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California State University, Fresno will celebrate Cinco de Mayo with live music and crafts Tuesday and Wednesday, May 4 and 5, and teatro performances led by an alumnus, whose youth as an illegal immigrant led to him becoming a university professor and author.

Dr. Antonio Arreguín-Bermúdez, a foreign languages and literatures professor at California State University, Chico, will bring his student troupe Asociación De Teatro y Poesía to kick off Fresno State’s celebration at 6:30 p.m. May 4, in Agriculture Science Building Room 109.

On May 5, USU Productions will continue the celebration from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the University Student Union Pit (lower outdoor patio) with performances by a mariachi band and crafts exhibits. All events are free and open to the public.

Both of Tuesday’s teatro presentations will be in Spanish, said Raul Moreno, coordinator of the sponsoring University Migrant Services office at Fresno State.

The Chico students will perform “Los Vendidos,” written by Luis Valdez who founded the first Chicano theater group El Teatro Campesino for the United Farm Workers union, and “Yerma,” written by Federico Garcia Lorca, the renowned Spanish poet, dramatist and theater director.

Arreguín-Bermúdez is the author of “Burnt Honey,” about the oppressive and dangerous experience of Mexican immigrant farmworkers in the United States. He entered the U.S. illegally in 1985, worked the San Joaquin Valley fields, graduated from Reedley High School in 1990 and earned bachelor’s (1995) and master’s (1997) degrees in Spanish from Fresno State.

On campus, he participated in the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) and University Migrant Services.

Arreguín-Bermúdez earned a doctorate in Hispanic literature at the University of Arizona.

Cinco de Mayo celebrations recognize the 1862 Battle of Puebla, which took place near Mexico City. Poorly equipped and undermanned Mexican soldiers, fighting to save their homeland, engaged and defeated 4,500 French troops at Puebla. The Mexicans were commanded by Texas-born Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza under President Benito Juarez.

In the ensuing year, the Mexicans kept French invaders occupied, preventing them from helping the Confederate states in the U.S. Civil War. With the Union restored, President Abraham Lincoln helped the Mexicans evict the French. The occasion has developed into an observance of the role Mexicans and Mexican-Americans continue to play in the neighbor countries.

For more information, contact Shawna Blair of USU Productions at 559.278.2741 or Moreno at 559.278.5750.

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