Denver Claims to Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

Denver's Cinco de Mayo festival may have been able to gather several supporters as the second largest festival in the country however failed to showcase a unique cultural experience. According to PR Web on Yahoo News, more than 400,000 people attended the25^th anniversary celebration at Civic Center Park which was able to give Coloradans a peek some of the Latino heritage through food, art, vendors, and music.
             Decked out trucks and Lowriders bumpin’ music led a “parade” on Saturday morning.  It was a great foreshadowing that an epic celebration, which Latino are known for, was approaching. Unfortunately the parade displayed a few performances, sponsors, and about twenty cars that one could have enjoyed more closely during the festival. I had high expectations, with so many supporters each year, that this parade would outdo the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and maybe even the Parade of Lights. Twenty year old Mexico native Alex Guzman says, “I would have had a reenactment of the Battle of Puebla to make it interesting”. I wondered why there was a dinky audience at one of Colorado’s popular events of the year but I only had to wait until the end of a pathetic thirty minute procession to find my answer.
            The weekend focused on the festival and the amazing things it offered which keep people going every year. It’s a place where one could walk through circular paths shoulder to shoulder with someone else like mice on a wheel.  A stampede of people were sliding left and right rushing to see what products represented Latinos yet were not really there to purchase anything. I only carried twenty dollars in my pocket because I had not realized before that festival also meant “come spend your money”.
            The ever so popular performances of traditional Mariachi and Folklorico dances occupied three stages over the weekend including musical performances of The Colorado Symphony, cumbia, banda, norteno, duranguese and other Latino music that any Latino would be happily familiar with. These were nothing short of what Latinos enjoy viewing yet I was mostly encountered by people asking to be pointed towards certain foods. One could not avoid the traditional tacos y salsas, burritos, elote (corn), and carne asada (grilled meat).  A street long row of Mexican products such as Yakult Probiotic, Sabritas chips, Guerrera tortillas, Me Encanta McDonalds, Tecate Cerveza and many more made it obvious that the Latino culture has high demands for imported products in order to keep that popular Latino flavor in Colorado.
           I constantly ran into several shops of Chicano style, Mexican, and Charro clothing, toys for kids, CDs, and jewelry. All stereotypical yet true representations of Latino culture that everyone loves. Yet the Latino community makes up such a large population in Colorado containing several ethnicities offering their own traditions and cultures not found at the festival.  College Freshman at Metro State College Sharon Baker says, “there could have been more explanations on the cultural side ”. Nonetheless Civic Center Park was full of hungry celebrating families, or as Latinos see it, every cousin, uncle, sister-in-law, grandma, and neighbor attending. Here they could find anything they would ever need there from toothpaste to boots and for a richer cultural experience I’m sure they could have deviated a couple of yards to the Denver Public Library for some picture books on Latino Heritage.