Celebrating Cinco de Mayo

Stefanie Frith

Second-grader Maria Cuahutle said Saturday she had been waiting all

week to perform in Whittier Elementary’s Cinco de Mayo event. Earlier in

the week, she wasn’t nervous. But the actual day, however, was a

different story.

“She came in this morning and said, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m nervous,’ and she

had this little look,” said Maria’s mother, Esther Perez. “In fact, I was

nervous for her.”

If the children who performed during the fourth annual event at the

Costa Mesa school were nervous during the dozen or so dances they

performed in honor of Cinco de Mayo, it certainly didn’t show.

Kindergartners took to the decorated stage in the center of the school

first, performing a cowboy dance in pairs, smiling and giggling.

Third-graders performed “Los Machetes” and even the adult school

performed to “Rock Around the Clock.” A few hundred people were there to

watch, mostly family members of the stars on stage.

There was also cotton candy, food from Super Chicken and Zubie’s

Chicken Coop, crafts and hundreds of parents with cameras. The event

commemorates the defeat of the French army by the Mexicans at the Battle

of Puebla in 1862 on the fifth of May.

“This is really great, all the people here celebrating Cinco de Mayo,”

said Amaea Gonzalez of Costa Mesa, whose niece, Giselle, performed in the

cowboy dance. “It’s so cute. And the teachers are wonderful for learning

all the dances for the kids and teaching it to them. They do great events

here at the school.”

Martha Blair, a kindergarten teacher who organized the dances, said

the children have been working hard for weeks and now that it was finally

happening, she couldn’t believe how adorable they all looked.

“Aren’t they all so cute? Just look at them,” she said, as another

group of girls dressed in bright, red, flowing dresses got ready to go on

stage.

Jennifer Margolin, a third-grade teacher, said her students practiced

their dance Friday morning during the flag salute, and bugged her for the

rest of the day to perform again.

“They kept asking, ‘Can we do it again? Can we do it again?’ It’s

really cute,” Margolin said. “They are just all so good. All week, they

have been so excited and nervous, asking to practice all the time.”

Another third-grade teacher, Margaret Anderson, who was the emcee of

the event, said her students couldn’t wait for Saturday.

“They’ve really been looking forward to this,” she said while the

students took a break from performing. “The younger brothers and sisters

have watched their brothers and sisters doing this and now it’s their

turn. They just love performing and they have so much talent.”