Heber City celebrates Cinco de Mayo with luchadores galore

While many of the roughly 300 who came to the Cinco de Mayo celebration at Heber City Main Street Park to celebrate their Mexican heritage, 13-year-old Guillermo Osorio was just there for the lucha libre.

He’d been waiting impatiently since he saw the flyer last month. His life’s dream is to add an actual, gold-plated WWE belt to his collection of Walmart replicas. 

Osorio’s brother and parents have repeatedly asked him whether he wants to become a wrestler, but he’s still not sure. If he did, his persona would be Niño Hamburguesa Con Queso — Cheeseburger Kid (not to be confused with Mexican pro wrestler Niño Hamburguesa).

“My friends are making fun of me,” Osorio explained, holding a shiny, red luchador mask. “They can call me cheeseburger, but I don’t care.”

Osorio was determined to find his new favorite wrestler among the crowd of competing luchadores from Lucha Libre Utah. By the end of the night, he had his answer: Big Country, an overall-clad hillbilly in a sleeveless plaid shirt.

Big Country’s opponent was the terrifying Slasher Slade, a KISS reject with an appetite for human flesh.

“Do you see your dinner?” asked the announcer, Jagger Lane, as Slasher Slade came onstage and leered at the crowd. Then, he held Slasher Slade back when he approached some kids in the front row, teeth bared, malice in his eyes.

Although the ring was set up on the park’s stage, very little of Big Country and Slasher Slade’s battle took place there. Instead, they duked it out in the crowd. 

At one point, a little girl in the front row shot one of the luchadores with a bubble gun, and he mimed being impaled by dozens of machine gun rounds. Then, Big Country politely asked the girl for the gun, grabbed it and slammed the stock in his opponent’s face. 

Everyone was in on the mock violence. At one point, a luchador picked up a short, skinny high schooler and used his body as a battering ram.

Wasatch High School senior Jazmine Parks was calmly selling $5 ringside tickets amid the chaos. Proceeds from the tickets went directly to the school’s Latinos In Action club, of which Parks is president, for activities and events.

The club was invited to participate in the Cinco de Mayo celebration by Community Alliance for Main Street Executive Director Rachel Kahler, who organized the event. 

“As high school students, being able to have an impact like this and grow in a community like this and bring everyone together is really nice,” Parks said. “Having all of the support is really great in hard times like this.”

To Parks, whose mother is Mexican American, Cinco de Mayo represents an opportunity to spend time with loved ones and celebrate Mexican culture. Her family usually celebrates the holiday with a cookout, serving traditional food and dancing to Mexican music.

Parks said she is hopeful an event like Heber City’s Cinco de Mayo celebration can foster cultural appreciation.

“Speaking to my family about (Fourth of July), they’re like, ‘It’s cool that they have fireworks,’ because it’s more of an American tradition,” she said. “I feel like Americans will find what we do pretty cool, and I feel like they’ll start engaging. Even seeing how many people there are here today, of all different ethnicities, it’s really cool.”

Cinco de Mayo commemorates Mexico’s 1862 victory over French invaders in the Battle of Puebla, though it is often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day, which is celebrated on Sept. 16 and commemorates the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810.

“A lot of people just say, ‘Hey, Cinco de Mayo. Let’s drink,’” explained Heber City resident Alvaro Carbajal. “The whole story behind it is more (like) we won a battle (against) one of our oppressors. … It was a step closer to liberation.”

Carbajal has Mexican heritage, but he doesn’t typically celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Despite that, he was heartened to see Heber City recognizing its Mexican American residents.

“The Hispanic community in Heber has been growing exponentially,” he said. 

One piece of evidence for that, he said, is Wasatch County School District’s expansion of its Spanish dual-immersion programs available from kindergarten through 12th grade. The programs began in 2008 and offer half of the instruction in English and the other half in Spanish to ensure fluency in both languages. 

When Carbajal went to Midway Elementary School, the only option available to him was English as a Second Language. Now, when his 5-year-old son begins at J.R. Smith Elementary School, Carbajal plans to enroll him in the dual immersion program.

For Carbajal, Heber City’s Cinco de Mayo celebration represented unity.

“It gives me hope that cultures can actually coexist together and not just look (at) the stigma that most Hispanics have,” he said. “It gives me hope to see people enjoying some of our culture, things like our food, our entertainment as well. They’re just having a blast.”

Kahler felt that sense of unity as well.

“I saw so many people that didn’t know each other talking to each other and such a melding of cultures, which is really what we wanted,” she said.

Kahler was inspired to organize the event to celebrate and highlight the Latino community.

Kahler was reminded of that purpose when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested at least four people in Heber City on April 21. Afterward, Kahler attended a Zoom meeting with Police Chief Parker Sever and Sheriff Jared Rigby to listen to the concerns of representatives from Wasatch Latino Coalition.

The current administration has cracked down on illegal immigration through ICE, which has been criticized for using tactics such as racial profiling to detain and deport Latinos.

“It really felt like it was a heavy year for the Latino community. A lot of things are happening that are out of our control. There’s a lot of fear. And I feel like, as a community, we really need to see them and step up,” Kahler said. “This felt like an opportunity to both recognize their culture and embrace their culture and embrace them as people.”