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Pancho Villa raid memorial 'a day of contrasts'
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COLUMBUS — Fifty horses and a mule strode through the border village of Columbus Saturday in a parade led by the flags of the United States, Mexico and New Mexico — and one rider in the guise of the Mexican revolutionary hero, Francisco “Pancho” Villa.
A short distance from the steel bollard wall marking the U.S.-Mexico border south of the village, the Cabalgata Binacional and Fiesta de Amistad combined mourning with revelry while Mexican and American officials discussed the border as a place of reconciliation, friendship and business.
The small village of about 1,450 hosted its annual memorial to the March 9, 1916, raid on Columbus at Villa’s command, a day that claimed approximately 18 American lives — accounts vary — and heavy losses to Villa’s contingent, which withdrew after looting and burning businesses and homes in the village center. The battle led President Woodrow Wilson to order an incursion into Mexico to capture Villa, who escaped.
The dead were honored in a solemn ceremony at a replica of the bandstand from which General John J. Pershing greeted soldiers returning from Mexico, as the names of the raid’s fatalities were read, accompanied by a tolling bell. Braving frosty winds and occasional rain were municipal leaders, descendants of Columbus residents and soldiers who survived the raid and members of the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club of El Paso, commemorating the Black soldiers of the 13th Cavalry, 24th Infantry Division who helped pursue Villa.
It was one of many visits to Columbus for Shannon Parks, the granddaughter of Susie Parks, the 20-year old switchboard operator who called for help as bullets shattered windows and showered her in glass early that morning 109 years ago, and who then waited, as the story goes, with her baby cradled in one arm and a .32 rifle in the other. Parks’ descendant said her grandmother’s example is an inextricable part of her own story.
“When I come here I feel like I’m coming home,” she said. “Every time I walk the street, down Broadway, it comes alive.”
Meanwhile, the horseback procession set off from the Columbus Port of Entry, marching three miles up a state highway and into the village for a festival with food, music and performances by a children’s ballet folklorico troupe from Deming.
Villa is repeatedly described as a “complex” historical figure in these celebrations: An invader and leader of a massacre, but also a champion for the poor, for Mexican independence and for sobriety — an attribute that did not stop celebrants from enjoying beers outdoors as the sun finally broke through the rainclouds.
In Mexico, memorial rides honoring Villa go back decades, with participants crossing the state of Chihuahua on horseback for two weeks in a trek culminating in Puerto Palomas, south of Columbus. In the village, “cabalgantes” registered for the parade arrived from southern New Mexico, West Texas and as far away as Dallas.
Columbus Mayor Philip Skinner, a Republican who has owned and operated businesses on both sides of the border, called it “a day of contrasts.”
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“These riders coming in do a lot of ‘Viva Villa’ and hurrah stuff, but I think it’s more a historical event for Mexico, a cultural event for Mexico,” he said.
As the festival went on, officials representing Columbus, Luna County, the New Mexico Border Authority and U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez’s office met over lunch with mayors and other delegates from several Mexican municipalities.
“We depend on each other for our economies and for our livelihoods,” Christie Ann Harvey, a Luna County commissioner and a Republican who sits on the New Mexico Border Authority board of directors, told the Journal. “Politics on a national level can sometimes influence our thoughts about others, but … the border is very powerful force for all of us. It’s a way that we can economically grow both sides, become better trading partners and elevate the standard of living for our people.”
