Mexican Independence Fest Draws 100,000 to East L.A.

Juan Arellano, who moved to California more than 50 years ago, does not know if he will ever see his Mexican homeland again, but he, his family and more than 100,000 others were treated to glimpses of Arellano’s heritage in an East Los Angeles parade Sunday that celebrated the 178th anniversary of the “Grito de Dolores.”

“This holiday is to Mexicans what the Fourth of July is to Americans,” said Arellano. The retired railroad worker was waving a yellow balloon in one hand and a red, white and green Mexican flag in the other. “The parade reminds us all of where we came from, and that there’s no place like home.”

In 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla of the city of Dolores roused his peasant congregation to take up clubs, axes and knives against the Spanish monarchy, which had ruled Mexico for more than three centuries. The priest’s speech came to be known as “Grito de Dolores,” or the “cry from Dolores.”

Ten years later, the Mexicans had won their independence.

Indian Dancers

Sunday’s parade, which trekked seven miles along 1st Street in East Los Angeles, featured Indian dancers costumed in glistening silver and gold robes. Their anklets of dried nuts rattled with every step, audible over the trumpets and guitars of mariachis dressed in short-waisted jackets, tight black pants and sombreros.

Young women swooned over Mexican movie stars like Parade Grand Marshal Richard Iniquez and the singing group Menudo, and men threw their fists in the air and shouted “Viva la Independencia” when military bands marched by blaring national battle hymns.

Mexican beauty queens smiled at the crowd from 30-foot floats made of colored plastics. Romeo Flores, Mexico’s consul here, and other dignitaries waved at the crowd from convertibles decorated with red and green streamers.

As Flores rode by, about 30 protesters yelled in Spanish at him, demanding the appointment of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, of the National Democratic Front, as president of the country.

Cardenas was recently defeated by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who the protesters feel cheated his way into office.

“The real winner of the election was Cardenas,” said Antonio Trejo of Panorama City. “Those votes were not tallied fairly. We want to see Cardenas as president by the first of the year.”

The protest drew little support from the crowd, because most were too wrapped up in the festive mood to pay much attention.

Mexico for a Day

“For the day, this is Mexico,” said Leonarda Ochoa, 50, who has come to the parade every year since she moved here from Mexico 18 years ago. “I get a chance to remember how beautiful it was.”

Sal Lopez, 74, a 5-foot 4-inch dynamo whose parents immigrated from Mexico in 1921, has organized this parade for the last 25 years from an office in his pet and garden store and has attended it for twice as many years.

“When the parade was first organized, it was nothing but a bunch of brewing companies that put a couple of Mexican flags on their trucks and drove down 1st Street, but as the Mexican population here increases, the parade gets bigger and bigger,” he said.

Patriotic Memories

At a taco stand in Belvedere Park where the parade ended, Laura Echeverria, 34, said: “For me and most Mexicans (who are) my age, this holiday is very important--it’s like a remembrance of those poor people who died so their kids could be free. But to the young people, this is just another party.”

Younger people, apparently more interested in hanging out with their friends, tended to cluster toward the back of the crowd.

“The fighting was so long ago. I wasn’t there, so why should I care so much?” asked Andy Carranza, 15, a student at Garfield High School.

“Yeah, we’re here to see the girls,” added Andy’s friend, Jesus Cajiola, a 13-year-old-student at Stevenson Junior High School.

Molly Liere, a 14-year-old Van Nuys student whose family moved here from Mexico three years ago, said, “We are in America now, so we should start following American traditions, shouldn’t we?”

Dressed in designer jeans, with her hair moussed so that the auburn tips stood straight up on their ebony roots, Molly added, “Besides, who cares what it all means, as long as we can get together and have fun?”

Tony Garcia, a 15-year-old member of the Belvedere Allstars, a community baseball team, said he was excited about the festivities because it gave him a chance to see all his teammates, but when asked about the significance of the holiday, he shrugged his shoulders and said: “I don’t know nothing about it. I got a ‘D’ in history.”