The timing of the first of several recent anti-gentrification protests in Mexico City was no coincidence - 4 July, US Independence Day.
Demonstrators gathered in Parque México in Condesa district – the epicentre of gentrification in the Mexican capital – to protest over a range of grievances.
Most were angry at exorbitant rent hikes, unregulated holiday lettings, and the endless influx of Americans and Europeans into the city's trendy neighbourhoods like Condesa, Roma, and La Juárez, forcing out long-term residents.
In Condesa alone, estimates suggest that as many as one in five homes is now a short-term let or a tourist dwelling.
Others also cited more prosaic changes, like restaurant menus in English, or milder hot sauces at the taco stands to cater for sensitive foreign palates.
But as it moved through the gentrified streets, the initially peaceful protest turned ugly.
Radical demonstrators attacked coffee shops and boutique stores aimed at tourists, smashing windows, intimidating customers, spraying graffiti, and chanting Fuera Gringo!, meaning Gringos Out!.
At her next daily press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the violence as xenophobic.
No matter how legitimate the cause, as is the case with gentrification, the demand cannot be to simply say 'Get out!' to people of other nationalities inside our country, she said.
Masked radicals and agitators aside though, the motivation for most people who turned out on 4 July was stories like Erika Aguilar's.
After more than 45 years of her family renting the same Mexico City apartment, the beginning of the end came with a knock at the door in 2017.
Erika remembers the shocking news: They came to every apartment in the building and told us we had until the end of the month to vacate the premises, as they weren't going to renew our rental contracts.
You can imagine my mother's face, adds Erika, her voice momentarily wavering. She'd lived here since 1977.
The owners were selling to a real estate company. But they gave the residents a final, albeit unrealistic offer.
They told us that if we could raise 53m pesos ($2.9m; £2.1m) in two weeks, we could keep the building, she remembers with a hollow laugh.
It's a fortune! New apartments were available for around one to 1.5m pesos ($50,000 to $80,000) back then.
Today, her old home is covered by tarpaulin and scaffolding, as a construction team converts it into luxury one, two and three-bed apartments designed for short and medium-term rentals, boasts the company's website.
It's not a construction for people like me, Erika comments ruefully. It's for short-term letting in dollars. In fact, before we were forced out, we'd already started to see rents being charged in dollars in some buildings here.
Erika and her family now live so far out of the city centre, they are officially in the neighbouring state, almost two hours away by public transport.
His group has recorded more than 4,000 cases of forced displacement of residents with roots from La Juárez district over the past decade. He was one of them.
We are facing what we call an urban war, he says at one of the subsequent anti-gentrification protests held after 4 July.
Mayor Clara Brugada unveiled a 14-point plan intended to regulate rent prices, protect long-term residents, and build new social housing at affordable prices.
However, for many, these measures are too little, too late.
Erika, reflecting on her family's upheaval, points blame at numerous parties: the building's former owners, the city government, and even the tenants themselves for not acting sooner.
However, she bears no grudge toward the foreigners moving in, understanding their desire for better living circumstances. With changing demographics, activists warn about the socio-economic impact and erasure of local culture.
The tensions highlight an ongoing debate about who has rights to the land—long-time residents or newcomers—and the potential loss of community identity amidst rapid urban change.
