Cal State San Bernardino will celebrate Mexico’s Independence Day with festivities on campus as well as the historic Cry for Freedom, “El Grito,” on Tuesday, Sept. 15.
Hosted by the Mexican Consulate in San Bernardino, and co-sponsored by the consulate and CSUSB’s Latino Education and Advocacy Days project, the celebration will be held in the university’s Lower Commons Patio beginning at 6 p.m. A representative of the consulate will officiate the formal portion event.
The celebration, which is free and open to the public, will include live music, cultural performances and a variety of Mexican foods that will be sold at booths. Free parking is available in Lot D.
Large screen projectors will be set up to view the live-feed of the re-enactment and celebration from Mexico City.
It was more than 200 years ago in the Mexican village of Dolores that the parish priest, Father Miguel Hidalgo, rang his church bell and yelled his cry for freedom from Spanish tyranny in what launched the war for Mexican independence.
To commemorate the “Cry for Freedom,” on the evening of Sept. 15, the day before Mexican Independence Day, the president of Mexico will ring the bell of the National Palace in Mexico City. After ringing the bell, the president will repeat a cry for patriotism, which is known as “El Grito.”
He then reads the names of the important heroes of the Mexican War of Independence and ends with the threefold shout of ¡Viva México! to the assembled crowd in the Plaza de la Constitución, or Zócalo, one of the largest public plazas in the world.
The celebration is commemorated and enacted in plazas in cities and towns all over Mexico; and in Mexican embassies, consulates, and by Mexicans and Mexican-Americans worldwide.
“Mexicans, Chicanos, Latinos, and other indigenous and subordinated peoples of this hemisphere have a long history of fighting oppression and racism,” said Enrique Murillo Jr., a CSUSB education professor and executive director of LEAD. “The date of Sept. 16, 1810, marks a historic cry for freedom, but it was only the beginning of Mexico’s long and arduous road to independence, which began as a peasant revolt against the oppressive control that Spain enjoyed for nearly three centuries.
“Mexican nationals, Americans of Mexican descent, and the broader Latino community, have made extensive contributions to the United States and are an important part of our nation’s diverse social and economic fabric, and on occasions like these, we reaffirm our commitment to those areas of great importance like education, health care, comprehensive immigration reform, job creation, and family unity,” Murillo said.
For more information on the celebration, call the San Bernardino Mexican Consulate office at (909) 889-9836, ext. 225, 227 or 228.
Set in the foothills of the beautiful San Bernardino Mountains, CSUSB is a preeminent center of intellectual and cultural activity in inland Southern California. Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2015, CSUSB serves more than 20,000 students each year and graduates about 4,000 students annually. CSUSB is listed among the best colleges and universities in the western United States, according to The Princeton Review, Forbes and U.S. News and World Report.
For more information about Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.