Young members of the FLECHAS Bomba Dancers participate in one of the opening musical acts.
The 33rd annual FLECHAS festival almost didn’t happen this year. I‑95 construction forced the Puerto Rican organization to abandon its longtime location, Long Wharf Park, out of safety concerns.
Things didn’t look good until two weeks ago, when Sports Haven offered to host the festival on its expansive parking lot.
The weekend-long festival began with a performance of the U.S. and Puerto Rican national anthems in succession.
Raul Avila, volunteer-president of FLECHAS (which stands for Fiestas de Loiza en Connecticut en Honor al Apostol Santiago), said he’s been volunteering at the festival since he was 7 years old. Looking out at the festival’s slowly expanding pockets of activity, Avila pointed out that the event has become much more multicultural since his childhood.
“We have plenty of vendors of other nationalities [besides Puerto Rican],” he said. “It’s wonderful to see food and clothing from other countries, and even to hear the language variations.” Indeed, Oscar was contributing his Salvadorean accent, while I brought along my own unique take on the Spanish language.
Avila also talked about his educational goals for the festival.
“Puerto Rican history is almost never taught in school,” he pointed out. “The festival provides a different avenue for people to learn about Puerto Rico, and especially for Puerto Ricans to learn about themselves. Many of us here are third or fourth generation [Puerto Ricans].”
Jacqui Rodriguez’s father brought her to FLECHAS for the first time this year. Her family is Puerto Rican, said Jacqui, who’s 9. ,
So far, she said, she had localized herself around the amusement park rides set up at the edge of the festival: a ferris wheel, flying swings and other centrifuges. When Rodriguez was done extolling the virtues of the “Starship 2000” ride, she started walking over towards the small stage at the front of the parking lot.
Jeremy Lent Photo
Kelly Marie Cruz (second from right in photo) explained that she and her fellow dancers from the group “Folklorico Flor de Cana” had just performed “bomba,” a native Puerto Rican combination of drumming and dancing that probably originated among Puerto Rico’s African slave population. (Click on the play arrow to see a portion of the performance.)
Cruz, who was Ms. Puerto Rico de New Haven of 2009, looked charming in her bomba dress. She said the wives of Spanish colonizers had given similar dresses to their slaves for the purpose of dance performances.
When the salsa beat of “Carlitos y su momentos musicales” started up Friday night, Gus and Ada Centeno started demonstrating smooth dance moves. Shouting over Carlitos’s blaring horns, Gus and Ada Centeno said they’ve been coming to the festival for five years.
“We’ve danced every year,” Ada just managed to say before beginning to salsa anew. (Click to play arrow to watch the pair dance.)