Mexican Fiesta!

Hello girls and boys!

Today and tomorrow, Mexico will celebrate its 200 years of Independence The Bicentennial actually takes in two celebrations: the first being the Bicentennial of two hundred years since Independence (1810) and the second the no less important Centennial of 100 years since the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

Mexican Independence Day celebrates the events and people that eventually resulted in independence from Spain, the country that had control over the territory of New Spain, as it was also known then. Fueled by three centuries of oppression and sparked by a call to revolt by the respected Catholic priest Hidalgo, the first call to arms was made in the village of Dolores, in the state of Guanajuato. The uprising pitted the poor indigenous Indians and mixed mestizo groups against the privileged classes of Spanish descent, and pushed them into a violent and bloody battle for freedom from Spain.

In case you wanna know more...... ;)

Shortly before dawn on September 16, 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla made a monumental decision that revolutionized the course of Mexican history. Within hours, Hidalgo, ordered the arrest of Dolores' native Spaniards. Then he rang the church bell as he customarily did to call the indians to mass. The message that Hidalgo gave to the indians and mestizos called them to retaliate against the hated Gachupines, or native Spaniards, who had exploited and oppressed Mexicans.

Although a movement toward Mexican independence had already been in progress since Napoleon's conquest of Spain, Hidalgo's passionate declaration was a swift, unpremeditated decision on his part. "Mexicanos, Viva Mexico!", (Mexicans, long live Mexico!) Hidalgo told the Mexicans who were the members of New Spain's lowest caste. He urged the exploited and embittered Mexicans to recover the lands that was stolen from their forefathers. That he was calling these people to revolution was a radical change from the original revolution plot devised by the Criollos, or Mexican-born Spaniards.

Hidalgo later regretted the bloodbath he had incited with his fateful "Cry of Dolores." When he made his hasty decision in the pre-dawn hours of September 16, he had not foreseen the mass slaughter of Spaniards. Before the revolutionary troops descended upon Mexico City, Hidalgo retreated with only a few associates to the North where he would be executed by the Gachupines only a year later. Despite his ambiguity toward the violent struggle that was the Mexican revolution, Hidalgo is still revered as the father of Mexican Independence.

Eleven years of war proceeded Hidalgo's cry of Dolores. Yet throughout the years of turmoil, El Grito de Dolores, "Mexicanos, viva Mexico," has persevered. Every year at midnight on September 15, Mexicans led by the president of Mexico shout the Grito, honoring the crucial and impulsive action that was the catalyst for the country's bloody struggle for independence from Spain.


Soooooooooooo..... Needless to say, today its a party!!!!! HUGE holiday here, the entire weekend, celebrations everywhere! My girlfriend is throwing a little dinner party at her house with Mexican food and margaritassss!!! we want to stay inside because we both have small children and downtown will be crazy and packed {no fun for the kiddies...}

A million mexican kisses your way!