Choose your Hero: Miguel Hidalgo and September 16

The first national holiday wheeled around, landing on a Wednesday, breaking up school as it broke up the thunderstorms that had been skulking about for days.

September 16 is Independence Day in Mexico. On the preceding day at school we had corralled the kids into the central patio for a flag ceremony, involving marching and saluting and the withering eye of the school director. Long strips of the Mexican red and white and green covered the city. Sombrero pedlars had been dragging their carts about the city for weeks.

On the eve of the 16th people gather in plazas all over Mexico, and at 11pm commemorate the cry of liberty. In Mexico City’s monster Zocalo the president leads the cry, and is echoed by cries of Viva! from thousands and thousands of throats. He vivas liberty, he vivas the heroes and martyrs of Mexican independence, and last and most emphatically he vivas Mexico itself, again and again, accompanied by the roar of his people. Then the bell ringing and fireworks commence.

All that shouting and bellringing is intended as a kind of grand re-enactment of Miguel Hidalgo’s first cry of liberty. In 1810 on the night of the 15th Hidalgo stood outside his parish church and decried the colonial Spanish government, declaring death to the Spaniards and the birth of a new and egalitarian Mexico.

Less than a year later, though, Hidalgo had been captured, executed, dismembered and exhibited. Independence from Spain was still ten years away for Mexico. A number of other figureheads for the revolution arose; virtually all of them were at some point exiled from Mexico. Many were executed during or after the war.

So why Hidalgo? Why celebrate the beginning of the war of independence and not the end of it? Next year Mexico will celebrate its bicentenary, again basing the date on Hidalgo’s cry for freedom and not on the actual advent of Mexican independence. Bolivia did the same thing earlier this year, leapfrogging all its neighbours by counting its anniversary from the beginning of its struggle, not the end of it.

Perhaps the reason is that Agustin de Iturbide, who you could say ended the war of independence, was not the radical that Hidalgo was; he became the first emperor of Mexico, his new country representing little of the equality that Hidalgo had envisioned (Iturbide was also executed).

Perhaps by dying early in the struggle Hidalgo evaded the fate of Iturbide, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and Porfirio Diaz, all of whom started as military heroes and ended up as deposed tyrants. Hidalgo started the war but didn’t have to finish it, didn’t have to stitch together an awkward harmony out of the disparate elements of the independence movement. He didn’t have to govern; he was already dead and popular.

Perhaps Hidalgo’s charisma and personality are what have immortalised him. An errant priest who read French enlightenment texts, spoke indigenous languages and fathered two children, Hidalgo exemplified all of the quirks that a hero of the people could need.

Whatever the reason, the hero has been chosen, and his cry has been immortalised with a national holiday. The holiday should fall on the 15th, but the date too has been chosen; the 15th was already booked for the aforementioned Porfirio Diaz’s birthday (which is no longer significant). Figures like Diaz rise and fall but Hidalgo remains forever the hero of the independence he never knew.

Guadalajara is the home of…

…Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán

Probably the most despicable of the Spanish conquistadors, Guzmán arrived in Mexico after most of the initial conquering had taken place. He defamed Hernán Cortés and insinuated himself into (very corrupt) government, before marching into the west to pillage, torture, enslave and slaughter – accounts of his rampage read like a Cormac McCarthy novel. He also found time to found a few settlements, before he was arrested and spent his remaining days in a Spanish prison. The most significant settlement was given the name of his birthplace in Spain – Guadalajara.

…Mariachis

Traditionally a large band of spiffily-dressed troubadours playing all string instruments, mariachi culture has evolved to include brass instruments and groups of varying sizes and styles. They still wear big hats, and still tend to make their living serenading lovers, or playing weddings and 15^th birthdays (although they can be hired on the spot for any occasion from the plazas in which they congregate).

…The Mexican Hat Dance

Mexico’s national dance, the Jarabe Tapatío is a relatively recent invention; the musical medley was composed in the 19^th century and the standard choreography was developed in the early 20^th century. The dance is (of course) one of courtship, the man approaching and dazzling the woman with his machismo, then disgracing himself with drunkenness, before recovering to conquer his woman (is there any other narrative?).

…Tequila (almost)

The real home of tequila is Tequila, sixty kilometers from Guadalajara. Although the blue agave plant had long been used to produce modestly alcoholic beverages, it was Hernán Cortés that introduced distilling to the area (before Guzmán ruined his fun), sealing the area’s celebrity fate and putting it forever on the booze world map.

…José Clement Orozco

One of Mexico’s big three social-realist muralists, Orozco was born in Guadalajara and is now buried there. Influenced by Goya, Orozco’s murals are grand, bleak things, eschewing idealistic themes such as the triumphs of socialist man in favour of depicting human suffering and struggle; “instead of red and yellow sunsets I painted pestilential shadows… and instead of nude Indians, drunk women and men”. His doom and gloom style can be found in most of Guadalajara’s most famous buildings.

…Gael García Bernal

Politically aware, down-to-earth, multilingual chicmagnet who has played Che Guevara twice (as if he wasn’t loved enough), Bernal was born in Guadalajara, studied in London (where he mixed drinks and worked in construction to support himself) and now lives in Madrid (I think) with his girlfriend and baby son. Bernal is still very active within latin cinema, which is perhaps not surprising given there are about fifty million women in Mexico who nurse daily fantasies of doing the hat dance with him.

…one more gringo

When I stepped off the plane in Guadalajara I already had a job, an apartment, and a cat lined up; such things I’d been told were impossible for foreign teachers in Mexico, but largely thanks to couchsurfing and a friend I had met in Kansas City this was the easiest settling-in-to-a-new-place that I’ve ever done. Apart from the jetlag; I’ve never been so lagged in my life. For a week all I could do was lie awake watching lightning illuminate the nighttime windows. During the days I tried to make myself explore; I’d drag my enormous head, my heavy hands about the neighbourhood, and then spend the muggy afternoons in a daze. As the jetlag passed though the city around me began to sink in. First impression; the people are incredibly, incredibly warm and friendly. Second impression: they speak way too much English, which may scupper my plans to become magnificently and completely fluent within the year…