This year’s official Charro Days poster embodies the romance and history of Mexico with the flash of a machete and the swirl of colorful skirts.
            Artist Don Breeden, who has captured the spirit of Charro Days in a popular sequence of collectable posters over the years, says he chose the dancers of Brownsville’s Egly Elementary and their dance, “La Danza De Los Machetes,” because it represents a nation as well as a region.
From the state of Jalisco, this dance holds a special place among Mexican folkdances. It features the campesinos, who farmed, fought for independence and built a nation with their main tool, their trusty machetes. In the dance, they compete for the attention of a lovely lady, dressed in the finely embroidered skirts for which Jalisco and its talented women also are famous.
            Egly teacher Griselda “Chela” Rodriguez, who coaches the school’s Charro Days dance team, said she chose “Los Machetes” because the kids love it. “The children are so excited about using the machetes. What boy doesn’t like that? And of course the beautiful skirts for the girls. We never have trouble getting boys to participate.”
            Fifth-graders Michelle Schmidt, Alonso Estrada and Sergio Armendariz Armendarez modeled for Breeden’s poster image. Michelle’s full skirt features the rich handwork of Jalisco. The boys, dressed as campesinos, cross wooden machetes covered in foil.
            Breeden has illustrated seven of the eight posters in the series, and has included children and folkloric dances in his images for several years. The symbolism and color of “Los Machetes” especially impressed him as a theme for this year’s poster, he said.
Breeden calls his poster models “young ambassadors of Charro Days.”
             “When you bring the kids in, you get their families involved – mom, dad, the aunts and the uncles. I think it helps the spirit of Charro Days, I really do.”
The Brownsville Convention & Visitors Bureau created the poster idea in 1991, and Keppel AmFELS is sponsoring the project for the second year. Posters are available free to the public while they last at Charro Days Headquarters and the BCVB offices. Businesses are being encouraged to display the posters.