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Ahead of the official holiday Tuesday, thousands packed the Delaware River waterfront Sunday to celebrate Mexican Independence Day in Philadelphia.
Mexican Independence Day commemorates the anniversary of the Grito de Dolores, a speech and battle cry by Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in 1810, which inspired the movement that ultimately freed Mexico from Spanish rule.
Sunday’s event, hosted by the Mexican Cultural Center, was the 25th year of the celebration in Philadelphia. Board President Araceli Guenther said she was proud to see so many people after last year’s event brought roughly 13,000 people to Penn’s Landing.
“When I see how our people, our community, people from Mexico in particular, have integrated into Philadelphia and the region, hardworking people, it’s a vibrant people,” Guenther said. “We just felt that for those that came, they needed to feel the full thing that they’ve been feeling for the past 25 years.”