Why were these devilish dancers in Downtown Fresno?

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – A crowd of people representing Mexico’s Indigenous communities in Fresno gathered to celebrate the birthday of Mexico’s first Zapotec President, Benito Juarez, in Downtown Fresno’s courthouse park.

Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño (CBDIO) organized the celebration on Saturday with “diablito” dancers wearing their distinct masks.

Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño (CBDIO) was founded in 1993 to implement programs to support indigenous communities. Executive Director (CBDIO) Sarait Martinez says the dancers and musicians are a part of Oaxacan culture that CBDIO wants to highlight.

“We as Indigenous communities face a lot of racism in our communities, in Mexico and here,” Martinez said. “So we want to uplift the contributions of our communities and also celebrate our culture.”

Martinez says CBDIO services one of the most diverse communities in Fresno County, mostly specializing in providing services to agricultural workers.

“Sometimes we think of Mexico and we think of Spanish,” Martinez said. “But there’s like 62 different languages that the indigenous community speaks in Mexico.”

According to Martinez, it’s hard to calculate exactly how many people from Indigenous, Mexican communities actually live in Fresno County due to language barriers and simple lack of classification.

Martinez says recent concerns about deportation have made celebrating culture all that more important.

“We know there’s a lot of fear in the community, we want to recognize that,” Martinez said. “But also, in our struggles there’s joy, there’s celebration and we want to uplift that too.”