Each of Mexico’s States Will Be Showcased at Independence Day Parade in Santa Ana
Groups representing every state in Mexico will parade through the streets of Santa Ana today to celebrate Mexican Independence Day.
The parade, which attracted more than 50,000 spectators last year, is a trip from the jungles of Chiapas to the fair of San Marcos” in Aguascalientes state, said Socorro Sarmiento, a representative of the Mexican Consulate in Santa Ana. “It is a way to know Mexico without going all the way there.”
The Santa Ana parade is more than just generically Mexican; it reflects the nuances of each of the 31 Mexican states plus its federal district, which includes Mexico City.
A group from Mexico City has re-created a flowered boat typical of those that take passengers around the canals of Xochimilco.
The Aguascalientes state delegation raised money through raffles of Tupperware and a painting of the Last Supper to bring the state dance company. Dancers will wear typical lace-embroidered dresses with scenes from the annual San Marcos fair.
Immigrants from Michoacan will present dancers dressed in corn husks and others wearing intricately decorated 4-foot-high masks.
Natives of Oaxaca have organized a theatrical presentation that includes a man dressed as Benito Juarez, a Zapotec Indian from Oaxaca popularly regarded as the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico.
Because Juarez worked as a shepherd as a child, the Oaxaca float also includes a child dressed as Juarez tending live sheep.
The event “makes me feel incredibly proud to be from Oaxaca and be able to carry on history,” said Guillermina Reyes, who heads the Orange County Oaxacan Federation.
The parade begins at 4 p.m. at Main and 15th streets and ends a few blocks from downtown Santa Ana.
Also in Santa Ana, the separately organized Mexican Independence Day festival, which last year drew 210,000 people, will run today and Sunday on Broadway between French and 4th streets.
The call for Mexican independence was first uttered by Father Miguel Hidalgo on Sept. 16, 1810. He rang the church bell to gather his congregation, then called for independence and the exile or arrest of all Spaniards in Mexico.
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