While many of the roughly 300 who came to the Cinco de Mayo celebration at Heber City Main Street Park to celebrate their Mexican heritage, 13-year-old Guillermo Osorio was just there for the lucha libre.

He’d been waiting impatiently since he saw the flyer last month. His life’s dream is to add an actual, gold-plated WWE belt to his collection of Walmart replicas. 

Osorio’s brother and parents have repeatedly asked him whether he wants to become a wrestler, but he’s still not sure. If he did, his persona would be Niño Hamburguesa Con Queso — Cheeseburger Kid (not to be confused with Mexican pro wrestler Niño Hamburguesa).

“My friends are making fun of me,” Osorio explained, holding a shiny, red luchador mask. “They can call me cheeseburger, but I don’t care.”

Osorio was determined to find his new favorite wrestler among the crowd of competing luchadores from Lucha Libre Utah. By the end of the night, he had his answer: Big Country, an overall-clad hillbilly in a sleeveless plaid shirt.

Big Country’s opponent was the terrifying Slasher Slade, a KISS reject with an appetite for human flesh.

“Do you see your dinner?” asked the announcer, Jagger Lane, as Slasher Slade came onstage and leered at the crowd. Then, he held Slasher Slade back when he approached some kids in the front row, teeth bared, malice in his eyes.

Although the ring was set up on the park’s stage, very little of Big Country and Slasher Slade’s battle took place there. Instead, they duked it out in the crowd. 

At one point, a little girl in the front row shot one of the luchadores with a bubble gun, and he mimed being impaled by dozens of machine gun rounds. Then, Big Country politely asked the girl for the gun, grabbed it and slammed the stock in his opponent’s face. 

Everyone was in on the mock violence. At one point, a luchador picked up a short, skinny high schooler and used his body as a battering ram.

Wasatch High School senior Jazmine Parks was calmly selling $5 ringside tickets amid the chaos. Proceeds from the tickets went directly to the school’s Latinos In Action club, of which Parks is president, for activities and events.

The club was invited to participate in the Cinco de Mayo celebration by Community Alliance for Main Street Executive Director Rachel Kahler, who organized the event. 

“As high school students, being able to have an impact like this and grow in a community like this and bring everyone together is really nice,” Parks said. “Having all of the support is really great in hard times like this.”

To Parks, whose mother is Mexican American, Cinco de Mayo represents an opportunity to spend time with loved ones and celebrate Mexican culture. Her family usually celebrates the holiday with a cookout, serving traditional food and dancing to Mexican music.

Parks said she is hopeful an event like Heber City’s Cinco de Mayo celebration can foster cultural appreciation.

“Speaking to my family about (Fourth of July), they’re like, ‘It’s cool that they have fireworks,’ because it’s more of an American tradition,” she said. “I feel like Americans will find what we do pretty cool, and I feel like they’ll start engaging. Even seeing how many people there are here today, of all different ethnicities, it’s really cool.”

Cinco de Mayo commemorates Mexico’s 1862 victory over French invaders in the Battle of Puebla, though it is often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day, which is celebrated on Sept. 16 and commemorates the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810.

“A lot of people just say, ‘Hey, Cinco de Mayo. Let’s drink,’” explained Heber City resident Alvaro Carbajal. “The whole story behind it is more (like) we won a battle (against) one of our oppressors. … It was a step closer to liberation.”

Carbajal has Mexican heritage, but he doesn’t typically celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Despite that, he was heartened to see Heber City recognizing its Mexican American residents.

“The Hispanic community in Heber has been growing exponentially,” he said. 

One piece of evidence for that, he said, is Wasatch County School District’s expansion of its Spanish dual-immersion programs available from kindergarten through 12th grade. The programs began in 2008 and offer half of the instruction in English and the other half in Spanish to ensure fluency in both languages. 

When Carbajal went to Midway Elementary School, the only option available to him was English as a Second Language. Now, when his 5-year-old son begins at J.R. Smith Elementary School, Carbajal plans to enroll him in the dual immersion program.

For Carbajal, Heber City’s Cinco de Mayo celebration represented unity.

“It gives me hope that cultures can actually coexist together and not just look (at) the stigma that most Hispanics have,” he said. “It gives me hope to see people enjoying some of our culture, things like our food, our entertainment as well. They’re just having a blast.”

Kahler felt that sense of unity as well.

“I saw so many people that didn’t know each other talking to each other and such a melding of cultures, which is really what we wanted,” she said.

Kahler was inspired to organize the event to celebrate and highlight the Latino community.

Kahler was reminded of that purpose when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested at least four people in Heber City on April 21. Afterward, Kahler attended a Zoom meeting with Police Chief Parker Sever and Sheriff Jared Rigby to listen to the concerns of representatives from Wasatch Latino Coalition.

The current administration has cracked down on illegal immigration through ICE, which has been criticized for using tactics such as racial profiling to detain and deport Latinos.

“It really felt like it was a heavy year for the Latino community. A lot of things are happening that are out of our control. There’s a lot of fear. And I feel like, as a community, we really need to see them and step up,” Kahler said. “This felt like an opportunity to both recognize their culture and embrace their culture and embrace them as people.”

The post Heber City celebrates Cinco de Mayo with luchadores galore appeared first on Park Record.

The energy at Wasatch High School Latinos in Action’s celebration of cultures showcase on Friday instantly topped that of many live shows. 

There was no awkward head-bobbing or distracted chatting from the crowd packed into the school auditorium. Instead, there were screams of support from parents holding bouquets, dancing in the audience and cheering that rivaled the Super Bowl. 

When Wasatch High School ninth grader and resident hype man Jafet Farías wandered on stage in a blazer and sunglasses to belt out Don Omar’s 2010 hit “Danza Kuduro” for the first act, the entire auditorium lit up with phone flashlights dancing like a swarm of excited fireflies.

Timpagonos Middle School student Salome Urquijo was a tad more timid than Farías was. 

Wearing a colorful traditional Mexican dress and flower crown, the 12-year-old student danced with the girls in Andres Caceres’ Latinos in Action class. Meanwhile, the boys donned masks resembling elderly men and sombreros, which they twirled on canes like spinning plates during the Michoacán folk dance Danza de los Viejitos (Dance of the Little Old Men).

Urquijo said they planned the dance for a year, but she still had stage fright.

“There are so many people here,” she said beforehand. “It’s people bigger than me, and I feel nervous.”

Wasatch High School Latinos in Action teacher Ana Alejandre said giving students a safe space to share their talents was one of the reasons she founded the cultural showcase four years ago.

“There’s a teacher friend of mine. She said, ‘This, for some kids, is going to be the only time that they really perform in their life on a stage where they have this many people watching them,'” Alejandre said. “Just to see them feeling so proud up there, it’s like, ‘Yes. That’s what we’re here to do.'”

Alejandre also founded the cultural showcase to foster interest in Wasatch High School’s Latinos in Action class.

Latinos in Action is a national program focused on empowering Latino youth through four pillars: leveraging personal and cultural assets, excelling in education, serving the community and developing leadership skills. Wasatch High School’s Latinos in Action class was founded about a decade ago, with Alejandre beginning to teach it four years ago.

“The first year that I taught Latinos in Action, none of this was happening. … Kids didn’t sign up for (Latinos in Action). I had to invite students to join,” Alejandre said. 

But once the group started holding the annual cultural showcase four years ago, kids became interested in the class. The showcase itself became wildly popular, with Alejandre estimating that this year’s crowd was three times the size of the first showcase’s. 

There were a few poetry and vocal performances, like the guitar-strumming and serenading of Wasatch High School senior Yandell Parra’s three-man band, Grupo CLAY, but the bulk of performances were dance numbers.

A standout performance was by a group featuring Wasatch High School alumni Milly Vieyra and Mayra Castro. The group performed a dance popular during July festivities in Guerrero, Mexico, when residents celebrate the saint Sr. Santiago Apostol. 

The group wore heavy, handmade sombreros that looked as if they were made of orange flowers, as well as wooden masks that distort their voices to sound deeper when they yell. They danced to a repetitive flute and drum melody, stomping the ground to represent growing flowers and cracking whips to imitate lightning.

“Every dance has a story behind it,” Castro said. “We’re basically representing the farmers.”

It wasn’t just students and alumni who danced, but school district employees, too.

High school counselor Angie Orjuela-Beltran performed a dance number with her fiance, father and mother. 

“Sometimes resources are not available for (students) because of the language. So, the job that they are doing helping them is amazing. I really love and admire my daughter,” said Angie’s father, Carlos Orjuela. 

Dance became a staple of the Orjuela family as soon as they immigrated to the United States about 20 years ago.

“We were not dancers before, but then, when we came, basically, we realized that dance is something that is joining the family together,” he said. “We enjoy it. So we dance on every occasion that we have the opportunity.”

Assistant High School Principal McKenzie Neiufi also performed a dance number with her family, though they had much less practice, according to her husband, Amoni. He learned about the showcase earlier that evening, when he’d just gotten home from work. The family practiced for about an hour before they were thrust into the spotlight. 

The Neiufis performed a Polynesian dance number to “Mate Ma’a Tonga” by Tupou Loto’aniu and made it through about half of the dance onstage. 

“There’s still more to that dance,” Amoni said. “Maybe next year, we’ll do the whole thing.”

The Neiufis’ performance was an example of how the culture night was for everyone, despite being organized by Latinos in Action. 

Junior Aim Jivon got the crowd clapping along as she sang Thai pop songs, while sophomore Daigh Marshall performed Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” in American Sign Language as twelfth grader Avery Green jammed on the piano. 

For Alejandre, the “culture” in culture night refers to Wasatch High School’s culture as well.

She grew up in Ogden after her family immigrated to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, when she was 8 years old. She estimated that her family was one of five immigrant families in her school district. There certainly wasn’t a cultural showcase back then; her heritage felt like a secret she had to keep. 

When she began teaching in the school district, she was pleasantly surprised by the number of Hispanic students and the variety of cultures students came from.

“You can see that kids are just into it. They want other people to see. They want to show what they know because it’s hard to any other place,” Alejandre said. “That’s part of the school.”

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Once a week at Trailside Elementary School, the Stir Crazy Coffee Cart is open for business.

Armed with a cartful of coffee and donuts, students receiving special education services walk the halls of the school, peddling their goods to teachers and staff members in exchange for donations to the Park City School District’s Latinos in Action programs.

To the uninitiated, it may seem like a simple activity. But teachers in the Trailside special education program say it’s much more than that. Over the last two months, they’ve seen the students flourish, transforming from uncertain children too shy to maintain eye contact with teachers into confident baristas and servers who are eager to make their weekly rounds.

Vanessa Jobe, the teacher who came up with the idea of bringing the coffee cart program to Trailside after being inspired by similar efforts in San Francisco and Salt Lake City, said the growth in the students has been phenomenal.

That development is vital, she said, because students receiving academic support must be able to advocate for themselves when they move on to Ecker Hill Middle School. The coffee cart program has helped them harness those skills in a natural and fun way.

“That was kind of our driving (force), allowing students the opportunity to have those conversations with teachers and feel comfortable and confident in their abilities,” she said. “Because all of these kids have all those skills.

Cortney Martinez, a speech therapist involved in the program, said the coffee cart is so valuable because it takes the students out of the classroom and forces them to interact in unscripted situations. They don’t know in advance which teachers will want change or ask what kind of donuts they’re selling. It requires the students to adapt on the go — and they have.

“Now you see them so comfortable,” she said. “It’s really neat to watch the difference and see their confidence. And they take pride in it. They’re very prideful of their jobs.”

Martinez added that one of the biggest changes is in the way the students present their offerings. In the beginning, they’d offer one-word, timid descriptions of what they were selling. Now, that shyness is gone. On a recent school day, the students presented the coffee and donuts to teachers with enthusiasm, using their arms to showcase the goods like a model on “The Price is Right” might while unveiling a new car.

“It went from, ‘We have some donuts,’ to now, ‘We have a caramel-topped and cream-filled donut,’” she said. “That’s functional communication. Now, we don’t have to give them the descriptions because they are thinking about it and coming up with it on their own. It’s fun to watch.”

Participation from Trailside’s staff has been vital. They have embraced the program in a way that has impressed, if not surprised, Jobe and Martinez, who said getting the students out of the classroom is an important element of the program but one that wouldn’t be possible without the faculty’s support.

“There’s a lot of misconceptions about what goes on in our rooms,” Martinez said. “It’s really fun to help bridge that gap with the staff. I think it’s affected our staff at a really great level, because they’re excited to participate. I can’t believe how successful it’s been with the staff. They love seeing those kids.”

Jobe and Martinez are hopeful the success of the coffee cart — which is funded by the Park City Education Foundation and the Trailside parent-teacher organization — means it will continue in future school years. One idea is to team up with students in the Ecker Hill special needs program, who could pick up the goods from Park City Coffee Roaster and Naughty Donuts and deliver them to Trailside.

The program could also expand into a community outreach effort in which the Trailside students could visit the roaster and donut shop and see the types of interactions real-life employees have with customers.

“Eventually, we can take our students that participate in Coffee Cart to Park City Coffee Roaster on local transportation and be like, ‘This is what the job looks like outside of the cart,’” Jobe said. “That would just help broaden the horizon of it so it’s not just like, ‘This is a fun activity.’ It’s like, ‘This is a life skill, being good with people.’”

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