Madison-Tepatitlán de Morelos Sister City
Designation:
Positive Exchanges
Designation:
Positive Exchanges
By Jonathan Gramling
It’s a land of dairy farms on rolling hills that surround a city that serves as a
great cultural center and is the home of a leading university. While this
sounds like the city of Madison, it is actually describing Tepatitlán de Morelos
— Tepa for short — in the Mexican state of Jalisco.
Since 1995, the state of Wisconsin has had a sister state relationship with
Jalisco. Individuals from Jalisco’s dairy industry annually come to the World
Dairy Expo in Madison and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the
Universidad Autónoma de Guadalahara have been working together for
several years. Madison artist Sharon Kilfoy is painting a mural in an
elementary school in Guadalahara, the capital of Jalisco.
On January 2, the Madison Common Council unanimously adopted a
resolution creating the Madison Tepatitlán Sister City Committee, formalizing a
relationship between cities that has been organically growing for some time
now. And the designation has many in the Latino community thinking about
Alder Shiva Bidar-Sielaff (2nd left) with sister city
founding members Antonio Molina-Rivas (l-r), Salvador
Carranza and Kent Craig
founding members Antonio Molina-Rivas (l-r), Salvador
Carranza and Kent Craig
the possibilities.
“It means the beginning of a great relationship and plenty of opportunities for business and growth for the benefit of not only the Latino
community, but the community as a whole,” said Antonio Molina-Rivas, vice-president of the Latino Chamber of Commerce and a member of
the sister city committee. “We will be visiting Tepatitlán to find out what opportunities are out there. We are already planning a tequila
tasting to raise funds for our sister city committee and the program in general.”
Salvador Carranza, another member of the committee, affirmed the economic and academic possibilities.
“Mexico is our second largest economic partner only behind Canada,” Carranza said. “That is how important Mexico is. We also signed a
memorandum of understanding to exchange academic collaboration between one of the University of Guadalajara’s main campuses in
Tepa with the University of Wisconsin System. Since then, we have started to develop a lot of academic and research opportunities. This is
going to be more important as we move into this official Sister City – Sister City relationship between Tepa in Jalisco and Madison.”
The relationship with Tepa can also blossom into an important cultural exchange.
“It allows cultural exchange between the two cities,” said Alder Shiva Bidar-Dielaff who visited Tepa last Thanksgiving to make final
arrangements for the sister city relationship. “Jalisco is known as the birthplace of some of the better known Mexican traditions such as
the mariachi and folkloric dances that people know. The el charro, the big black hats are all typical of Jalisco. It is really the birthplace for a
lot of the Mexican culture that is known around the world.”
And culture also means exchanges regarding sports.
“One of the people who was attending the meeting I was in was the sports director for the city and he was talking about how big soccer is
there and how they have soccer camps,” Bidar-Sielaff said. “And of course we were talking about American football here and how great it
would be to have high school students doing an exchange of summer camps for soccer and American football. I think those are always
great ways of understanding different approaches and different cultures.”
And Bidar-Sielaff was also impressed with their health care system.
“They have a big center for health care, second to Guadalajara,” Bidar-Sielaff noted. “Of course Madison is a big health care hub. They train
health care providers and also initiatives around community health. That will be very interesting both from our public health perspective
and our regular health care delivery perspective. That will be very interesting to get exchanges on and understand how they do community
health.”
As she spoke about her visit to Tepa, Bidar-Sielaff was impressed with the city council chambers in Tepa, which spoke to the importance
that the people in Tepa place in their local elected body. Bidar-Sielaff was also impressed with who was running many of the institutions in
Tepa.
“The leadership is amazing,” Bidar-Sielaff said. “There are a lot of women in leadership positions, which I think people may not think about
when they think about a city of that size in Mexico. Their mayor is a woman. The council president is a woman. They have a number of
council members who are women. Their college president is a woman. There are a lot of very strong women leaders. I thought that was a
very interesting piece of where they are now as a city. How the city was created is going to be very interesting to learn about.”
While the sister city relationship is of particular interest to members of Madison’s Latino community, it is a relationship that could benefit
Madison economically and culturally for generations to come.
¡Viva Tepatitlán de Morelos y Madison!
“It means the beginning of a great relationship and plenty of opportunities for business and growth for the benefit of not only the Latino
community, but the community as a whole,” said Antonio Molina-Rivas, vice-president of the Latino Chamber of Commerce and a member of
the sister city committee. “We will be visiting Tepatitlán to find out what opportunities are out there. We are already planning a tequila
tasting to raise funds for our sister city committee and the program in general.”
Salvador Carranza, another member of the committee, affirmed the economic and academic possibilities.
“Mexico is our second largest economic partner only behind Canada,” Carranza said. “That is how important Mexico is. We also signed a
memorandum of understanding to exchange academic collaboration between one of the University of Guadalajara’s main campuses in
Tepa with the University of Wisconsin System. Since then, we have started to develop a lot of academic and research opportunities. This is
going to be more important as we move into this official Sister City – Sister City relationship between Tepa in Jalisco and Madison.”
The relationship with Tepa can also blossom into an important cultural exchange.
“It allows cultural exchange between the two cities,” said Alder Shiva Bidar-Dielaff who visited Tepa last Thanksgiving to make final
arrangements for the sister city relationship. “Jalisco is known as the birthplace of some of the better known Mexican traditions such as
the mariachi and folkloric dances that people know. The el charro, the big black hats are all typical of Jalisco. It is really the birthplace for a
lot of the Mexican culture that is known around the world.”
And culture also means exchanges regarding sports.
“One of the people who was attending the meeting I was in was the sports director for the city and he was talking about how big soccer is
there and how they have soccer camps,” Bidar-Sielaff said. “And of course we were talking about American football here and how great it
would be to have high school students doing an exchange of summer camps for soccer and American football. I think those are always
great ways of understanding different approaches and different cultures.”
And Bidar-Sielaff was also impressed with their health care system.
“They have a big center for health care, second to Guadalajara,” Bidar-Sielaff noted. “Of course Madison is a big health care hub. They train
health care providers and also initiatives around community health. That will be very interesting both from our public health perspective
and our regular health care delivery perspective. That will be very interesting to get exchanges on and understand how they do community
health.”
As she spoke about her visit to Tepa, Bidar-Sielaff was impressed with the city council chambers in Tepa, which spoke to the importance
that the people in Tepa place in their local elected body. Bidar-Sielaff was also impressed with who was running many of the institutions in
Tepa.
“The leadership is amazing,” Bidar-Sielaff said. “There are a lot of women in leadership positions, which I think people may not think about
when they think about a city of that size in Mexico. Their mayor is a woman. The council president is a woman. They have a number of
council members who are women. Their college president is a woman. There are a lot of very strong women leaders. I thought that was a
very interesting piece of where they are now as a city. How the city was created is going to be very interesting to learn about.”
While the sister city relationship is of particular interest to members of Madison’s Latino community, it is a relationship that could benefit
Madison economically and culturally for generations to come.
¡Viva Tepatitlán de Morelos y Madison!
