A Fourth of July without Mexicans

A couple of charros from a previous year

Yesterday one of the Bands I am in, Portland’s “The Beat Goes On” marching band, returned to Hood River, OR, for that town’s July 4 parade.   Hood River is not a big town, but i years past they have put on a great parade, drawing participants from all over the northwest.  Hood River has a strong community of Mexican-Americans y otras pueblas-Americanas, and the parade was jumping with their floats, their queens and princesses riding in open cars, their beautiful low riders; with charro troops from all over the state, with dancing horses, with corrida groups and salsa bands, a whole festival.  We would march toward the head of the parade, then stand around where it ended in a shady park and watch the show go by.  It was beautiful.

Yesterday it was almost a Day without Mexicans. Some of the locals got a band together on a flatbed truck, there was a trailer full of pretty high-school girls cheering and waving, a couple low riders, and that was it.  There were still brown faces in the crowd, but not like before. No horses, no charros, no fancy floats from out of town.  And the parade ended short of its usual place.

I think that all the ICE terrorism was the cause.  People are wary of leaving home, of traveling public roads.  I wondered if ICE would show up at the parade and just start taking people. I wondered what the band would do, what I would do if that happened.  ICE didn’t show.  It didn’t have to.  Just the possibility was enough to really mess up what is usually a festive and exuberant national holiday.