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On Independence Day the Plaza de la Constitución will be flooded with people celebrating and waiting to see their president on the balcony of the National Palace.
Parades, rodeos, and civic ceremonies mark the official celebration of Independence Day on September 16, but the festivities begin the night before as people gather in the squares of towns and cities all over Mexico. They gather to see spectacular fireworks and to take part in the re-creation of the famous grito de Dolores. This grito de Dolores was Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s call in 1810 to his congregation in Dolores, Mexico, to fight for a free and independent Mexico. With his ringing of the church bell to gather the people and his rallying cries for Mexican independence, the revolutionaries entered into a long and bloody struggle. Eleven years later, on September 16, 1821, independence was finally declared from Spain.