She Went to Mexico to Study. She Should Have Come Home...

Claudia Tacoronte Aguilera was 21. She had travelled from Spain to Mexico on a university exchange and had been there less than a month when she was stabbed to death in Cuautla. She was studying early childhood education. I keep thinking about that: a young woman preparing to work with children, with her own life still barely begun.

The circumstances are still being investigated. Authorities are treating her death as a suspected femicide, while reports have also raised the possibility of a robbery. I don’t want to pretend we know exactly what happened when Claudia’s family is still waiting for answers. But we know enough to be furious. She went to a cultural event and never came home.

After a young woman is killed, there is always a rush to inspect her decisions. Why was she there? Was she alone? Should she have gone somewhere else? As though every woman can avoid violence by making a sufficiently clever series of choices. Claudia was on a university exchange. She should have been able to enjoy it, make friends, learn things, and return home with stories her family would hear for years.

Now her family has a story no family should ever have to tell. Students in Mexico have held a vigil for her, and the University of Granada has cancelled upcoming exchange placements to Morelos. Those responses show how deeply her death has shaken people. They cannot give Claudia back her future.

I hope the investigation gives her family clear answers and real justice. And I hope that, amid the headlines and the arguments about what women should do to stay safe, we remember who Claudia was: a 21-year-old student who went abroad to begin another chapter of her life. She deserved the chance to finish it.