"¡Mueran los gachupines! Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!" ("Death to the Spaniards and Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe) was the battle cry of Miguel Hidalgo when he called for independence from Spain for Mexico the morning of September 16th, 1810.
The event is now commemorated September 15 in the evening as the "Grito de Dolores" (`Cry of Pain' or 'Cry of Dolores', the town where Hidalgo first shouted it, depending on how nationalistic you feel). This is possibly because many Mexicans have a hard time relating to events occurring early in the day. (Oops, I lack a quote for that one, except for a superficial judgement of my appointment schedule with bureaucrats, but not workers.)
The actual "grito" (shout) ocurred at church service on the morning of the 16th of September.
BUT, to honor Porfirio Diaz, Mexico's favorite dictator for most of the end of the 20th century, the holiday was moved up half a day to celebrate his birthday in the evening and the event has now been institutionalized to occur near midnight on September 15th. The event has now become a two day holiday, the first day to issue shouts, and the second to recover from hang-overs.
Beautiful downtown Catemaco restaurant owners and flag sellers are supporting this welcome diversion. They offer customary recipes such as champurrado, pozole, chiles nogados and other life threatening delicacies on the eve of September 15th, for surcharges of up to 500 pesos to surviving "gachupines" with reservations, and discounted flags of Mexico at roughly one dollar per square foot.
VIVA MÊXICO, CABRONES Video
(English lyrics garbled translation)
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