Male Embroiderers Reshape a Yucatán Tradition

In the village of San José Oriente, outside Hoctún, a growing number of men and boys are picking up a needle and an embroidery frame, taking up a craft long passed down only from mothers to daughters.

The village has built its regional reputation on the skill of its women embroiderers, whose blouses, hipiles and ternos, made using the cross-stitch technique known in Maya as xmanikté, have become one of the area’s main sources of household income.

Handicraft manufacturing accounts for roughly 35% of income in rural Yucatán homes, according to Mexico’s national statistics agency, INEGI, helping keep families from having to leave in search of work elsewhere.

Making a full gala terno for a Yucatecan mestiza takes between three and eight months of steady work and can require more than 100,000 individual stitches across the checkered fabric.

In Mérida’s artisan markets or specialty shops in Cancún, a fully hand-embroidered terno from Hoctún sells for between 8,000 and 25,000 pesos (roughly US$440 to US$1,375), depending on the density and complexity of the design.

Jheremi May, a young artisan from San José Oriente, said he learned by watching his mother work.

“There are moments that define our destiny without us realizing it,” he said. “One day, without saying anything, I picked up the needle. With my small hands and a bit of nerve, I tried to copy her movements. What started as a child’s game became an astonishing discovery: my hands could create beauty.”

May now sells his embroidered pieces directly to buyers across Mexico through a WhatsApp order line, bypassing the intermediaries who once cut into artisans’ earnings.

Gender shift

The shift is drawing attention from researchers who track the region’s rural economy.

Mexico’s National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy has found that men’s growing role in the garment supply chain has helped families in San José Oriente boost monthly income by as much as 20%, cushioning the blow from droughts that have hurt traditional farm work.

A separate report from Mexico’s federal welfare ministry found that men’s participation in textile manufacturing across Hoctún, Huhí and Teabo grew 15% over the past five years, driven partly by direct-to-consumer sales over social media.

For younger artisans, the embroidery frame has become less a symbol of household labor and more a way to pay for school without having to migrate to Quintana Roo’s tourist corridor for work.

“Today, every stitch I make is a tribute to that eight-year-old boy who dared to dream with thread,” May said.

Fast Facts

• Location: San José Oriente, a village in the municipality of Hoctún, about 45 kilometers (28 miles) east of Mérida
• Technique: xmanikté, a cross-stitch method traditionally passed from mothers to daughters
• Time to complete one gala terno: three to eight months, over 100,000 stitches
• Market price for a hand-embroidered terno: MX$8,000 to MX$25,000 (roughly US$440-US$1,375)
• Handicraft income share of rural Yucatán households: about 35%, according to INEGI
• Growth in male participation in regional textile work: 15% over five years, per federal data

With reporting from Por Esto!