A Dark Past, Three Foreign Invasions, and a Decade of Violence: How the Perseverance of Veracruz’s Carnaval is a Symbol of Hope for Mexico at Large

This week, the City of Heroica Veracruz successfully concluded its 96th uninterrupted pre-Lenten Carnaval festival. Though the size of Veracruz’s Carnaval pales in comparison to counterparts in Rio de Janeiro and Barranquilla, the event is the largest Carnaval in Mexico. Influenced by the city’s rough history and three foreign occupations, the Veracruz Carnaval is not just a significant cultural and economic event but also a hopeful symbol of Mexico’s durability in spite of colonialism, violence, and poverty.

Early History - A “miserable, black-looking city.”

Hernan Cortez founded Veracruz in 1519 before he marched inland to conquer the Aztec Empire. After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Veracruz served as the principal port for New Spain, the first stop in Mexico before travelers moved inward towards early colonies like Mexico City and Puebla. For the first couple of centuries, few people remained in Veracruz, often breezing through it to avoid persistent disease like yellow fever that claimed many lives during the colonial period. The constant disease, insects, inclement weather, flooding, and unsanitary conditions caused an early visitor to describe it as a “miserable, black-looking city.”

Despite these difficulties, Veracruz continued to serve as an important trading post for the Spanish Empire. Over time, the merchants who depended on the port worked with government officials to make the city more habitable through sanitation and infrastructure projects. Though these efforts yielded limited success, the port continued to grow, and the city already hosted significant Carnaval festivities by the mid-1800’s.

During the French occupation of Mexico in the 1960’s, official celebrations were reserved for the elite and took the form of private masquerade balls. Working class people still had their own celebrations that incorporated traditions from African immigrants and indigenous persons, including flamboyant costumes and the African chuchumé style of dance.

The party was shut down for several decades once the French were ousted by Benito Juarez, whose new Liberal government rejected and sometimes prohibited many European and Catholic traditions like pre-Lenten festivities. The festival would remain dormant for another half century until the Mexican Revolution.

The Pioneer of Mexican Tourism

The modern variation of Veracruz’s Carnaval began in 1914, when the United States invaded Veracruz to seize an incoming shipment of arms and ammunition that was (incorrectly) believed to have been shipped from Germany to the new government of Victoriano Huerto, who had seized control of the country a year earlier.

During the eight-year occupation, the U.S. military engaged in a significant effort to “clean up” the city, enlisting local labor to clean streets, burn waste, improve sewage treatment, and fumigate for disease-carrying insects. Despite the local resentment against the occupying force, the cleanup efforts served as a guide for future projects by the local government once the Americans finally left.

After the Mexican Revolution wound down in the early 1920’s, Veracruz experienced a significant boom in tourism due to a combination of sanitation projects, new infrastructure like highways and passenger railroads, and massive tourism promotion. The first Carnaval celebration in the modern era was held in 1925 and was an immediate hit. The festival was an economic success for not only local businesses but also multinational corporations. For instance, Bayer Aspirin issued the following print advertisement to show that its medication could help people enjoy Carnaval to the fullest without painful next-morning consequences:

“HAPPY HOURS…Finally the hour [for Carnival] has arrived [to rescue us from] the pain and suffering, anxiety and struggle, monotony and sadness of everyday life!...All these unwanted feelings are forgotten when it is time for the magic happiness of Carnival.” (Translated).

RCA also advertised its radios with the following poster that shows the jarocho style dance typical of the Veracruz region:

The Veracruz Carnaval was already a regular hit by 1930. In that year, an association of retailers, railroads, and auto makers met in Mexico City to discuss how to continue the momentum from the emerging tourism industry. The construction of the Pan-American Highway connecting the United States and Mexico was already underway (completed in 1936), and the meeting participants discussed another transportation network that would connect Mexico City to Veracruz.

Some early beneficiaries of Mexico’s budding tourism industry were 300 American tourists who arrived on the English steamboat the Lapland in 1929. Assisted by a partnership between Wells Fargo and the Mexico National Railroad, the tourists were shuttled along Veracruz’s main attractions and transported by rail all the way to Mexico City and back. These tourists took their positive reviews back to the States, fueling the Mexican tourism buzz.

In his essay “On the Selling of Rey Momo,” Andrew Grant Wood explains that the early tourism promotion “[l]aid the groundwork for the development of tourism by establishing an informal partnership between local businesses, print journalism, and leading civil organizations.” See Andrew Grant Wood, “On the Selling of Rey Momo: Early Tourism and the Marketing of Carnaval in Veracruz,” in Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist Encounters, eds. Dina Berger and Andrew Grant Wood (Duke University Press 2010).

In the mid-20th Century, Mexico would use the lessons from Veracruz to develop other destinations like Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta, and later Cancun and Los Cabos.

Carnaval Today: No a La Violencia

Today’s festival attracts approximately 300,000 visitors and spectators. It also draws big acts like headliners Gloria Trevi this year and J Balvin in 2019. Like other carnival celebrations around the world, the Veracruz Carnaval features various neighborhood groups called comparsas who dress up and perform for honors. The festivities also blend Catholic tradition with the major influences from Veracruz’s history, including indigenous, Afro-Caribbean, and French culture.

Every year, the Carnaval kicks off with the Quema del Mal Humor (“Burning of the Bad Mood”), which is usually an occasion to burn some unpopular politician or public figure in effigy. This year, instead of torching an individual, the organizers set fire to the words No a la Violencia (“No to Violence”), an expression of popular frustration by a society experiencing the highest murder rates in its history. This problem has not been alleviated with the administration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who ran on a platform of tackling corruption and violence.

For those who are doubtful that Mexico can overcome its current crisis, the story of Medellin, Colombia illustrates how a place could go from the world’s murder capital to the world’s most innovative city in little over 20 years. Putting Mexico’s most pressing problems to rest will be a long haul that requires getting to the root of underlying problems of corruption and weak rule of law. However, the perseverance of Veracruz through a rough 500-year history provides a glimmer of hope that the country at large has the resources and determination to overcome its greatest obstacles. With the rampant violence, corruption, and cynicism, it is easy to forget that Mexico has enjoyed a relatively stable and lengthy period of no forcible overthrows or military dictatorships compared to the majority of Latin American nations. It’s economy is second only to Brazil in Latin America and is the 15th largest worldwide. The country’s relatively stable modern history has allowed Veracruz to enjoy 96 years of uninterrupted Carnaval, and Camino Aztlán is hopeful that the country will have much more to celebrate when the festival turns 100.

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