But the 19th-century avenue has been swept up in a 21st-century struggle, centered on questions familiar to people in the United States and Europe: Who should a nation's statues honor? Who has the right to write history? In the United States, this debate has focused on memorials to Confederate leaders, enslaved people, and Christopher Columbus. In Mexico, activists filled the Reforma movement with grim reminders of the extreme violence of recent decades.
These “anti-monuments” are not just protest. Mexico's leaders have long tried to control the historical narrative to legitimize their rule — from the Mexican-American War of the 1840s to the revolution that began in 1910. Now, a movement of artists, grieving families and feminist activists is trying to wrest that narrative away.
The battle in Mexico over monuments began in the wake of a notorious case of police abuse. On the night of September 26, 2014, officers arrested 43 students from a teachers' college in Ayotzinapa in southern Mexico as they headed to a demonstration. Then the youth disappeared.
Authorities said the police were allied with a drug trafficking group that “disappeared” the students. But independent investigators found that state and federal officials were also involved in the crime, and alleged a cover-up. With Mexico experiencing its largest protests in decades, a small group of activists decided to place a memorial in a place the government couldn't ignore: Reform.
The demonstrators formed an underground network – including architects, welders, engineers and construction workers. In a warehouse outside Mexico City, they secretly created a sculpture weighing 1,870 pounds. It was a giant number of 43, with a plus sign indicating the increasing number of people disappearing, at the hands of criminal groups, the police and the military.
“We thought the story would end with a plus sign of 43. “The government will remove it,” said one activist, who gave only his code name Juan. But after the statue was installed in 2015, he said, “people started demanding it as their own.”
In the years since, activists have installed anti-up and down anti-Reforma monuments, as well as in adjacent squares. The sculptures protest government repression, deaths blamed on bureaucratic or corporate indifference, and the rampant violence against women in patriarchal culture.
Activists are “trying to create a space where memory does not mean closure,” said Alexandra Delano, a researcher at the New School in New York. Instead, she said, “memory means constant struggle.”
That's true for Cristina Bautista, who often visits the Plus 43 Memorial with other parents of missing Ayotzinapa students. “Every month, we’re there,” she said. “Demanding the government to return our children alive.”
The reform movement has long been Mexico's national stage, a site of protests and celebrations – whether for a new president or the winner of a soccer championship. But for years, the street's luster has been dimmed by street crime, economic crises and the effects of the 1985 earthquake.
Recently, the Mexican capital has undergone a renaissance. Leftist city governments tamed downtown crime. Mexico's relaxed COVID-19 protocols have contributed to a tourism boom. Now, on Sundays, Reforma is open for cyclists, runners and aerobics classes. Glittering five-star hotels offer $250 tequila tastings and host Fashion Week. In 2021, Reforma made Time Out magazine's list of the “World's Coolest Streets”.
The contrast between the anti-monuments and the new atmosphere of Mexico City could not be more stark. The memorials are a direct reminder of widespread institutional failure and impunity. One statue, outside the Mexican Social Security Institute, refers to a 2009 fire that broke out at one of the institute's daycare centers, killing 49 children. Another, in front of the stock exchange, commemorates the 65 workers buried as a result of a 2006 explosion in a coal mine owned by a major company, Grupo Mexico.
The activists behind these installations remained mostly anonymous — to avoid the police, to allow victims' families to take center stage, to keep the government on its toes. Juan said authorities “don't know when or how the memorial will appear.”
In late 2020, the killing of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis sparked global protests against racial injustice, leading to the toppling of statues commemorating the Confederacy. As targets spread to Spanish colonial symbols – seen as symbols of the oppression of indigenous peoples – Mexican authorities removed a statue of Christopher Columbus from the Reforma traffic circle.
Months later, feminist activists and mothers of missing persons joined veteran anti-monuments organizers in taking over the square. Above the empty plinth, they placed the silhouette of a girl raising her fist. They painted the site with the names of women who fought for justice. They called it the Square of Women Fighters.
Seizing power has been an open challenge for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has built his career on confronting the one-party authoritarian state that has dominated Mexico, and who took office in 2018 vowing to improve the lives of the poor and bring justice to the disappeared. cases.
Although authorities have, for the most part, left the anti-monuments alone, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum — a protege of Lopez Obrador and a hope in the 2024 presidential race — has drawn the line at Columbus Circle. City workers painted the names on the memorial. The women repainted it. The city announced that it would replace Columbus with a statue representing indigenous women. Activists described it as a distraction from their protest.
Ricardo Ruiz, a senior city official, says protesters cannot simply rename plazas or replace monuments — no matter how legitimate their cause.
“In New York, if a group took over the Statue of Liberty and said it would become a statue of a movement, would the United States government allow that?” Asked.
As in the United States, the debate over memorials has divided Mexicans.
“They are taking away a lot of the beautiful things that we have in Mexico,” Genoveva Illescas said as she walked through Reforma on Sunday.
Alfredo Cruz, who had just finished the race on the avenue, defended the anti-monuments. “People must not allow the disappeared, the 43 and the children, to be forgotten.” He said.
In May 2022, activists took over another traffic roundabout in Reforma, known as Palm Square. They renamed it the Square of the Disappeared and plastered it with photos of their missing loved ones.
As López Obrador approaches the end of his term, violence remains near record levels, with new reports of disappearances almost every day. No one has been convicted in the Ayotzinapa case.
Counter-effects have become a constant accusation.
Politicians pass it on their way to work. Soldiers marching through Reforma in the annual military parade encounter reminders of the human rights abuses in which the military has been accused of participating.
The authorities say they are not trying to downplay the violence in the country; A memorial park honoring the victims was opened in 2013 in Mexico City's main Chapultepec park. But few people visit the remote site. Activists want to keep the issue front and center.
Jorge Verastegui, a member of a group searching for the disappeared, said their demands go beyond setting up a memorial. He added: “We are also facing this monopoly on legitimacy that the president and his movement want.”
The government did not agree to give up the Square of the Disappeared. But last summer, after more than a year of legal wrangling and protests, the city abandoned its fight to place a new statue in the circle where Columbus once stood.
If you look up the location on Google Maps, it's clear who won this little battle over Mexican history. It is now known as the Arena of Fighting Women.
Lorena Rios contributed to this report.
