The Power of Our Fiesta DNA

¡Sigue adelante Señor Trump, construye su maldito pared!

Originally, I was going to write about the 125^th anniversary of Fiesta San Antonio. However, persistent, bad weather coupled with my crippling procrastination syndrome (CPS), kept me from attending any of the events this year..

Sidebar: I am a life-long, card-carrying member of Procrastinators Anonymous, but I've never attended any meetings. My feeling has always been: “Eh, I'll go next week.”

But I didn't want to write about any specific Fiesta event. My focus was going to be on the history and spiritual genesis of Fiesta San Antonio. The thesis being “fiesta” is a trait baked into the DNA pan dulce of all Latinos.

Growing up Mexican-American (pre-Chicano, still a hyphenated American time frame) in East San Jose, that fiesta DNA gene was a ubiquitous presence like Sunday morning menudo. I had, at one time, at least 450,000 first cousins, mostly females. I may be exaggerating, but not by much. Every weekend, without fail, there was either a wedding, birth, baptism, birthday, holiday or funeral. All these events required a fiesta. My huge, extended family was ready to party (fiesta) at the drop of a hat...or sombrero...whichever fell first.

Copious amounts of chicken mole, enchiladas, arroz, frijoles, tortillas, cerveza (usually Burgermeister, aka Burgie, or Lucky Lager), Mexican music, dancing, laughter, hugging, kissing and the occasional fist fight was the joyous, celebratory, raucous norm para mi familia.

As a teen in high school, there were pachuco parties near downtown San Jose. The fiesta template was essentially the same as the one described above with one  notable exception' the music leaned more toward R&B, Soul, Jimmy Read and James Brown.

Additionally, the first language of choice was caló, followed by Spanglish, then Spanish and a smattering of English. This was the late 50s and early 60s when the pachuco epoch of the 40s and 50s was waning and morphing into the low-rider car culture and the dawn of The Great Chicano Awakening.

But I wanted to go back 125 years to put the origin of Fiesta San Antonio into historical context. What was happening back in 1891 that paralleled the birth of Fiesta San Antonio? Here's what I found.

In 1891...

• George C. Hormel and Co. introduced Spam.

• French artist, Paul Gauguin, traveled to Tahiti to paint Polynesian women.

• President Benjamin Harrison visited San Francisco.

Yeah, I know. I had a hard time suppressing a yawn too.

I was struggling how to weave these different historical threads into a coherent narrative fabric that would illustrate my thesis: the spirit of fiesta baked into our collective DNA.

But I got distracted becoming aware of a 500-pound gorilla in the room. A 500-pound, orange, odious, obnoxious gorilla with the carcass of a chupacabra perched on his head posing as a haircut: Donald J. Trump! Donald J. Trump? ¡Hijole! Gag me with a cuchara ese! The Donald is now the actual Republican candidate for president of these United States! A very scary prospect to be sure.

But I don't think we need be frightened of things that go Trump in the night. El Donaldo made the mistake of galvanizing the entire, world-wide Hispanic community against him with his ludicrous, racist remarks about Mexican immigrants. Like many before him, he's badly underestimated, miscalculated and misunderstood the burgeoning power and indomitable spirit of the Latino people.

So what if Paul Gauguin went to Tahiti rather than Mexico and didn't paint beautiful mexicanas on the beaches of Puerto Escondido? Who cares? The iconic Mexican-American actor, Anthony Quinn, won an Oscar portraying the French artist in the movie Lust for Life.

Who cares if President Benjamin Harrison went to San Francisco? La Presidente Hillary Clinton will come here to San Antonio and enjoy the sun, food and culture of our River Walk. Note to Hillary: Don't forget your Tums and sun screen mijita.

Fiesta San Anton will indeed be very festive in 2017, thanks to the anticipated historic Hispanic voter turnout this year. Who knows how much larger the turnout would be if Hillary had chosen Julian Castro, former mayor of San Antonio, as her running mate. Regardless, the headline across the nation the morning after the election will be: The Spirit of Fiesta Trumps Donald!

So...

¡Sigue adelante Señor Trump, construye su maldito pared!

A million talented, passionate Latino mural artists will paint a 1,500 mile colorfully vibrant celebration of our culture, heritage and victory on that maldito wall. And you can bet every weekend from Brownsville, Texas to Douglas, Arizona to San Ysidro, California, it will be fiesta time USA all along that wall! ¡Bienvenidos todos!

Oh yeah, almost forgot...Spam. My father once made tamales using spicy Spam as the filling. They were actually pretty good. Gracias Señor Hormel.