If you saw camels walking through Spanish Harlem on Friday, Jan. 5, your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you. For the 47th year, El Museo Del Barrio at 1230 Fifth Avenue celebrated its annual Three Kings Day parade.
Founded in 1969 with a focus on Latino artists, El Museo has been honoring the traditionally Hispanic celebrated holiday since 1977.
“There’s 60 million Latinos in the U.S. and this is a way of celebrating and a way of showing that this is a diverse city and that Latinos are part of the cultural fabric of New York,” said Patrick Charpenel, executive director of El Museo who is from Mexico and lead the parade from 106th to 115th streets along Park Avenue.
This year’s theme was, “Tradiciones: Keeping Our Stories Alive,” as poets, educators and writers were invited to be the honorary kings, padrinos (godfathers) and madrinas (godmothers) of the parade. Some notable names were honorary king, Leticia Rodriguez, executive director of La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña (House of Puerto Rican Cultural Heritage); 2021 Bronx Poet Laureate, Haydil Henriquez; author and playwright, Darrel Alejandro Holnes and others.
Three Kings Day is big amongst the Hispanic community and traditionally celebrated on Jan. 6 which marks the day of Epiphany in the Gospel of Matthew when the three wise men, also known as the three kings or the Magi, arrived at the newborn baby Jesus bearing gifts of frankincense, myrrh and gold. Caspar, Melichior and Balthasar traveled 12 days and nights across the desert to greet the son of God and their journey is the basis of the “12 Days of Christmas.”
The holiday is revered with small gifts and the cutting of the King Cake also known as la Rosca de los Reyes – (rosca is a sweet bread traditional in Spain, Mexico and other Latin American countries.)
“We do the rosca and cut it and whoever has the baby does the party for next year,” said Daisy Aulet who was visiting from Astoria, Queens and viewing the parade for the first with her mother and sisters.
Three Kings Day also the marks the beginnings of Mardi Gras which is also celebrated with the king cake. Traditionally a plastic baby is hidden inside the cake and whoever finds it in their slice is responsible for the next year’s festivities.
In addition to the live camels was a puppet camel built by puppet-master Sharon Epperson, who has been part of the parade with her makeshift camel, “Camella,” for the past seven years. There was live music of Salsa and Bomba y Plena by BombaYo, Anette Aguilar & Stringbeans and Fogo Azul on drums. Several schools also participated with their marching bands like Samara Community School who had their youth on trumpets and trombones.
The parade began with a breakfast at the museum at 8:30 a.m. where children were able to decorate their own crowns and ended with activities and performances at the museum led by Rhina Velantin, entertainer and host of BronxNet’s T.V. show, “Open.”
Despite the cold weather, people were out with warmth in their hearts to biblical proportions as they celebrated a historical tradition to cap off the holiday season.
“It’s a moment to celebrate, not only our traditions, but to get together with the community and helps us to build identity,” said Charpenel.
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