Mexico’s First Woman President Claudia Sheinbaum Leads Historic ‘Grito’ as Mexico Celebrates Independence

Mexico marked its Independence Day with a historic first when President Claudia Sheinbaum stood in the capital’s main square to lead the national celebration. For the first time in over a century the ceremony was not directed by a man, and the plaza answered her calls with applause and chants that carried through the evening.

Claudia Sheinbaum, the First Woman-led ‘Grito’

Before tens of thousands gathered in Mexico City’s central plaza, Sheinbaum stepped to a government palace balcony and offered vivas to heroes and heroines of Mexican history, to Indigenous women, and to migrants, bringing the ceremony into the present with language that honored dignity and civic ideals. “Long live the dignity of the people of Mexico! Long live freedom! Long live equality! Long live democracy! Long live justice! Long live Mexico free, independent and sovereign!” she said in a brief message that drew ovations as the crowd repeated each viva.

Moments later she rang the bell of the historic palace to commemorate the two hundred fifteen years since the start of Mexico’s independence from Spain, and the peals of the capital’s cathedral followed, as did the singing of the national anthem.

According to Los Angeles Times, every year the country recalls the call to arms known as the “Cry of Independence,” (aka “El Grito”) the declaration by priest Miguel Hidalgo that began in 1810 and concluded in 1821, a tradition sustained since the early nineteenth century.

The Path Opened By Women

Sheinbaum, a scientist and former mayor of the capital who is sixty three years old, established on the first of October a new era as the first woman to serve as president.

The precedent for a woman giving the cry came decades earlier, when politician Griselda Álvarez, the former governor of the western state of Colima, became the first Mexican woman to give the cry of independence in 1980 after she was elected the country’s first woman governor, a reminder that political firsts often arrive in steps that build toward a moment like this one.