SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Guanajuato — A star-studded four day program featuring top notch Mexican intellectuals will be presented during the Fourth National World Heritage Cities Congress to be held July 5-8 in San Miguel de Allende, a World Heritage city in Central Mexico.
This year the Congress will issue recognition award medals to the nation’s top historian and National Autonomous University (UNAM) professor emeritus Miguel León Portilla, and Guanajuato-born journalist Cristina Pacheco, both for lifetimes devoted to Mexican past and current history. Participants will represent several of the 10 World Heritage Cities Mexico boasts nowadays.
Congress organizers Adolfo Rubio and Guadalupe Meza told The News that for this year the Congress says that though all the lectures will be held in Spanish, it represents a unique opportunity for San Miguel de Allende, and Mexico at large for that matter, to get acquainted with the participants.
Cristina Pacheco is a well-known journalist who hosts a television interview program, “This is where we were slated to live at,” for Mexico City’s Channel 11 and writes a weekly column for daily newspaper La Jornada called “A Sea of Stories.”
Rubio and Meza began celebrating the congress for the past three years to commemorate the naming of San Miguel de Allende a “World Heritage Site” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on July 87, 2008.
For this year, the Magic Town featured in the celebration is nearby Dolores Hidalgo, known as the cradle of Mexican Independence. There will be an exhibit with Dolores Hidalgo places and arts July 3-10, including music by celebrated composer José Alfredo Jiménez at the House of Europe downtown San Miguel.
Aiding with the organization of the Fourth National World Heritage Cities Congress are the three branches of government — municipal, state and federal — as well as local hotel and restaurant organizations and universities.
Opening proceedings will be University of Guajanuato Dean Dr. Luis Felipe Guerrero Agripino who will offer a talk on “The University and the City.”
A most interesting panel called “History Through the Centuries” will be a formed by archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, head of the dig at the Aztec Main Altar (Templo Mayor) as well as poet Vicente Quirarte, historian Angeles González Gamio also of Channel 11, who will chronicle Mexico City’s history from 1554 to the present.
From the state of Campeche the president of the Mexican Republic Architects’ Collegiates Federation Carmen Espinosa will offer a talk called “Intervention at the historic downtown area of Ciudad del Carmen, First State,” capital of the state of Campeche.
Popular Mexico City economist and chronicler Alberto Barranco, who does several weekly programs who will talk about “The Chronicler as Public Official Authorized to Attest Documents on History, Architecture and Art.”
From Oaxaca, architect Pastor Alfonso Sanchez Cruz will talk about mescal moonshining in a conference called “The Production Enclosures of Craft Mezcal in Oaxaca, Identity and Belonging.”
From Tlacotalpan, in the state of Veracruz, researcher Dr. Bernardo García Díaz will present his recent publication on the rebirth of the “son jarocho” as Tlacotalpan’s original harp and guitar music.
Regarding the preservation of the Querétaro state Sierra Gorda region both as a tourism haven and an environmental preserve will be Isabel Ruiz Corzo, who recently received a recognition award for her work, and Dr. Manuel Suárez for his work on the preservation of World Heritage Sites in Mexico.
For registration contact www.sanmiguelmundial.com.mx