Dance Plays As The Heritage Of Mexican Culture

Everyone has a heritage. We all came from somewhere, otherwise we wouldn’t exist. It’s literally in our DNA. Cultural heritage tells us about where our ancestors came from, their beliefs, religion, history, traditions, language and what their way of life was like. It’s not only important, but interesting knowing you’re a product of many generations. Knowing your heritage makes you feel part of something larger and gives us a connection to our ancestors. History is important to understand because it allows us to understand our past, so we could understand our present. People can belong to more than one heritage, and in fact have numerous.

I identify with being a part of the Mexican heritage. I chose this heritage because both my parents are Mexican, and our family tree go as far back as their great grandparents. Being part of the Mexican heritage has influenced my life greatly. Even though I was born in America and grew up here, I knew not only English, but Spanish as well. Spanish is the primary language in Mexico, and a majority of my family speaks it. Before my grandmother passed away two years ago, she told me about where she grew up in Mexico, and the differences between what life was like there, compared to when she moved to America at the age of 20. She made a huge influence on my life, with showing me all different types of Spanish music, different types of Mexican food, along with passing of recipes, and how important the value of family is. Since my grandmother passed away, I always wanted to learn more about my culture. Studying culture can provide us knowledge on our origin and make us become more familiar on history. I’m going to do further research on my heritage through reading academic articles and researching the internet.

Mexico has a vast history on how it officially became an independent nation in 1821, with the rise and fall of great civilizations. The country has endured numerous changes over the centuries; evidence of past cultures and events are apparent everywhere in Mexico. The first major known society that can be traced back is the Olmecs and are believed to have settled around the southern Gulf Coast, what is now Veracruz. Their empire lasted between 1200 and 900 B.C. No one knows where the Olmec came from, but what historians have found is that these pioneers must have been unusually gifted in engineering as well as art, the evidence is shown by how they carved stone, jade, and how they built their gigantic stone head statues using volcanic rock basalt (Coe, 1967).

By 300 B.C., throughout Southern Mexico, villages centered around agriculture and hunting had emerged (“History of Mexico”, par.3). “Between 100 B.C. and 700 A.D., Teotihuacán, the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas, was built near present-day Mexico City” (“History of Mexico”, par.3). Another civilization that was built was Teotihuacán and had an influence throughout the Veracruz and Mayan regions. The Mayan civilization is widely considered to be pre-Columbian America’s most brilliant civilization, thrived between approximately 250 and 900 A.D. They are known for developing a calendar, writing system and constructing cities that functioned as hubs for the surrounding farming towns (“History of Mexico”, par.4). The ceremonial center of Mayan cities contained plazas surrounded by tall temple pyramids and lower buildings called “palaces.” Religion played a crucial role in Mayan life, and altars were carved with significant dates, histories and elaborate human and divine figures. Historians believe the collapse of the Maya was due to a combination of three main factors: warfare between city-states, overpopulation, and drought (Cartwright, par.6).

Additionally, Mexico’s cultural history was also influenced by the Toltec civilization. Historians found that the Toltec people appeared around the 10th century in central Mexico and built the city of Tula. There has been speculation that the Toltecs performed human sacrifices to satisfy the Gods, and one of their kings, Tezcatlipoca, is said to have ordered mass sacrifices of captured enemy warriors. Since there are many architectural and ritualistic influences of Toltec on the Mayan site of Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatán, some researchers believe that Toltec exiles migrated to Yucatán and created a new version of Tula there (Coe, 2).

The last of Mexico’s indigenous civilizations were the Aztecs. They rose to power in 1427 by combining forces with the Toltecs and Mayans. Together, this alliance conquered smaller cultures to the ear and west until the Aztec empire covered Mexico from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf Coast. At their peak of power, the Aztecs “ruled 5 million people through a tightly-structured system of self-supporting units called calpolli” (“History of Mexico,” par. 6). Each unit had its own governing council, schools, army, temple and land but paid tribute to the supreme leader of the empire (“History of Mexico,” par. 6). Influenced by previous Mexican civilizations, the Aztecs conducted extraordinary religious ceremonies that featured dances, processions and sacrifices. Religion dominated Aztec life, and all members of society participated no matter your social class. They believed in 1,000 gods, whom controlled different parts of nature. The two most important gods were the sun god and the god of water. Each year, priests in the temples used a complex calendar to set the times for many of the public religious ceremonies (Roos, par. 3). The most crucial ceremonies were held to ask the gods for a good harvest. Humans, usually war prisoners or slaves, were sometimes sacrificed to the gods. Human sacrifice played a major role in religion because the Aztecs believed “that the gods needed blood to survive and be strong enough to fight off forces of darkness” (Roos, par.7).

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The fall of the Aztec Empire came when Spaniard Hernán Cortés arrived at Veracruz in 1519. The Aztecs believed that Cortés might be the serpent god Quetzalcoatl, so Aztec King Moctezuma II invited the conquistador to Tenochtitlán. This proved to be disastrous because Cortés formed many allies with other tribes on his way to the city. In May 1521, Cortez and his followers attacked and conquered the Aztecs. The Spanish had many advanced weapons, such as armor, cannons, and swords which outmatched the Aztec's spears and shields (Cartwright, par. 17). Cortés then colonized the area and named it Nueva España (New Spain). By 1574, Spain controlled a large portion of the Aztec empire and had enslaved most of the native population. Disease was also a big factor that led to the fall of the Aztecs. The Spaniards brought deadly diseases into society that kill off a lot of the indigenous population. For instance, they brought smallpox that caused many of them to die. It’s estimated that 50% of the indigenous was wiped out since they weren’t immune to the diseases that were brought in (Cartwright, par. 20). Following the conquest, the Catholic Church, with financial grants from the Spanish Crown, immediately set up a vast network of monasteries, churches and parishes throughout the land (Foo, par. 15). In turn, the indigenous population that was left, was forced to convert to Catholicism. Aside from religious conversion, Spain hoped to conciliate areas that held “extractable natural resources such as iron, tin, copper, salt, silver, gold, hardwoods, tar and other such resources, which could then be exploited by investors” (Sánchez 143). Only gachupines, Spaniards from Spain, could hold high office: criollos (Creoles, born in Mexico of Spanish blood) and mestizos (of mixed race) were not allowed positions in office, while the indigenous peoples were treated as slaves.

Mexico was under Spanish rule for three centuries before gaining independence in 1821. A call for rebellion was made in 1810, with a priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla with the issuing of his Grito de Dolores (Cry of Delores). It called for the end of Spanish rule in Mexico, redistribution of land, and racial equality. Throughout the eleven years of revolution, other peasant leaders followed Hidalgo, and all led armies of native and racially mixed revolutionaries against the Spanish and the Royalists (“Spain Accepts Mexican Independence” par.2). In early 1821, Agustín de Iturbide, the leader of the Royalist forces, negotiated the Plan of Iguala with Vicente Guerrero. Under the plan, Mexico would be established as an independent constitutional monarchy. The Catholic church would still hold its power, and Mexicans of Spanish descent would be considered equal to pure Spaniards. Those mixed or pure with native blood would have lesser rights. In 1822, Iturbide was proclaimed the emperor of Mexico, however his empire was short-lived, and in 1823 republican leaders Santa Anna and Guadalupe Victoria deposed Iturbide and set up a republic with Guadalupe Victoria as its first president from 1824-1829 (“Spain Accepts Mexican Independence”, par.7).

Furthermore, in 1846, the United States went to war with border disputes about Texa’s southern boundary. By 1848, American soldiers occupied Mexico City. Eventually the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo gave the U.S. the territories of California, Utah, Nevada, and the Rio Grande as the southern boundary for Texas. Many people in Mexico opposed this decision. In 1857, Benito Juárez, the first Native president of Mexico, promoted social equality. He was opposed by military and religious leaders. He spent his life fighting for democracy, and also expelling France from Mexico when they took over Mexico for a brief period from 1861-1867.

The Mexican people, tired of the unbalanced distribution of wealth and power, began the Mexican Revolution. The goal was for land reform, to divide the land among the poor. It began in 1910 and last ten years, with at least 2 million casualties. Finally, in 1934, Lázaro Cárdenas became president and restored the ancient ejido system, which established communally shared tracts of farmland. This system benefited the citizens and economy.

Today, Mexico is a nation that has a rich cultural diversity and history. Sadly, it has a problematic social division with the fast-growing problem of drug trafficking, which has contributed to political and police corruption and helped widen the gap between the elite and the underprivileged. A rural middle class has evolved, but it represents only a small percentage of total agriculturalists. Homicide has a high rate due to the thousands of people that have been killed in drugs-related gang violence in the past decade. Catholicism is still the main religion, with a following of about 81% of the nation (Donoso, par.3). Mexico is a federal presidential representative democratic republic where the president is both head of state and head of government. An important aspect in Mexican culture is family. The whole family usually stays very closely connected; generations of families will typically live close in proximity, or even within the same household. It’s important passing traditions from the older generation to the newer generation to keep the culture alive. In conclusion, Mexico is still a developing and a newer country, and it’ll be interesting to see how it’ll be in a century.

Dance plays a big role in Mexican culture. It’s performed at celebrations, religious events, and festivals. Dances are usually combined with the rhythm of music, vibrant clothing, and dancing accessories to create a performance. Mariachi is the most common music in Mexico, and includes trumpets, guitars, and violins playing in the background. Lyrics are usually light hearted and humorous. Mexican dance is a blend of native, European, and African influences. Its roots go all the way back to when the Mayans and Aztecs would dance to please the Gods. Folk dances are very traditional dance. They combine elements of Mexican culture, history, folklore, and religion with rhythm and body movements. These dances usually focus on the culture and folklore of holidays or celebrations like Day of the Dead and Cinco de Mayo. Additionally, when Mexico was under Spain’s control, Mexicans incorporated other styles of dances, such as ballet and polka into their own. The dance I chose to learn is the Baile Folklórico. It is not any one particular style of dance, but rather, “an amalgamation reflecting the regional and ethnic diversity of Mexico” (Cantú, par.1). It’s is a traditional Mexican folk dance that dates back to Mexico’s 1810 War of Independence when nationalism prompted the dance into widespread popularity. In 1952, Amalia Hernandez formed the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, establishing the dance as a mainstay in Mexican culture (“History Of Baile Folklorico”, par.2). Women are dressed in color, layered dresses meant to spread and turn, when they are dancing. Men are dressed in more subtle pieces of clothing, like black suits, similar to mariachi costumes. The dance itself has ballet characteristics, including pointed toes, exaggerated movements, and being highly choreographed. It also includes percussive heel-stomping. While the dance is being performed, mariachi musicians are generally standing in the back performing. Baile Folklóricos were and currently are performed at large parties or community gatherings. There are even Folkloric groups that get together and compete in competitions, for instance the USA Ballet Folklorico Nationals.

Learning the dance was an interesting and challenging task. In my opinion, the dance looked a lot easier than when actually performing it. I haven’t danced in a few years, so maybe that’s why it was harder to move. The dance required a lot of strength in the arms, making it very tiring, since in the whole dance you’re constantly moving them and keeping them raised. In addition, with all the turning in the dance, I would get dizzy and at times felt like I was going to fall. I felt a little awkward since this dance is performed in large groups and includes a partner. Overall, it was a fun learning experience because it’s probably a dance I would’ve never tried.