Red, White and Green

Today is a national holiday for the birthday of Benito Juarez with banks and many stores closed. Here is some red, white and green in honor of their national pride.


Benito Juarez served five terms as President of Mexico, and was very popular for lessening the power of the Catholic Church and standing up for the indigenous. Benito was from the town of Guelatao, about an hour outside of Oaxaca. He was orphaned when he was three, raised by his uncle and aunt, and spoke only Zapotec, the language of the largest indigenous group in Oaxaca. He was illiterate until he was 12 when he started school in Oaxaca and learned Spanish. Later he went to law school. Oaxaca is extremely proud of their Benito, who is on the 20 peso bill. There are two monuments to Benito here and--trivia alert--one in Chicago on Michigan Avenue.

Flags are flying large today. There isn't much wind in Oaxaca so it is not easy to get a waving flag. One flag is in the zócalo. The other flag at one of the Benito Juarez monuments, several miles away. I was walking up my street and it caught my eye because it is not usually there.