A local band performs in the streets of Tonatico, Mexico, during the town’s annual fiesta. Tonatico is located in the state of Mexico, about a two-hour drive from Mexico City. (Brett Gundlock/Boreal Collective for The Washington Post)
TONATICO, Mexico — At this time of year, Mexican traditions are on colorful display in this little town lined with cobblestone streets. Every night for weeks, candlelit processions honoring the local patron saint set the colonial plaza aglow. Fireworks erupt over the church bell tower as mariachis serenade the faithful.
It is the American-ness of Tonatico that reveals itself more gradually.
You see it in the man crossing the plaza wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey. You hear it in the voice of the deported student still struggling with Spanish. The tablets the waiters use to take orders at Restaurante Rebeca were purchased at a Best Buy in Illinois; the refrigerated loading bays at the guava exporting factory comply with U.S. biohazard regulations. One of the elementary schools that was named after the Mexican revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata recently became Escuela Primaria Henry Ford.
rump policies strain the ties that bind a Mexican village to small-town Illinois
A local band performs in the streets of Tonatico, Mexico, during the town’s annual fiesta. Tonatico is located in the state of Mexico, about a two-hour drive from Mexico City. (Brett Gundlock/Boreal Collective for The Washington Post)
TONATICO, Mexico — At this time of year, Mexican traditions are on colorful display in this little town lined with cobblestone streets. Every night for weeks, candlelit processions honoring the local patron saint set the colonial plaza aglow. Fireworks erupt over the church bell tower as mariachis serenade the faithful.
It is the American-ness of Tonatico that reveals itself more gradually.
You see it in the man crossing the plaza wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey. You hear it in the voice of the deported student still struggling with Spanish. The tablets the waiters use to take orders at Restaurante Rebeca were purchased at a Best Buy in Illinois; the refrigerated loading bays at the guava exporting factory comply with U.S. biohazard regulations. One of the elementary schools that was named after the Mexican revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata recently became Escuela Primaria Henry Ford.
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