West Chicago celebrates Viva Mexico
West Chicago's Viva Mexico Independence Day Festival promises an authentic experience of music, dance, costumes and food
Presented by the Mexican Cultural Center DuPage with funding from the city of West Chicago, the festival takes place from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17, along Main Street in downtown West Chicago.
A highlight this year will be a night of live music performed by the leading educational mariachi programs from across the country and Mexico. This multi-mariachi concert takes place from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16, and will feature groups from middle school programs to top-level university ensembles.
Mariachi Aztlan from the University of Texas Rio Grand Valley, one of the premier collegiate mariachi programs in the country, will be joined by special guest Maestro Ivan Velasco, a harp specialist from the University of Veracruz Mexico.
The concert program for the evening also includes Mariachi Herencia de Mexico, which is quickly becoming one of the top youth mariachi ensembles in the country, featuring a group of Chicago Public School students from the city's immigrant barrios; as well as C.O.D.A., a violin-only ensemble composed of regional middle school students; and West Chicago's own Mariachi los Rayos de Leman Middle School.
Another centerpiece of the Viva Mexico Independence Day Festival is the re-enactment of El Grito de la Independencia, or The Cry of Independence. El Grito originally took place on the morning of Sept. 16, 1810, when Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo from the small town of Dolores in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, began ringing church bells to signal that Mexican patriots had freed pro-independence inmates from jail, beginning the revolt against the Spanish rule of Mexico. This was the start of the Mexican War of Independence.
Today in West Chicago, the spirited re-enactment of El Grito includes the ringing of an old train bell acquired in the early 1960s by the late Lorenzo Covarrubias of West Chicago, who was known as the "Patron de la Campana" (Patron of the Bell). Covarrubias came to the United States from Mexico in 1949, bringing his family in 1955 and settling in West Chicago in 1957. The bell is on loan to the city for use in this annual celebration of independence and freedom. El Grito will take place at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17.
Returning this year in a huge way will be a 13-foot burro (donkey) piñata created by West Chicago resident Victor Arellano. It was built to attract the community and its neighbors to the Viva Mexico Independence Day Festival to celebrate a significant piece of Mexican heritage. The burro was chosen because it's a traditional Mexican icon during the Christmas holiday. It represents "Las Posadas," where children re-create the journey Mary and Joseph took while searching for an inn riding a "burro."
Those who attended the event last year will remember the thrill of seeing the piñata hoisted up by crane approximately 30 feet in the air, followed by a countdown to the release of many pounds of candies and treats for the kids in attendance.
For a complete schedule of West Chicago's Viva Mexico Independence Day Festival, visit westchicago.org under Special Events/Viva Mexico Independence Day Festival.
If you go
What: Viva Mexico Independence Day Festival
When: 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16; and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept 17
Where: Main Street in downtown West Chicago
Admission: Free
Info: westchicago.org