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America, This Could’ve Been Us
When Mexico’s 66th president waved from the balcony of the National Palace in downtown Mexico City on Sept. 15, 2025, almost 150,000 people filled the Zócalo square below.
President Sheinbaum saluted female soldiers from Mexico’s Heroico Colegio Militar. One soldier solemnly presented the Mexican flag to her. She then held it aloft, rang the ceremonial bell, and began shouting the traditional El Grito de la Independencia, the Cry of Independence to the deafening cheers and response of the crowd. Together, the entire country celebrated their independence from Spain.
El Grito commemorates the rise of the Mexican Independence movement when Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest in Dolores, Guanajuato shouted in the pre-dawn dark, calling the people to fight for their freedom on September 16, 1810.
Our North American neighbors to the south rang in 215 years of independence with the first woman to ever serve as the Mexican president.
The energy engineer and climate scientist, former Mexico City mayor, and a lead researcher for a major ICC publication, President Sheinbaum wore purple, the symbolic color that represents both feminism and the nationwide movement to end femicide in Mexico.
She called out the maiden names of the women heroes of the revolution, Josefa Ortiz Téllez Girón (traditionally…
