Global Headlines Roundup | A Left-Wing Party Candidate Wins Mexico's Presidential Election, and National Geographic Asks What Comes Next for Latinos in America

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What the Agenda-Setters Are Talking About

National Geographic: The Future of Latino Immigrants in America

Ismael Fernandez grew up in Wilder, a farming town in the American state of Idaho. At 19 he was elected to the city council. On his first day in office, as he sat with the four other council members, a reporter noticed something: all five had Spanish surnames. It was the first time in Idaho's history that a city council was made up entirely of Latinos.

Wilder, 75% Latino, has become a small model of how the Latino population and Latino influence are rising across America. Since 1970 the number of Latinos in the United States has grown sixfold; by 2016 it reached 57.4 million, or 18% of the country. Of all the ethnic groups in America, Latinos have changed the most.

That growth has brought anger and conflict. Conservative media and politicians cast them as job thieves who refuse to learn English, as violent gang members, as people who slip across the border so their children can be born American citizens. Anger at them — most of the 11 million people in the country illegally are Latino — helped put Donald Trump in office.

Even so, plenty of people in Wilder will tell you they get along well with their neighbors. In a town run on farming, Latinos are an essential part of the workforce. And just as they hold up the labor force here, in big cities such as Miami, New York, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles they are winning a larger voice in how their communities are led. Latino votes have turned California — the state that once made Ronald Reagan its governor — into one of the most reliably Democratic states in the country. The mayor of Los Angeles and the leaders of both chambers of the state legislature are all Latino. Wilder's mayor, once a hairdresser, is proud of her ancestry, but says her aim is to serve every resident of Wilder, not to prove something about her ethnicity.

Like many other parts of America, western Idaho sits at a cultural crossroads. In the second half of the 20th century, large numbers of Latinos moved to Wilder from Mexico and South Texas. Migrant workers made the trip every year and left again when the snow came. As more of them decided to stay for good, a Latino community took shape.

Unlike Black, white or Asian Americans, Latinos in the United States are hard to define: they can have different skin colors and different faiths. Héctor Tobar, who wrote the National Geographic piece, has Maya ancestry. Yet like many Latinos over 50, the race line on his birth certificate reads "white." At its core, the word "Latino" marks a tie to South America or to lands the Spanish founded. Latinos take labor, migration, hardship and endurance as the words and qualities that define them and hold them together. Like Héctor Tobar, who lives in Los Angeles, more and more Latino immigrants come through an early stretch of hard times and end up living middle-class lives.

Still, for the Latino community of Southern California, this is the best of times and the hardest of times at once.

From Héctor Tobar's neighborhood you can look out over the Los Angeles River, and the property boom has pushed some houses there past a million dollars. In February 2017, less than two kilometers from where he lives, Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, who made a living making burritos, was seized by immigration agents while dropping his two daughters at school. His daughter Fatima, born in the United States and 13 at the time, cried in the car and filmed the whole thing on her phone. The video set off a wide debate. Six months later, Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez was released.

Hard-line measures of the kind Trump has promised — the "border wall" above all — reach into the daily lives of Latino immigrants too.

If the wall goes up, it will cut through El Cenizo, a Texas town of 33 million people that is 99% Latino. The descendants of Mexican immigrants here cross between the two countries constantly. In 1999 the town passed an ordinance protecting unregistered immigrants. "Two cultures, one great city" is El Cenizo's motto. When migrants from Mexico came ashore, residents would pretend not to see. As policy has tightened in recent years, crossing has become harder. Border patrol officers have started wearing guns on their belts.

In 2017 El Cenizo's mayor, Raul Reyes, sued over a law requiring local police to work with immigration authorities. Raul Reyes said he was willing to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Raul Reyes entered politics at 19, just as Ismael Fernandez did at the start of this story. The difference: Reyes is a Democrat, Fernandez a Republican. Ismael Fernandez had promised his grandmother that one day he would become the first Latino president of the United States.

His future looked bright. Then he died in a car accident at 20. National Geographic ends the piece this way: his gravestone now stands as a symbol of a hero of the Latino community — a young man who won a seat on the city council, made his hometown better, and believed that a Latino family with Mexican roots could leave a lasting mark on America.

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Obrador Wins Mexico's Presidential Election in a Landslide

The quick count released by Mexico's national electoral commission on the night of the 1st, local time, showed Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), presidential candidate of the left-wing National Regeneration Movement, far ahead in the vote. He soon declared victory.

The quick count gave Obrador more than 53% of the vote, 30 points clear of the runner-up. No margin that wide has appeared in Mexico in more than 30 years.

The election of the 64-year-old Obrador marks a turn for the country: for decades Mexico has been run by business-friendly centrists. Obrador, who leans populist, won voters over with an anti-establishment style. He says he intends to change the country deeply and will take on the crime, corruption and poverty that have troubled Mexico for so long.

He also said he hopes to keep relations with the United States on a footing of mutual respect, to protect the interests of Mexican immigrants there, and to seek friendly cooperation with Washington. U.S. President Trump tweeted that he looks forward to working with Obrador, adding that for the good of both countries there is "much to be done." The two men have taken confrontational lines before, so U.S.-Mexico relations will be watched closely from here.

Analysts have also pointed out that the bloodshed around Mexico's election casts a shadow over its democracy. As of June this year, 133 candidates and 8 journalists had been killed.

Mexico's president is chosen by direct popular vote for a six-year term and may never serve again. The election is decided in a single round, and the candidate with a simple majority takes office.

What Else Happened in the World

Thailand's missing football team is found after nine days. On July 2 local time, 12 Thai teenage footballers and one coach were found by Thai navy special forces, all alive and unharmed. On June 23, after practice, they had gone with their 25-year-old coach to a national park; while exploring a cave they were trapped by a sudden downpour and lost contact with the outside world. According to the latest reports, the rescue could take months. The boys cannot swim, so the safest course is to bring medical staff and supplies into the cave.

To keep her interior minister, Merkel agrees to block refugees at the border and send them back. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Germany's political crisis appears to have been averted, because the governing coalition has reached a "sustainable solution" on illegal immigration, and he has agreed not to resign. Merkel confirmed the compromise, saying Germany will stop refugees from other places from entering. The chancellor also said Germany will set up transit centers to return refugees to the countries where they first arrived in Europe.

A string of shootings hits the Greater Toronto Area over the Canada Day holiday. At about 10:30 pm on July 1, Canada Day, a shooting in the Kensington Market area of downtown Toronto left four men injured and taken to hospital. Police said about four attackers were still at large. A second shooting took place around 11:30 pm in Mississauga, west of Toronto; no one was hurt.

Sweden will hand out a new prize in place of this year's canceled Nobel Prize in Literature. After a sexual-misconduct scandal, the Swedish Academy will not award the Nobel Prize in Literature this year. More than 100 Swedish writers, actors, journalists and other cultural figures have formed the New Academy and announced a prize to take its place.

Brazil and Belgium reach the World Cup quarterfinals. In Brazil's match against Mexico, goals from Neymar and Firmino won it 2-0, putting Brazil in the last eight for the seventh World Cup in a row. Belgium, two goals down, scored three in reply to knock out Japan 3-2, the third arriving in the final seconds.

Someone Said

"I will be loyal to my wife, my daughter and my son first, and always. I put family and country first."

Michael Cohen, personal lawyer to U.S. President Trump, said this in an interview. The press read the remark as a signal that he is willing to cooperate with investigators. He is under investigation for bank fraud and campaign-finance violations. It is a contrast with his earlier line that he would take a bullet for Trump.

Cohen is seen as the man who fixes Trump's problems. In April this year the FBI raided his office. The investigation into him also covers whether he wired money to a porn star as hush money to keep her from talking about an affair with Trump.

Cohen did not go into the investigation in his interview with ABC News, but some of what he said put him at odds with Trump.

Trump has repeatedly complained about the FBI investigation. Cohen said: "I don't agree with those who demonize or vilify the FBI. I respect the agency and its people."

Trump has said Russian President Putin did not interfere in the U.S. election. In the interview, Cohen said: "Simply accepting Mr. Putin's denial is unsustainable."

Something You Might Also Be Interested In

World Cup: What language do Belgium's players speak to each other?

Belgium has three official languages: German, French and Dutch. The players on its World Cup squad come from regions where the everyday language differs. So what do coach and players, and players among themselves, actually speak?

Not any of the three official languages. They speak English. The point is to avoid looking as though one language is favored over another.

Most of Belgium's players live in Dutch-speaking areas; most of the rest speak French, and a small handful are used to German. Language has caused trouble before: players speaking different languages at press conferences, and the team holding French- and Dutch-language interviews separately.

That kind of separation runs through Belgium. From political parties to schools to magazines and newspapers, a great deal is divided by language. Belgium is also home to many immigrants who speak only English, which has made English a common tongue as well.

Inside the squad, language skills vary widely. The forward Romelu Lukaku speaks six languages — Dutch, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Swahili — and the captain, Vincent Kompany, speaks five. Some players speak only French.

Most players understand French, but English is the safest choice. BBC reporter Suzanne Vanhooymissen said: "By using English as the common language, the organization — the Belgian national team — cannot be accused of favoring Dutch or German, which would drag an undercurrent of linguistic division into the open."

Behind the language divide lies a question of belonging. Many people from Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region, call themselves Flemish rather than Belgian. That makes a shared linguistic middle ground valuable. Switzerland's squad also speaks several languages, and seating has even been arranged by language — but Switzerland has no crisis of national or community belonging, everyone there thinks of themselves as Swiss, and so the team does not have to tread as carefully as Belgium does.

On This Day

On July 3, 1844, representatives of the Qing dynasty and the United States signed the Treaty of Wanghia in the village of Wangxia, Macau.

On July 3, 1883, the Austrian writer Franz Kafka was born.

On July 3, 1890, the historian and linguist Chen Yinke was born.

On July 3, 1898, the Imperial University of Peking, the forerunner of Peking University, was founded.

On July 3, 2005, Spain became the third country in the world to recognize same-sex marriage.

On July 3, 2013, Egypt's military announced the suspension of the constitution, removed Mohamed Morsi, the country's first elected president, and set up a transitional government.

Cover image from: Wiki Commons