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When looking through the vast selection, visitors can find stories from almost every Latin American country and even a few in Indigenous languages like Nahuatl and Zapotec.

That vibrant red, a hue prized in Zapotec culture for 2,000 years, is derived from the cochineal, a tiny insect that thrives on nopal cactus.

Vasquez, who is Zapotec, said he worries about the future of the Indigenous communities as the mezcal market continues to reshape rural Oaxaca and global warming exacerbates conditions.

The muxe — Indigenous Zapotec people in Mexico — view themselves as neither man nor woman.

Many Mesoamerican cultures, including the Zapotec civilization that dominated this region for centuries, were more accepting of gender diversity than the Spanish who first arrived in the 16th century, researchers say.