Millions of schoolchildren across Mexico began the academic year this week in front of a TV. But teachers in Oaxaca say televised classes won’t meet fundamental educational needs and many families lack the technology to keep up, deepening Mexico’s socioeconomic divide.
In an area of Los Angeles heavy with immigrants, there’s a movement to keep an old language from a Mexican village alive. The Zapotec language is at risk of dying out by 2050, but it could be saved by people who have immigrated to Los Angeles.
Mexico requires parents to register their children when they’re born in order to get a birth certificate. It’s not done automatically, like it typically is in the United States. But many of Mexico’s poorest people don’t bother, which can leave those children disadvantaged for life.
Pope Benedict XVi is travelling to Mexico this weekend to say mass and meet the faithful. But he’s coming at a time of deep division among Mexican Catholics. Mexico City has passed liberal laws allowing for same-sex marriage and abortions — two practices banned by the Catholic Church and in much of the rest of Mexico.