Mexico, Innovation - understand-culture

The Scrap Buyer’s Call

Scrap buyers drive through the streets of Mexico City playing a recorded call: “Se compran: colchones, tambores, refrigeradores, estufas, lavadoras, microondas o algo de fierro viejo que vendan” (We buy mattresses, drums, refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, microwaves or any old iron you want to sell).

The voice is that of María del Mar Terrón. She recorded it at the age of nine at the request of her father, Marco Antonio Terrón, who bought scrap. Sources give different years for the recording, from 2005 to about 2007. Almost all of the fierroviejeros, the scrap buyers of Mexico City, now play it.

Alebrijes

Alebrijes are brightly painted fantastic creatures. According to Uno TV, Pedro Linares first made them in Mexico City in 1936, at the age of 30, after he saw such creatures in a dream.

Linares was a cartonero, a craftsman who shapes figures from paper and cardboard. He made the creatures “por medio de la cartonería” (by means of cardboard work), the craft he already practiced.

Little Devils

A diablito, a “little devil,” is an illegal hookup to the power supply. Xataka describes it as a method by which a person alters the connections of the electricity meter.

In February 2025, El Imparcial reported that the federal power company CFE had detected “un millón 123 mil conexiones irregulares de luz” (1,123,000 irregular power connections).

Chinampas

Chinampas are fields built in the shallow lakes of the Valley of Mexico. La Jornada describes them as “construcciones artificiales de varas, lodo y raíces del árbol llamado ahuejote” (artificial structures of sticks, mud and the roots of the tree called ahuejote).

According to Yanet Cruz of the Museo Chinampaxóchitl, quoted by Chilango, the people of Xochimilco already used the system when the Mexica arrived. The Mexica learned it and used it to build up their island city of Tenochtitlan. In June 2018, the FAO recognized the chinampa system of Mexico City as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System.

The Divided Citroën

The artist Gabriel Orozco worked for nearly two months on a Citroën DS with his assistant Philippe Picoli. He cut an interior section out of the car and joined the two remaining halves.

The work, La DS, was first exhibited at the Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris in 1993.

The Trumpet in the Mariachi

At the end of 1940, according to an article in a journal of INAH, the radio station XEW pressed the Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán to add a trumpet: “se le ‘obliga’ al Mariachi Vargas a incluir la trompeta” (the Mariachi Vargas is “obliged” to include the trumpet).

The trumpet was not completely new. A recording of La Negra made in 1937 by the Mariachi Tapatío de José Marmolejo already had one. The article describes the result as the arrival of the trumpet as a canonical and indispensable instrument of the mariachi.

Indigenous Baroque

In the church of Santa María Tonantzintla, in Puebla, the decoration of the interior shows figures “de facciones indígenas” (with Indigenous features), according to México Desconocido. The decoration also includes tropical fruits such as mangoes and papayas, flowers and leaves.

In 1942, in La escultura colonial mexicana, published by El Colegio de México, the art historian José Moreno Villa proposed a name for such work: “yo propongo la antigua voz mexicana ‘Tequitqui’, o sea, tributario” (I propose the old Mexican word tequitqui, that is, tributary).

The Parade from the Film

In its first scenes, the James Bond film Spectre shows the Day of the Dead in the streets of Mexico City. It was released in Mexico on November 2, 2015. On October 29, 2016, Mexico City held its first Day of the Dead parade, from the Angel of Independence to the Zócalo. According to the city government, 250,000 people watched it.

Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera explained the origin of the event: “lo hicimos porque salió en la película de James Bond” (we did it because it appeared in the James Bond film). He added that he did not want to claim that the city had thought of it.

México Desconocido notes that a large procession of catrinas had already taken place in the city on October 26, 2014, months before the filming.

The Amparo

The juicio de amparo, the action for protection, first appeared in the Constitution of Yucatán of 1841. According to an article in a law journal of UNAM, its author was Manuel Crescencio Rejón. In 1847, the Acta de Reformas took up the formula of Mariano Otero, under which a court grants protection only in the particular case before it.

The same article notes that most authors agree that the amparo “se inspiró en las ideas de Alexis de Tocqueville” (was inspired by the ideas of Alexis de Tocqueville). The article links these ideas to the judicial review of laws in the United States.

Tropicalizing

Tropicalizar, “to tropicalize,” is a term used in Mexican marketing. The marketing magazine Merca2.0 describes la tropicalización as “un recurso de marketing orientado a adaptar diferentes productos o servicios” (a marketing device for adapting different products or services) so that various communities accept them.

The word also applies to songs. Uno TV published a list of songs “que hemos cantado mal o simplemente tropicalizado” (that we have sung wrongly or simply tropicalized).