Celebrating Mexico's Independence Day Under the Long Shadow of a Giant Wall Tamara Pearson - CounterPunch
go to original September 16, 2016

The horns I can hear reverberating around the streets aren’t from football fans streaming out after a match: its the sound of Mexico’s independence night approaching. But with thousands of disappeared people, high unemployment, and privatized services on the one hand, and racist attacks on Mexico and Mexicans on the other hand, celebrating the country is not so straight forward.

My neighbor said she would be having a quiet dinner of pozole – a traditional soup often eaten on Independence Day – with her family, while others told me they would be protesting.

Tonight, the state governor here in Puebla will remember the independence heroes at 11pm from the main balcony of the Municipal Palace with a grito (shout of independence), and many people will set off their firecrackers and smash painted eggs against their heads, while in the capital, thousands are already marching, calling for President Enrique Pena Nieto to resign. Tomorrow, formal civic-military marches will be held around the country.

With 60 percent of the country working in the informal sector – mostly selling goods in the streets or on transport, the national day is also an opportunity to earn some extra cash, and today the streets are full of people selling fire crackers, sombreros of all sizes, flags, mustaches, braids, giant soft toy chilies in sombreros and holding cans of tequila, hair ribbons, flag colored horns, handicrafts, flavored pulque, wigs, chalupas and burgers, figurines, and the painted eggs.

The butcher is wearing his sombrero with a Mexican-flag ribbon around it, waiters have Mexican flag bow-ties, and there’s papel picado (perforated paper ) adorning shop fronts and the streets.

But Limberth Villanueva didn’t feel that there was much to celebrate. People celebrate Independence Day “out of habit, like Christmas. It’s an excuse to eat and drink. It’s increasingly distant from its origins,” he said. And, rather than independent, Mexico is “dependent, reliant, and obedient, (especially) now with globalized economic neocolonialism”.

“We live under a government that has sold our country,” Jessie Cedillo told me.

On the other hand, with the likes of Donald Trump calling Mexicans “rapists”, perhaps being proud of the country, if not the government, is worth something.

Read the rest at CounterPunch

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