Mexican Festival 8-16^th Aug. 2009

For more than 20 years, the Vallée d l’Ubaye has celebrated its links with Mexico. Traditionally around the middle of August, Barcelonnette puts on its Mexican costume, and its streets resound with Latino music and rhythms.

Since 2002, the ‘Mexican festival’ has opened its doors to the rhythms of South America and Cuba. Barcelonnette takes on another identity as the musical tempo and the colourful costumes create a unique ambiance and spirit. Full of joy and conviviality, the Latino-Mexican festivals completely take over the town for 10 days. This year the Mexican, Cuban, and Argentinian groups will follow one another in the streets and squares of the town. In the programme is a grand parade, processions, free salsa classes, poetry, concerts....a true spectacle for the eyes as well as the ears.

An awfully big adventure…the history

The people of the high valleys, who endured long periods of isolation each winter, were able to survive by providing the timber, wool, animal hides and silk needed by the people in the plains below. In an effort to improve things the men would leave the valleys each year, as soon as the passes reopened, to find work in the towns and cities, returning with their earnings at the first signs of winter snows. During their long absences the women would remain to work the land and weave the wool and hemp. Thus was born the tradition of seasonal migration in the mountain villages.

Many of these early travellers became colporteurs, selling their wools and silks to shop owners in Provence, Dauphiné and Piedmont, until the arrival of the grand department stores (who shipped in their own supplies from elsewhere) during the 19th Century.“ The pioneers of emigration were the Arnaud brothers, who established a business in Mexico in 1818…”  The men were thus forced to travel ever further afield, learning new languages and regional dialects in order to conduct their business. Their patience and determination would finally be rewarded with the opening up of new world opportunities in Louisiana and Mexico, which prompted the ultimate economic migration…

The Arnaud brothers (who pioneered the emigration) arrived in Mexico in 1818, and within fity years owned numerous shops, a network of sales representatives in every country and outlets in Europe. Their success attracted friends and family from Ubaye to cross the Atlantic and join their compatriots. Little by little, the new entrepreneurs became industrialists rather than shopkeepers, and controlled the textile industry in Mexico. They also built up a solid financial structure and established numerous banking institutions, even putting their signature at the foot of bank notes.

All the emigrants remained deeply attached to their valley of origin. Called ‘the Barcelonnettes’ in Mexico, they were however, ‘the Americans’ or ‘Mexicans’ to those who had stayed in Ubaye. Those who had acheived success returned to live in France, to Paris or the Côte d'Azur. They also built some superb homes in Ubaye – the Mexican villas. They invested in public buildings such as founding the Barcelonnette Bank, developing public transport, the Town Hall, public squares and the reconstruction of the church. There are many contemporary reminders of what the ‘Mexicans’ brought to Barcelonnette.

For more information about the Vallée de l'Ubaye, Barcelonnette and the Latino-Mexican Festival this summer, visit www.ubaye.com