A holiday celebration in a binational context: Easter experiences at the US–Mexico border

Abstract

As part of a larger research project examining cross-border culture in a recreational and tourism context, this brief research note describes how intangible heritage melds into Easter celebrations and provides some preliminary findings of interviews with borderlanders and their experiences with Easter memories. The Paso del Norte region of the US–Mexico border is composed of the Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) and El Paso and Las Cruces (USA) conurbation. Mexican culture with strong roots at north of the border, while American culture heavily influences the cities south of the line. There are five international border ports of entry, which have facilitated the growth of cross-border tourism and the flow of culture and ideas on both sides of the boundary. In this setting, the commemoration of ‘Bunny Day’, or Easter, has become an important borderland cultural phenomenon celebrated on both sides of the border at Chamizal Park in Ciudad Juárez and Chamizal National Memorial in neighboring El Paso, and has become a mark of local borderlands culture. This is unique to the Paso del Norte borderland, which is home to a highly conservative, Catholic society. It is a manifestation of blended American and Mexican religious holiday traditions that represent the US–Mexico border community

Keywords:

• borders
• borderlands
• heritage celebrations
• urban heritage
• binational heritage

Notes on contributor

Tomás Jesús Cuevas Contreras obtained his PhD in business administration from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He is a Tourism Researcher at the Tourism Program in the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez. He was a member of the National System of Researchers (México, 2013–2016), Level 1. His research areas are social networking in tourism, strategic and innovation management in tourism operation, and cultural tourism.

Isabel Zizaldra Hernández obtained her PhD in tourism from the Universitat de Girona. She is a Tourism Researcher at the Tourism Program in the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Member of the National System of Researchers, Level 1. Her research areas are social networking in tourism, cultural tourism, and heritage tourism.