The demonstration in Puerto Vallarta did not begin with a surge of people but with a few hundred teenagers and young adults gathering near a hotel by the sports complex. As they adjusted handmade signs and white shirts, traffic rolled by and the crowd steadily grew. By the time the march reached the iconic stone arches on the Malecón, more than 500 people—families, students, and longtime residents—were walking together to demand safety and peace.
The local turnout formed part of a broader nationwide wave now called the Gen Z protest, an online-driven mobilization that brought people into the streets of more than 50 cities on November 15. While clashes and tear gas marked the movement’s presence in Mexico City, the atmosphere in Puerto Vallarta stayed calm. The only smoke rising over the seafront came from food vendors and the golden haze of the setting sun.
Tourists filmed the procession as it moved from the Sheraton area toward the Malecón. Parents pushed strollers alongside university students carrying signs about missing people and medicine shortages. Grandparents joined in, echoing chants familiar across Mexico: “We want to live without fear,” “Health is a right,” and “Mexico deserves better.”
At the arches, the marchers formed a loose circle as speakers took the megaphone. The messages were steady and focused: empty pharmacies, understaffed hospitals, rising disappearances, and violence that no longer shocks. No party logos, no candidate banners—just paper signs and a shared plea for dignity and safety.
Local organizer and law student Sergio Maigret told the crowd he walks the city with a knot in his stomach, and that fear—not politics—brought him there. What mattered most to him, he said, was that hundreds of people who normally keep their fears private chose to share them publicly.
As the sun faded, the gathering became an open-air town hall. Young speakers shifted between grief and hope, insisting the movement is not about trading one political brand for another but about demanding a country where they can build a future without choosing between fear and hardship.