Mexico City Reflections: Culture and Tradition

At the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, I was struck by how much history is contained in a single place. The museum doesn’t tell one story, it tells thousands. Each room holds another layer of the city’s past, each artifact another clue about how people lived, created, and made meaning in their world.

Walking through, I kept thinking about how culture is, in many ways, a record of how people have chosen to express who they are. The carvings, pottery, and textiles all show how the earliest inhabitants of Mexico understood their surroundings and tried to translate belief into form. I found myself especially drawn to the recurring symbols and imagery, like serpents and suns, patterns that carried meaning across generations and civilizations. They reminded me that identity is often something you inherit, reinterpret, and reshape, rather than something you invent from scratch.

Later, I visited an old convent that had been transformed over time into Mexico City’s Education Ministry. The building felt both grand and intimate, holding traces of what it once was, even as it took on a new purpose. Covering the walls were large murals that told the story of Mexico’s modern history: labor organizers, farmers, activists, and political figures. Everywhere I looked, art was being used as a way of teaching, preserving, and inviting people into collective understanding.

I learned that many of these murals were painted during a period when literacy rates in Mexico were low. The government and artists saw art as a tool for education, a way to make ideas and history accessible to everyone. I found that idea powerful. It reminded me that when traditional pathways to learning feel limited, we can still find creative ways to reach people.

One mural, in particular, stayed with me. It depicted farmers carrying the weight of hay and other goods. I asked my tour guide why that image was so important to Mexican history, and he explained that there was a time when farm animals were not inhabitants of the land, and people had to use their own strength to carry their goods to market. That image of human strength and endurance reminded me of two things.

First, it showed how people have always relied on what they already have to move through the world. They use their own abilities and the resources of their environment to survive and to create. The programs I’ve been part of building try to do something similar: help people discover their own strengths so they can understand what they uniquely bring.

Second, the mural reminded me of the importance of support and shared strength. Just as those farmers relied on each other to lift and carry, the work of facilitation is often about becoming the scaffolding: the steady hands that help others carry their load. That responsibility feels both profound and humbling.

I also learned about the murals that line the halls of Mexico’s Supreme Court building, depicting scenes of injustice from the country’s past. They were painted so that as judges walk to their chambers, they are surrounded by reminders of the people and stories they serve. The images are there to remind them that justice is not an abstraction but a daily practice.

Together, I realized that art is not only a reflection of culture, but also a tool for shaping it. It helps people make sense of where they come from and gives them a language to imagine what is possible.

When I think about the work I do, bringing people into new environments, introducing them to unfamiliar stories, and inviting them to reflect on who they are, I recognize something similar. Experience teaches. Encounter shapes. We learn who we are partly by coming into contact with who others are.

Culture and tradition are not about preservation alone. They are about participation. They call us to be stewards of what we have inherited and to contribute something new to the story. Like the murals in Mexico City, the best learning asks people to see, to reflect, and to act. It reminds them that they, too, have a role in carrying forward what came before while creating something meaningful in their own time.