A Mother’s Day That Really Puts Mom on a Pedestal

Now that we’re done celebrating Cinco de Mayo, let’s move on to the next major holiday in the Mexican calendar.

Diez de Mayo.

May 10 is Mother’s Day in Mexico. No matter when it lands, weekday or weekend, the entire country mobilizes behind a figure venerated as more than just a loyal companion and devoted caretaker.

She is a national symbol. Some say the Mother of Mexico is the national symbol, in the comforting incarnation of the Virgin of Guadalupe. She is the pregnant Madonna, the very source of Mexican identity. She has inspired spiritual conversions and political rebellions.

Without her, there would be no Mexico.

Americans love their mothers too. As a symbol for nationhood in the United States, however, motherhood ranks with apple pie. Sweet, but hardly of epic proportions.

In this country, there’s a certain unemotional practicality in honoring mothers on the second Sunday of May. How special is that? Everybody already has the day off. And the rituals of the occasion don’t differ all that much from any other day of rest and worship. First church, then brunch. Mom becomes the center of attention for a change, showered with gifts and gratitude.

Then it’s back to the old grind.

Mexico, on the other hand, grinds to a halt on Dia de las Madres. Tomorrow, for example, people will leave their offices and factories at the lunch hour and they won’t return for the rest of the day. Families will gather for big afternoon feasts. Every mariachi in the land will be busy singing “Las Mananitas” to las madrecitas.

Throughout Southern California, many immigrant families still cling to the May 10th tradition. Some people make sure they bring their mothers from Mexico for the occasion, then they stay right through Sunday and celebrate motherhood all over again. The dual dates can be a bonanza for some Mexican restaurants, especially those with a house mariachi.

If you forgot to make reservations, not to worry. You can stop by your local music store and pick up recordings issued just for Mother’s Day. Some by popular artists sell year after year, like Christmas albums in the United States. The songs are often paeans to long-suffering, self-sacrificing mothers, the only kind found in Mexico in the old days.

As the saying goes in Spanish: Madre solo hay una. In other words, you only get one mother per lifetime so you better treat her right.

Thus, with nostalgia and perhaps a tinge of regret, Mexicans hire mariachis to offer graveside serenades to their departed mothers and grandmothers. At Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in the city of Orange, for example, workers often hear the dulcet strains of violins and guitars floating across the grounds on otherwise serene afternoons every 10th of May. Mourners who can’t afford to hire an ensemble sometimes bring guitars and croon in their own voices to their mothers’ memory.

This cult of motherhood has its roots in the cataclysmic conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, whose priests took advantage of indigenous traditions to win converts. It is no coincidence that the Basilica of Guadalupe was first erected on the site of an Aztec shrine to Tonantzin, Our Mother, the goddess of fertility.

It can be said that Mexico as a nation was born when these dual images of motherhood were fused.

Today, another clash of values rages among a new generation of Mexicans growing up in the United States. The firstborn daughters of immigrants are often the ones on the front lines in this cultural conflict. They are torn between two models of womanhood: The old-fashioned Mexican mother and the more liberated, modern woman they discover in the United States.

That dilemma of identity was sharply highlighted in Friday night’s performance in Pasadena of “The Chola, The Cha Cha and The Catholic School Girl.” In a series of monologues written by Maria Elena Fernandez, Linda Gamboa and Consuelo Flores, three women explore the psychic strain of trying to reconcile who they’re taught to be at home with who they want to become.

Parental proscriptions echo throughout the play: In Mexico, girls keep their legs crossed, they dress like ladies and they certainly don’t dance like that!

Inevitably, one character voices her generation’s cry of rebellion: “But we’re not in Mexico anymore, Mom!”

True. Mothers aren’t really saints or virgins, we’ve all come to realize that. But Mexican mothers have much to offer in their imperfect way: stability, fortitude, compassion, selflessness.

As immigrants assimilate, they’d be wise not to lose sight of those enduring maternal strengths. Here, after all, we get both days to celebrate the meaning of motherhood.

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