Writing in El Economista on July 8, 2024, Ricardo Quiroga recently asked the question (translated into English): “What are the challenges, plans and commitments acquired by the incoming federal administration in Mexico, headed by the President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, regarding indigenous languages?”[1] Quiroga noted that the new Mexican Government headed by the climate scientist and former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum would serve “a self-identified indigenous population of 25.7 million people” [According to the INEGI 2020 Population and Housing Census]. This population represents 21.5% of the total population in the country.

In the aftermath of the Mexican revolution, Mexico’s Departamento de la Estadística Nacional administered a census that would be unique among Mexico’s census counts administered between 1895 and 2005. In this new census, the Mexican Government decided to ask Mexicans about their perception of their own racial heritage. In the 1921 census, residents of the Mexican Republic were asked if they fell into one of the following categories:

Across the 761,606 square miles (1,972,550 square kilometers) that comprise Mexico you can find a great variety of landscapes and climates. While mountains and plateaus cover more than two-thirds of her landmass, the rest of Mexico’s environment is made up of deserts, tropical forests, and fertile valleys. Mexico’s many mountain ranges tend to split the country into countless smaller valleys, each forming a world of its own. Over the last few thousand years, this has been a factor in the differentiation of a wide range of indigenous Mexican languages.

The Cristero Rebellion affected the lives of many Mexicans. Many Mexican-American families still talk of it today. This work discusses the ideologies of the two combatants: The Mexican Government and the Catholic Church. The battles are not discussed here, but the beginning and end of the conflict are discussed as viewed by the American press.