AHC: Latin America wide holiday.

Your challenge is to create a Latin America wide* significant holiday. It *may* be religiously based, but the holiday should be pretty insignificant in the Catholic areas of Europe and Asia.

*It may be Spanish language portion of Latin America only, doesn't have to be celebrated in Brazil.

(This came out of a discussion of how ridiculous it is that Cinco De Mayo has become a "Hispanic" holiday in the the USA)
 
Your challenge is to create a Latin America wide* significant holiday. It *may* be religiously based, but the holiday should be pretty insignificant in the Catholic areas of Europe and Asia.

*It may be Spanish language portion of Latin America only, doesn't have to be celebrated in Brazil.

(This came out of a discussion of how ridiculous it is that Cinco De Mayo has become a "Hispanic" holiday in the the USA)

Día de la Raza/Día de Hispanidad is celebrated in all Hispanic American countries (and in Spain) under various local names. It's basically the Hispanic version of Columbus Day. It is not closely associated with religion, and is not celebrated in any European country except Spain. Does that meet your specifications?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day#D.C3.ADa_de_la_Raza
 
Día de la Raza/Día de Hispanidad is celebrated in all Hispanic American countries (and in Spain) under various local names. It's basically the Hispanic version of Columbus Day. It is not closely associated with religion, and is not celebrated in any European country except Spain. Does that meet your specifications?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day#D.C3.ADa_de_la_Raza

I guess it does meet the celebration. But maybe I should have also added, not celebrated by Irish-Americans or German-Americans in the United States or something like that. Any ideas for an alt-holiday meeting those criteria?

It looks like you have some of the issues in Latin America over the pre-columbian native peoples *hating* it.
 
I disagree. Dia de la Raza fits your criteria perfectly. It is not observed by non-Hispanic U.S. Americans, even Catholics. It is by definition a Hispanic celebration, and its observance is universal in the Hispanic world. Don't be misled by the fact that Wikipedia puts it on the "Columbus Day" article. Dia de la Raza coincides with Columbus Day, and is historically related to it, but is not equivalent to it.
 
Make Simon Bolivar's birthday a holiday across much of South and Central America. Give it a lot of political connotations and as Latin America grows it becomes "Revolutionary Day" or "Independence Day".
 
There's a few different "Day of the Dead" celebrations across Latin America that aren't particularly religious. They're basically ancient harvest festivals from the indigenous civilizations which continued after Christianization and were eventually adopted by the mainstream Hispanic portions of society as well. There's a Mesoamerican variation observed in Mexico and Guatemala (the Mexican version being the most well-known), and a few Andean varieties from Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia (through the Bolivian one takes place one week later than the rest). Perhaps, in the interest of indigenous solidarity or mestizaje, the different populations in different countries start to standardize their traditions and see them as one in the same, in the same way that various pagan agricultural traditions from ancient European cultures were blended into modern Christian holidays.
 
Make Simon Bolivar's birthday a holiday across much of South and Central America. Give it a lot of political connotations and as Latin America grows it becomes "Revolutionary Day" or "Independence Day".
Neither Mexico nor the Southern Cone would see it as a day worthy of a holiday.

As others said, October 12th. Or January 1st.
 
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