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Hispanic day links parents, teachers, kids
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Fifth grader Coralys Fontanes at Williamson Elementary School tries to break the pinata as part of the annual Three Kings Day celebration Wednesday January 7, 2008
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Abraham Jiminez, Luiz Velazquez, Jesynette Morales and Justin Smith dress up while Luis Arroyo, Grimilda Ocasio and Efrain Ruano sing for Williamson Elementary School's annual Three Kings Day celebration Wednesday
By Harold Gwin
Parents were invited to dine with teachers in a potluck lunch to celebrate Three Kings Day.
YOUNGSTOWN — It took the efforts of more than a dozen blindfolded children swinging a bat, but the festive green pinata hanging from a basketball hoop in the Williamson Elementary School gymnasium finally yielded its treasure.
The candy spilling onto the floor triggered a scramble of about 30 children reaching for the goodies and marked the conclusion of the Three Kings Day celebration held by the school’s English as a Second Language class Wednesday.
The school has had multicultural affairs in the past, but this was the first Three Kings Day celebration, said Patricia Musolino, the English as a Second Language teacher.
Three Kings Day (or Dia de los Reyes as it is called in Spanish) is a Christian holiday celebrated primarily in Latin America, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean as well as parts of the United States. It commemorates the biblical story of the three wise men (kings) who followed the star of Bethlehem to bring gifts to the newborn baby Jesus.
The day is celebrated Jan. 6 each year, although Williamson moved its celebration back one day.
“We have such a diversified population here and we wanted the kids to understand different tradition,” Musolino said.
The children in her class spent much of December learning about various holiday traditions around the world and wrapped up their study with Three Kings Day, she said. About 10 percent of the school’s 400 children have Hispanic backgrounds, she said.
The children wrote invitations to their parents to attend a parent-teacher luncheon at the school, and the invitation was eventually extended to the parents of all of the school’s children.
The effort was seen as a good way to end the old year and start the new year “as a family,” Musolino said.
The potluck luncheon was for parents and faculty only, with participants bringing a covered casserole to be shared by all. About 60 people joined in the festivities.
They were led in singing a number of seasonal Spanish songs and got a visit from the three kings (as portrayed by pupils Abraham Jiminez, Luis Velasquez and Justin Smith) and Mary (pupil Jesynette Morales) carrying the baby Jesus.
The goal of the luncheon was to bring the community together, to give parents and teachers a chance to know one another outside the classroom setting, Musolino said. She credited her education assistants — Daisy Corso, Esparanza Cabrera and Bonnie Bermudez — with organizing the effort.
Sheyla Zenquiz, Abraham’s mother, said she found the event to be very worthwhile.
It gives everyone an opportunity to interact with other cultures, and those with a Hispanic background an opportunity to bring their culture into the school, she said.
She was pleased to participate, she said, because Three Kings Day generally isn’t widely celebrated here, adding that Abraham was excited when he learned he would portray one of the kings.
“We’ll be doing more of these kinds of things,” Wanda Clark, building principal, told those attending, adding that she was pleased with the turnout.
After lunch, the parents were invited to the school gym where the rest of the class had already gathered for the pinata ceremony.
The children took turns being blindfolded and handed a bat to strike at the pinata, each getting five whacks as their classmates, gathered in a large circle around them, shouted encouragement.
Nearly 20 of them got a shot at breaking open the treasure before the pinata spilled its candy on the floor, prompting the children to dash forward for a share of the prize.
gwin@vindy.com