EXTRA: El Grito, Pritzker-style

I’m sure there are some people out there who are peeved (to put it mildly) at the very notion of “El Grito” being celebrated Saturday night within Chicago’s Millennium Park.

The ringing of the bell … 

Sure enough, the World Music Festival of Chicago held at the Pritzker Pavilion included an afternoon-into-evening of Mexican-themed musical acts, and ended with a ceremonial ringing-of-the-bell and the cry of El Grito – a recreation of the “Cry of Delores” action taken by Father Miguel Hidalgo on this date back in 1810 that began the fight for independence from Spain.

EL GRITO IS a demand for respect for Mexican people, and a recreation of it is usually a standard part of any celebration of Mexico Independence Day – which is Sunday.

But in this Age of Trump where the nitwits of our society want to use Mexican people as their punching bag, I’m sure it will bother them that such an act – along with a public singing of Mexico’s national anthem – occurred on what otherwise was a beautiful Saturday night in Chicago.

All of which was a part of the program put on by the Mariachi Herencia de Mexico – a mariachi band consisting of students from Benito Juarez High School in Chicago that actually has some talent, has made recordings and has even been nominated for Grammy awards.

… while waving the flag all part of Mexico tribute

Although I’m not about to claim that the Saturday evening program was totally inoffensive.

I’M STILL A little bit freaked out that their program felt the need to include a musical medley of songs en Ingles from that 1978 film “Grease.”

Somehow, the image of John Travolta’s “Danny Zucco” character just doesn’t fit into my notion of paying tribute to Mexico’s traditions through mariachi music.

Although for the xenophobes out there who are throwing tantrums about the notion of Mexican independence being celebrated in this country -- let alone in Chicago, keep in mind that the youthful mariachis also did a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that would have put to shame many a version done by Anglo-oriented musicians.

But Star-Spangled Banner got its moment too. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

And that Gov. Bruce Rauner’s public schedule for the weekend consisted of one lone event – an El Grito celebration Saturday night at Harrison Park in the Pilsen neighborhood. An event that has been an annual one for the man who has hopes Illinois voters will give him another term in office come Nov. 6.

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EXTRA: Are Mexicans more ‘real American’ in nature than U.S.?

From a version of the “Star-Spangled Banner” sung in English by a full-fledged Mexican mariachi musician to a version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” sung en Espanol, there were times when the “Mexico en el Corazon” program performed Wednesday at Millenium Park seemed intent on portraying the image of people of Mexican ethnic origins being “good Americans.”

Could the Chicago-based Mariachi Herencia de Mexico have put Patsy Cline to shame? Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

The three-hour program in the Pritzker Pavilion provided several acts to perform music and dance native to the state of Jalisco, and more specifically the city of Guadalajara (which by the way is the region where my maternal grandfather was born more than a century ago).

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to admit to getting my kick from seeing the Mariachi Herencia de Mexico – which is actually a Chicago-based act. The Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods, to be exact.

In fact, it was they who included among their portion of the program a cover in English of the song “Crazy,” written by Willie Nelson and made most famous by country & western singer Patsy Cline.

To which the lady mariachi who sang the song said that it was, “proof that a mariachi band is capable of performing anything.”

A decent crowd at the Pritzker Pavilion

And her most definitely unaccented take on the song, which gained a round of applause from the heavily-Latino crowd with a few Anglo faces mixed in that packed the Pritzker Pavilion, was intense enough that it may well have caused even some hard-hearted cowboy-types in 10-gallon hats to cry into their beers.

ALL OF WHICH made me wonder about the state of relations in this Age of Trump – in which the incumbent president seems determined to use the growing Mexican-American population of this country as his personal punching bag by over-emphasizing their "other world" nature.

A taste of Guadalajara in the shadows of the Chicago skyline

Yet hearing these touches of country and folk mixed into the Mexican ethnic program made me wonder if Trump’s real problem is that his efforts to “Make America Great Again” were focused on the wrong people in our society.

Particularly since the message was often provided throughout of the ties between the two nations and the need to work together. None of the isolationist rant that our president is trying to spew at every turn, and that we're likely to hear kicked into gear in overtime in reaction to the San Antonio, Texas-based federal judge (of Mexican-American origins himself) who issued a ruling Wednesday that stopped state attempts to bring a halt to the concept of sanctuary cities.

Maybe all those Mexican-Americans (whom comedian Cheech Marin once famously sang “don’t like to get into gang fights, they love flowers and music, and white girls named Debbie too”) have a better idea of what a “real” American is – moreso than the nativist element of our society that wants to believe their day has arrived.

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