Sound and Color of Mexico’s Soul Take to the Streets : Festivity: San Juan Capistrano’s sixth annual Cinco de Mayo event is a day filled with food, live music and dancing.

Young men dressed as charros and women wearing brightly colored dresses turned the basketball court in front of the city’s library into a dance floor Saturday afternoon in celebration of Mexico’s victory over French forces in 1862.

The women grasped the hem of their adelitas and twirled as their partners tapped their feet to music. Together, they did the Jarabe Tapatio , or Mexican hat dance, and the La Botella around empty glass bottles.

San Juan Capistrano’s sixth annual Cinco de Mayo celebration attracted scores of local Latino residents and others who relaxed to live music and Aztec and folkloric dancing under a clear blue sky and warm temperatures.

“It wakes up the soul of you that is your culture,” Uvaldo Palomares, a 55-year-old doctor from San Juan Capistrano, said as he stood listening to a singer’s words of lost love accompanied by a mariachi band. “I grew up in America, but this is what I was weaned on and I know all the songs by heart.”

A mural depicting Mexico’s heritage--the coming of the Spaniards, the arrival of French forces and the founding of San Juan Capistrano--was the backdrop for a makeshift stage, which spectators climbed on to sing with the band, karaoke -style.

Nearby, vendors selling tacos de carne asada and pozole did a brisk business.

“All the things, I like it,” Martin Vasquez, 37, of San Juan Capistrano said as he pushed his baby’s stroller back and forth.

The Cinco de Mayo festivity in San Juan Capistrano was one of two in South County Saturday. Orange County’s largest ones, held in Fountain Valley’s Mile Square Park and the Santa Ana Civic Center, were postponed or canceled in the wake of the rioting in Los Angeles.

San Juan Capistrano’s first such celebration six years ago was restricted to a 5K run in front of the library and some light entertainment afterward, said Maricella Moreno, chairperson for this year’s event. Now, it attracts dozens of volunteers and professional dancing groups each year, she said.

Veronica Garcia, a 17-year-old student at San Clemente High School, practiced four hours a week to perform as one of 30 dancers in a volunteer group.

“We’re proud of where we come from and want to show everyone down here how beautiful the colors of the dresses are,” she said, showing off her tortoise green adelita , representing one of Mexico’s provinces.

With her mother, three sisters and three nephews, Gigi Aguilar came to watch her 11-year-old niece dance to folkloric music.

“After all the stress and everything going on in L.A., we need to relax and have a good time and love everybody,” said the 48-year-old housekeeper from San Juan Capistrano said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

What she loved best was “the mariachis . . . and the food, of course! The food is authentic. Not like from Taco Bell!”