Fiesta de Pueblo: County Hispanics celebrate Three Kings day

GREENACRES — The Three Kings descended on Greenacres this weekend and distributed gifts to hundreds of children at the city’s Fiesta de Pueblo.

The festival has become a tradition for Palm Beach County’s growing Hispanic community.

Karymn Salcedo, a native of Venezuela, says it allows her to reconnect with her roots.

“It’s like spending a day back in my country,” said Salcedo, 50, who hasn’t been able to return home in 15 years. “To be approached by people speaking my language, to hear our music and see our dances means everything to me.”

Thousands gathered Saturday for the annual Fiesta de Pueblo at the Samuel J. Ferreri Community Park, where people from 21 Latin American countries showcased their cultures by wearing traditional clothing, serving typical foods and dancing to their music.

In Latin America, the arrival of the Three Kings is celebrated Jan. 6, but since the holiday landed on a weekday, it was held a day later. The festivity pays homage to the story in the Bible of three kings who traveled from the East to Bethlehem to bring the newborn Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh.

"The goal is to unite people from the 21 countries," said Santos Arroyo, who has organized the event since 2016. "We give a sample of our culture and give each other the hand like brothers.”

The Hispanic community is Palm Beach County’s largest and fastest-growing racial group. Its population increased more than 20% over the last 10 years, according to 2020 Census numbers. To accommodate the growth, the Palm Beach County Commission created a new district last year, District 3, which is mostly Hispanic and includes Greenacres, Palm Springs, and Lake Clarke Shores.

For that reason, Arroyo said, the Fiesta de Pueblo is a crucial celebration for the community.

Arroyo, who hails from Puerto Rico, said that during their first year in 2016, around 2,500 people attended. Every year the crowd got bigger, and in 2020 more than 10,000 joined the celebration, he said. The COVID-19 pandemic kept people away, he said, but this year they saw more than 6,000 people return.

Muna Figueroa, 80, first attended the festival five years ago, when only 10 countries were represented in the event. She is Puerto Rican and says it gives her the opportunity to learn more about the culture of other Latinos. This year, she fell in love with "Alma Llanera," a joropo song from Venezuela.

“We are growing in Palm Beach,” Figueroa said with a loud burst of laughter. “I love my culture, my language.”

For her, the Three Wise Men, called in Spanish Los Tres Reyes Magos, is a tradition ingrained in her family life. Children in Puerto Rico pick grass Jan. 6 to leave with a glass of water for the camels of the Three Kings, who bring them sweets and gifts.

“It is a tradition we have to keep nurturing because if not, they will disappear,” said Figueroa, who has lived in Lake Worth Beach since 2010. “It's our culture, it’s what our parents taught us.”

'I feel at home'

Rosana Paredes, who was born in Paraguay, has helped organize the festival since 2019 and invited Kiara Zalazar, 16, to perform the Paraguayan polka for the second year in a row. Zalazar was born in Orlando and is the daughter of Paraguayan immigrants.

“I am here to show that even people born here can sing and dance just the same,” said Zalazar, twirling in a pink, flared dress. “I’m so proud to be here and show off my country.”

Ingrid Ramos, a native of the Dominican Republic, participated in the festival for the first time this year. She and her two friends, Clara Morillo and Juana Cepeda, assembled a table with sweet coconut preserves, spicy sazón and a tambora, a two-headed drum.

“This is what we use to play our traditional merengue,” Ramos said, holding the leather drum. “We are here to show Dominican culture.”

She said the festival gave her the opportunity to talk about her traditions and meet other Latinos in the county.

Salcedo, who met with other Venezuelan friends, came with her husband Christopher McVoy, the vice mayor of Lake Worth Beach.

McVoy says the county is changing and events like the Fiesta de Pueblo are needed for residents to learn from and acknowledge the Hispanic community.

"Part of it is an increase in numbers,” McVoy said. “And the other part is an increase in recognition.”

For the couple, the festival is where they get to speak Spanish all day, watch traditional Venezuelan dances and sing folklore songs.

"I feel at home," said Salcedo. "I never thought I'd get so excited to see so many people speaking Spanish and interested in our culture."

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Hispanics from 21 countries celebrate Fiesta de Pueblo in Greenacres