ABSTRACT
Today, Mexicans are represented substantially in circuses around the United States of America. The development of Mexican circus culture goes as far back as the conquest and colonization of Mexico by Spain. The indigenous roots of acts that predate the Mexican–American circus can be identified in the entertainments by dwarfs, buffoons and a type of clown that Bernal Díaz documented as existing in pre-Columbian Mexico. The European popular performance traditions began in the New World with the Spaniards’ introduction of roving minstrels, saltimbanquis and jugglers during the colonization period. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Mexican circus received important Italian, English and Anglo-American influences, most importantly the introduction of the English-type clown by the Chiarini Circus in 1867. The earliest reference to the Mexican circus in Texas is the following comment from the San Antonio Ledger, 8 November 1852: ‘The Mexican circus is with the reader.
