Cinco de Mayo celebration on CLC's Lakeshore campus

Members of the audience were dancing in the aisles Thursday as they joined dancers from Robert Abbott Middle School during the Cinco de Mayo Celebration at the College of Lake County-Lakeshore Campus in Waukegan.

The campus courtyard was filled with a lunchtime crowd eating free burritos as they were entertained by the Cook Magnet School mariachi band and folkloric dances by Abbott students.

"With this event, we tried to give (visitors) a little taste of Lakeshore and we invited local middle schools and high schools. It's exposing the community to culture," said JoHaan Cotton Wilson, coordinator of campus operations. "We think that is very important because we have a very diverse cultural community."

Children wore sombreros while listening to the "Battle of the Puebla Day" read by Myra Gaytan-Morales.

"I think it was really fun. People come and they actually get an idea of what Cinco de Mayo really is," said Roxana Gallegos, an eighth-grader at Abbott, which is in Waukegan.

Cinco de Mayo marks the date of the victory of Mexico under the leadership of Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.