Aspiring LEGO designer Valentin Alvarez was considering switching career goals after meeting two professional luchadores Saturday during a Sacramento Public Library Día de los Niños event celebrating Mexican culture.
The event is part of the library's month-long Día de los Niños — Day of the Kids — celebration. This year's event focused on Mexican culture through an eight-part “Lucha Libro in the Stacks” series of events focusing on lucha libre, a popular Mexican sport that features colorful masks, through bilingual storytimes, mask decorating and actual luchadores.
Alvarez, 10, said he thought the event was “cool” because “it can inspire other kids to be a luchador.”
“Also, it's cool to make your own mask so it can be your mask if you want to be a luchador later on,” he said.
When asked if he wants to be a luchador after attending the event, he said he's “still thinking about it.”
California Championship Wrestlers Nahual (left) and Blaqlight demonstrate an ankle lock Saturday, April 12, 2025, at Rancho Cordova Library.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Andres Alvarez, Valentin's dad, said he and his family support lucha libre within the region and are “big fans of the library,” so this event was a “perfect celebration for us to support.”
“This is a way of attracting people who may not be familiar with the library, bringing them into the venue, exposing them not just to these culture celebrations, but also to the resources the library provides,” he said. “That's why we wanted to make sure we came to support it because we want this to continue.”
Alvaro Gomez is a library assistant at the Rancho Cordova Public Library. He read the Spanish versions of books during the event.
“A lot of people that live near the Rancho Cordova Library, they speak Spanish and they love the library,” he said. “Día de los Niños is really important. It helps little kids who are born here to get the roots, to learn and also to not forget, because you never forget your roots.”
Gomez said he grew up celebrating Día de los Niños and that he's “happy to have these Latino roots.”
Rancho Cordova Library Assistant Alvaro Gomez (left) and Bilingual Services Specialist Víctor Jiménez Olvera read a lucha libre-themed book in Spanish and English Saturday, April 12, 2025, at Rancho Cordova Library in Sacramento.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Víctor Jiménez Olvera, bilingual services specialist for the Sacramento Public Library, said libraries have been celebrating Día for nearly 30 years after children's author Pat Mora created it and the American Library Association embraced it.
“We celebrate children, families, language and more specifically the joy of reading,” he said.
Olvera said the library decided to highlight Mexico through lucha libre this year because of its popularity there and the colorful masks associated with it.
“Lucha libre is not only part of Mexico, but also the entire Latino community, and it goes as far as having wrestling matches in Japan, in South America and areas in Asia as well,” he emphasized. “We just want to show something fun that is also a part of our culture.”
The month-long celebration will culminate with what Olvera called a “one-of-a-kind experience” live wrestling show at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, April 26, at Belle Cooledge Library.
“We will be hosting this event outside the library at the park and we will have a total of three matches,” he said.
Roughly 12 wrestlers will participate in the show. Similar to previous events, kids will receive free books and get a chance to make their own lucha libre masks.
A full list of upcoming events is available on the library’s website.
More than just entertainment
Olvera was able to organize having two luchadores from California Championship Wrestling at five of the eight visits including Rancho Cordova.
Nahual wrestles in the Central Valley and Blaqlight wrestles in the Sacramento region. Both of them said they grew up watching the sport and that becoming a professional wrestler fulfilled their childhood dream.
Blaqlight said children who watch professional wrestling are a big part of why his alter ego is meant to be a superhero.
“The children may never get to meet Superman, they may never get to meet Batman or Captain America, but they can meet Blaqlight,” he said. “I hope that I am able to model and represent all the positive qualities in the world that I can so that you see that it's possible to be a good person, do good work and make your dreams come true.”
Kids jump during a bilingual song and dance Saturday, April 12, 2025, at Rancho Cordova Library in Sacramento.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
He also touched on the stereotype that wrestling isn't a real sport because it's “fake.”
“It's easy for people to look at what we do and call it the infamous ‘f-word,’” he said. “They see the finished product, they don't see what goes into it. That process includes so much athleticism, having to train, having to work out, be in shape, having the athletic ability to work with each other because we do work with each other.”
Nahual told anyone interested in becoming a luchador in the future to do their research.
“Keep watching, and if you guys see an independent wrestling show in your area, go check it out because we're independent professional wrestlers and you guys essentially support us to keep going,” he said.
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