It's Fiesta Time

Colorful cultural festivals all across Kansas celebrate the values and traditions of Hispanic heritage

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in the summer of 2000

All’s right with the world under the blue Kansas sky. Crunch some tacos, sip some cerveza, and feel the breeze of a line of little girls in tap shoes and swirly tiered ribboned dresses. They're swishing their skirts to the bright hot sounds of traditional Mexican folklorico.

This is Fiesta! Cause for celebration. A coming together of young and old, Latino and gringo, white collar and blue. Divisions vanish with the vats of homemade goodies. Families have been making tamales and enchiladas for months; their freezers have been hard to close. One tired fiesta cook who's worked hard to raise money for her church says it's tempting some nights to pull out a fiesta-bound tray of enchiladas for a family dinner at home, but it never happens. "My family eats sandwiches," she says. "The tacos and enchiladas - they go to the fiesta to be sold."

In communities throughout Kansas, visitors can count on constants that include some mighty fine home-cooked Mexican food. Spend an afternoon and evening at a fiesta for some mood-boosting music, as well, and a colorful array of Latino traditions such as the coronation of a fiesta queen, a parade, and, beforehand at the local Catholic church, a mariachi mass and some grade-school students singing the Mexican and U.S. national anthems. Fiestas in Kansas vary tremendously in size-they can be big and slick and citified or smalltown, mom-and-pop get-togethers. But regardless of their scope, the emphasis is clear. Fiestas are about celebrating and savoring the values and traditions of Hispanic heritage, faith, family, and fun.

And of course, fiestas are also about making money. Every community wants their party to profit, to raise funds for their cause whether it be a parish school, church, or a community scholarship fund. Volunteers fuel the fiestas of Kansas and often, says Topeka fiesta chair Rudy Guzman, that means individuals sacrifice as much as a week of their own vacations to work harder and longer than they ever work the rest of the year. Fiestas are labors of love for the people who organize them, public celebrations of who they are and from whence they've come.

The heat index often tops 100 degrees during the week Topeka's party is held, but this affair is so finely tuned they've even beat the heat. Mist machines are on hand to keep folks cool while they wait in line to buy food.

A coronation ball, parade, 5K run, and Low Rider Car Show are held the Saturday before the fiesta and a golf tournament is scheduled the final Saturday. Tuesday through Saturday features musical entertainment, including mariachi, tejano, norteiio, and salsa, as well as traditional folk dances from Mexico. Entertainers who can only otherwise be seen in Dallas and San Antonio also make stops at the fiesta, Guzman says. Even Harrah's Prairie Band Casino sponsors an act.

The success and polish of the Topeka fiesta is a measure, according to Guzman, of how far Hispanics in Kansas have progressed. "We were told not to speak Spanish, that it would only get us in trouble," he remembers of his own childhood. "Today, I tell my high-school son he can count on studying Spanish all through school. Not learning to speak Spanish won't be an option for him. I tell him Spanish will increase his value. It is what he's about. He needs it to survive. We take pride in who we are. We relish the gains of our community. And we don't have homemade booths."