Indigenous Artist’s Exhibit on Trophy Hunting Ban Featured at Clark County Cinco de Mayo Event

Olegario Hernández Mendoza usually celebrates Cinco de Mayo in Mexico, but this year he will spend the holiday at the Clark County Government Center in downtown Las Vegas.

Hernández Mendoza, an indigenous Oaxacan artist, will be joined by Clark County Commissioners William McCurdy II and Tick Segerblom at a reception Thursday at 6 pm to kick off his new art exhibit at the government center.

The theme of the Hernández Mendoza exhibition, which will be on display in the rotunda of the government center from Thursday until May 15, revolves around the ban on trophy hunting in Mexico.

Each painting in the collection focuses on a different animal affected by endangered trophy hunting. The exhibition also includes paintings by students from the Las Vegas Valley focused on the issue of immigration. They will be joined by the Poblano Federation of Las Vegas with a performance, mariachi music and food.

“We want to demonstrate our work so that people recognize it,” Hernández Mendoza said in Spanish.

The history of Cinco de Mayo

While the United States celebrates its independence day on July 4 and Mexico on September 16, Chicanos or Mexican Americans do not have a similar day to cling to.

“How does the party move to the United States?” asked Julián Escutia Rodríguez, the Mexican consul in Las Vegas, in Spanish. “(Chicanos and Mexican Americans looking for their own identity) found it in the battle of Puebla, which is very symbolic of independence, and they made it their own.”

The Battle of Puebla occurred on May 5, 1862, in the midst of the French invasion of Mexico. A group of Mexican soldiers who were not well equipped for war ended up defending the city of Puebla against France and its powerful army.

In the end, the Mexican forces killed nearly 500 French soldiers and lost fewer than 100 of their own.

The biggest Cinco de Mayo celebration in Mexico takes place in Puebla, where the city celebrates its history with re-enactments of the battle, according to Escutia Rodríguez.

But Chicanos and Mexican Americans in the United States also embraced Cinco de Mayo as a day of celebration in the 1960s and 1970s. The popularization of the holiday has since been marketed as a holiday, Escutia Rodríguez said. In Mexico, he grew up studying the battle in school, but in his city it was not celebrated.

“There are many Mexicans who don’t necessarily celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but when they arrive (in the United States), they realize that the day is well recognized,” he said. “That’s thanks to the Chicano movement.”