisine continues to be heavily influenced because food is not something dead, it’s not a rock or a pyramid, it’s a living thing that continues creating new generations and adaptations.”

Edgar Núñez concurred, adding that “Gastronomy is not something static; it continues to evolve while always taking from our roots.. I cook with an understanding of what we are, that we are what we eat.” Núñez, head chef at the San Ángel restaurant Sud 777, is expected to serve steamed fish with crust of dusted “chapulín,” or grasshopper, and a sauce of mango pico de gallo with butter of “chicharrón,” or pork rinds.

Chefs cooking up main dishes, soups and entreés include Carmen Ramírez Degollado, Susana Palazuelos, Alicia Gironella de Angelli, Patricia Quintana and Laura B. de Caraza Campos. An ample array of cakes with pineapple, chocolate and “guanábana,” or soursop fruit, will come from chefs Maria Teres Ramírez Degollado and Mexico’s so-called pastry ambassador, Paulina Abascal.

Haitian voodoo band sings a spiritual revolution

BY MARIA GALLUCCI

The News

Jan. 29, 2010

As news about Haiti storms the headlines following the recent strike of a disastrous earthquake, the musicians of Lanbi Ginen are hoping to put out a different message about the despairing Caribbean nation – one of energy, vibrancy and hope.

“Haiti is a community that sings and dances, even in its most difficult moments. The greatness richness that Haiti has is its culture, and for us, it is natural to express and spread this richness,” said singer Evans Cadet, who organized the group in 2007, a year after moving to Mexico City from Haiti with his wife, Carmelita Cadet.

The group has stepped up with the rhythms and beats of Haitian voodoo songs, performing in neighborhood concerts to raise support for Haiti, and even releasing a freshly-penned song “Pienso en Ti” (“I Think of You”) to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for campaigns related to post-earthquake relief efforts.

Guitarist and jazz student Djuvens Colas also shared his personal story with the Mexican press during a recent fundraising event, explaining how he had initially lost contact with his wife and two-year-old son, both living in Haiti, following the Jan. 12 tremors. The family got in touch after several anguishing days, and Colas said he joined the event in “thinking about the pain and needs of those who are still there.”

Mexican percussionist Omar Hernández explained to The News that, “Music can open our hearts and comfort our sufferings…this is when we must sing and play rhythms so that hope can arrive to those who have lost everything and light their paths to finding a new dawn.”

With all eyes and ears on Haiti since the earthquake, Evans said he hoped that Lanbi Ginen could help promote a more positive perception of Haiti through voodoo music. The group is also planning to release its first album, titled “Invitación Voodoo” (“Voodoo Invitation”), sometime this summer.

“Lanbi Ginen” in Haitian Creole figuratively means a call for a spiritual revolution where peace and harmony, not weapons and power, are guiding forces. Members in the band also include Carmelita as vocalist, Haitian musician David Charles and Mexican guitarist Juan Carlos Aguirre.

“When people hear the word ‘voodoo,’ they think of witchcraft, black magic and very dark things. People don’t know much about Haiti as it is. We want to make known our true culture and identity,” Evans said.

Aguirre admitted that his first impressions of voodoo conjured images of hexes and abracadabra, but after talking with Evans, Aguirre saw the religion as one of love and positive spirits.

As in Mexican shamanism, he said, “In this phenomenon produced by music, all of the senses are focused in the present and as one dances to the rhythm of the drum, his mind shuts off, allowing the ‘me’ to disappear and to be part of the moment. That is where everything is possible and the soul expresses itself freely. (Music) is what moves the body, and not the mind.”

Aguirre said that in both Mexico and Haiti alike, “The essence of our communities is not in its misfortune nor in those who abuse or manipulate it, but rather, it is in the people who are full of energy and hope and fighting to preserve life.

“This is why it is so important that people know this (voodoo) music and experience its new fusions and forms of artistic expression, as the message is all the same: solidarity, respect, love for the earth and for each other,” he said.

Evans added that, “Voodoo music leaves the soul and comes back to the soul, because voodoo music is spiritual. I don’t consider Lanbi Ginen as my band; the band belongs to the spirits, and I am their channel to transmit this message of peace and harmony. We sing often to the spirits and invoke their names, and the way that people dance and jump, this energy that people feel, it is another spiritual presence.”

The musician noted that while Lanbi Ginen plays songs from traditional voodoo rituals, the group gives the tunes a more universal and commercially appealing twist. A typically community-sized choir, for instance, has been reduced to a five- to seven-member band, and guitar notes have replaced some traditional drumbeats to make the songs more approachable for a wider number of audiences. The group still sings mostly in Creole, although the band fuses voodoo with international influences such jazz, rock, blues, hip hop and Calypso music.

“Lanbi Ginen is not just a Mexican project, because even in Haiti, the youth are no longer singing voodoo. We’re rescuing this music so that it doesn’t die, and we’re doing it in a more global way so that it doesn’t just remain a music for Haitians,” he said.

Carmelita said that, “I feel very lucky to have this privilege to sing and express who I really am, my identity, my culture and, above all, to let people know what voodoo is in reality.

“Lanbi Ginen is mixing and unification, where everyone and everything will eventually meet. It’s also the symbol of a New Haiti, a dignified and prosperous nation with its own identity,” she said.

MORE INFO:

Lanbi Ginen

For more details about the group, write to lanbiginen@yahoo.fr or visit Evans Cadet on Facebook.com.

Nahuatl classes teach new lessons about the past

BY MARIA GALLUCCI

The News

Jan. 28, 2010

“Quen Tica?” María Rebeca González asked her students as they settled into plastic chairs in the empty, whitewashed classroom. “How are you?”

“Cenca cualli,” they responded. “Very well.”

González and her class of nearly 10 students are proof that Nahuatl, the language of Aztec rulers and ancient civilizations in Central Mexico, is still a living language. No longer resigned to collecting dust in museum galleries or archeological studios, the glyphs of Nahuatl are being summoned time after time by Mexicans to teach later generations about an often-misunderstood ancestry.

“When people begin to speak the language and read it, they begin to open a window towards our great past and all the knowledge and wisdom of our ancestors, and this strengthens us. You can see how our self-esteem grows,” González said from in front of a large dry-erase board, where Luis Miguel Chávez drew the daily glyph – one of 18 – assigned to that particular Thursday.

González offers classes in Nahuatl twice a week and year-round at the Casa de Cultura Azcapotzalco in Mexico City. For the past 10 years, she has taught its iconography, vocabulary, grammar and poetry to psychologists, mathematicians and language aficionados of nearly all ages. The class also puts on public presentations four times a year, celebrating dates such as the Mexica New Year on March 15 and Day of the Dead on Nov. 1, and also commemorating the rise and fall of Tenochtitlan, the Nahuatl name for the Aztec empire on which Mexico City was established.

“We’re trying to bring the community as close as we can to the truth. Our goal is not to exaggerate anything, but to always be citing our sources. Our objective is to learn the language so that it is not lost and to familiarize ourselves with the richness of the culture,” she said.

At each biweekly class, the teacher uses faded dictionaries in 16th-century Spanish, modern textbooks with glossy covers and black-and-white photocopies to walk students through a language that many unknowingly have already begun to speak.

“‘Xoxolatl’ and ‘chocolatl’ literally spell out ‘bitter water,’ but mean ‘chocolate,’” she said. She pointed out the slight variations between the Nahuatl and Spanish spellings for the Aztec cocoa drink that Spanish conquistadores sweetened into a rudimentary form of the chocolate we know today.

Mexico’s food vocabulary is replete with still more transformations. The tomato is a “xitotomate” or “xitomate” in Nahuatl and “jitomate” in regional Spanish. The thick cornmeal dough drink “atole” was first dubbed “atolli” in the indigenous language. The starchy, leaf-wrapped “tamalli” is now spelled “tamal” in Spanish.

Mexico City neighborhoods such as Xochimilco, Tlalpan, Tlatelolco, plus countless other districts in the State of Mexico like Naucalpan and Tultitlan, reflect a linguistic legacy dating back in Central Mexico to the 7th century.

Although many community workshops like González’s advertise classes in Nahuatl, the language is spoken in so many dialects that variations in more scattered and rural communities might sound completely different than the more uniform version taught in classrooms. Around 1.5 million people today speak Classic Nahuatl in the State of Mexico, the Federal District, Puebla, Hidalgo, Morelos, Guerrero, Michoacán, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Durango. The language is also being studied by native English speakers curious to understand the culture and by European residents whose heritage originated in the land of the Aztecs.

Originally spelled out in glyphs painted on stones and carved into impressive monoliths, the language has since adopted the Latin alphabet, lending itself to an incredibly ample library of poetry, codices, grammar guides and “huehuetlahtolli,” or formal discourses given at weddings, funerals and other proper events.

Alonso de Molina’s 1555 publication, “Vocabulary of the Castilian and Mexican Language,” was one of the first Spanish-Nahuatl dictionaries. Although the friar became literate in Nahuatl to spread the Catholic faith amongst Mexican communities, the book remains crucial to documenting Nahuatl in its written form. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and its Institute of Historical Investigation (IIH) have also played an essential role in documenting Nahuatl poetry in its Latin letters and in Spanish translations.

The revival in cataloguing and learning Nahuatl, however, is due in great part to Miguel León Portilla, an 84-year-old Mexican anthropologist and historian whose publications in the 1940s brought Nahuatl literature and poetry into the public eye. His book “Nahuatl Philosophy” explains how the Aztecs attempted to understand, question and inquire about the world.

In his poem “Cuando muere una lengua” (“When a Language Dies”), he writes, “When a language dies/ everything in the world/ oceans and rivers/ animals and plants/ neither think nor pronounce/ signs or sounds/ that no longer exist.”

Eduardo Lid Rico Domínguez said at a recent study session that, “It is very important to dispel the notion that speakers of Nahuatl, according to the Spanish, did not write. All of our lives, and even today in school, they tell us that ‘the Nahua people didn’t know how to read or write.’ Now is the time, with our teacher, that we understand that they did read, they did write, and how they did it.”

The student, who is also studying Italian at a university, added that when the Spaniards first came to Mexico, the colonizers interpreted indigenous glyphs as straightforward symbols. The national image of an eagle perched on a cactus and capturing a snake, for example, was not understood as a metaphorical concept uniting a nation and community, but rather as a nonsensical and literal translation.

“The language has a very important philosophical weight,” said Juana Sanchezcoviza D’Ramírez. “It is infinite what we can learn from Nahuatl. There are many insights into the conquest and indigenous points of view that have been lost.

“It is very important that we not forget our traditions, because every country has lineage in each of its roots; it is like a tree. We’re learning Nahuatl so that we don’t lose this, and so that in the future, younger generations can continue with these traditions, with this vast pool of knowledge,” she said.

Graciela Olvera Zépez added, “We are so absorbed in foreign things, and while the cultures of other countries are all beautiful, we are not looking at ourselves from within.”