If you know only a little Spanish, you might be excused for thinking Grito de Dolores means that raw oyster you ate had some sand in it, and you have a stomachache. After remedial classes, you might mistake it for I yelled until I had a headache. But after you live in Mexico for a while, you’ll discover that Dolores is a town, full name: Pueblo Nuevo de los Dolores. And a grito is a shout.
The Shout of Dolores is a civic reenactment of a call to revolutionary arms, spoken by a Catholic priest named Miguel Hidalgo, or Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla Gallaga Mandarte y Villaseñor if you’re not into the whole brevity thing. He opened his window and yelled something to an assembled throng outside. Don Miguel was the equivalent of the Indy Pace Car. He got the Mexican War of Independence rolling by ringing his church bell and yelling at everyone to hate the French.
Why hate the French, you ask? well, it was 1810, and Napoleon had installed his brother as the King of Spain. That made him the king of New Spain, too. Mexicans had only recently gotten used to bonafide Spaniards ordering them around and calling the place New Spain, and decided they’d rather fight than switch to the bonaparte varietal. So Mexicans chose sides between supporting the repulsive abdicated heir to the throne Ferdinand VII, and the toadies who supported Joe Bonaparte. Game on, said Don Miguel.
The politics of it are pretty murky, actually, and will spur you on to a grito de dolor de la cabeza of your own if you dive into it too far. It caused the Peninsular War in Iberia, too, so prepare to spend the whole day in the library figuring it out. Bring Excedrin.
In any event, September 16th is Independence Day in Mexico, similar to July 4th in the US. Of course Mexico had either one, two-hundred year revolution, or innumerable small ones strung out over the calendars, but you have to pick a day and stick to it, and Mexico picked the day of the Grito de Dolores for their founding fiesta.
Except they didn’t. The 16th is officially the holiday, but the whole country celebrates it at 11:00 PM on the 15th. The holiday itself is like New Year’s Day, just a day off to nurse your hangover. The president, assorted governors, and anyone else with a plaque on a government desk wants to read the Grito de Dolores at 11:00 at night on the eve of the holiday, and then shout, “Viva Mexico” three times while the crowd cheers, and throw a party.
Here’s the current president of Mexico giving it a whirl. She appears to be running for class president on the Girls, Girls, Girls! platform every day of her term:
There is a problem with reciting the Grito de Dolores that you might have noticed in the video. Mexicans, being a boisterous and happy-go-lucky people, didn’t write down, or even remember what Don Miguel actually said. Everyone agreed that it was a stirring call to arms, or a soul-searching appeal to patriotism, or an amazing rant, or maybe a grocery shopping list. Many scholars have tried to re-create the speech, which ends up sounding like what that particular scholar would have said. The politicians have given up on the speech part of the enterprise, and just read the names of a hearty handful of fallen heroes of the revolution, followed by yelling Viva Mexico! three times. It’s like saying Beetlejuice! three times, but Mexico appears instead of Michael Keaton.
Mexicans are pretty happy being Mexican, so there aren’t many grumblers holding People Against For placards at any given Grito. And they like a fiesta in any case, so they set up bleachers and food stalls and hire bands to blast away between the fireworks displays. In Merida, they had the awesome La Adictiva:
We could have walked down to the zocalo (the main square) to yell Viva Mexico! along with everyone else. It’s a stirring spectacle, and a charming slogan for a country. But I already had a dolor de cabeza, and while I could have withstood the fireworks, the bells, and shouting, I don’t think my head would have survived a band with an entire valved trombone section.
I used to play the trombone, and I can assure you that’s not music, that’s plumbing.
4 Responses
Listen to what the tuba is doing. Scary! And not only a valve-trombone section, they’ve got an ALTO HORN section!
At around 5:18, La Señora Presidente shouts out:
When I hear a Latin politician talk about “dignity,” my gut reaction is to grab my wallet—or something.
Hugo Chávez speechified about dignity, in a most undignified manner 🙂 :
Proof that Hugo Chávez is a Red Sox fan
What prompted Hugo to go on this rant? Nothing in Venezuela. Oil and Gas country in Bolivia always voted against Hugo’s friend Evo, and had damaged a gas pipeline during a protest. Just another rowdy protest in Bolivia. Evo blamed the US for this, and kicked out the American ambassador. Hugo kicked out the American ambassador, in solidarity with Evo. (Rowdy is what they do in Bolivia. Roadblocks galore. Former President Evo was caught on film kneeing an opponent in the groin in a soccer match.)
That tuba—more “cultural appropriation” from the German immigrants to TX to Tex Mex music to across the border.
There is a video of Hugo’s rant/speech accompanied by some “interesting” commentary.
Hugo Chávez Tells Yankees to Go to Hell
Consider Poverty reduction.(World Bank Development Indicators)
It is problematic to compare various poverty measures, especially since Venezuela doesn’t have such fine-tuned figures available. Nonetheless, Venezuela’s reported extreme poverty reduction of 10% and overall reduction of 16.3% are comparable to some of those measures for the World. The point being that Venezuela’s poverty reductions do not appear to be all that exceptional. Whereas its trillion dollars in oil revenue from 1999-2013 is exceptional. Is that all the poverty reduction you got with all those petrodollars? And today, poverty is probably about 90%.
(BTW, 20 to 80 is an INCREASE of 300%) First, change to the more often used physicians per 1,000: “Increasing the number of doctors from 0.2 per 100,000 population in 1999 to 0.8 per 100,000 in 2010.”
The World Bank has very little Venezuelan physician data. The World Bank get its data from the Venezuela government, and as a result has no economic data after 2014.Indexmundi_Venezuela – Physicians (per 1,000 people)
Quadruple or 300% in physicians per population? NO WAY. Physicians per population didn’t change much.
Another claim.
From the World Bank
Venezuela’s Infant Mortality rate reduced 21% from 1998-2012, compared to Latin America’s 44% reduction. Compared to what? Compared to other countries, Chavismo’s accomplishments are basically smoke and mirrors.
Probably correct, or close to it. Jobs for the boys…….
UNESCO denies Venezuela literacy claim
Dignity,schmigdity
https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators#
Hiya Gringo- Epic comment.
I have some interesting first-hand, or at least second-hand-first-hand info about all that. We have several friends who are Venezuelan, but live here in Mexico now. Some cab (Uber) drivers, too. As you can imagine, they are not fans of all the dignity they were invited to enjoy back home, at gunpoint.