 "Photo: Jacqueline Walker")
Several thousand Austinites celebrated Cinco de Mayo this weekend and threw parties all across town, uniting all kinds of people for a good time.
The regional holiday is often misconstrued as Mexico's Independence Day, which is actually Sept. 16. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the defeat of French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Although in Mexico the day is not widely celebrated, in the U.S. and other countries, it has become a day to celebrate Latino culture and heritage.
The Independence Brewing Co. provided local beer for members and well-wishers of the banked-track league the Lonestar Rollergirls during their Cinco de Mayo Carnival and fundraiser. The tattoo-clad women were in force, dancing to live music and competing in a belching contest, tricycle jousting and pudding wrestling.
The party, which also had a carnival-like atmosphere with a dunking booth and a raffle of prizes from local businesses, benefitted the Rollergirls' league, which has faced a shortfall of funding despite their growing fame, or infamy, from the A&E reality show "Rollergirls."
"After a reality show, people take notice of what you are, what you are doing," said Nikki McBurnet, or "The Mighty Aphrodite," the special events coordinator for the Lonestar Rollergirls and a member of the Rhinestone Cowgirls. "What happened is the city basically came in and told us that we couldn't use our practice facility as an outing facility, so they gave us a deal."
The deal moved competitions to the Austin Convention Center but forced the league to take up an additional lease to store the track between outings. It also forced the girls out of the cut they would take from merchandise and liquor sales at the original location. The convention center now takes these funds instead of the league, McBurnet said.
"We're about to go into our off-season, and in-season is when we make all our money, and we're going into the off-season broke," McBurnet said.
The league and Independence Brewing Co. make good partners as brewery president Amy Cartwright found a kinship with the rollergirls from the get go.
"I had been a tomboy kind of girl, and I had never seen anything in my whole life where, number one, the women are in control of everything, and number two, they weren't faking it," Cartwright said. "They were so intense, and I could see that they were all going for it - 100-percent effort."
At Fiesta Gardens in East Austin, The Austin Cinco de Mayo Music Festival hosted carnival rides and musical artists from Thursday through Sunday night.
The event benefitted the Greater East Austin Youth League, an organization that funds sports activities for youths in central East Austin. The funding will go toward enrolling more than 1,000 kids into sports programs, said Michelle Diedrick, spokesman for the youth league.
The goal is to provide constructive activities and keep kids out of gangs and trouble, she said.
The festival played host to 25,000 to 30,000 people over the weekend and featured a Ferris wheel, bumper cars and a tilt-a-whirl as well as free contests offering prizes, including polka-dancing and jalapeno-eating contests. This year's jalapeno champ downed 48 of the spicy peppers in a three-minute span, eclipsing the former festival record of 36, said Jon Capuchino, the festival's director.
The winner received $100 and an upset stomach.
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