Category: Latino Family Traditions

Cascarones, Crafty Chica, Easter traditions, Latino Family Traditions, Mexican confetti eggs, Mexican Holiday food

Easter, Chocolate Bunnies and Cascarones

Mona Alvarado Frazier

gettyimages.com
“Easter is coming, Easter is coming.” I heard this today from my two young nieces. They are looking forward to visiting with extended family, attending services, and celebrating the day. 

When I heard their excited voices it  brought back so many memories of Easter outfits, food, chocolate bunnies, and cascarones (confetti eggs).

During our childhood and teen-hood we celebrated Easter by getting dressed up in sometimes okay and sometimes ghastly Easter outfits that my mom picked for us.
I have photos to prove it, but I won’t post them, or my sisters and brother will hit me with a dozen cascarones.

My mother firmly believed in dressing up for Christmas and Easter and even now scrunches up her nose when children do not have on appropriate clothes. We were poor, but she somehow managed to get us gussied up on those two holidays and believes every parent should make that effort. But that’s another story.

On Easter we’d go to Mass, Mom would take photos and then she’d let us change into play clothes so we could go to the home of a relative or to a park for the Easter meal. 

gettyimages.com
Let me tell you, it was a full on spread of potato salad, chili beans, Mexican rice (the special holiday kind with peas), chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, green Jell-o, and cupcakes with yellow frosting decorated with colored green coconut and jellybean eggs. Very cool. 

There was not much ‘green’ in our menu unless you counted the fake green grass in the Easter baskets or the green coconut. 

And there was the Easter Egg hunt, whether the home had grass or not. We have been known to hide Easter goodies in dirt, sand, or nopal bushes, depending on whose house.

We had jellybean eggs, chocolate eggs, real hardboiled colored eggs, and plastic eggs. My mother would save eggshells for weeks, hiding them in the cupboards, and assembling them a couple of days before Easter. We dipped, painted, used pencils, crayons, whatever and had a messy time with coloring the eggs. 
gettyimages.com
But the absolute ‘funnest’ Easter day activity was the cascarones.

Shrieks of delight, upset, fear, and revenge filled the air as the kids and the adults snuck up on others and clobbered each other on the head with the delicate colorful eggs filled with confetti. 

Historians have traced these eggs back to Asia, originally filled with perfume powder, and brought to Italy by Marco Polo. The tradition was carried to Spain and then to America. It’s said that Carlotta, the wife of Emperor Maximillian was so fascinated by these eggs that she brought them to Mexico during her husband’s rule during the 1860’s. 

In Mexico, people replaced the expensive perfume powder with confetti. The egg shells are called cascarones, which is from the word cascara, which means ‘shell,’ as in eggshell. 

They were introduced into the United States in the 1960’s where they were used not only on Easter but during holidays and feast days. 
my own cascaron boy-alvaradofrazier.com
I remember them fondly when I was in grammar school. During festivals, called ‘jamaicas,’ one could buy cascarones, two for a nickel. Boys loaded up on them and ran around smacking them on the shoulders or heads of girls. It usually meant the boy liked you, in that ‘caveman’ language they have. 

Girls would pretend they’d be angry, turn away from the offender unless he said he was sorry and gave her a puppy dog smile. In that case she giggled and huddled with her group of friends to be chased again a few minutes later. I think it still means the same if you’re in elementary school.

Cascarones are so popular that the designs have metamorphosised to a high art. And so has the price. Here’s some from last year that I couldn’t bear to smash on someone’s head. 
Mermaid or Sirena cascaron-alvaradofrazier.com
It’s a fun project to make your own cascarones and you can find loads of recipes. Here’s an awesome set of cascarones for wrestling fans from The Crafty Chica. The site also has the simple dyed eggs, some cool ‘pop’ icons, and a video instruction. 
If you haven’t made cascarones before, start a holiday tradition. Just be gentle when you smash them on someone. And run quickly. 



John Riley, Latino Family Traditions, Mexican American War, Mexican and Irish culture, One Man's Hero, San Patricios, St. Patrick's Day

Why Mexico celebrates St. Patrick’s Day

Mona Alvarado Frazier
Ireland landscape 1910
Erin Go Braugh, flickr.com photo by Bethany Mueller

Repost:

We have a bit of Irish in our family, so on St. Patrick’s Day we celebrate our Irish connection. My nieces are of Irish and Mexican heritage, one’s named Erin, and our cousin was born on St.Patrick’s Day. Every St. Paddy’s Day, my mother enjoys a traditional meal at an Irish pub. 

So what is it about St. Patrick’s Day that resonates with Latinos, especially Mexican’s and those of Mexican heritage? 

The answer is a little more complex than green beer and green Margaritas. 

The Irish and Mexican share values of family, work ethic, Catholicism, the love of music, poetry, and we share a war.  Yes, a shared war. 

The Mexican-American War of 1846-48 had an infantry and artillery unit of Irishmen, formed by John Riley. He formed the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, or as the Mexican soldiers called them, Los Colorados Valientes (The Valient Reds) or Los San Patricios (The Saint Patricks). The latter named stuck. 

Los San Patricios, led by Juan Reley (the name he enrolled into the Mexican Army) began with 175 immigrant Irish, German, English, French, and escaped African slaves from the southern USA and grew to over 700 men, the majority immigrants from Ireland.

The brigade gained men as more of them became disenfranchised from the U.S Army. Theories for desertion included mistreatment of immigrant soldiers, inability to practice Catholicism, and cultural alienation. There was also the incentive of higher wages and the promise of land.

Many of these soldiers, like John Riley, identified with the Mexican people. He was shocked at the behavior of the Texas Rangers and U.S commanding officers who robbed, raped and murdered and who desecrated Catholic churches in Mexico. 


Riley realized that the U.S reason for war was one of conquest; the Mexican’s reason, one of liberty from foreign intruders. 

While held prisoner in Mexico City, Riley wrote to a friend in Michigan: 

“Be not deceived by a nation that is at war with Mexico, for a friendlier and more hospitable people than the Mexicans there exists not on the face of the earth.”

Los San Patricios, when captured by the U.S. Army, were treated and punished as traitors. Seventy-two men were court-martialed in Mexico by the U.S. None of the men were represented by lawyers, and there are no transcripts of the proceedings. All were sentenced to death by hanging.

By order of Gen. W. Scott, thirty San Patricios were executed at Chapultepec, Mexico City in full view of the two armies who had fought there, at the precise moment that the flag of the U.S. replaced the flag of Mexico atop the citadel.

At the moment of the intended replacement, military cadet Juan Escutia wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and leaped to his death from Chapultepec Castle to deny the Americans the honor of capturing it. The cadet is honored as one of Los Niños Heroes.
 

In a final act of defiance, Los San Patricios who were about to be hanged cheered the Mexican flag, as one onlooker remarked: “Hands tied, feet tied, their voices still free”

The Americans considered Los San Patricios traitors, the Mexicans consider them brave heroes who came to their aid. 

Many of Los San Patricios disappeared from history although a handful is on record as having received the land promised to them by the Mexican government.

The men have continued to be honored and revered as heroes in Mexico. The Batallón de San Patricio is memorialized on two separate days: September 12, the generally-accepted anniversary of the executions of those convicted by the U.S. Army of desertion at time of war, and March 17, Saint Patrick’s Day.
Numerous schools, churches and other landmarks in Mexico take their name from the battalion, including:
  • Monterrey — The street in front of the Irish School is named Batallón de San Patricio (“Battalion of Saint Patrick”).
  • The St. Patrick’s Battalion Pipes & Drums or “Banda de Gaitas del Batallon de San Patricio.” (visit their FB page).
  • Mexico City — The street named Mártires Irlandeses (“the Irish martyrs”).
  • The coastal town of San Patricio, Jalisco.
  • The battalion’s name is written in gold letters in the chamber of Mexico’s House of Representatives.
  • A Mexican soccer team named The Union Ultras, formerly known as St. Patrick’s battalion.
  • Los San Patricios were evoked in a St. Patricks day message by Subcomandante Marcos, leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.  

Those who survived the war generally disappeared from history. A handful is on record as having made use of the land claims promised them by the Mexican government.

In 2004, at an official ceremony attended by numerous international dignitaries including directors Lance and Jason Hool, as well as several actors from the film One Man’s Hero*(1999), the Mexican government gave a commemorative statue to the Irish government in perpetual thanks for the bravery, honor and sacrifice of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion. 

The statue was erected in Clifden, Connemara, Ireland, where leader Jon Riley was born. In honor of Jon Riley, on 12 September the town of Clifden flies the Mexican flag. 

So in honor of the bravery and sacrifice of Los San Patricios, let’s remember them on Saint Patricks Day with the wearing of the green and listening to a rendition of Danny Boy, latino style, by musician Ruben Blades and his wife, opera star, Luba Mason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0syM-DovJME


  


*One Man’s Hero starring Tom Berenger, a Paramount film, is the best known of the 8-10 movies made about the participation of the San Patricio Battalion in the Mexican American War.