Una memoria de difícil desarraigo

The value of celebrations in Mexico is almost religious. It is linked to renewal of space and time. Each feast involves both the interruption of a linear sequence, commemoration, communion or physical encounter with others. An opportunity to return to the source, the primordial stage in which each one merges with the whole, the great universal mix, bathing in the waters of the beginning. This explains why civic and religious festivals, and also mass demonstrations are not the exception, but a social Mexican necessity which confirms the rule throughout centuries. Being a millenary country of enormous cultural diversity, festivities to celebrate Mexico as independent nation would adopt a polysemic significance along the same lines: their cosmic and ritual components symbolize both a return to the land, a claim to awaken the seed and an immersion at the ancient symbols. Meaning, an anonymous remembrance able to combine simultaneously the exercise of theocratic power, love and respect for the ancestors, the inescapable condition of being together, and the compliance with specific calendrical deadlines.