Activism in Mexico City: No Cause Is Too Small for Street Protests Joshua Partlow - The Washington Post
go to original March 24, 2014

Residents in Coyoacan march down the streets protesting the city government's plan to install parking meters in their neighborhood. (Joshua Partlow/The Washington Post)

In Mexico, democracy is practiced in the street and very much out loud. Seemingly every day someone is protesting something, chanting grievances, thrusting banners, announcing “yes we cans,” even if they probably can’t.

In the past month, Mexican soccer players wore brown paper bags over their heads to protest unpaid wages. Topless women with blue-paint handprints over their breasts marched for women’s rights. Jugglers, dancers and clowns raged against a new rule banning animals from circuses.

They protest Mexico’s oil policies. U.S. immigration rules. Rising subway prices. Education reform. They have marched in opposition to drug lords’ rampant killing and kidnapping, and in opposition to the arrest of said drug lords. They block toll booths. Airports. Highways.

There are thousands of protests each year in Mexico City alone: Hunger strikes. Prayer vigils. Caravans. Paseo de la Reforma, the main drag through downtown Mexico City, is as much an eight-lane highway as a canvas for creative protesting.

So when I heard chanting coming down my normally quiet, cobblestoned street in the Coyoacan neighborhood, I rushed outside to see what was arousing my neighbors.

Read the rest at The Washington Post

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