The Charro Spirit Survives and Suits Us Well

An early photograph in our family album shows three children in charro outfits. My older brother and sister and I, the first three siblings born in Mexico and brought to the United States, are facing the camera a little uncomfortably, unaware we were about to be captured in a meaningful immigrant moment.

My parents were red-blooded Mexicans from the hot northern regions of cattle and cotton, home to wealthy hacendados and to guerrilla leader Pancho Villa. Surely, they knew why they would have us wear Mexico’s ornate national costume in the cold, snowy town of Tacoma, Wash., where we lived until I was 6. We must have made quite a sight, this tiny trio of traditionalists from Torreon, among the Ozzie-and-Harriet families we suddenly called neighbors.

By dressing us as charros, even just for a Sunday snapshot, our parents were imprinting Mexico on our minds. They understood that their children, eventually eight in all, would become Americanized, a source of both satisfaction and sadness for transplanted people as rooted in their culture as they were. But they also knew the power of the centuries-old charro costume, symbol of Mexican pride and nationalism.

They may as well have draped us in the Mexican flag.

This week, as we celebrate Mexican Independence Day and kick off another Hispanic Heritage Month, hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, throughout Southern California will suit up as charros and charras, an outfit whose origins are said to trace to 16th century Salamanca, the lively Spanish city where Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, spent part of his youth.

Today, Mexican charros wear long tight pants decorated with gold or silver down the sides, a short embroidered coat, big silk bow tie and broad-rimmed hat. The women wear matching apparel with a long, ankle-length skirt, also embroidered.

Most people expect to see such costumes during Mexican holidays, and might assume they’re meant for folkloric dancing or as quaint mariachi get-up.

But the charro really represents a historic persona in Mexico, a national figure who emerged on the old Spanish haciendas and whose skill on horseback made him an invaluable weapon during the war for independence in 1810 and the Mexican Revolution 100 years later.

The charro has been likened to the American cowboy, a facile comparison that ignores deep historical differences. Yes, they were both frontier horsemen whose roping and riding skills are now displayed mostly in rodeos and charreadas. But while the cowboy developed as a rugged individualist in the Wild West, the charro was grounded in a strict colonial system, the hacienda, with its hint of chivalry and its caste distinctions.

The Spaniards, who brought the first horses to Mexico, at first prohibited Indians and criollos from owning them, on penalty of death. In 1619, the Viceroy Luis de Tovar Godinez signed the first permit allowing 20 Indians to “freely mount horses” on the Hacienda de San Javier in the state of Hidalgo, marking the birth of the charro.

Putting horses in the hands of his subjects was the viceroy’s big mistake. Two hundred years later, charros of mixed blood rode alongside Indians as the vanguard for independence led by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the revolutionary priest who sounded church bells as a battle cry for freedom on Sept. 15, 1810.

On the haciendas, the charro developed a distinctly Mexican character, just as he developed a unique riding saddle adapted to his circumstances.

“Charros are noble, loyal and brave to the point of rashness, willing to risk their lives,” writes Guadalupe Silva Corcuera on Mexico Desconocido Virtual, a cultural Web magazine. “Hospitable and sentimental, they sing and dance with great spirit and are drawn to vigorous, dangerous exercise which rely on skill, strength and cool-headedness.”

After the revolution, the haciendas were abolished as a result of agrarian reforms. The charro lifestyle disappeared from the countryside and became instead a national sport, complete with associations and national competitions.

Yet, the charro spirit survives, even among young people like Sandy Garcia, a mariachi singer born and raised in Santa Ana. She speaks English and could pass for just one more Mexican American kid at Santa Ana College.

Until she puts on her elegant charro costume with the transforming powers my parents understood so well.

“When I have that on, trust me, I wear it with so much pride, always my head held up high, bien firme,” Sandy says. “I don’t feel Mexican American anymore. . . . It’s kind of strange, not knowing what it is to live in Mexico, but feeling like a true Mexican.”

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or online at agustin.gurza@latimes.com.