Mexican Culture in New York City essentials include the Cinco de Mayo Parade, Mexican Independence Day Parade, Ballet Hispánico, Ballet Nepantla, Calpulli Mexican Dance Company, Dzul Dance, Limón Dance Company, Flor de Toloache, Mega Bash MX, México Now Festival, Guadalupe, and La Boom. 🇲🇽
Drums Along the Hudson is a Native American Powwow and Multicultural Celebration of Drum, Song, & Dance
INWOOD HILL PARK, Inwood, Manhattan 🇺🇸 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇲🇽 🇱🇰
South Bronx Cultural Festival Celebrates Casita Maria’s 91st Anniversary with an Eddie Palmieri Tribute, Nelson González All Star Band, Bronx Banda featuring Arturo O’Farrill and Lots More
FATHER GIGANTE PLAZA, Longwood, The Bronx 🇦🇷 🇧🇷 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷
Nova Frontier Film Festival Screens Films of the African Diaspora, Middle East, and Latin America with Talk, Live Music and Community at Harlem Stage
HARLEM STAGE, Manhattanville, West Harlem 🇺🇸 🇧🇪 🇬🇧 🇨🇴 🇫🇷 🇬🇳 🇮🇷 🇲🇽 🇲🇦 🇵🇷 🇸🇳 🇪🇸 🇹🇷 🇨🇴
Ballet Hispánico Celebrates its 55th Anniversary Emerald With Signature Contemporary Ballet CARMEN.maquia
NEW YORK CITY CENTER, Midtown, Manhattan 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷 🇪🇸
Metropolitan Museum of Art Reopens Galleries of African, Indigenous, and Oceanic Art
Michael C. Rockefeller Wing Reopening, African, Indigenous, Oceanic art 🇧🇯 🇨🇲 🇨🇴 🇨🇩 🇪🇨 🇪🇹 🇬🇦 🇲🇱 🇲🇽 🇳🇬 🇵🇪 🇸🇳
Iba Ndiaye: Between Latitude and Longitude, Senegalese contemporary art 🇸🇳
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, Black dandy men’s fashion
MET FIFTH AVENUE, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Ballet Nepantla Dances Mexican Ballet Folklórico For Los Tigres del Norte at Madison Square Garden
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, Chelsea, Manhattan: Los Tigres del Norte 🇲🇽
Los Tigres del Norte is One of the Most Popular Norteño Bands
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, Chelsea, Manhattan 🇲🇽
ABT Studio Company Stages the Next Generation of Ballet Dancers and Choreographers
NYU SKIRBALL CENTER, Greenwich Village, Manhattan 🇦🇷 🇺🇸 🇬🇷 🇲🇽 🇰🇷 🇬🇧 🇻🇪
Westminster Dog Show 2026 Celebrates 150 Years of Best in Show
JAVITS CENTER, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, Chelsea, Manhattan
2024 ~ 🇨🇩 🇨🇬 🇨🇺 🇫🇷 🇮🇹 🇲🇽 🇵🇹 🇿🇦 🇪🇸 🇿🇼
Dance Parade 2025 is Once Again About Reclaiming the Freedom to Be Yourself
SIXTH AVE, 8TH ST, TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, East Village, Manhattan
🇺🇸 🇦🇴 🇦🇷 🇧🇴 🇧🇷 🇨🇳 🇨🇴 🇨🇩 🇨🇬 🇨🇺 🇩🇴 🇪🇨 🇭🇹 🇮🇳 🇮🇩 🇮🇹 🇮🇪 🇰🇷 🇯🇲 🇯🇵 🇲🇽 🇵🇾 🇵🇷 🏴 🇪🇸 🇹🇼 🇹🇭 🇹🇹
NADA New York is an Emerging Contemporary Art Fair
STARRETT-LEHIGH BUILDING, Chelsea, Manhattan 🇨🇦 🇨🇺 🇫🇷 🇲🇽 🇳🇬 🇵🇷 🇷🇴 🇿🇦
Independent New York 2025 is the New Yorker of New York Art Fairs
SPRING STUDIOS, Tribeca, Manhattan 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇪🇹 🇫🇷 🇮🇹 🇲🇽 🇷🇴 🇪🇸
Sponsors
Thank you for sponsoring Mexican culture in New York City:
Mexican Artists
Antonio Sánchez is a multiple Grammy-winner and Golden Globe-nominated jazz fusion drummer. 🇲🇽
Diego Rivera is a Mexican muralist whose work affected both Mexican and American culture. 🇲🇽
Flor de Toloache is New York City’s first all-female mariachi. 🇲🇽
Frida Kahlo has become a global icon of Mexico, Indigenous Peoples, Women, and LGBTQ+ communities. Her work shows a level of self-awareness that is striking in both this world and the next. She is more famous now than her famous husband. 🇲🇽
Jarana Beat is a New York Mexican fandango band. 🇲🇽
Julieta Venegas is a Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning Mexican Latin alternative singer-songwriter. 🇲🇽
Natalia Lafourcade is a Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning Mexican Latin alternative singer-songwriter. 🇲🇽
Reik is a Mexican alternative or pop band that makes beautiful love songs. 🇲🇽
Mexican NYC
Mexican Americans are New York’s third-largest Latin community, and the largest in the United States.
As of 2020, there are about 321,000 Mexican New Yorkers, around 13% of New York’s Hispanic community. The community grew about 10% since 2010, and is New York’s second fastest-growing Latin community.
New York Mexicans live mostly in Bayside, Brooklyn; Staten Island; and Queens. The Upper West Side and “El Barrio” East Harlem also have Mexican communities.
Art in Mexican NYC
Mexican Cultural Institute New York is the cultural department of the Mexican Consulate. It regularly presents programs in the Octavio Paz Gallery. mciny.org 🇲🇽
Mexican Dance in NYC
New York City has many excellent Mexican dance companies. The most unexpected one is Limón Dance Company, because José Limón was one of the pioneers of modern dance.
Ballet Folklórico Mexicano de Nueva York is a Mexican ballet folklórico dance company. @bfmny
Ballet Hispánico is a contemporary dance company with a Mexican American founder, and a strong Mexican choreographer. 🇲🇽
Ballet Nepantla is an award-winning contemporary dance company that explores cultural in-between-ness by dancing Mexican folklore as contemporary ballet. 🇲🇽
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company is a strong community folkloric dance organization with a touring company and teaching artists. 🇲🇽
Dzul Dance is a New York/Campeche Mexican dance company that fuses dance, aerial arts, contortion, and acrobatics into a unique bridge between contemporary art and historical heritage. 🇲🇽
Limón Dance Company is the legacy of Mexican modern dance pioneer José Limón. 🇲🇽
Mazarte is an Indigenous Mexican dance company based in The Bronx. mazarte.org 🇲🇽
Mexican Dancing in NYC
La Boom night club hosts New York’s most popular Mexican party on Sunday nights. You can dance banda, corridos, cumbia sonidera, norteño, and more. 🇲🇽
Mexican Festivals in NYC
- Cinco de Mayo
- Cinco de Mayo Festival at Kupferberg Center Queens College
- Cinco de Mayo Parade in the Upper West Side
- Cinco de Mayo Parade and Festival in Sunset Park
- Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)
- Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Las Mañanitas a Nuestra Virgen de Guadalupe
- Mexican Independence Day
- Mexico Now Festival
Mexican Food in NYC
Mexican food has become American food.
Corn, the Mexican and the American starch, was bred from teosinte, a wild grass in Central Mexico. Native Americans brought it up the Mississippi River.
Mexican Government in NYC
The Mexican Consulate and Mexican Cultural Institute New York are in Murray Hill, Manhattan.
Mexican Music in NYC
Regional Mexican is America’s most popular Latin music. Latin rock started in Mexico.
Mexican Parades in NYC
The Mexican Independence Day Parade NYC Desfile de La Independéncia de México is a parade and cultural festival in Port Richmond, Staten Island on or around Mexican Independence Day, September 16. 🇲🇽
Mexican Culture
Mexican culture is one of the cultures that defines American culture. The western two-thirds of the United States was once New Spain, which became Mexico, so we have a lot in common.
Mexicans are among the world’s hardest working people.
Mexican culture is mostly Indigenous with Spanish and African influences. Mexicans are the descendants of the great Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican civilizations. There are even some Asian influences because Acapulco was the American side of Spain’s colonial trade with Asia.
Mexico, not Spain, is the center of contemporary Hispanic culture. Mexico has the world’s Largest Spanish-speaking population. The United States is fifth.
Mexican Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art said that the biggest influence on American art was not the Europeans, it was the Mexican muralists.
Mexican Festivals
Big Mexican festivals include:
- Three Kings Day (January 6)
- Cinco de Mayo (May 5)
- Holy Week (varies)
- Mexican Independence Day (September 16)
- Day of the Dead (November 2)
- Las Mañanitas de la Virgen de Guadalupe (December 11)
- Virgin of Guadalupe (December 12)
Posadas Navideñas (Christmas caroling community processions) are famous.
Mexican Film
Mexico has a strong film industry. The country’s proximity to Hollywood helped it develop. Legendary Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel worked in Mexico from 1946-1953, just as the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema was peaking.
Mexican Food
Corn, which feeds America, was developed in Mexico, so was chocolate.
Mexican Music
Regional Mexican is America’s most popular Latin music. There are many forms including: mariachi, banda, norteño, and tejano. Mexican cumbia has been popular since the 1940s. Latin rock started in Mexico.
Mexico
Mexico is a big, diverse country.
It’s mostly Indigenous with a Spanish colonial overlay. It also has an African Diaspora community that contributed a lot to Mexican culture.