Chicago celebrates Puerto Rican culture with parade, festival

Salsa, merengue and reggaeton new music blasted from cars driving close to Humboldt Park Saturday afternoon as purple, white and blue flags with a solitary star blew in the breeze, some out of car windows and sunroofs and many others held by persons on the sidewalk.

Near the south finish of Humboldt Park, on West Division Street and North California Avenue, men and women lined up alongside the road, many putting on Puerto Rican flag shirts or dresses as they watched the 44th Annual Puerto Rican People’s Day Parade arrive at its end. Men and women shouted, waved and danced as automobiles, bicyclists and people passed by, blasting tunes and waving extra flags.

The Puerto Rican Festival commenced Thursday and operates through Sunday, with are living new music and carnival rides in a shut off portion of the southeast corner of Humboldt Park. On Saturday afternoon, the parade extra to the festivities as Puerto Ricans in Chicago displayed their satisfaction and pleasure in their heritage.

Sellers marketed food items like savory and sweet empanadas, papas rellenos — potato balls stuffed with seasoned ground beef — tostones, pinchos — grilled pork or hen skewers with onion, bell pepper and tomato — and jugo de parcha or enthusiasm fruit juice. Other vendors along the park sold flags, T-shirts, hats, and other extras, most with the Puerto Rican flag or its hues.

Dasani Saldana, 13, whose family is from Puerto Rico, wrapped a large Puerto Rican flag about her again like a cape as she watched the parade with her pal, her mother and her mom’s friend. It was her third parade, but the second just one she remembers mainly because she was a baby when her mom took her to her initial parade, Saldana claimed.

She said she enjoys the food items, listening to her Spanish language and observing other Puerto Ricans in her group celebrating their tradition with each other at the Puerto Rican Competition and parade.

“We can demonstrate exactly where we are from,” Saldana said. “What Puerto Rico is about.”

Right after the parade, on a household avenue south of the park, Edras Andujar grilled pork bichos to sell, as people today sat around him on garden chars, speaking and ingesting. Folks danced along to merengue waiting around for the food stuff to finish cooking.

Jalesa Trotman took her daughter and nieces to the parade. It was her second time likely to the festival, a easy walking distance from her house, she mentioned.

“We really like it since the group just comes out and you see everybody collectively and having a superior time. It is amazing,” Trotman mentioned. “Compared to all the lousy things you hear about Chicago, it’s like one big unity occasion for everyone.”

Trotman’s grandparents are Puerto Rican and Mexican, and while she has not been to the island nevertheless, she hopes to check out Puerto Rico someday. Going to the competition, she mentioned feels welcome into her tradition, and sees it as an possibility to instruct her daughter about their heritage and track record.

She explained owning her daughter and nieces occur out and see and enjoy with other little ones that appear like them and share their lifestyle is a great way for them to master about them selves.

“I come to feel like children find out by means of knowledge,” she mentioned. “So in buy for them to have an understanding of what they are and who they’re about and what they can probably do with their daily life, they have to be exposed to it.”

Iris Bellido moved to the U.S. from Puerto Rico when she was 1, and was elevated in Humboldt Park. She’s absent to the competition nearly every year given that she was a baby, she reported.

“Thank God that ultimately COVID is around and we ended up ready to celebrate it and experience back to ordinary,” she mentioned. “And celebrate it the way we normally do. So that was a aid.”

As she waited in line to get into the festival, Bellido shown the several things she enjoys about the pageant and about her lifestyle — the food items, how men and women dress, the colors, the flag, the tunes, in particular bomba y plena.

Bomba and Plena are standard audio kinds that mirror the African heritage of Puerto Rico.

“Puerto Ricans are loud men and women that they appreciate songs and they adore to dance,” Bellido claimed with a giggle. “And…the women are regarded for their massive butt and curly hair. And they just like to have entertaining, pay attention to audio, dance. And take in Puerto Rican food items.”

Carmen Malave was at the parade with her youngest daughter, Heather Rodriguez and her a few granddaughters, Ruby, 7, Naya, 8, and Sonie, 9. All a few girls wore Puerto Rican flag dresses.

Malave reported she made use of to carry her personal a few young children to the parade when they were more youthful.

“Growing up in Humboldt Park, remaining a solitary mother, raising 3 youngsters, it is not straightforward,” she said. “But, you know, I did it and even though they’re older I’m however there.”

Now she’s experiencing observing them commence their have family members and observing them share the lifestyle with their young children.

It had been a although given that they had participated in the festivities, as they prevented some of the violence in the space, Rodriguez claimed, as her daughter Ruby hugged her.

“This is her 1st time listed here, actually,” Rodriguez stated of her daughter. “That’s why I preferred to bring her, just to encounter her society, get a minimal understanding of where by she comes from. She’s loving it. She just can’t quit dancing.”

Editor’s notice: An earlier version of this story applied the incorrect word in Spanish for grilled skewers of meat. The accurate phrase is pinchos.