San Sebastian Street Fiestas 2014… Let The Party Begin!

Christ­mas is almost over for many Amer­i­cans. Just yes­ter­day they were tear­ing open their presents, and in 5 more days they’ll be count­ing down the hours to 2014. Then it’ll be back to work.

Not in Puer­to Rico! In Puer­to Rico the par­ty is just begin­ning. Christ­mas on the Island kicks off on Thanks­giv­ing Day and extends all the way to the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas. When’s that? The third week­end in Jan­u­ary. Wow!

Like every­one else around the world Puer­to Ricans will count down the hours, min­utes and sec­onds to ush­er in 2014. Then they’ll go on to Jan­u­ary 6, when the Island cel­e­brates “El Día De Los Tres Reyes Magos” (3 Wise Men Day).

Puer­to Rico was orig­i­nal­ly col­o­nized by Spain. And like many oth­er Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries the most impor­tant day dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son was “3 Wise Men Day”, not Christ­mas Day; and cer­tain­ly not San­ta Claus.

Things have changed after the Unit­ed States invad­ed the Island in 1898. Today Puer­to Rico cel­e­brates Thanks­giv­ing Day, Christ­mas Day (with San­ta Claus and all), new Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, 3 Wise Men Day and the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas. So it’s one looooooooooooooong par­ty that goes on for close to two months.

There are arti­sans every­where. Click to enlarge.

So what are the San Sebas­t­ian Street fies­tas, or “Las Fies­tas de la Calle San Sebastían” like the locals call them?

Some his­to­ri­ans argue that the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas have been going on since the 19th cen­tu­ry, but offi­cial­ly they were estab­lished in 1954 by father Juan Manuel Madra­zo, who at the time was the parish priest at San José Church in Old San Juan. The orig­i­nal pur­pose of the fies­tas was to col­lect funds for the church and to repair the streets that sur­round­ed the temple.

Lat­er on father Madra­zo was trans­ferred to anoth­er parish and the fies­tas went into a hia­tus. In the mid 1970’s his­to­ri­an “Ricar­do Ale­gría” asked “Rafaela Bal­ladares de Brito” (a res­i­dent of San Sebas­t­ian Street) to res­cue the tra­di­tion of the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas, this time as a way to help fund the “Cole­gio de Párvu­los” (ele­men­tary school) locat­ed near the east­ern end of San Sebas­t­ian Street.

“Cabezu­do” lead­ing a “com­parsa”. Click to enlarge.

In the ear­ly years a small group of musi­cians called a “com­parsa” would walk up the street fol­lowed by “cabezu­dos” (local chil­dren wear­ing huge masks) and local towns­peo­ple car­ry­ing the image of a saint all the way to San Jose Church, where a reli­gious ser­vice would take place.

Lat­er on local artists start­ed lin­ing the street sell­ing every­thing from seri­graphs and leather goods to bijouterie and wood­en saints. The event kept grow­ing and grow­ing until it became the largest event in the world of its kind, tak­ing place dur­ing the month of January.

Today the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas start at the east­ern end of San Sebas­t­ian Street and extend all the way to the Bal­la­já Mil­i­tary Bar­racks, right in front of El Mor­ro grounds. Last year the event went on for four con­sec­u­tive days and it attract­ed close to half a mil­lion peo­ple from Puer­to Rico and abroad.

This year the Munic­i­pal Gov­ern­ment of San Juan has announced that the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas will take place from Jan­u­ary 16th to the 19th, and they will hon­or Ray­mond Arri­eta, a local come­di­an and human­i­tar­i­an. They also announced that they are con­sid­er­ing stricter secu­ri­ty mea­sures, espe­cial­ly as it per­tains to the traf­fic of peo­ple and vehi­cles in and out of the old city.

Cabezu­dos

Enter­ing and leav­ing Old San Juan dur­ing the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas can be a night­mare. That’s why many peo­ple —includ­ing me— leave their vehi­cles at a remote loca­tion and use the pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem to reach and leave the city.

But last year things got out of hand when the cit­i­zen­ry blocked the bus lanes going in and out of the old city and patrons were strand­ed for hours at the Cov­adon­ga Bus Ter­mi­nal. The whole thing could have end­ed in a riot if it weren’t for the direct inter­ven­tion of Car­men Yulín Cruz, who had only been major of San Juan for a cou­ple of days when the event took place.

There’s some­thing for every­one at “la San Sebas­t­ian”. Click to enlarge

Anoth­er event that could have esca­lat­ed into some­thing a lot more seri­ous was the shoot­ing of a young man right next to the “Totem Telúri­co”, a huge mon­u­ment that sits right in the mid­dle of Quin­cen­ten­ni­al Square”, just to the west of San José Church. Thank Good­ness that most peo­ple did­n’t hear the shot through all the hus­tle and bus­tle, but that one shot could have ini­ti­at­ed a human stam­pede and result­ed in dozens —if not hun­dreds— of injuries and deaths.

It would have been nice to con­tact the appro­pri­ate gov­ern­ment fig­ures and learn about what mea­sures —if any— munic­i­pal and state offi­cials are putting in place this year to avoid such inci­dents, but we nev­er received any answer to our emails and phone calls. So we can only hope for the best.

Today’s San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas prac­ti­cal­ly take over the entire old city. There are arti­sanss every­where, music at almost every plaza, local cui­sine of every kind and lots and lots of beer. The “cabezu­dos com­parsa” takes place sev­er­al times a day and the par­ty goes on for four straight days.

Can some­thing go wrong? Sure it can. Like it can go wrong at the “Río de Janeiro” fes­ti­val, at “Las Fies­tas De San Fer­mín”, at “Mar­di Gras” and any­where else where you have a large gath­er­ing of peo­ple in a very small area.

But if you real­ly want to see what a par­ty is like in Puer­to Rico there’s no place bet­ter than the “San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas”. So come on, join the party!

Hap­py New Year,

©2013,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590