Utah
Utah Latinos passing on cultural traditions during Día de los Reyes
A household takes a photograph with the three clever males at a Día de los Reyes celebration at Centro Civico Mexicano in Salt Lake Metropolis on Friday. The group has been internet hosting these celebrations on and off for the previous 80 years, and an estimated 500 people attended the middle’s occasion Friday. (Sydnee Gonzalez, KSL.com)
Estimated learn time: 5-6 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Irma Hofer grew up in Baja California, Mexico, setting her footwear out by her mattress or subsequent to the window annually on Jan. 5 earlier than going to sleep.
The custom was in anticipation of a go to from the three clever males, who depart presents in and across the footwear for kids to get up to on Jan. 6, or Día de los Reyes — a vacation celebrated in lots of Hispanic international locations. The Jan. 6 date honors the clever males’s journey, which custom says would have taken 12 days from the time they noticed the Christmas star.
When Hofer moved to america 45 years in the past, her household adopted American vacation traditions, like a Christmas tree, however they nonetheless held onto Día de los Reyes traditions. As we speak, Hofer is celebrating each vacation traditions together with her youngsters and grandchildren.
“We now have each, and I prefer it as a result of have the morning of the twenty fifth, when we now have some presents, and we now have Jan. 6, when we now have some presents, too. It is enjoyable and it is nice as a result of Día de los Reyes is extra non secular and the opposite is extra Pagan and associated to Santa Claus,” Hofer stated. “I believe that you will need to know your roots so you possibly can contribute to our society and enrich it.”
Hofer is not the one one holding Día de los Reyes traditions alive in Utah. Centro Civico Mexicano has been internet hosting Día de los Reyes celebrations on and off for the previous 80 years. This yr, an estimated 500 people attended the middle’s occasion at 155 S. 600 West in downtown Salt Lake Metropolis.
“On this occasion, it is a sense of neighborhood that we’re holding a practice alive that isn’t widespread throughout this nation,” stated Hofer. “Remembering what we did as children and passing it on to our personal children, it is an amazing factor.”
Belia Paz — founding father of Mujeres Unidas, one of many organizations that helped manage the occasion — stated her favourite a part of the vacation is seeing the grins on the youngsters’s faces as they expertise the traditions.
“It is a custom that we have to guarantee that our younger youngsters stay,” Paz stated of the vacation, “Adapting resides it and nonetheless persevering with the custom, however with hundreds of individuals so that they know that the custom has not gone away wherever they go.”
Brandy Farmer, Centro Civico Mexicano president, additionally burdened how vital these occasions are in sharing cultural traditions with the mainstream.
“It is actually vital for us to proceed our tradition,” Farmer stated. “After we rejoice our signature occasions, then we invite everybody to turn out to be a Mexican or Latin American individual and take part and rejoice with us in order that we are able to educate them about our tradition, our dances and our meals.”
As a baby rising up in Texas, Farmer stated she was usually teased about her Mexican American tradition, reminiscent of when different children noticed her consuming a tortilla. Regardless of feeling quite a lot of pleasure for her tradition and rising up in a household that celebrated its heritage, she finally stopped talking Spanish and “forgot” some her tradition. She stated she’s been in a position to re-immerse herself in her tradition now as an grownup by way of her work with Centro Civico Mexicano.
“We do not need anybody to neglect our tradition,” she stated. “Now the generations proceed it, and that is great.”
In the course of the occasion, households had been in a position to get garments, footwear and toys, in addition to the vacation’s signature rosca de reyes, a candy bread formed like a crown to symbolize the clever males. The bread does include a warning, nonetheless. Inside are a handful of small plastic child Jesus collectible figurines. Whoever finally ends up with one of their slice of bread is obligated to make meals, usually tamales, for everybody else.
For Paulina Arias, a mother of two, the rosca is her favourite a part of the vacation.
“I am from Mexico and my youngsters had been born right here, however I need to contain them in my Mexican traditions,” Arias stated in Spanish. “As a result of that is what I used to be taught as a bit of woman.”
Carmenza Rincón celebrated Día de los Reyes in her residence nation of Columbia, however she says the traditions there are a bit of completely different than these in Mexico or what she’s seen in Utah.
“We do not have the rosca and it is not as large as it’s right here. The youngsters get a small reward and we inform them the story of the three clever males that went to go to the newborn Jesus,” Rincón stated in Spanish, including that she continued the custom together with her three daughters once they had been youngsters. “I believe it is vital to contain the subsequent technology in our international locations’ cultures.”
Passing on tradition to the subsequent technology is typically simpler stated than completed, nonetheless. Jose Luis Rodriguez introduced his youngsters and grandchild to the Día de los Reyes celebration to assist hold that custom alive.
“They do not perceive it very properly. They got here as a result of we introduced them,” Rodriguez stated in Spanish. “They do not know rather a lot concerning the that means of Día de los Reyes. We inform them about it, however it’s not their custom.”
He added that occasions just like the one Centro Civico Mexicano hosted are vital in serving to cross on cultural traditions to youthful generations.
“It is a part of your childhood, Día de los Reyes, and a part of the kid you carry inside you as an grownup,” he stated. “It is good to contain them in all this.”