San Antonino Castillo Velasco

San Antonino Castillo Velasco is a Zapotec town of about 5,400 people on the northern edge of Ocotlán de Morelos, around 33 km south of Oaxaca city, at about 1,500 m. Its name joins the patron saint, the bishop San Antonino, with José María del Castillo Velasco, a 19th-century liberal politician. Local records date its founding to 1694, and it was made a villa in 1889.

The town is best known for its embroidery. The blouse and dress "de San Antonino" is white cotton manta worked in silk thread with dense flowers, birds and fruit in more than 20 colours, using named techniques such as hazme si puedes ("make me if you can"), deshilado drawn-thread work, cambalache and pensamientos (pansies). The blouse was traditionally worn under an over-blouse; in the 1970s the designs spread to the full-length dresses now sold as wedding dresses. A fine piece can take several months, and in September 2025 the Oaxaca Congress recognised the town's embroidery motifs and techniques as part of its cultural identity. In July 2025 local families opened MUSA, the Museo de San Antonino, a free community museum in a century-old house that shows the oldest embroidered garments in the town.

San Antonino also makes figures and ornaments from flor inmortal (immortelle or everlasting flower), which keeps its colour when dried and is a fixture of Oaxaca's Night of the Radishes in December. The García Mendoza family is known for large ceramic figures, especially mermaids. The calendar is full: carnival, a Palm Sunday offering of farm produce built into a large display for San Salvador, a local Guelaguetza on the Mondays of the Hill in July, the patron saint's feast on 10 May, and Days of the Dead that end on 3 November, when families share a meal beside the flower-covered graves.