McALLEN — The city of McAllen celebrated its seventh annual Fiesta de Palmas event Saturday at the convention center here, where culture and a gradual return to normalcy were celebrated after last year’s cancellation.
The event, which kicked off Friday, was free to the public and will continue to have free admission until 2 p.m. Sunday.
“Obviously the gate revenues are to pay for the activities and to pay for everything that you see, but we also want to make sure that it’s available for everyone in the community to come and check out,” said Yahaira Flores, director of the McAllen Convention Center and Performing Arts Center.
Guests were able to participate in many activities throughout the day including time at the carnival, bar, pumpkin patch, enjoying live music, various street foods, art walks, a dinosaur exhibit and other nature and science exhibits.
Leah Romero, of Mission, said she attended Saturday’s event to spend some time with her son and take him to the dinosaur exhibit he has been dying to see since the pandemic began.
The event, first known as Palm Fest when it was created by volunteers in 2006 focused on celebrating folk life in the community.
“One of the main things Palm Fest wanted to do was highlight all of our local and regional performers and musical bands, singers, dancers,” said Elva Cerda, original volunteer and manager of Palm Fest. “We wanted them to be a big part of what we did with Palm Fest and we accomplished that. … I want to really thank the city for carrying it forward … for Palm Fest to still be going strong 15 years is a very big accomplishment.”
In 2013, the event was rebranded as Fiesta de Palmas and was handed over to the city of McAllen due to its popularity in the community. The city’s mission since then has been to create a celebration of all cultures represented in the region.
“Our job here is to be able to highlight our community and provide quality of life to the region,” Flores said. “We are a destination event which means that we attract people from different parts of the Rio Grande Valley to come to our area and witness our culture.”
The diversification of the Valley was colorfully displayed with booths from people of Korean, Japanese, Indigiounous and Hispanic cultures.
“It’s really about celebrating our differences and what makes us special,” Flores said
Being that the event is close to Dia de los Muertos, the city paid homage to the dead by setting up a giant ofrenda on the steps of the fountain with over 100 pictures submitted by members of the community who wanted their loved ones remembered.
A main attraction at the event was the Voladores de Papantla, where a group of men from Veracruz performed their cultural ritual to the gods of the sun, rain and earth. The ritual is performed on a Penacho or tall pole where four men hang from ropes around the pole as they descend back to the earth, while one man stands at the top of the pole playing an enchanting tune from the flute.
Bonifacio Jimenez Lopez, representative for the Voladores de Papantla, said it brings him pride to perform his indigiounous ritual in front of the people from the Rio Grande Valley.
For him he said the ritual is part of his heritage and said he has been training for it since he was a child to perfect it. Now being a father he is working to teach his own children.
In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the event teamed up with McAllen ISD and Hidalgo county to offer Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to individuals from noon to 3 p.m. during the event.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions the event was canceled last year. Flores said as an employee of the city it is exciting for the event to return after a difficult year.
“We are so happy to be back and we want to be able to keep these special events alive and keep them growing, you know, making them bigger and bigger,” she said. “Now that we’re coming back we wanted to make sure that we offer safe events and keep people safe. And so, being able to vaccinate … is important to us so that we can continue to host these events.”
View Monitor photojournalist Delcia Lopez’s full photo gallery of McAllen’s Fiesta de Palmas celebration at the McAllen Convention Center here:
