DEPARTMENTS

Hispanic Holidays: A Grand Legacy from Spain and Mexico ¡Vivan Las Celebraciones!

The multicolored skirts of ballet folk-lorico dancers create a rainbow at twilight as the young performers click their feet and whirl across an open-air stage in Phoe-nix's Civic Plaza. A little girl dressed in the green, white, and red of the Mexican flag watches intently from her grandfather's arms. From a food booth drifts the meaty aroma of carne asada sizzling over an open flame. The bells of a passing ven-dor's pushcart jingle, enticing the crowd with fruit ice bars that quench thirst even on hot evenings like this one in mid-September.At 11:00 P.M., the audience of about 5,000 grows quiet, and a speaker reads, in vivid Spanish, a passionate rallying call to free-dom: the famous Grito de Dolores. Ac-cording to tradition, the Grito first rang out in the town of Dolores in the Mexican state of Guanajuato at 11:00 P.M. on Sep-tember 15, 1810, sparking Mexico's long war for independence from Spain. To-night, in memory of that moment, fire-works light downtown Phoenix as a band plays the throbbing notes of the Mexican national anthem, followed by "The Star-spangled Banner." When the music ends, chorused shouts of ¡Viva! fill the night: "¡Viva la independencia!" - "Long live independence!" "¡Viva la libertad!"-"Long live free-dom!" "¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva America! ¡Viva Phoenix!"

It is Mexican Independence Day, Arizona style. And it is usually celebrated for several days around September 15 and 16. El Dieciseis de Septiembre-September 16-and other Hispanic holidays celebrated in Arizona today are among the most enduring legacies of more than four centuries of Spanish and Mexican ties to this region. From 1539 until 1821, what is now Arizona officially belonged to Spain. When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Arizona remained under Mexican rule until the United States acquired it piecemeal from Mexico in 1848 and 1854. Today approximately one Arizona resident in six has a Spanish or Mexican heritage.

Nowadays even the most traditional Hispanic celebrations in Arizona show some influence from Anglo culture. Often, in deference to contemporary work schedules, festivities take place on the week-end before or after a holiday's official date. And as one grandmother observes, "Things just haven't been the same since television came."

Yet these special celebrations retain enough of their original flavor for outsiders to recognize them clearly as reflections of other eras and other ways of looking at the world. From the Day of the Dead to the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe to El Cinco de Mayo and Independence Day, Hispanic holidays in Arizona brim

(LEFT) A ballet folklorico troupe performs the popular Baile de los Viejitos (Dance of the Little Old Men) during the Fiestas Patrias celebration at the Phoenix Civic Plaza.

(BELOW) Two young ladies of a ballet folklorico group, in full costume, await their turn to go on stage.

With the enthusiasm of the old Spanish saying, “Life deserves to be lived.” They also provide an opportunity for families to have fun together. “Hispanics are very family oriented, and for us these holidays have always been family events,” stresses Romelia Carbajal, past president of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Of the five major Mexican political historical holidays, only September 15-16 (often called Las Fiestas Patrias here) and May 5 are widely celebrated in Arizona. Cinco de Mayo marks the anniversary of an important battle between Mexican sol diers and French troops in 1862. Most regions of Mexico celebrate May 5 less lavishly than Independence Day. But in Arizona, businesses frequently tie ad vertising campaigns to the former, focus ing public attention on May 5; and Mexican-Americans often point out that Cinco de Mayo has, ironically, become more prominent in Arizona than it is in Mexico. Major Cinco de Mayo and Dieciseis de Septiembre celebrations take place in Tucson and Phoenix; Nogales, Flagstaff, Eloy, Yuma, Globe-Miami, and other communities often celebrate one holiday or both. Festivities may include Fireworks, parades, parties, mariachi mu sic, spicy Mexican foods, and the honor ing of elegant “royalty.” At the heart of the entertainment come the lively dances of ballet folklorico groups.

Political and historical pageantry aside, these colorful dance groups probably form the single most eye-catching feature of Cinco de Mayo and Independence Day. Dancing in the gazebo in the Main Street Park in Eloy in honor of September 15-16, the Ballet Folklorico Cielito Lindo of Casa Grande is a typical group. Twenty animated young people, ranging in age from 3 to 17, perform traditional Mexican folk dances from such exotic-sounding places as Nayarit, Veracruz, Jalisco, and Michoacan. In one dance, the young men wave mock machetes. In another a young man and a young woman balance glasses of water on their heads as they dance cautiously but gracefully, their hands on their hips. In a third, the performers glide barefoot across the wooden stage. In other dances, the young women swish and swirl their beautifully decorated full skirts-12 yards of cloth in a short skirt; 18 yards in a long one.Supported by dedicated parents who sew their costumes, pay their bills, and transport them to practices and perfor mances, the young people in ballet folk lorico groups learn about and preserve a heritage that might otherwise be lost. Ex Explains one hard-working parent organizer, Dora Vasquez, who has two children in the Ballet Folklorico Cielito Lindo, “My kids don’t speak Spanish. This is the only [traditional] culture they get.” These heritage-rich dance groups some times serve an even more pragmatic func tion. Jesus Flores Osuna, a full-blooded Yaqui Indian who proudly describes him self as “one hundred percent American, Mexican, and Indian” and helps direct the Ballet Folklorico Mirasol from Guadalupe, explains, “One of our major goals is to keep the young people busy. To keep them out of trouble and off drugs. So far, in eight years none of them have gone before the judge except to say, ‘I do.’ Although Cinco de Mayo and Dieciseis de Septiembre attract more attention in the media, the Day of Our Lady of Gua dalupe is probably the most widely cel ebrated traditional Mexican-American holiday across the state. Officially Decem ber 12, the observance honors a woman of powerful and complex symbolism, Our Lady of Guadalupe, occasionally still known by the Aztec name Tonantzin.In the early years after the conquest of Mexico by Spain in 1519-1521, the Span iards destroyed the Indians’ traditional religious shrines, including a temple on the hill at Tepeyac dedicated to the god dess Tonantzin, whom the Aztecs wor shipped as the mother of the gods. There, says tradition, a woman appeared in a vision to a poor Aztec convert to Christianity, Juan Diego, in December, 1531. Indian in appearance, the apparition declared that she was Mary, the mother of the Christian Jesus. She called Juan Diego her son, too, and asked him to tell the bishop to build a church to honor her on the hill at Tepeyac. When the bishop repeatedly rejected Juan Diego, the woman gave the Indian a sign for the skeptical cleric: a tilma (cloak) full of Castilian roses blooming out of season among the cactus on the hill. When Juan Diego delivered the flowers, a radiant painting of the woman appeared on his cloak. The bishop pronounced it a miracle, and in time the Indian woman on the hill became known in the Catholic faith as Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron and protectress of the Americas. Today many people accept the story literally and focus on its religious signif-icance. Others consider the tale an alle-gory. Although Our Lady of Guadalupe is first and foremost a religious figure in both Catholic and Aztec tradition, her sig-nificance extends far beyond that: into politics, history, folk history, humanistic psychology, social justice, and feminism.

Politically, she stands for the triumph of the powerless over the powerful, of the weak over the strong. Historically, the rallying cry of the Grito de Dolores proclaimed, “Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe and death to bad government.” In folk history, the Lady is one of the symbols of the origin of the Mexican people, who eventually emerged as a complex, widely varying blend of Indian and Euro-pean. In terms of humanistic psychology, she stands for the power of persistence and love, and the integration of the male and female components of the psyche. In a social context, she represents equal-ity and acceptance for all, the common bond that unites humanity. And in femi-nist terms, she symbolizes the power of women. Among the vivas you will hear in Arizona on the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the heartfelt call, “¡Viva la mujer hispana!” “Long live the Hispanic woman!” Around the state today, processions, church services, pageants, dances, par-ties, mariachi serenades, vigils, and feasts pay tribute to the Lady. In parochial schools, children make paper flowers in her honor. Residents of the town of San Manuel display a banner that depicts the Americas and proposes, “Solo un idioma, el idioma del amor,” “Only one language, the language of love.” In Solomon the festivities include a predawn serenade (“Las Mañanitas”), a tasty breakfast of menudo (tripe soup), the coronation of a queen with a crown made in Portugal, and a grand march led by elders of the community. In Yuma, Mesa, Guadalupe, and other communities, matachines dancers perform in Guadalupe's honor.

If the food, the pageantry, or the symbolism (religious or secular) doesn't captivate you on the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, then the ancient tradition of the matachines dances may. Like Guadalupe herself, these dances-which depict the age-old theme of the struggle between good and evil-have a long and complex heritage. According to tradition, when the Moors invaded the Iberian Peninsula, they brought a dance from Arabic north Africa that evolved, in medieval Spain, into the popular matachines dance. The Spanish in turn brought the dance to the New World, where the Indians of Mexico and New Mexico incorporated it into similar rituals of their own. Today, in addition to the well-known Yaqui Indian matachines, a less publicized but equally authentic non-Yaqui matachines tradition survives in Arizona, along with the striking music long associated with it. The ornaments on the costumes clink and tinkle with each move, and the dancers sometimes yip like coyotes as they perform ritual steps which on both sides of their heritage - the European-Moorish and the New World Indian-may be thousands of years old.

But the tradition, the music, and the costumes have evolved considerably, too, even in recent years. In Yuma, Josie Ramos Grijalva, 62, who first learned the matachines dance when she was only 5, remembers customs her family dance group no longer observes. “In the middle of the night, we used to act like we killed the Viejo [one of the dancers]. Beforehand, my mom would put a sack of tamales inside his shirt, and after we 'killed' him, we used to eat the tamales and pretend we were eating him up.” Tamales, of course, survive outside the matachines tradition as a popular holiday food, especially at Christmas time. Before the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrations end, Christmas festivities and customs begin, including earnest discussions of the best way to make the Christmas tamales. (“When you make your meat, don't put an ocean of water in it,” advises colorful Tucson television personality Doña Chona.) And Nacimientos, Nativity scenes, appear in early December. Terra cotta figures of Mexican peasants busy with the routines of rural daily life fill the Tucson Museum of Art's popular Nacimiento, a complex scene arranged by Maria Luisa Tena in memory of her mother.

In the past, several pageants, all dating to the days of the medieval mystery plays of Spain, enlivened the Christmas season, too. Of these, only Las Posadas remains widespread in Arizona. In this song-filled drama, often reenacted for nine nights before Christmas Eve at different homes around a community or neighborhood,

COMING YOUR WAY IN THE MONTHS AHEAD

Arizona Highways celebrates a century of archeological investigation. We lead off with reminiscences of Dr. Emil Haury, whose long and distinguished career has made him the dean of South-western archeologists. We visit several major Anasazi sites, tour some Hohokam exhibits, and learn how modern-day grave robbers are literally stealing the past out from under us. In September.

With the arrival of autumn, we're off to visit eastern Arizona. First stop: the farming and trading center of Safford. Nearby rise the towering heights of Mount Graham. After pausing to absorb the sights and sounds of two historic copper-mining towns, we visit the wilds of Blue River, where mountain-country dwellers carry on pioneer traditions in an outback of evergreen forest. In October.

Nature's Arizona is the theme as we probe the mysteries and marvels of our state's physical geography and natural history. How well-or poorly - are we teaching our children about the special qualities of this favored environ-ment? Arizona boasts both bears and hummingbirds, and we'll focus on some of them. We conclude with a plea from a prize-winning writer for a return to a more sensible and civilized land ethic. In November.

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(BELOW) Singing hymns around a portable Nativity scene concludes a Christmas celebration in Sahuarita, south of Tucson.

Maria and Jose (Mary and Joseph) search for a place to stay as the birth of Jesus (pronounced, in Spanish, hay-soos) approaches.

Once the pilgrims find lodging, a fiesta often ensues. Celebrations vary. A Posadas fiesta on a chilly, star-filled night in Sahuarita, at the home of Concepcion (Connie) and Ricardo Ronquillo, illustrates the possibilities. Between their work at the family bakery and the interlocking lives they share with their children and grandchildren, who live in what the family calls a "nest" arrangement all around them, the Ronquillos have no more spare time than most people, but they still cherish the old traditions. Today, December 22, the eighth day of the Posadas, Connie has been cooking menudo since 8:00 A.M. ("It tastes better when it cooks slow," she points out.) Ricardo has baked special pastries and breads: pan de huevo, cuernos, pastelitos de leche. Their youngest daughter, Carmen, 16, has lined their long driveway with luminarias, candles glowing softly in sand-laden paper bags.

As the Posadas pageant and the short religious service that follows come to an end, the crowd of about 40 friends, family members, and neighbors who fill the small Ronquillo home settle in to enjoy the food and the music. Ricardo picks up his saxophone. His friends join in with guitar, violin, vibuela, accordion, and guitarron. Though they've all worked all day at their respective jobs, they play the villancicos (Christmas carols), corridos, rancheras, and other popular songs with enthusiasm and a complete disregard for the clock. The tequila runs low as the music and the songs evoke other days, other lives. After a while, Ricardo puts his saxophone down and, poking gentle fun at the stereotypes that flourished in Arizona from the last century into this, observes with an ironic smile, "We're just a bunch of wild Mexicans."

Variations on the Posadas theme abound. In Yuma, religious, business, civic, and historical groups work together to present a colorful one-night city-wide Posadas celebration. At Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, children from an orphanage in Nogales, Sonora, enact Las Posadas. And 1987 will mark the 50th anniversary of a special Posadas tradition at Tucson's Carrillo Intermediate Magnet School, a public school where a dedicated teacher, Marguerite Collier, revived this ancient pageant for her Mexican-American pupils half a century ago. In recent years, Carrillo schoolchildren from many ethnic backgrounds, now coached by adults who themselves took part in the Carrillo Posadas as children, have performed Las Posadas for the general public at the late artist Ted De Grazia's Gallery in the Sun. For many Hispanics, Christmas is also a time to remember dead relatives. Poinsettias, candles, miniature Christmas trees, candies, and presents decorate graves in cemeteries around the state. But the real holiday in honor of the dead comes at the beginning of November, officially on November 2, El Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, in a tradition that blends Indian and European motifs. In many parts of Mexico, the Day of the Dead blossoms with lavish festivities emphasizing the joy of living and the omnipresence of death. In Sonora, the Mexican state with the closest ties to Arizona, the Day of the Dead is more subdued and is largely a family affair. In the border towns of Nogales and Agua Prieta, for instance, families gather in the camposantos, or cemeteries, to clean plots, paint gravestones, erect new markers, eat picnics, and socialize with the living and the dead. Hordes of little boys offer to clean graves with buckets of water they've lugged from the well, and mariachi bands play at graveside. Inside the cemeteries and at their gates, vendors hawk foods, flowers, gadgets, parrots, sugar cane, and other wares.

time to remember dead relatives. Poinsettias, candles, miniature Christmas trees, candies, and presents decorate graves in cemeteries around the state. But the real holiday in honor of the dead comes at the beginning of November, officially on November 2, El Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, in a tradition that blends Indian and European motifs. In many parts of Mexico, the Day of the Dead blossoms with lavish festivities emphasizing the joy of living and the omnipresence of death. In Sonora, the Mexican state with the closest ties to Arizona, the Day of the Dead is more subdued and is largely a family affair. In the border towns of Nogales and Agua Prieta, for instance, families gather in the camposantos, or cemeteries, to clean plots, paint gravestones, erect new markers, eat picnics, and socialize with the living and the dead. Hordes of little boys offer to clean graves with buckets of water they've lugged from the well, and mariachi bands play at graveside. Inside the cemeteries and at their gates, vendors hawk foods, flowers, gadgets, parrots, sugar cane, and other wares.

In Arizona, only a few vendors selling flowers appear in the cemeteries today, though within recent memory food vendors still came, too, building fires to cook their fare. But the Day of the Dead continues to be an important holiday for Hispanic Arizonans, and many families gather in the cemeteries to spruce up plots and decorate graves in activities reminiscent of the Sonoran communities. Here, too, in nice weather people stay for a leisurely picnic at graveside. Sometimes small boys kick soccer balls among the gravestones, and parents recount stories to their children about family members no longer living.

In Tucson, for instance, Julie Frias and her husband, Albert, take their four children to the cemetery to visit the graves of the children's grandparents. "We talk to them [the deceased] as if they were there, just reminiscing, as if they were never really gone, and the children talk with them, too," says Julie. The Frias children learn about the exploits of their father's father, "Tata Chuy," a miner they never knew, and about the early life of their Cleaning and painting grave markers and generally decorating grave sites are special tasks reserved for families on el Dia de los Muertos, "the Day of the Dead."

In Tucson recently, quinceañeras festivities honored sisters Anna Margarita and Yvette Monica Soto and their cousin Katherine Maria Garcia. (CLOCKWISE, FROM ABOVE) The Court of Honor gathers at the home of Jose and Cecilia Soto. Yvette and her grandmother Lucy Cardenas share a moment for a special gift. A Mass for the young ladies is offered by the Rev. Cyprian Killackey. Back home, flower girl Amber Watkins and ber escort, Luis Torres, steal the show.

grandmother, “Nana Pita,” who married her adventurous miner husband when she was just 15. “We don't want to lose our roots,” Julie emphasizes, echoing many other Hispanic parents around the state. “We've tried to instill a lot of the traditions, even though sometimes the children think it's wacky.” In Phoenix, Chicanos Por La Causa, a community development organization, presents a special Day of the Dead program that includes sugar skulls, pan de muerto (a special bread), and other traditions long practiced in some parts of Mexico but less common in Arizona. In Mesa, Xicanindio, an organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of ethnic arts, presents an innovative “Celebration of Life” for the Day of the Dead in Pioneer Park on the first Sunday of November. Masked performers depict “Enchanted Skulls,” and the event overflows with music, dances, and pageantry. Says artist-musician El Zarco Guerrero, “This is our own interpretation of the Day of the Dead. We want to create something based on cultural roots but in a contemporary situation.” Another major celebration that still survives in Arizona is the quinceañera tradition, a rite of passage in honor of a girl's 15th birthday. Folk history traces the quinceañeras back to Aztec rituals. Today the festivities include special religious ceremonies, ballroom dances, parties, and careful training in tradition. Says Velia Morelos, who instructs young women and the escorts and friends who accompany them, “A woman going into her 15th birthday needs to understand the important role she will play in today's society. We talk about identity and about our connection with our ancestors.” Besides the traditional family, or private, quinceañera celebrations, the Vesta Club in Phoenix and the League of Mexican-American Women in Tucson sponsor elaborate group quinceañera events. Both organizations use the quinceañera festivities to raise funds for scholarships for Hispanic college students.

Other traditions that continue strong today include Phoenix's popular formal Black-and-White Ball, believed by some to date back to Maximilian's rule of Mexico in the 1860s. The charreada, somewhat similar to American-style rodeos, though by no means the same, survives in Phoenix, Tucson, and Yuma; and the Asociacion De Charros El Herradero pre-sents charreadas every other Sunday in Phoenix. In Tucson, historic San Agustín's Day and La Fiesta del Presidio (formerly La Fiesta de la Placita) have evolved into celebrations widely enjoyed by the community at large. Chicanos Por La Causa in Phoenix has recently revived the Christ-mas Pastorela pageant tradition. Many other community, neighborhood, and par-ish festivities also take place around the state. Sometimes known as El Día de los Amigos (Friends' Day) or La Fiesta de la Amistad (Festival of Friendship), such celebrations often raise money for worthy causes and, as one celebrant puts it, “give us a chance to get together, make new friends, and patch up differences with old friends.” sents charreadas every other Sunday in Phoenix. In Tucson, historic San Agustín's Day and La Fiesta del Presidio (formerly La Fiesta de la Placita) have evolved into celebrations widely enjoyed by the community at large. Chicanos Por La Causa in Phoenix has recently revived the Christmas Pastorela pageant tradition. Many other community, neighborhood, and parish festivities also take place around the state. Sometimes known as El Día de los Amigos (Friends' Day) or La Fiesta de la Amistad (Festival of Friendship), such celebrations often raise money for worthy causes and, as one celebrant puts it, “give us a chance to get together, make new friends, and patch up differences with old friends.” Through all these special holidays, festivities, and celebrations large and small around the year run the common themes of tradition, heart-warming friendliness, strong family bonds, joie de vivre, and the oft-repeated reminder not to forget “where we come from, where we are, and where we're going.” After the celebrations end, after the sounds of the last “¡Viva!” fade away, they continue vividly as memories. When I close my eyes and let my mind drift, I am back again at the table at Connie and Ricardo Ronquillo's house in Sahuarita. The second bowl of Connie's menudo tastes as good as the first, and I wonder if Ricardo would give me his recipe for one of the Christmas breads. Drops of perspiration shine on the foreheads of the musicians. A pink cloth rose jiggles on the head of a guitar. The band plays “Sonora Querida,” “Beloved Sonora,” one more time, at my request. I soak in all the warmth, love, tradition, and heritage radiating in that crowded room and remember the wise words of popular Mexican President Benito Juárez, who more than a century ago observed, “El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz,” “Respect for the rights of others is peace.”