San Cristobal de Las Casas: Street Art and Activism

As you can see, there is something to look at on every street of San Cristobal de Las Casas. Colorful houses, flowers, trees, cactuses, murals, papel picado, etc. Many of the murals and street art depict local culture and the struggles of different social, environmental, and political movements. Immigration, feminism, justice for missing people, the right to essential resources like water, the right to dignified work conditions, etc. The messages in some of the murals say, "No one is illegal", "120 thousand disappeared migrants", "Yes to dignified work!", "Machsimo off, affection on", "the companies steal our water", etc.

Chiapas has some of the highest rates of coca cola consumption in the world. In the bottom left picture, the first bottle shows the average global consumption of coke annually per person, the second bottle US average consumption, then the Mexican average consumption, and finally Chiapas' average consumption. There are many murals around the streets seeking to bring more consciousness to this issue of multi-national companies like Coca-cola depleting local resources and leading to health problems.