Clovis Community College Celebrates Mexican Independence Day

Students and staff at Clovis Community College were treated to a performance of cultural Mexican dancing in honor of the 2019 date of Mexican Independence on Monday, September 16. 

CCC invited numerous entertainers to come out and perform for the members of the CCC family, some dancers even came from Los Angeles for the event. 

Javier Navarro, one of the performers at the CCC campus, explained the event, “charrería”, which is the most classic rodeo event in the country of Mexico. 

“It’s about the old Mexican cowboys working the land and basically what we had to do for work,” Navarro said. “Different ranchers would bring workers together and they would just compete and see who could do the work, but who could do it quickest and in the fanciest way.” 

The “charrería” is basically a rodeo in which charros, or  traditional horseman from Mexico perform a series of tricks in an arena, called “lienzo charro”. During which riders participate in a number of scoring events in which they have to prove their equestrian abilities.

The women, known as “escaramuza” or Mexican female horseback riders, show off their tricks and fancy clothing as well. They are easily identifiable as the colorfully dressed women on horses. 

Javier Navarro rope tricks

Contestants also have to demonstrate how skilled they are with a lasso, and how much control they have over their stallions. Riders train their horses to gallop, spin and go backwards, and they receive marks according to the quality of their performance.

Navarro and his fellow performers dressed up in bright and unique clothing to represent the type of event that old cowboys and others would perform in the past. 

The fancy clothes became more and more extravagant as time went on. 

“The dressing got fancier, the horses did too, like what they wear and the tricks they do,” Navarro said. “That’s kind of what we are showing off today, just the sport and kind of what it looks like.”