On Fri­day (May 1), the Em­bassy of Mex­i­co held an event com­mem­o­rat­ing the 60th an­niver­sary of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween Mex­i­co and Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as cel­e­brat­ing Cin­co de Mayo. Hav­ing won a prize in a raf­fle, it would be re­miss of me not to men­tion the won­der­ful ex­pe­ri­ence I had at this event.

I wish to ex­press my thanks to His Ex­cel­len­cy Víc­tor Hugo Morales Melén­dez and the staff of the em­bassy for their in­vi­ta­tion. The event was well at­tend­ed by lo­cal dig­ni­taries, au­thors, artistes and oth­er peo­ple in pub­lic life and the staff of the Min­istry of Cari­com and For­eign Af­fairs.

The Warao Caci­ca Or­tan­cia Ani­cia Ben­jamin al­so at­tend­ed in recog­ni­tion of the Mex­i­can Em­bassy’s out­reach to the in­dige­nous peo­ple of T&T.

Fire­stone pro­vid­ed restau­rant-qual­i­ty tacos, tor­tillas and Chimichangas. Tequi­la, dou­bles and ice cream were all served side by side to pa­trons.

An ex­hi­bi­tion of the pho­tog­ra­phy of Javier Hi­no­josa, en­ti­tled “The Sa­cred Court, The Mesoamer­i­can Ball­game,” was on dis­play with pho­tos of ar­chae­o­log­i­cal finds at Chichen Itza, El Tai­jin, Oax­a­ca and oth­er lo­ca­tions where the in­dige­nous peo­ples of Mex­i­co played a ball­game called pitz. The Mesoamer­i­can ball­game was an an­cient rit­u­al sport played for over 3,000 years, dat­ing back to at least 1650 BCE. A mod­i­fied ver­sion of this game called ula­ma is still played in some re­gions of Mex­i­co to this day.

My re­search shows the ar­chae­o­log­i­cal site known as the Great Ball­court at Chichen Itza is larg­er than a World Cup foot­ball field. It mea­sures rough­ly 168 me­tres (551 feet) long and 70 me­tres (230 feet) wide, with walls ris­ing eight me­tres (26 feet) high. In ad­di­tion to the pho­to­graph­ic ex­hi­bi­tion, lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur Jean-Claude Es­calante host­ed a wrestling ex­hi­bi­tion com­plete with a ring and two lo­cal wrestlers who did stunts for the en­ter­tain­ment of view­ers.

I per­son­al­ly spoke to Es­calante, who is al­so an au­thor, and was in­formed that he plans to have wrestling shows across T&T, with the next one card­ed for south Trinidad in a few months.

It is good to see that the Mex­i­can Em­bassy’s out­reach helps to plat­form lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur­ship while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­mot­ing Mex­i­can cul­ture, as we would know from movies and oth­er me­dia that Lucha Li­bre wrestling is part of the cul­tur­al her­itage of Mex­i­co.

I would like to salute the em­bassy for host­ing an ex­cel­lent event.

Ori­gins of Cin­co de Mayo

Cin­co de Mayo is not Mex­i­co’s In­de­pen­dence Day but rather the cel­e­bra­tion of a vic­to­ry over French colo­nial forces in 1862. Robert Ma­son pub­lished an in­sight­ful ar­ti­cle in the Mu­se­um and So­ci­ety jour­nal cov­er­ing Cin­co de Mayo’s his­to­ry. The ar­ti­cle reads as fol­lows: “On 5 May 1862, a cru­cial bat­tle took place in the cen­tral Mex­i­can city of Puebla. Con­ser­v­a­tives and Lib­er­als had been en­gaged in a decades-long con­flict to con­trol the gov­ern­ment of Mex­i­co, and the bat­tle was a sur­prise vic­to­ry for the pro­gres­sive Lib­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tion of the re­pub­lic. The heav­i­ly out­num­bered Re­pub­li­can troops suc­ceed­ed in de­feat­ing an in­vad­ing French im­pe­r­i­al army, which sought to in­stall a sym­pa­thet­ic Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment that might sup­port French com­mer­cial and strate­gic in­ter­ests. The Lib­er­al Re­pub­li­can vic­to­ry had not been ex­pect­ed and chal­lenged as­sump­tions of Eu­ro­pean mil­i­tary pre-em­i­nence world­wide. In­stead, the vic­to­ry as­sert­ed a pa­tri­ot­ic, pro­gres­sive and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic Mex­i­can na­tion in arms. While the vic­to­ry was on­ly one bat­tle in a war that would last for a fur­ther five years, it be­came a sym­bol of the Mex­i­can peo­ple’s pa­tri­ot­ic re­sis­tance to for­eign in­ter­ven­tion and colo­nial­ism.”

Ma­son high­lights the im­por­tance of Puebla as a UN­ESCO World Her­itage site in recog­ni­tion of its well-pre­served church­es and colo­nial cen­tre. Puebla record­ed over 3.2 mil­lion tourists in 2025, show­ing that in­vest­ments in his­to­ry and ar­chi­tec­ture can reap tourist dol­lars—some­thing that T&T may need to learn soon.

Around eight per cent of Mex­i­co’s GDP comes from tourism, with a to­tal of 47 mil­lion in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors in 2025. T&T’s tourism sec­tor is es­ti­mat­ed to con­tribute two per cent or less to our GDP. There is much to learn from Mex­i­co’s suc­cess as a tourist des­ti­na­tion.

More tourism cen­tred around T&T’s cul­ture and his­to­ry should be pri­ori­tised, giv­en the re­mark­able suc­cess of Cin­co de Mayo, which push­es over three mil­lion tourists to Puebla each year.

Giv­en that Mex­i­co is now the 12th largest econ­o­my in the world and a ma­jor trad­ing part­ner for T&T, strong diplo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic ties are crit­i­cal to our coun­try’s fu­ture de­vel­op­ment.

I would again like to thank the em­bassy for their in­vi­ta­tion and wish the Mex­i­can com­mu­ni­ty in T&T, His Ex­cel­len­cy Víc­tor Hugo Morales Melén­dez and the staff of the em­bassy a hap­py Cin­co de Mayo.