LIFE

Mexico Monarchs Meet Mazahua Pride as Tourism Rewrites Michoacán Futures

The Latin American Post Staff 55 seconds ago

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Mexico Monarchs Meet Mazahua Pride as Tourism Rewrites Michoacán Futures — Adapted from: Sistema de Información Cultural - Mexico

In Mexico’s Michoacán highlands, Mazahua artisans stitch Day of the Dead regalia as monarch butterflies shift routes with climate change. A new Casa de la Cultura Mazahua aims to turn heritage into community tourism, despite cartel warnings and fragile forests.

Threading Memory into Cloth

On the outskirts of Crescencio Morales in Michoacán, Lucila Marín García works an old Singer sewing machine while her daughter and niece embroider sashes by hand. Their stitch, the fine cross-stitch called lomillo, belongs to the Indigenous Mazahua community, whose roots in this region reach back to the 12th century.

The work is communal. The Garcías, along with three other families, are responsible for traditional shawls, skirts, and sashes for roughly 8,000 people in town, and each outfit takes about three hours. Mexico City is a three-hour drive east, but the U.S. paid better, drawing men north. Antonio Zendeja recently spent a year commuting from New Jersey to a chicken factory in Philadelphia.

Butterflies That Move the Market

Since at least the 1970s, millions of monarch butterflies have wintered in the surrounding forests after migrating from the U.S. and Canada. About 600,000 people trek to sanctuaries across Mexico’s Central Highlands, most of them in Michoacán. The Mazahua understand the monarchs as returning souls, arriving around Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. Yedani Paola Hernández Vasquez says colonies once blanketed more than 40 acres in the 1990s and have dipped to 2.2 acres in recent years.

A Culture House Under Warning Signs
The Casa de la Cultura Mazahua, which opened in September, was created by Chris Rainier and Olivia McKendrick through Cultural Sanctuaries. Visitors pay 150 pesos—about $8.20—to fund local services and workshops. Operators are testing routes, including Journey Mexico, whose Matteo Luthi introduced 30-minute helicopter transfers from Mexico City in 2025. Nearby, Jésus González Villareal—Don Chuy—blesses the forest with a conch shell and leads a temazcal where bienvenidas abuelitas frames gratitude as practice. Adapted from Bloomberg Businessweek reporting and interviews by Jen Murphy.