The AGN will honor the Pachuca mining archive and museum, whose future is uncertain.

▲ The archive has been on the UNESCO list since 2022, recalled Belem Oviedo, director of the institution. In the image, the Boiler House, dating from 1888 and belonging to the Harvey & Co. company, is located in the Dolores Mine Museum, in Real del Monte, Hidalgo, which is also managed by the Pachuca Historical Archive and Mining Museum. Photo by Marco Antonio Hernández Badillo / Historical Archive and Mining Museum

Reyes Martínez Torrijos

La Jornada Newspaper, Monday, June 9, 2025, p. 2

The Pachuca Historical Archive and Mining Museum, which has been in existence for 38 years, will be honored today by the National Archives (AGN), amid an economic crisis that threatens its continued existence.

Belem Oviedo Gámez, director of the institution located in Hidalgo, told La Jornada that they were surprised at the AGN when she told them they didn't know if we would survive this year. In solidarity, they decided to celebrate International Archives Day (June 9) in the context of our 38th anniversary, which fell on April 20 of this year .

The association manages the Bartolomé de Medina Mining Museum in Pachuca, as well as the on-site Occupational Medicine museums at the Nicolás Zavala Cultural Center in Real del Monte, and the Acosta, La Dificultad, and Dolores mines (recently opened to the public). Its collection includes some original 18th-century documents. (La Jornada, July 17, 2024).

The AGN aimed to recognize and value the role of the Historical Archive and Mining Museum, a Civil Association, as a key space for the preservation of collective memory, cultural identity and the historical heritage of mining communities, promoting access to knowledge, intergenerational dialogue and reflection on the social, economic and human impact of mining activity over time .

On Friday, June 20, the Mining Historical Archive and Museum will host the conference "Postwar Japan in the Photography of Ishiuchi Miyako."

The Hidalgo archive has a list of 101 theses that have used information from its documentary collections, which is a contribution to the knowledge of the country's history and to publications abroad.

Oviedo emphasized that "this historical archive is the cornerstone for the development, a unique example in Mexico and the world, of establishing a network of industrial heritage museums. We have history in our documentary collections, which has set the standard for the restoration and reuse of sites, and it's a way to bring the information contained in the archives to the public."

That's why it's essential to continue preserving it, as it's on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s list of world memories for Mexico starting in 2022.

A program will be held today from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on the Facebook pages of both archives. It will begin with remarks by Carlos Enrique Ruiz Abreu, director of the AGN. The first lecture will be given by Oviedo Gámez, followed by testimonies from international and national researchers, and staff from the Compañía Real del Monte and Pachuca.

Later, some of the staff of the Historical Archive and Mining Museum will be recognized, and an exhibition of original documents from the archive will be inaugurated in Hidalgo.

Oviedo said this celebration aims to raise awareness among people to donate to their institution, as they have had increasingly fewer resources through this means. Not only have we not resolved our financial situation, but it has actually worsened slightly. The goal of the AGN is to raise our profile .

He clarified that there is a perception that private archives, like the one he directs, have their economic life covered, but this is misguided. Even so, the association has worked with two centuries of mining history in the country.

Belem Oviedo began working at this institution at the invitation of Gloria Carreño Alvarado, when in the late 1980s a decision was made to launch a cultural project at the Compañía Real del Monte and Pachuca, and she came up with the proposal to organize its archive.

Since then, they have maintained a collaborative relationship with the AGN. They received a mention for archival merit in the Non-Governmental Archives category, and in 1993, they published the first general guide to their documentary holdings in co-edition with the national agency.

The director of the mining-related historical archive emphasized that this collection is an inexhaustible source of information, preserving a fundamental fragment of Mexico's historical memory. Private archives hold an important part, complementing and enriching our knowledge of our development as a society. Both the testimonies and the heritage that have been valued are a small sample of the importance of recovering the identity of a region as vast as the one that includes the municipalities of Pachuca, Mineral del Monte, Mineral de El Chico, Mineral de La Reforma, Omitlán, Huasca, and Epazoyucán .

This file includes not only regional information, as the company owned properties in other states and even mines in Alaska, Chile, and Patagonia.

Through various activities, the historian explained, they have influenced the revaluation of the miner's identity, which has also been embraced by the population and museum staff, most of whom are of mining ancestry. One of the great qualities of appreciating industrial heritage is that the community itself revalues ​​the role of their ancestors and themselves in this work of a new culture, the mining culture .

▲ Andrés Acosta during a chat with this newspaper at the Rosario Castellanos bookstore. Photo by Cristina Rodríguez

Reyes Martínez Torrijos

La Jornada Newspaper, Monday, June 9, 2025, p. 3

Children's and young adult literature needs to address themes such as violence and loneliness, topics that concern readers, said writer Andrés Acosta, referring to Huérfanos (Akal), his most recent children's storybook.

In an interview with La Jornada, the author mentioned that although neither children nor young people participate directly in violence, it affects them directly or indirectly, like waves in the water that spread and move the lives of the characters .

On the other hand, traditional literature devoted to this segment in recent decades focuses on happy themes, what we would like children's lives to be like. "I wish we lived like that ," Acosta added (Chilpancingo, 1964).

The novelist emphasized that literature should address moments of loneliness and lack of support, as well as the solidarity found in a community, in relatives, and friends. All these questions and answers about complicated topics. It's extremely important that we do this, because it represents an evolution not only of literature, but of readers .

He added: there is one more step that this literature is going to be taking because it is very much alive, unlike adult literature, in which all the topics have already been covered .

Aesthetic aspiration

Acosta stated that readers in Mexico are maturing more, and somewhat at a forced pace, because the current situation means they receive information through social media and the media. Why not through literature? Why not put literature on the same page, but with the aspiration to present things in an aesthetic, literary way?

In his early days, the author wrote only for adults. Following comments about his too many child and young adult characters, he decided to try writing for this genre. He explained that he realized his lack of knowledge and then realized that children's and young adult literature "is a specialty and as such requires a much broader range of work than for adults."

The difficulty is that we're targeting a very specific audience. And I do this because I think the audience worth targeting in this country, and in all countries, is children and young people, because they have the potential for change.

The title refers not only to the absence of the father, mother, uncle or whoever the guardian may be, but to a lack of responsibility on the part of the entire society that is leaving people orphaned, and particularly children .

The author's opinion is that children are doubly orphaned, not only by their families, but by us as a society. Orphans imply too much on too many levels: an orphaning of education, of reading, of the childcare we should collectively provide .

He lamented that, given the extremely high number of children orphaned due to disappearances, illness, and other causes, there are few programs to care for them. Not only from the State, but also from civil associations; in other words, it's a responsibility we have not fulfilled collectively .

He noted that many texts categorized as children's and young adult literature weren't written for that audience, but rather a publisher decided they might be interested. Adaptations are then made, illustrated, and made more appealing to readers of this age group. But it's only now that writing is actually being done with children and young adult readers in mind, not adapting works for adults .

The narrator explained that Huérfanos, illustrated by Mariana Villanueva Segovia, was born as a proposal from a desk, very much based on abstraction and solitude , but at the same time, he was invited to the program Escribir como Lectores (Writing as Readers), which is being developed in Spain and Latin American countries. It involves going to schools with difficult access and precarious conditions.

Suddenly I was in the scenarios I had planned to write, meeting the children, talking with them, writing, working, drawing together and they told me many things , as a result of which I conceived the second part of his stories, where he shows the consequences of children losing the support of their father, mother, uncles or people close to them.

Acosta said it was very difficult to face teachers, parents, and children who told you about the difficult things they've been through. It's a kind of transformation; that is, putting yourself in their shoes with the responsibility of trying to share something and giving them a voice .

From the Editorial Staff

La Jornada Newspaper, Monday, June 9, 2025, p. 3

Tijuana celebrates literature with the 40th edition of its book fair, held for the first time at the iconic El Trompo Interactive Museum. From June 6 to 15, it becomes the epicenter of the spoken word, critical thinking, music, gastronomy, and ideas that shape the culture of this state.

Since its inception in the 1980s, driven by the vision of nine local booksellers, the Tijuana Book Fair has grown to become the city's longest-running cultural gathering, a melting pot of disciplines with a creative and diverse program that has welcomed hundreds of publishers.

This edition stands as a renewed mission: to contribute to a broad cultural outreach, foster and strengthen awareness of the benefits of reading, and promote experiences that foster individual and community development.

The mayor of the border city, Ismael Burgueño Ruiz; the head of the newly created Tijuana Ministry of Culture, headed by Illya Haro; and the Union of Tijuana Bookstores, stated that this fair offers a robust and unique literary program with more than 250 workshops and lectures designed to inspire audiences of all ages.

Among the most prominent guests are writers Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Socorro Venegas, Odin Dupeyron, Elena Piedra, Patricia Rosas Lopátegui, Álex Toledo, Gabriela Jáuregui, and Lola Ancira, among others.

In addition, there will be a tribute to Eraclio Zepeda (1937-2015), in which his daughter, the multidisciplinary artist Masha Zepeda, will speak about the literary work of the Chiapas author.

More than 50 national and international publishing houses are participating, including Ediciones Urano, Penguin Random House, Océano, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Grupo Planeta, Sexto Piso, Editorial Trillas, Ediciones Era, Almadía, Madreditorial, Larousse, and Libro Futbol, ​​originally from Argentina.

The event features a pavilion dedicated to children, featuring dance exhibitions and musical performances. Rock icon Javier Bátiz, a native of this border city, will also be honored.

Organizers expect this literary festival to attract some 60,000 people (double the previous edition), in addition to an estimated economic impact of around 12 million pesos.

The Tijuana Book Fair not only seeks to promote reading and regional literary talent, but also to stimulate the local economy, give visibility to independent publishers and emerging writers, and decentralize the cultural offering.