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BROWNSVILLE — The girls with the festoons of color woven through their hair and their faces all smiles and eyes dancing moved rhythmically through the chilly afternoon.
Along Elizabeth Street, old men and their grandchildren and their mothers and their fathers waited in their folding chairs in anticipation for the children’s parade to pass.
The Children’s Parade hosted by the Brownsville Independent School District returned to the streets Thursday afternoon with great fanfare and celebration. The color and the passion and the beauty seemed to declare the arrival of the 87th Annual Charro Days.
There was a sort of jubilant quality about it all, as though the kids and their teachers and their parents were making once again the declaration that the beauty of things reigns supreme.
To the parents and grandparents, it was the celebration of a tradition that is as much a part of Brownsville as Brownsville herself.
“It’s a great tradition,” said Rene Ramos, 54. “It’s celebrating the sisterhood of our two cities, Brownsville and Matamoros.”
“It’s a tradition,” said his daughter Melissa Pena, whose two young girls in their colorful ribbons played nearby.
“I used to go out in the parade in middle school and high school, and now I’m bringing them,” Pena said.
Each dance group represented a specific school and each school presented a dance from a specific state in Mexico.
From Sharp Elementary came the Guanajuato girls with their layered dresses of red and green and their rebozos fluttering the breeze and their male partners shifting around in their linen costumes.
“I feel excited,” said Ariana Melchor, 10, a fifth grader at Sharp.
“I’ve been doing this for four years,” she said. “I practice a lot at home.”
The youngsters from Southmost Elementary were decked out in their fine Queretaro costumes as they prepared to perform El Baile de la Shaja. They worked long and hard for this moment.
“We practiced two times a week for an hour and a half for three months, and also for three hours every Saturday,” said Southmost Principal Aida Fernandez.
Her young dancer Karla Gonzalez was restless with excitement. She and her friends were already moving with their measured steps as if powering up for their performance. Preparing for this moment although joyous was sometimes challenging, but not necessarily because of the dance itself.
“Working with the boys, they don’t always pay attention,” she said, then looking at some of the male dancers, added, “Ahem!”
