Everything was prepared with love and attention, and probably everybody had their fingers crossed all week. It should not rain during the Independence party at the Mexican Residence in The Netherlands. Rain was banned from the scenario. It just would be impossible to have the expected 1300 visitors -among them many babies and small children- in the rented tent. And it didn't rain, and not only that it was sunny and the temperature reminded me of a Mexico City afternoon, when you need a light coat on just not to be cold.
The festivity was great in all senses, probably the biggest all Mexican (with Dutch partners) party ever in the Netherlands. Last year in Madurodam were nearly 1800 people but among them there were many Dutch and Latinamerican friends.
Ambassador Lomonaco had been officially ambassador only for three days!
The first Dutch-Dutch singer of Mexican songs "Carolina de Holanda" was also there.
The garden had always reminded me of El Pedregal in Mexico City and yesterday that feeling was even stronger but with a mixed of a Zocalo feeling in a small town.
The second generation Mexicans in the Netherlands are being born. And I wonder would they be feeling Mexicans? Would they speak Spanish? Circumstances are different when their -mainly- mothers arrived in The Netherlands and there were only a handful of them in the whole country and no one to share the culture or the language on the street or the inner circles. It didn't exist either the infrastructure to learn correct Dutch as it is now. So the first born Dutch-Mexicans didn't speak Spanish or if they did stopped speaking it in their teens.
The new Mexicans arriving are mainly highly ambitious students or young professionals who confront The Netherlands with very different eyes than the first Mexican women who arrived about 25 years ago. (I know two ladies who arrived 30 years ago).
Maybe it is time to start writing about the history of the Mexican community in The Netherlands.
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