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Tune of the Day: Mexican Hat Dance
This musical piece, actually a medley of Mexican folk music, was composed in the 19th century by a professor of music in Guadalajara, J.G. Rubio.
In its standardized form, the song was first choreographed by the Mexican Felipa Lopez in the early twentieth century to celebrate a government-sponsored fiesta that commemorated the successful end of the Mexican Revolution. Since then it has become a folk dance popular throughout Mexico and the Southwestern United States as a symbol of the national pride and honor of the Mexican people.
In 1924, Secretary of Education José Vasconcelos proclaimed the “Jarabe tapatio” to be Mexico’s national dance and decreed that it would be taught throughout the Mexican public school system as a symbol of Mexican identity, designed to supersede any local dance traditions and bind together the ethnically diverse.