Mexican fiesta will let visitors ‘see history and participate in it.’

The South Bay will revisit its Spanish and Mexican heritage Sunday.

In Carson, the occasion will be a free Mexican Independence Day celebration at Dolphin Park, 21205 S. Water St., from noon to 6 p.m. “We want to give people a sample of the culture of the Mexican heritage,” said Glenn Salas, park director, who said the fiesta--now in its 12th year--has been growing steadily and drew 1,500 people last year.

Across the South Bay, a remnant of history, a 150-year old adobe ranch home, will be in the spotlight during the annual free Centinela Adobe Fiesta, where people are encouraged to wear sombreros, mantillas and shawls to help turn back the clock to rancho days.

“We want people to see history, to participate in the way it used to be,” said Christina Machado Essex, fiesta chairman and great-great-granddaughter of Ignacio Machado, who built the adobe in the early 1830s, raising corn and cultivating 6,000 grapevines on his ranch.

The fiesta will be from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday at the adobe, 7634 Midfield Ave., on the Westchester-Inglewood boundary.

The Carson celebration marks “el 16 de septiembre, “ the day in 1810 that Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla urged the peasants of Mexico to revolt against three centuries of Spanish Colonial rule. Although it took 11 years to defeat Spain, the day of the priest’s exhortation is regarded as the birth of independent Mexico.

Entertainment at the park will be, as Salas puts it, “all Mexican”--from colorfully costumed folkloric dancers drawing their music and dances from various Mexican states to popular Latino music played by the Sabor band.

The headliner is Mari Jimenez, a Mexican-born singer of ranchero music, Mexico’s equivalent of country-Western, who will be joined by a mariachi group.

Sports will be almost as visible as music and dancing at the celebration, with a boxing exhibition and youth soccer tournament on tap.

Visitors will be able to enjoy carnival games, buy a variety of arts and crafts and munch on Mexican foods--that is, if they don’t bring their own family picnics.

Salas said teen-agers will have an area all to themselves at the fiesta, complete with dancing to a live DJ, and contests--ice-cream eating, tortilla tossing and dancing.

The park director said a Mexican-themed celebration is a natural for Carson, which not only has a large Latino population of its own, but draws people from Wilmington and the harbor area.

“It’s just been getting bigger and bigger,” he said.

Folkloric dancing and music also will be a highlight at the Centinela Adobe Festival, where the youthful 10-member Danzes de Tierra will perform dances of Northern Mexico and Veracruz state in front of the tree-shaded adobe.

“We really enjoy dancing for this group because these people are really into history,” said group leader Yolanda Hernandez.

Gladys Waddingham, a founder of the Historical Society of Centinela Valley, which maintains the adobe, said the fiesta was started in 1972 as a way of bringing the community closer to its heritage. The adobe is known as the birthplace of Inglewood.

After its construction by Machado, the place had a variety of owners, the most famous being Daniel Freeman, who bought the house and its surrounding 25,000 acres for $140,000 in gold in 1885. He later turned 11,000 acres into a settlement that grew into the city of Inglewood.

Sunday’s fiesta will give people a chance to pretend it’s the old days, according to Essex. They’ll be able to make butter on an old hand-operated churn and grind coffee on an antique grinder. There will be demonstrations of porcelain-doll painting, lace making and spinning. Women will make tortillas by hand, and Mexican pan dulce will be on sale.

Such special historical exhibits as Indian artifacts and quilts will be presented, and the permanent attractions of the adobe, with its thick walls and low ceilings, will be on view. Among them are furniture, musical instruments, portraits, dolls, leather hatboxes and the bric-a-brac of decades.

Visitors will be able to tour the two other buildings on the adobe grounds. One is a research center, decorated in Victorian paneling and decorative glass taken from the demolished Daniel Freeman Mansion, and housing a variety of displays and historic photos. The second building is the former Freeman land office, a circular wooden structure with a wide veranda and artifacts of Freeman’s land development and other business activities.

Said Essex: “We want people to see history, see the way it was, and to participate in it. We may be able to go to the moon, but we still need to be involved in our history.”