Lucha Libre

Fourth grade Spanish students have been learning about Lucha Libre, a popular wrestling style unique to Mexico. The wrestlers, called luchadors or luchadoras, wear colorful costumes and masks and entertain the audience with feats of strength and athleticism. Students learned about the history of Lucha Libre and created their own wrestlers. Then, they wrote about their character in Spanish and designed a full-sized mask to match their character's costume.

Lucha Libre events are family-friendly, drawing massive audiences of all ages, from small children and families to older people. In their colorful spandex costumes and masks, the wrestlers look like Marvel superheroes, and many of the wrestlers maintain an air of mystery, never revealing their true identity. Although the matches are predetermined, the audience enjoys rooting for the rudos (the bad guys) or the técnicos (the good guys) as they battle in the ring. Students learned about the history of Lucha Libre, reading several books about the tradition and making connections between the wrestlers’ masks and the prevalence of ceremonial masks in Aztec, Mayan, and other indigenous cultures. They also learned about the training, dedication, and commitment that Lucha Libre demands from the wrestlers by watching excerpts from a documentary about the lifestyle of a luchador.

Students created their own luchador or luchadora, designing their wrestler’s costume and then wrote a description of them in Spanish. They gave them names, talked about where they were from, and described the colors of their costume and their unique talents as wrestlers. Students wrapped up the unit by creating masks for their luchador with intricate designs and bold colors that match their costumes. “It’s a nice way for the students to be artistic and creative,” notes World Languages Department Chair Kara Mertz, “but to also learn about an element that’s so ingrained in an aspect of Mexican culture.”