The Parade of the Children

People in San Miguel take their festivals seriously so when some locals told me to be sure and catch the Desfile de los Niños (Parade of the Children), I knew it would be something special.

 Like almost all Mexican celebrations, this one has indigenous origins and is tied closely to the cycles of the Sun. The Parade of Children takes place approximately (mas o minus as they say around here) on the vernal equinox.

This is the day on the solar calendar (in case anyone needs reminding) when the Sun spends a brief moment in time directly above the Earth’s equator. After that, the world dresses in her spring wardrobe and days in the northern hemisphere continue getting longer and warmer until the Summer solstice (which comes with its own festival) when things start moving the other

direction. It’s an important day, and you can be sure that ancient Aztec gods are be standing next to the Catholic Saints making sure everything goes off as planned.

If I hadn’t known, I never would have guessed this parade had anything to do with astrophysics or Mesoamerican mythology. I don’t know how many children live in San Miguel, but it’s hard to imagine any of them didn’t play some part in the celebration. It was sort of religious, and indigenous,

and ecological, and anthropological, and about as cute as anything I’ve ever seen.

Is it racist to say that Mexican children are among the cutest in the world? I’ll risk it. These children threw themselves into their roles. For the duration of the parade (two hours mas or minus) they were authentic Kings, and Queens, and butterflies, and jaguars, and cows, and Smurfs. I wondered how the Aztec gods were going to react to the Smurfs, but they didn’t seem to mind.

With all those three to eight year olds there must have been a tantrum or two, but I didn’t see a single one. The children all seemed happy with their roles, nobody was left out, and they picked up their trash when they were through.

The Mexicans in San Miguel are comfortable with their mix of modern and ancient—

comfortable enough to let a curious Norte Americano author look at them under a literary magnifying glass. I’ve based a few characters on my Mexican encounters (Owl Dreams, Southwest Gothic Tales, and Messages). More are on the way. Magic Popsicle Sticks and Trial Separation are two more Native American oriented novels chock full of the kind of magic realism that makes San Miguel so special.  Those books are under contract with Pen-L Publishing. They’ll be available after they work their way through the editing process.