Del Rio, Ciudad Acuña celebrate 64th Abrazo at Amistad Dam

The 64th annual Abrazo brought Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña back to Amistad Dam for a ceremony that still carries practical meaning in Val Verde County. At the midpoint of the dam, where the tradition has long been staged beneath bronze eagle statues, delegates marked the cross-border friendship that helped define both cities and still shapes how residents see Amistad as a place of history, tourism and shared civic life.

The Del Rio chapter of the International Good Neighbor Council hosted the ceremony as part of Fiesta de Amistad, with the Abrazo set for Oct. 17 at 10 a.m. at Amistad Dam. The program connected the celebration to the 1960 agreement that authorized construction of the dam, which sits about 12 miles upstream from Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña and remains one of the most visible symbols of cooperation between the United States and Mexico.

That cooperation was not ceremonial only. The joint construction agreement was authorized by U.S. Congress in Public Law 86-605 on July 7, 1960, after a joint declaration by Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adolfo López Mateos framed the project around flood control, irrigation water and hydroelectric generation. International Boundary and Water Commission materials say Amistad was the second major international storage dam built jointly by the two countries after Falcon Dam, with an annual hydroelectric potential of 323 million kilowatt-hours split equally between the nations.

The ceremony mixed pageantry with local participation. A folklorico group from Ciudad Acuña performed alongside the Del Rio High School color guard, the DRHS Junior ROTC drill team, the Del Rio Middle School band and vocalist Robert Wade. Mexican and American flags were formally presented before the national anthems and the traditional abrazo, the handshake or embrace that gives the event its name.

Community figures introduced during the program included Del Rio’s 2024 Mr. Amistad Juan Carlos Vazquez, Mrs. Amistad Diana Stern and Amistad Parade Marshal Claudia Lopez Cruz. Paloma Villaseñor Vargas, the consul of Mexico in Del Rio, was also recognized, underscoring the binational character of the gathering. Andrew Scarbo said, “We are just trying to keep the tradition and legacy going while building it into the future.”

The ceremony sits inside a larger landscape that matters to Val Verde County far beyond a single day. Amistad National Recreation Area, designated in 1990, includes 540 miles of shoreline in Texas and reaches 81 miles up the Rio Grande, 14 miles up the Pecos River and 25 miles up the Devils River. For Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña, the Abrazo remains a public reminder that the border is also a shared civic space.