Wherever you travel in Mexico during September, the tendency can be to feel besieged by myriads of little flags and banners. You’ll see them tied onto car antennas or stuck onto windshields with little plastic suction cups. They will be attached, in large format, to the facades of government buildings, or smaller versions will be flapping in the wind as they hang off the wrought-iron balconies of private homes. And there will be carts in every town, usually around the plaza or market, if not both (depending on the size of the town), laden with fluttering flags of cloth or plastic in the official tri-colors of Mexico, green, white and red.
This is because September is “El mes de la Patria“, a month filled with proud patriotism for every Mexican. It is the month when Mexico celebrates it’s independence from Spain, after three centuries of domination.
Independence Day in Mexico falls on September 16th. The entire celebration starts off, however, the evening before, on September 15th, at the tolling of the bells at the 11th hour, followed by El Grito, the reenactment of Father Miguel Hidalgo’s cry, in the early morning hours of the following day, September 16, 1810, calling the parishioners of Villa Dolores Hidalgo to revolt and thus sparking the series of battles and confrontations that lead to the country’s independence from Spain a decade later.
The ringing of the bells and El Grito are carried out in an official ceremony that is nationally televised and conducted by the current President, usually on the balcony of the National Palace overlooking Mexico City’s main plaza or zocalo. Locally, however, and in towns all over the country, a municipality’s mayor or other high official will perform the ceremony for the townspeople. As El Grito is shouted out, the public responds, enthusiastically echoing the call, and a number of them will inevitably be waving their little flags.
This energetic event is generally followed by elaborate displays of fireworks, in which Mexico is quite expert. Mexicans are particularly fond in the building of “castillos”, or fireworks castles. These are scaffolding-type structures with many movable parts on which fireworks are cleverly strapped in a manner which makes the parts turn or move so that, as one series of fireworks components burns down, the last components of that set spark off the next series, making for an incredible, dancing fireworks show like no other and that, on the night of the 15th, anyway, will so often end up animatedly spelling out “Viva Mexico!”
On the 16th, there is a large military-type parade which, in Mexico City, leaves the Zocalo, heads past the monument to Miguel Hidalgo and proceeds down the Paseo de La Reforma.
More historical notes on this subject are available on our sister site at Surf-Mexico
CEJ 09/08
