15/09/2026
Tonight, church bells and town-hall bells will ring across every plaza in Mexico. Governors, mayors, and in Mexico City, President Claudia Sheinbaum herself, will step onto a balcony, ring a bell, and shout “¡Viva México!” into a crowd that shouts it right back. Fireworks. Mariachi. A pot of pozole somewhere close by. It happens the same way in small towns and big cities alike, and it has happened, in one form or another, every September 15th for well over a century.
The tradition traces back to the early hours of September 16, 1810, when a parish priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang the bell of his church in the small town of Dolores, in what's now the state of Guanajuato, and called his parishioners to rise up against Spanish colonial rule. Nobody recorded his exact words that morning, but the call he made — for dignity, for self-rule, for a country that belonged to the people living in it — is what every governor and mayor is still echoing, word for word or not, when they grab that bell tonight.
I've lived in this country for nineteen years now, and I still feel something shift in my chest every time I hear that shout. So this year I want to actually say what's in it — not just make the noise.
We say it with pride for a history that runs deep
Mexico is home to the Great Pyramid of Cholula, about four hours from here in Puebla — the largest pyramid on Earth by volume, bigger than any of the pyramids at Giza, built by a civilization that understood astronomy, mathematics, and architecture centuries before the conquest. That's not a footnote. That's the foundation this country was built on, long before anyone from Spain ever set foot here.
We say it with pride for a table that holds its own against anyone's
Mexican cuisine is one of the only cuisines in the world with its own UNESCO recognition — an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, right alongside French gastronomy. Put it next to Italian, Chinese, or Indian food and it doesn't just hold its own, it wins arguments. Corn, chiles, centuries of patience, and a technique in every region of this country that took generations to perfect.
We say it with pride for a country still overflowing with life
Mexico sits inside the small handful of “megadiverse” nations that, together, hold the majority of the planet's species — jungle, desert, reef, and cloud forest, often within a few hours' drive of each other. Very few countries on Earth carry this much life inside their borders.
We say it with pride for the people in our lives
Every day I work alongside people here — friends, clients, neighbors, my own team — who are sharp, who work harder than almost anyone I've known, and who build their lives around family and friendship first. That's not a tourist-brochure line. It's what I actually see, every single day, in this business.
And, for me, we say it most of all with hope
Hope that time makes this place better for the next generation. Hope that the people I love here — and the people you love here — find new dreams and new reasons to believe in them. Hope that Mexico keeps becoming everything it was always capable of being.
“We yell it loud and clear with hope — hope that Mexico fulfills its destiny.”
So tonight, when the bell rings and the plaza answers back, that's what I'm shouting. Not just the word. All of it.
¡Feliz Día de la Independencia! ¡Viva México!
