Introducing La Reina Del Carnaval Public Celebration and Postrevolutionary Discourse In

Introducing La Reina del Carnaval: Public Celebration and Postrevolutionary Discourse inVeracruz, MexicoAuthor(s): Andrew Grant WoodSource: The Americas, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Jul., 2003), pp. 87-107Published by: Academy of American Franciscan HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654755 .

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The Americas 60:1 July 2003, 87-107

Copyright by the Academy of American Franciscan History

INTRODUCING LA REINA DEL CARNAVAL: PUBLIC CELEBRATION AND

POSTREVOLUTIONARY DISCOURSE IN VERACRUZ, MEXICO*

For days no one sleeps and the streets are a vivid labyrinth of veracruzanos dancing their huapangos and bambas, strumming harps and guitars and singing happily.

-Terry's Guide to Mexico

It is impossible to have social relations without symbolic acts. -Mary Douglas

ollowing the revolution of 1910-1917, a new era took shape in the port of Veracruz, Mexico as residents (porteios) took to a variety of recreational pursuits that included baseball, social dances and,

increasingly, film. No one activity proved more significant, however, than the revival of Carnival in 1925. That year, members of the Veracruz railroad workers union (Alianza de Ferrocarrileros) along with a coordinating committee made up of representatives from various community associations organized the first public celebration of Carnival in nearly five decades.1 Assembling just outside the union hall on the afternoon of Saturday Febru- ary 21, 1925, hundreds joined in an afternoon parade that circulated through the central city. Carrying assorted musical instruments and noisemaking gadgets, an enthusiastic throng engaged in a hunt to capture a ritualistic

*The author wishes to thank Monica Barczak, Travis DuBry, Brian Haley, Paul Vanderwood, Bruce Dean Willis and the editors of Ulua in Xalapa, Veracruz for comments on earlier versions of thie essay as well as the anonymous reviewers at The Americas for helpful comments. Support for research in Mexico came, in part, from an Oklahoma Humanities Council 2002 Summer Grant and a Faculty Research Grant from the Office of Research at the University of Tulsa.

I El Dictamen, 21 February 1925. Community organizations included the Sociedad Ben6fica Ver- acruzana, the Sociedad Espafola de Beneficencia, the Real Club de Espafia, the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, Lonja Mercantil and the Centro Mercantil among others.

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INTRODUCING LA REINA DEL CARNAVAL

"enemy of the people" known as Mal Humor.2 After members of the procession seized their prey, a tribunal headed by King Juan Caraval tried the offender and sentenced him to death.

As revelers gathered a few hours later, several honking automobiles led a parade which featured the condemned Mal Humor followed by a military band and a popular chorus of the king's subjects dressed up as devils, witches, skeletons, Roman soldiers, mad scientists, musicians, mimes and other costumed characters. Moving along Independence Avenue, the procession grew more numerous as it picked up hundreds of residents on the way to Ciriaco Vazquez Park where organizers ceremoniously put their victim to a ritualistic death. Following this, the nearly two thousand people who formed Juan Caraval's entourage made their way back to one of the city's main intersections near the main plaza. There, portenos celebrated the official start of the three-day festival by jubilantly dancing and partying long into the night. The arrest, judgment and execution of Mal Humor on the first day of Carnival represented a purging of "unhappy" elements from the local environment and the unification of Veracruz society joined in festive com- munion.3 Yet this edition of the traditional pre-Lenten festival would prove somewhat different than previous celebrations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries precisely because of the changing nature of the Mexi- can State and civil society in the 1920s.

As was true across the nation, encouraging identification with the new social order after the Revolution required much more than official pro- nouncements. In Veracruz, civic leaders faced an especially difficult challenge in that the city had recently suffered foreign invasion, civil war and a wave of bitter labor strikes. Thus as thousands anticipated the crowning of Carnival Queen as well as the many parades and dances scheduled for the raucous weekend, festival promoters worked behind the scenes to realize a social production they hoped would help reintegrate the Veracruz community. In the process, they blended traditional elements of the festival with fundamental aspects of new national ideology to create a ritual synthesis that downplayed social conflict and contributed to the legitimation of postrevolutionary power.4

2 El Dictamen referred to Mal Humor simply as "the grim personality." 3 El Dictamen, February 22, 1925. On ritual sacrifice and scapegoating as a unifying process see for

example Ren6 Girard, Violence and The Sacred trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Press, 1977), pp. 1-18, 39-44.

4 On this dynamic see David M. Guss, The Festive State: Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism as Cul- tural Performance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Writings on Carnival in Veracruz include Martha Ines Cortes Rodriguez, "Bailes y carnaval en Veracruz, 1925," in Horizonte: Revista del

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ANDREW GRANT WOOD 89

FESTIVAL PRODUCTION IN HISTORIC CONTEXT

With a growing export economy and relative political peace under the autocratic leadership of President Porfirio Diaz, local leaders had endeav- ored to transform Veracruz into a modem city during the last decades of the nineteenth century. At the center of this urban renewal effort, the English firm of Sir Weetman D. Pearson vastly improved the port facility to increase commercial capacity. In the process, Pearson's men built breakwaters to pro- tect the Veracruz harbor as well as new walls and docks. They deepened the channels to 33 feet below sea level to accommodate larger ocean-going ves- sels while erecting three new piers to provide expanded dockside access. Workers also built large warehouses designed to accommodate the increased volume of cargo the port would be expected to handle. As a testament to their engineering feat, the project had removed over a million tons of rock from the nearby Penuela quarries and consumed more than 50,000 tons of cement, steel and iron.5

Pearson's engineers improved public health in the city by augmenting water supply and sewage systems. They took further responsibility for mod-

Instituto Vercruzano de Cultura, vol. 1, no. 1 (March-April 1991), pp. 19-25; Martha Ines Cortes Rodriguez, Mdscaras: los espactdculos teatrales en Veracruz (1873-1975), El carnival de Veracruz en 1867 (Veracruz, Mexico: Veracruz: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura) 1990; Martha In6s Cortes Rodriguez, Los carnavales en Veracruz (Veracruz: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 2000); Juan Anto- nio Flores Martos, "Portales de mucara. Una etnografia del Puerto de Veracruz," Dissertation in anthro- pology, Universidad of Madrid, 1999; Juan Antonio Flores Martos, "Los encapuchados del caraval del Puerto de Veracruz: una indagaci6n etnogrdfica en la memoria cultural e imaginaci6n urbana," Sotavento: Revista de Historia, Sociedad y Cultura no. 4 (Summer 1998), pp. 57-115; Jose Roberto Sanchez Fernmndez, Bailes y sones deshonestos en la Nueva Espana (Veracruz: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1998); Ana Maria Silva Martinez, La historia de una alegria (Mexico City: Author's edition, 1973); Roberto Williams Garcia, Yo naci con la luna de plata: antropologia e historia de un puerto (Mexico City: Costa-Amic Editores, 1980), pp. 31-35; Anselmo Mancisidor Ortiz, Jarochilandia (Author's ed. 1971), pp. 123-29; and Bernardo Garcia Diaz, Puerto de Veraruz: imdgenes de su historia (Jalapa: Veracruz, Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz, 1992) pp. 218-26. While scholarship on Car- nival is wide ranging, important works on Carnival that have informed this essay include Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his world (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984); Julio Caro Baroja, El Carnaval: Analisis Hist6rico-Cultural (Madrid: Editorial Taurus, 1965); David D. Gilmore, Carnival and Culture: Sex, Symbol and Status in Spain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); and David I. Kertzer, Ritual, politics and power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); Stanley Brandes, Power and persuasion (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1988); Roberto DaMatta, Carnivals, rogues, and heroes: An interpretation of the Brazilian dilemma (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991); LeRoy Ladurie, Carnival in Romans (New York: George Braziller, 1979); David Samuel Kinser, Carnival American Style: Mardi Gras at New Orleans and Mobile (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).

5 Olivia Dominguez Perez, "El puerto de Veracruz: la modernizaci6n a finales del siglo XIX," Anuario VII (Centro de Investigaciones Historicas, Universidad Veracruzana, Jalapa, Veracruz), 1990, pp. 87-102.




ernizing Veracruz by illuminating public buildings and central plazas of the city with electric lights. Subsequently, the opening of the Veracruz Terminal Company added nearly 2000 new jobs in the city while completion of neo- classical structures such as the Mail and Telegraph Building, Customs House, and the People's Library all contributed to turn-of-the-century urban renewal efforts.6

With this, the opening of assorted retail outlets, small businesses, cafes, restaurants and entertainment venues brought new life to the city's central district. Beautification of the Plaza de Armas -freshly tiled in Italian marble and landscaped with tropical plants-as well as the waterfront promenade (malecon del paseo) provided the finishing turn of the century touches that made downtown Veracruz an attractive showcase for the commercial elite. Yet with the onset of the Revolution, these and other local advances were put on hold. 7

During the first years of the conflict, Veracruz remained relatively clear of military action despite considerable violence in surrounding areas. Then in April 1914, a U.S. invasion and seven-month occupation of the city hor- rified residents.8 In the wake of the North American intervention, inflation and consumer good shortages compounded local financial woes brought on by wartime destruction of neighboring agricultural lands and transport net- works. Following the drafting of the 1917 Constitution, however, local conditions gradually began to improve.

Yet as Veracruz returned to peacetime relations after the crisis years of the Revolution, a citywide housing strike combined with increased labor mili-

6 Bernardo Garcia Diaz, Puerto de Veraruz, pp. 124-135. 7 As elites directed the modernization of Veracruz, working class areas that existed just outside the

wall of the old city such as La Huaca neighborhood experienced a growing concentration after 1870. As newcomers made their way to these areas in the city, some constructed makeshift, add-on structures (accesorias) made of tin, wood and stone while others crowded into older buildings that landlords had subdivided into rooms located around a common courtyard. Known as patios de vecindad, these tenements on the eve of the 1910 Revolution housed as many as sixty residents and operated as a shared space for cooking, dining, bathing and leisure activities.

8 Commemorating local resistance to alien attack during invasions of the city by the Spanish in 1825, the French in 1838 and the North Americans in 1847 and 1914, officials were quick in declaring Veracruz "four times heroic"(cuatro veces heroica). Scholarship on Veracruz during the Revolution includes Robert E. Quirk, An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Veracruz (New York: Norton Publishers, 1962), Leonardo Pasquel, La invasi6n de Veracruz en 1914 (Mexico City: Editorial Citalt6petl, 1976), Berta Ulloa, Veracruz, capital de la nacion, 1914-15 (Mexico City Colegio de Mexico/Estado de Veracruz, 1986), John Hart, Revolutionary Mexico The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) and Andrew G. Wood, Revolution in the Street: Women, Workers and Urban Protest in Veracruz, 1870-1927 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2001).

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ANDREW GRANT WOOD

tancy threatened the fragile social order. When female prostitutes in the working class neighborhood of La Huaca quit paying rent to their landlords in February of 1922, they soon sparked a social protest that would involve more than half the city's population. Fed up with bad housing conditions, excessive rents and constant harassment by rent collectors, residents of some of the port's poorest neighborhoods along with local anarchists and members of the Mexican Communist Party founded the Revolutionary Syndicate of Tenants (Sindicato Revolucionario de Inquilinos) directed by Her6n Proal and Maria Luisa Marin. Then in June 1922, members of the Veracruz Mar- itime League (Liga de la zona mar(tima) walked off their jobs in solidarity with railroad workers in the Yucatecan cities of Progreso and Merida, as well as Ciudad del Carmen in the state of Campeche. Quickly, a number of other organized groups affiliated with the local union hall (Cdmara de Trabajo) joined the effort as labor leaders declared a general strike that crippled the city for several days. The following August (1923), members of the electrical workers union temporarily cut power to the city before declaring what would become a long, drawn out general strike.9 On the eve of the 1925 Car- nival celebration, Veracruz continued to be a highly contested social and political environment as citizens struggled to find a meaningful place for themselves in the new postrevolutionary order. 0

Continued social conflict and crisis in the early 1920s notwithstanding, a growing variety of recreational venues in Veracruz saw a ready audience for peacetime diversion. As a new national elite declared the dawning of a new age, portenios seeking relief from tropical heat flocked to the Club Regatas swimming and boating center to the south of the city as well as an adjoining Villa del Mar recreational facility. Extremely popular from the time the first trolley made its way along the Veracruz waterfront in 1919, the Villa del Mar hosted regular dance parties as well as a number of special events throughout the year. Beautifully designed with terraces and seaside gardens sur- rounded by palm trees, the site featured a grand salon with tables around the outside. Sundays proved to be the most active day as couples made the short ride from the Plaza de Armas in the early afternoon. Yet while Mexico was

9 On the emergence of the electrical and streetcar workers union, see Rosa Maria Landa Ortega, "Los primeros aiios de la organizaci6n y luchas de los electricistas y tranviarios en Veracruz, 1915-1928." Bachelors' thesis in sociology, Universidad Veracruzana, Jalapa, Veracruz, 1989. Meantime, organizing efforts in the Veracruz countryside further complicated the state political picture. On this history see Heather Fowler Salamini, "Origenes laborales de la organizaci6n campesina en Veracruz." Historia Mex- icana 20, no. 2 (October-December, 1970): 52-76 as well as Heather Fowler Salamini, Agrarian Radi- calism in Veracruz, 1920-30 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971).

10 A bloody clash between rent strikers and police temporarily threatened plans for the festival. El Dictamen, February 6-10, 1925.

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no longer officially at war, Veracruz- along with the rest of the nation- faced a formidable challenge. How could past divisions be put aside to allow for cohesive revolutionary society to take shape? For their part, community leaders in Veracruz decided the time was right for a revival of Carnival--a popular festival that had been celebrated in the city during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

THE ROOTS OF MODERN CARNIVAL

The roots of moder Carnival in Veracruz extend back to the colonial period when residents living in neighborhoods located just outside the city wall (barrios negros or extramuros) forged new forms of music and dance drawn from European, African and Indigenous traditions.11 Gradually growing out of the June Corpus Christi religious celebration, portenios fashioned Carnival into a local, pre-Lenten event.12

In the late eighteenth century, Carnival goers in the port wearing colorful costumes and dancing to African derived chuchumbe rhythms had attracted the attention of local clergy who subsequently communicated their concerns to church officials in Mexico City.13 Despite disapproval in certain conservative corers, Carnival steadily evolved during the nineteenth century as participants included both members of the local elite who tended towards more exclusive, indoor balls as well as the city's popular classes who gathered for dances in various tenement courtyards over the two week period leading up to Ash Wednesday.

By the time French Emperor Napoleon III sent an occupying army to Mexico in 1861, the festival had grown significantly. But as the war between republican and French forces took a decisive turn in late 1866, political conditions motivated imperial bureaucrats (namely Archduke Maximilian and his conservative Mexican collaborators) to regulate the popular festival. The resulting 1867 "El Carnaval del Imperio" restricted celebrants to a mere three days of partying and stipulated that public processions only take place

1 For a concise summary of Carnival in ancient and medieval times see Gilmore, pp. 9-10. 12 Veracruz historian Adriana Gil Marono suggests that Carnival emerged out of Corpus Christi cel-

ebrations. Adriana Gil Marono, "Vida cotidiana y fiestas en el Veracruz ilustrado (siglo XVII)," Thesis in history, Universidad Cristobal Col6n, Veracruz, 1992. On Corpus Christi in Mexico see also Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, "Giants and Gypsies: Corpus Christi in Colonial Mexico City," (in) William H. Beezley, Cheryl English Martin and William R. French (ed.), Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Cele- brations and Popular Culture in Mexico (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 1994), pp. 1-26.

13 Cortes Rodriguez, "Mascaras," p. 23-4. See AGN (Archivo General de la Nacion), Serie Inquisi- ci6n, vol. 1,181, fojas 121-123v for clerical denunciations of chuchumbe and other popular practices. See also Sdnchez Fernmndez, Bailes y sones deshonestos, pp. 15-38.

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ANDREW GRANT WOOD

within the walls of the city between the hours of six and eight in the evening. The ruling allowed for three public dances to be held either at an area just outside the city wall (later to be dubbed "El recreo de la Alameda") or at the Aduana Quemada near the waterfront. Meantime, approved costumed balls for the city elite were held at the Teatro Principal.14

As the more limited festival schedule and sanctioned events introduced by the 1867 regulations reshaped the celebration into something resembling its more current modem form, Carnival in Mexico during the late nineteenth century soon came to be seen by Liberal political elites as an unwanted ves- tige of Spanish colonialism and a threat to social order. Gradually, authorities in Veracruz and across the nation sought to discourage public observance beginning in the 1880s. Still, popular and elite groups in the city continued to celebrate the pre-Lenten holiday-albeit most often within the private spaces of working tenement courtyards or well-to-do salons.'5

Whereas authorities during the late nineteenth century had grown suspi- cious of Carnival because of its reputation as a rite of rebellion, the postrevolutionary coalition that sponsored the festival in 1925 somewhat embraced this essential characteristic. Appropriating the inclusive revolutionary ideal of "Mexico for the Mexicans," the Carnival Organizing Committee helped articulate a key mass political message of the new regime.'6 Working to reestablish the event as an important holiday weekend in the city, they hoped Carnival would provide the Veracruz public not only with an opportunity to celebrate after years of social strife but also an effective means by which people of different class and ethnic backgrounds could take part in a collective affirmation of postrevolutionary civic values. Indeed, as Carnival would encourage a ritualistic dissolution of the old order while simultaneously dis- seminating postrevolutionary discourse, city boosters believed the celebra-

14 Cortes Rodriguez, "Mascaras," pp. 28-29. See also Garcia Diaz, Puerto de Veraruz, p. 226 and Juan Jose Gonzalez, "Aportaciones para la historia de Veracruz: El Carnaval de 1867," El Dictamen, June 11, 1964.

15 While generalizing from sources considering Carnival at the national level, less is known about the observance of Carnival in Veracruz during the Porfiriato. A very brief treatment of this history can be found in Cort6s, Los Carnavales en Veracruz, pp. 32-37. For a discussion of Carnival and other holidays in nineteenth century Mexico see William Beezley, "The Porfirian Smart Set Anticipates Thorstein Veblen in Guadalajara." (in) Beezley et al (ed.), Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance, p. 174 and William Beezley, Judas at the Jockey Club and other episodes of Porfirian Mexico (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), p. 103. For reference to various local elite views on Carnival in Spain see Gilmore, pp. 11-13.

16 Some scholars talk about the "watering down of carnival" under government supervision while elsewhere, Carnival participants have apparently resisted "official meddling" in festival production. See for example, Jerome Mintz, Carnival song and society: Gossip, sexuality and creativity in Andalusia (Oxford: Berg, 1997).

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94 INTRODUCING LA REINA DEL CARNAVAL

tion afforded portenios a unique opportunity to imagine themselves part of a renewed local and national community.'7 In this complex endeavor, the role of the local press would prove essential.

IMAGINING COMMUNITY: THE ROLE OF THE PRESS

Anticipating the big event, the editors at the port's only daily newspaper El Dictamen busily prepared for Carnival in late January 1925. A critical component in festival production, their coverage made details of nearly all public activities available to a wide readership.18 Daily reportage of the celebration played an important role in encouraging residents to feel a part of postrevolutionary society.19

As publicity appeared in El Dictamen, festival promoters made frequent use of the paper to advance their idea that Carnival represented a means by which the people of Veracruz could come together in civic celebration. With the event drawing near, editors printed a message sent by the Carnival Orga- nizing Committee to President Plutarco Elias Calles that proudly pro- claimed, "for the first time in over forty years, veracruzanos of all classes are eagerly awaiting the celebration of Carnival [and] you are cordially invited to attend." The same day, El Dictamen also published a telegram sent to recently elected Veracruz governor Heriberto Jara urging him to join in the festivities.20 Making this kind of official communication available to the

17 In the words of Roberto DeMatta, the Carnival encounter brings together "characters . . . not related by a hierarchical principle but by sympathy and by an understanding resulting from the truce that suspends the social rules of the plausible world, the everyday universe." DaMatta, p. 42. Looking at Car- nival in Andalusia, Stanley Brandes writes "[these festivals which] ordinarily might be perceived as high- lighting social differentiation may be viewed equally well as bringing distinctive and opposing segments of a community together." Stanley Brandes, Metaphors of masculinity (Philadelphia: University of Penn- sylvania Press, 1980), p. 208. Quoted in Gilmore, p. 31. See also Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World.

18 Still relatively low literacy rates may have limited but did not necessarily prevent access to printed information on Carnival.

19 Two classic works on the emergence of national cultures and consciousness are Benedict Ander- son, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, Verso Press, 1983) and Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (ed.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). For the Mexican context see essays in William H. Beezley and David E. Lorey (ed.), Viva Mdxico! Viva La Independencia!: Celebrations of September 16 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc. 2001).

20 Comite Organisador de las Fiestas de Carnival to President Plutarco Elias Calles, February 19, 1925, El Dictamen, February 20, 1925. On the appeal of revolutionary nationalism and the forging of "official" history see Frederick C. Turner, The Dynamic of Mexican Nationalism (Chapel Hill: Univer- sity of North Carolina Press, 1968), pp. 163-9 and Thomas Benjamin, La Revolucion: Mexico's Great Revolution as Memory, Myth and History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000). For a trenchant cri- tique of certain revolutionary programs see: Alan Knight, "Racism, Revolution and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940," (in) Richard Graham (ed.), The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990) pp. 71-113.



ANDREW GRANT WOOD

Veracruz public during Carnival season, the newspaper took on its own ritual identity as official propagandist for the city celebration.

Shortly before the festivities began, the Organizing Committee announced the official program for the 1925 Carnival in the pages of El Dictamen:

Saturday Afternoon and Early Evening: Popular demonstrations and funeral of Mal Humor

Saturday Night: Coronation of the queen and her court

Sunday: Carnival suspended (to mark the death of Francisco Madero)

Monday: Carnival court landing at the waterfront and city parade

Tuesday: Parade of floats

Monday and Tuesday Nights: Dances and Balls

Tuesday Night: Burning of Juan Carnaval

The newspaper's regular calls for the "participation of all veracruzanos" made it clear that El Dictamen editors in conjunction with the Coordinating Committee saw Carnival as a catalyst in the making of a new civic culture. Anticipating a high turnout, the festival would put on display both the rich tradition of the city as well as what organizers envisioned as its future promise.

Just before the start of the festival, El Dictamen announced that Governor Heriberto Jara was scheduled to arrive in the city on Monday February 23 to endorse what editors termed the "essentially popular" celebration. Again urging participation by the entire local citizenry, the paper declared that the February festivities would include not only local authorities and military personnel but "all the city's social classes." Accordingly, the governor's presence ensured "that the desires of Carnival organizers would be fulfilled and that absolutely no element [of Veracruz society] would be excluded."21 With this, city officials soon announced that businesses would be closed Saturday through Tuesday to allow residents "to enjoy themselves fully" during Carnival.22

21 El Dictamen, February 18, 1925. 22 Ibid., February 20, 1925.

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Stressing the inclusive character of the festival, El Dictamen informed readers that various special commissions were making preparations. Repeat- edly, reports told how "everyone in the city" would have a part to play in the spectacle. Further emphasizing this point, the paper even mentioned that people in Zamora Hospital, the Women's Hospital, the local sanitarium as well as inmates in Allende Jail all looked forward to the alegria of Carnival.

At the same time, newspaper reports described ways that residents had brightly decorated the outside of their homes, the city's main streets and waterfront with banners. Owners of commercial houses Zaldo Hermanos, La Villa de Vinuesa and La Europea on Independence Avenue as well as members of the Casino Espafiol on Cinco de Mayo Street had also heeded the festival call and adorned the outside of their buildings with streamers, flowers, flags and other colorful materials. Meanwhile, trolleys, autos and other transport decked out in beautiful flowers, banners and paper trim traveled the city in mid-February. According to El Dictamen, residents had transformed their city center into a shared-nearly sacred--space for public celebration.

"VIVA LUZ"

With the city ready for the big party, Veracruz next anticipated the crowning of"their" Carnival Queen. Early publicity regarding Carnival Queen had appeared in the pages of El Dictamen as the newspaper featured pictures of fourteen debutantes nominated for the coveted role. When all the candidates had been presented to the Veracruz public, a "popular vote" said to have been collected by various labor unions, civic associations and neighborhood groups subsequently notarized by the Organizing Committee determined which of the contestants would serve as queen. Posting "election returns" hourly in a local theater the night of February 16 and on the front page of El Dictamen the next morning, officials announced that Rotary Club nominee Luz Maria Raygadas had won. Although some alleged that the young woman from the northern state of Sonora may have been an Organizing Committee inside candidate, the editors of El Dictamen continued in their Carnival discourse. Said to possess a name befitting an enlightened monarch, her court was comprised of runners up Maria Teresa Arzani and Luz Ortiz de Montellano who would serve as "princesses of the fiesta," as well as Lupe Leycegui, Rosa Loperena Carrau, Carmen Mortera, Lulu Perez Morteo who had been designated as "marquesas." After this, a handful of "maids of honor" rounded out the Queen's entourage.23

23 Providing a democratic flourish to what otherwise engendered a purely medieval trope, the report in El Dictamen made a point of informing readers that the selection process had included a careful tab- ulation of votes by a notary public.

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Intent on legitimating the reign of Queen Luz, El Dictamen circulated a story of Veracruz society engaging in a collective process of self-representation24:

Last night, a small crowd of people from all social classes and a number of students from the Naval School circulated throughout the streets of Veracruz shouting "vivas" in honor of the seioritas Luz Maria Raygadas and Maria Teresa Arzani who, arm in arm with the gallant students, happily acknowl- edged the cheers of those around them.25

Continuing down Independence Avenue the account then described how admirers of the newly selected Carnival court soon delivered each of the women to their homes. Once Queen Luz entered her house she then appeared on a second story balcony with her sister to say goodnight-all to the delighted amusement of a cheering crowd below. Following this, a group of jubilant young people were said to have closed out the evening by traveling with Maria Teresa throughout the central city before taking her home.

Given El Dictamen's diligent reporting on election results as well as the apocryphal tale surrounding the naming of Queen Luz, it is clear that the Organizing Committee was determined to present the young Sonoran to the Veracruz public as the legitimate and popular Carnival head. Provided with an early taste of "festival excitement," this process of inagining Veracruz as happily integrated community would continue to unfold as the new queen "presided over" the three day ritual.26

Her coronation took place on Saturday night under the guise of local business leaders inside the Lonja Mercantil headquarters. During the elaborate affair, songs were sung in her honor and municipal officials presented her with the keys to the city. After the official ceremony, Luz led her court over to the Carrillo Puerto Theater where a large crowd had assembled for the evening program. Reporting on events the next day, El Dictamen offered a glowing description of the queen and her court. "A marvelous spectacular," the headline raved, "one in which the triumphant beauty of the Veracruz woman was loudly exalted by thousands who took part in the ceremony." In awe of the brilliant display, the newspaper lavished praise on Luz and Maria Teresa while encouraging readers to marvel at their talent:

24 The classic phrase referring to this process is Clifford Geertz's notion of a society "tell[ing] stories to themselves about themselves." Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

25 El Dictamen, February 17, 1925. 26 For an in-depth analysis of beauty pageants see Sarah Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in

The World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

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With the theater filled with light, beauty and happiness ... the women created a hypnotic effect on members of the public. With applause for the artful queen and her court, those assembled could not have been more ecstatic. The gra- cious majesty was crowned amidst a shower of applause, flowers and multi- colored streamers. At her side was the spiritual Maria Teresa, white as snow and aristocratic in her deportment.27

Idolizing not only the queen but her entire entourage, the account described the two princesses "as exuding beauty and grace" as well as all four marquesas who "represented the jarocho territory where exquisite flowers grow."28 Not surprisingly, descriptions of the maids of honor stressed a similar set of attractive features: Consuelo Ferrer had "beautiful eyes and a dreamy smile"; Lucha Fentanes possessed a "splendid criolla beauty;" Maria Torres Abascal appeared "graceful and sweet;" Margot Belchez represented "another flowering spiritual beauty;" Margarita Wood, said to be "very distinguished;" Blanca Lagunes, whose presence suggested an "overflowing congeniality" and Rafaela Peredo seemed "smooth and sweet like all Mexican women." From the report in El Dic- tamen one is led to imagine that for those few hours on Saturday night, the majesty of the Carnival Queen united all the people of Veracruz. "Natu- rally" ordered from the stage, orchestra and first grandstand to the cheap seats high above the proceedings, everyone in the theater came under the spell of the queen whose charming beauty cast a bright and shining light over the entire city.

The inauguration of Carnival Queen represented an important performa- tive process. Further articulating the shift from historical to ritual time following the sacrifice of Mal Humor, Luz and her court provided an essential feminine element in the larger Carnival drama. With full authority bestowed upon her, the attractive young queen stood as the embodiment of all veracruzanos. Under her festival rule the city was remade into a peaceful and coherent social order. However multidimensional the reception of this highly staged vision of political power may have been, promoters -in close cooperation with the editors of El Dictamen- seemed determined to offer an attractive female compliment to masculine postrevolutionary nation-state formulations. Central in this ritual equation, the Carnival queen and her court acted as a mediating force meant to aid in the reintegration of local postrevolutionary society by serving as an alluring metaphor for real forms

27 El Dictamen, February 22, 1925. 28 Jarochan refers both to the people of Veracruz Gulf Coast and by extension their regional blend of

Indian, African and European heritage.

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Carnival Queen and Court-Courtesy of the Veracruz State Archives

of political authority.29 With the queen and her court serving as the focal point in the official Carnival discourse, an unfettered popular dimension of the festival asserted itself when thousands poured into the Veracruz streets to take part in parades and public celebrations.

POSTREVOLUTIONARY PARADES: CIVIL SOCIETY ON DISPLAY

After suspending the celebration of Carnival on Sunday February 22, 1925 to mark the death of martyred President Francisco Madero, festivities resumed on Monday morning with a maritime procession of the queen, her court and members of the Carnival committee. The event began with Luz and her entourage accompanied by a small band boarding decorated boats at the Veracruz Yacht Club.30 Next, they made their way around the harbor and

29 As beauty pageant scholar Sarah Banet-Weiser suggests, these women mediate an accepted "incite- ment of legitimate desire" engineered to reinforce "an institutionalized system of beliefs and practices." Banet-Weiser, p. 8. For an interesting discussion of beauty pageants in Jamaica and the selection of Car- nival Queen in Trinidad see Natasha B. Barnes, "Face of the Nation: Race, Nationalisms, and Identities in Jamaican Beauty Pageants," (in) Consuelo L6pez Springfield (ed.), Daughters of Caliban: Caribbean Women in the Twentieth Century (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 285-306.

30 The maritime process had been adapted from the Club de Regatas private "La Reina de la Marina de Guerra" celebrations in previous years. For reportage see the Veracruz weekly El Arte Musical (albeit defunct by the end of 1924), September 23, 1923. The procession route subsequently changed slightly after a September 1926 storm destroyed much of Villa del Mar and the Yacht Club.




Waterfront Procession-Courtesy of the Veracruz State Archives

finally to the malecon where they disembarked amidst a cheering crowd. The ensemble then met briefly with local notables and members of the various elite families before stepping into several decorated automobiles. Tour- ing the city, more than thirty vehicles proceeded along a parade route as residents cheered and showered them with confetti, streamers and flowers. Eventually, the queen and her court stopped outside the Lonja Mercantil where members of a local scouting group had formed an honor guard to receive them. In line with previous reports emphasizing an aura of social harmony created during Carnival time, El Dictamen declared, "not one dis- cordant note was sounded" at any time during the city tour.31

Once the queen had made her rounds, the stage had been set for residents to join in a whole day of parades and public events. Several school bands took part in the fun by filling the Veracruz streets with music during the morning before heading off to play in the neighborhoods. By mid-afternoon, various groups began to crowd onto the city streets to join in the Masked Parade. Traveling in cars, bicycles and on foot, revelers danced, waved

31 On organizing nineteenth century parades in U.S. cities see Mary Ryan, "The American Parade: Representations of the Nineteenth-Century Social Order," (in) Lynn Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural His- tory (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 131-55.

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streamers and set off firecrackers while circulating throughout the city center.32

With many residents watching from nearby sidewalks and balconies, Tuesday's "Parade of Floats" saw the participation of a wide range of local associations and leading individuals. For their part, the railroad workers had created a mountain landscape with a locomotive on top. Selected by Carni- val judges to win the first place prize, their success was thought to reflect labor's newfound respectability in postrevolutionary society. Second place went to a local business who had built a replica of a Ford automobile out of cardboard, wood and other materials. Painted red, white and blue, the float poked fun at gringos by carrying a costumed "Uncle Sam" among its many passengers. Rounding out the field of prizewinners, a team ofpulque makers came in third place with a folksy tableau that included two burros and ren- derings of various popular songs. Articulating labor, nationalism and rural heritage themes, all three symbolized important aspects of official revolutionary discourse.

Revealing a certain cross section of Veracruz society, floats featuring individuals associated with local government, the customs house and the Naval Academy represented key pillars of the portenio political economy. Entries sponsored by El Dictamen, the Veracruz Yacht Club, Red Cross, several neighborhood fire stations and the Rotary Club "testified" to the diver- sity of voluntary associations. Additionally, the participation of several local businesses as well as several immigrant groups including members of the Cuban, Syrian/Lebanese, German, British and Chinese communities suggested a highly inclusive social collaboration.33 Carefully choreographed to provide a descriptive representation of local society, these events fulfilled an important political function in that they promoted the idea of Veracruz as a cohesive community.34

32 El Dictamen took special care not only to document parade activities but also to provide a list of

participants' names, occupations and their addresses whenever possible. Description of Monday's chil- dren's parade, for example, included mention of Commodore Arturo F. Lapham, engineer Francisco de Rabeau, senorita A. Lechuga, and several other individuals.

33 Several "theme" floats included one by a group described as riding donkeys and calling themselves "Ku Klux Klanes" (supposedly a local dancing club). El Dictamen, February 25, 1925. For discussion of this group's participation in Carnival see Juan Antonio Flores Martos, "Los encapuchados del carnaval del Puerto de Veracruz: una indagaci6n etnografica en la memoria cultural e imaginaci6n urbana." Care- ful not only to mention participation by an assortment of individuals and groups, editors at El Dictaman published a correction regarding the name of the woman featured along with the Syrian/Lebanese entry in the auto parade as well as the construction materials used for the car. El Dictamen, February 26, 1925.

34 The term "descriptive representation" is borrowed from Hanna Pitkin. Cited in Ryan, "The Amer- ican Parade," (in) Hunt (ed.) The New Cultural History, p. 137.

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MASKED BALLS, STREET DANCES AND CARNIVAL AS COMMERCE

In addition to the many daytime Carnival activities, various evening events held over the weekend suggest a variety of social encounters at sites throughout the city. After the Saturday night coronation, for example, the queen and her court, accompanied by a host of well-wishers, had attended masked balls at the Centro de Dependientes, the Circulo Espanol and the Casino Veracruzano. Reporting on one of these gatherings, El Dictamen mentioned the grand appearance of the site and a long list of local notables in attendance.35

At the same time, the vast assemblage that gathered each night in city streets, parks and local tenements enjoyed their own rowdy combination of music, drinking, dancing and masquerading.36 Fully embracing the Carnival tradition from a somewhat different perspective, the anonymous revelers who partook in the merry making began to establish a postrevolutionary Carnival tradition that embodied an implicit spirit of local solidarity among the port's popular classes. As long time resident and local chronicler Paco Pildora (Francisco Rivera) hinted at when considering how by the mid- 1930s Carnival had been transformed by the port's working masses into an essentially popular celebration, "it was just expected that one step foot on Cinco de Mayo and dance to the tune of Reina Mora, El Pagare or La Virgen de Regla."37

Despite the official discourse aimed at promoting community spirit, in practice the 1925 Carnival proved the festival could not help but also reflect social divisions within the city. Thus, as the celebration came to a close on Tuesday night with the raucous parading, shouting, singing and setting off of firecrackers before the eventual torching of (an effigy of) King Juan Car- nival in the central square, some among the nearly one thousand gathered (including members of the railroad workers union who oversaw the event) surely must have begun making their own plans for Carnival the following year. 38 With the Carnival King reduced to ashes, Organizing Committee members also prepared for coming the 1926 event. Part of their plan included not only the realization of expanded civic but also commercial opportunities.

35 El Dictamen, February 24, 1925. Throughout the entire weekend, detailed reports of well-to-do residents attending private, indoor gatherings in clubs, business associations and private homes high- lighted the activities of more elite elements in Veracruz society.

36 See the 1933 film La mujer del puerto for some actual street scenes of Carnival in Veracruz. 37 Quoted in Garcia Diaz, Puerto de Veracruz, p. 226. 38 El Dictamen, February 26, 1925.

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REVIVING THE LOCAL EcONOMY

With its revival in 1925, Carnival organizers had attempted to promote an "official" idea of and identification with local and national postrevolutionary community. Expanding their developmental discourse, festival boosters would also seek to create new commercial opportunities and begin to market the city as a tourist destination. Anticipating an increase in event participation, local businesses in 1926 constructed various promotional appeals designed specifically for Carnival goers. Advertisements appearing in El Dic- tamen', for example, announced a new perfume called "Luz" for sale in a shop on 5 de Mayo Street. The pharmacy ""Cruz Blanca"' encouraged residents to maintain their health and "keep Mal Humor away" by using medicines available from their shop. Various stationary and printing businesses advertised

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confetti and streamers. Clothiers Natalio Ulibarri and Company announced a sale on costumes and gifts for the occasion. "La Imperial" retailers informed readers of their wide selection of women's pumps in styles appropriate for

queens and other embajadoras de Carnaval. Hotel Terminal promoted a special menu for Carnival days along with "music, light and happiness." Perhaps most appropriately, Bayer Aspirin made a special appeal with an illustration

featuring Carnival dancers and the inscription "happy times." With the help of their product, the ad read, Carnival could be enjoyed to its fullest with vir-

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ANDREW GRANT WOOD

tually no fear of painful after effects the next day.39 As the celebration of Carnival caught on during the late 1920s, many in the city saw the festival both as an opportunity to promote postrevolutionary social harmony and an

extraordinary boost for the local economy. An editorial in El Dictamen

printed in 1927 claimed:

[Carnival] signifies an annual gathering of new elements, of renewed energies that give rise to more than a few products and benefits for the entire population. . . . Because the organization of a festival like Carnival creates an extraordinary degree of commerce, various transport services, hotels, commercial houses and entertainment providers will see tremendous economic benefit. Subsequently, Veracruz will have the opportunity every year to improve this situation by beautifying its buildings, parks and avenues thus making the city a more attractive tourist destination. With this effort, the city will no doubt [again] become the indisputable first port of the Republic in the Gulf region offering all the conveniences and progressive touches that one would hope to find in any country.40

In appropriating selected elements of revolutionary discourse, promoters helped provide the city with various "beautifications" as well as a number of new, modem conveniences. Before long, the informal partnership established between Veracruz businesses, city boosters and print capitalism in the

staging of Carnival would prove an attractive formula for others to emulate.

Judging from one report at the time, the growing number of participants, promotions and sponsoring organizations in Veracruz caused a journalist from Mexico City to remark:

[With the resurgence of Veracruz Carnival] we have seen a great increase in commerce and the number of businesses. And while realizing the festival requires the cooperation of many individuals-a majority of whom (mer- chants, industrialists, professionals and the local government) will benefit directly from the increased activity in the city-Carnival is clearly good business. In organizing a celebration here, we [in Mexico City] would do well to learn from the example of those in Veracruz and invest a little money and more effort in organizing the event.41

Echoing these sentiments, many not only in the nation's capital but several other Mexican cities would soon sponsor Carnivals of their own. As in

39 El Dictamen, February 14-15, 1926. 40 Ibid., February 18, 1927. 41 Ibid., February 16, 1926. Reports in El Dictamen from February 1926 describe the Mexico City

Carnival taking place in Chapultepec Park and along Reforma Avenue. On February 17, the paper reported that five people had died during the celebration.

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Vera-cruz, various postrevolutionary coalitions--also hoping to develop civic pride as well as new sources of revenue -formed among business and civic leaders.

In 1926 the Veracruz city of C6rdoba initiated its own celebration com- plete with a contest to decide Carnival Queen.42 The following year, residents of the Veracruz towns of Puerto Mexico (today Coatzacoalcos) Otati- tlin (near Tierra Blanca), Coatepec (outside Jalapa), Tlacotalpan and San Cristobal organized festivals. At the same time, El Dictamen remarked that a large number of visitors from neighboring areas had come to the port to join in the celebration.43 Indeed, the promotion of Carnival both as a new postrevolutionary "holiday" and a pleasurable commercial opportunity was proving a highly successful combination.

CONCLUSION

In a nation turned upside down by more than a decade of social, political and economic crisis, Carnival organizers in Veracruz articulated a powerful message that encouraged residents "of all social classes" to find a place for themselves in the new postrevolutionary order. Promoting Carnival as an inclusive public event, local leaders hoped that participation in the festival would not only re-establish the pre-Lenten local party tradition but also help disseminate the idea of a new, postrevolutionary "community." In conjunction with the various political and cultural implications of Carnival, the festival gave rise to a variety of new business opportunities.

From an elite perspective, Carnival served as an important cultural chan- nel for official revolutionary discourse. Just as national leaders in Mexico City issued various proclamations announcing the dawn of a new inclusive, democratic society, festival organizers articulated a similar message in print, parades and performance. Whatever the more complicated social situation behind the scenes, official Carnival discourse resonated with postrevolutionary political and cultural programming during a time of critical national reconstruction by promoting Veracruz as an attractive, well-integrated local "community" on the rise. Whether for cultural, political or commercial pur- poses, Carnival organizers in 1925 had reinvented a local tradition. Follow- ing their lead, others soon established their own local festivals elsewhere in postrevolutionary Mexico.

42 El Dictamen, February 9, 10, 1926. 43 Ibid., February 3, 5, 1927.

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The 1925 revival of Carnival brought jubilant merrymaking to the streets and salons of Veracruz after many years of social crisis. Officially, organizers sought to promote community pride and commercial opportunity by making use of official postrevolutionary claims that Mexicans of "all social classes" had an important part to play in the making of the new civic life of the nation. To this end they staged elaborate public spectacles that were reported on in effusive detail by the city's only daily newspaper El Dicta- men. In reality, the event appears to have been more divided as descriptions of elites attending fancy masked balls held in local elite salons contrast sharply with popular merrymaking in local tenements and streets. Taking notice of the apparent gap between Carnival discourse and festival practice, in 1926 porteiios organized the election of a "Rey Feo" (Ugly King) who, in contrast to the Carnival Queen, would "represent" ordinary men and women. Obviously intended to poke fun at the local social hierarchy, Ver- acruz Carnival in future years would gradually become an even more inclusive affair as various labor unions, neighborhood groups, civic associations and a wide assortment of the urban populace invented all sorts of creative ways to participate in the public spectacle. Developed from the start for the explicit purpose of social integration through symbolic means, the modern history of Veracruz Carnival has extravagantly reflected larger political, economic and cultural negotiation taking shape in both the local community- and to a certain extent-the nation as a whole.44

University of Tulsa ANDREW GRANT WOOD Tulsa, Oklahoma

44 The changing character of modem Carnival following the first celebration in 1925 is part of a larger collaborative project making extensive use of historic photo collections at the State Archive in Xalapa and the Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura in the Port of Veracruz.

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Documents

Introducing La Reina Del Carnaval Public Celebration and Postrevolutionary Discourse In