Metro Etiopía / Plaza de la Transparencia

In 1954, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, visited Mexico, commemorating several events. Chief among these was that, following the 1935 war started by Italy in Ethiopia, Mexico was one of only a few League of Nations member countries to strongly condemn the subsequent invasion by the European fascist country. After the end of WWII and Selassie's return to Ethiopia in 1941, it would become the first African country that Mexico established relations with in 1949. When the Negus (Emperor) was in Mexico, he visited the Teotihuacán pyramids, Cuernavaca and several locations in Mexico City, leading to an iconic picture in which he wore a sombrero charro, and he attended the unveiling of Plaza Etiopía.

Originally a traffic circle featuring greenery, Plaza Etiopía was reciprocated by Haile Selassie in 1958 with the opening of Addis Ababa's Mexico Square. The Mexico City traffic circle was demolished in the 1970s to make way for this metro station opened by then-president José López Portillo in 1980. The Plaza Etiopía inauguration plaque was installed within what would be called Metro Etiopía. Following the Mexican trend of adding logos to public transport systems, this station's logo would be a lion, which now appears multiple times in tiles all over its walls. A fairly similar story happened with the Ethiopian capital's Mexico Square, as it was demolished in the 2010s to make way for the city's light rail system, which would also get a Mexico station as a legacy.

In 2009, the "Plaza de la Transparencia" name was added to the station with the opening of the nearby headquarters of Mexico's governmental organization in charge of transparency, access to information, and data privacy. The name change reminds us of the importance of legacy in names, with this metro station celebrating an important international connection across the Atlantic and the personalities behind it. While Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1974 and died under mysterious circumstances the next year, he is remembered as one of the most important African leaders in recent history. His title as Rasta Fari is the namesake of the Rastafari religion, many followers of which consider him to be the divine figure of Jah.