Mexico, Risk - understand-culture

The Saint of Difficult Causes

San Judas Tadeo, Saint Jude Thaddeus, is the patron of difficult or desperate causes. On the 28th of every month, devotees gather at the church of San Hipólito in Mexico City.

On October 28, 2018, his annual feast day, La Razón reported that the veneration took place largely outside the church, as on every 28th of the month. A security operation of 495 police officers was in place. (Video in Spanish.)

One devotee, Francisco Arias, told the newspaper that he had come to San Hipólito every month for more than 31 years.

Wings to Fly

In 1953, the year her leg was amputated, Frida Kahlo wrote in her diary: “Pies, para qué los quiero si tengo alas pa’ volar” (Feet, what do I want them for, if I have wings to fly). The line stands under a watercolor of a severed foot.

So Far from God

“Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos” (Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States) is often attributed to Porfirio Díaz. The attribution is not proven. The newspaper Crónica notes that the line has also been credited to Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada and to Benito Juárez.

In 1962, the writer Nemesio García Naranjo recorded that he had heard it in 1926 from the Jesuit Carlos María de Heredia, who attributed it to Díaz. García Naranjo himself doubted this. He found the phrase “demasiado fina para aquel carácter de bronce” (too refined for that bronze character).

It Was God’s Will

Ya estaba de Dios, “it was already God’s,” means that something could not be avoided. The Diccionario del español de México gives the forms ya estaría and ya estaba de Dios, marks them as popular and explains them as “Ser ya algo inevitable o fatal” (for something to be inevitable or fated).

Its example: “Ya estaría de Dios que me asaltaran” (It must have been God’s will that I was robbed).

In his essay “Teoría mexicana de lo adverso” (Mexican Theory of the Adverse), Monsignor Joaquín Antonio Peñalosa places ya estaría de Dios beside ese era mi destino, “that was my destiny,” and ya me tocaba, “my turn had come.”

Rain-Fed Fields

According to INEGI’s Agricultural Census of 2022, 74.0 percent of Mexico’s agricultural land, 190,190.95 square kilometers, was de temporal, dependent on rain. The other 26.0 percent was irrigated.

Hands and Strength

Three days after Hurricane Otis struck Acapulco in October 2023, El Universal spoke with José Mercado Medrano, a gardener, mason and painter who had lived in the city for more than 30 years.

“Gracias a Dios, gracias a la Virgen, estamos con vida” (Thank God, thank the Virgin, we are alive), he said. “De todas maneras tenemos manos y fuerzas para poder levantarnos” (In any case, we have hands and strength to get back up).

Nothing Happens

No pasa nada, literally “nothing happens,” is said to play down what went wrong. In a February 2025 column in the Tijuana weekly Zeta, Leopoldo Durán Ramírez called it “un vocablo arraigado en la sociedad mexicana” (a term rooted in Mexican society). He criticized the phrase for making light of consequences.

Getting Burned

Quemarse, “to burn oneself,” has a popular sense in Mexico. The Diccionario del español de México of El Colegio de México defines it as “Desacreditar o desacreditarse una persona” (to discredit a person, or to be discredited). Its example: “Con la ponencia que presentó se quemó ante sus compañeros” (With the paper he presented, he burned himself in front of his colleagues).

The Mural Painted Twice

In 1933, Diego Rivera painted the mural Man at the Crossroads at Rockefeller Center in New York. In February 1934, according to Vanguardia, Rockefeller Center announced remodeling work, and the mural was destroyed.

That same year, Rivera painted a second version on the second floor of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. It is called El hombre controlador del universo (Man, Controller of the Universe). (Video in Spanish.)

The Third Attempt

Andrés Manuel López Obrador ran for president in 2006 and in 2012. Crónica calls them “dos intentos fallidos” (two failed attempts). In 2018 he ran a third time, as the candidate of Morena, and won. According to Crónica, 53 percent of voters, more than 30 million people, chose him. (Video in Spanish.)