For my cultural experience project, I participated in a holiday with one of my best friends from childhood called “Candlemas”. It’s a holiday that Hispanics celebrate every year on the date of February 2nd. The holiday is celebrated because of the custom cleaning of Mary, 40 days after the introduction of her child Jesus was born. The celebration is called Candlemas because this was the day that all the Church's candles for the year were honored. This day likewise used to have extraordinary criticalness in the rural calendar, in light of the fact that the date lies somewhere between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, so it denotes the day whereupon winter is half finished. It is a time that normally shapes a change period in winter there is a sense in which express gratitude toward God we are proceeding onward into more promising times.
To better understand the holiday “Candlemas”, you must take a look back as far as 2,000 years ago to the day Jesus was born. So for example, if a baby is born on a certain day, the mom must wait 40 days to visit and be purified (https://www.infinityauto.com/knowledge-center/daily-life-and-family/candlemas-day-mexico). Since Jesus was conceived on the 25th of December and he was brought into the world a Jew, Mary, and Jesus visited the sanctuary of Jerusalem forty days after the day he was born, while visiting on February second. Infant Jesus was presented, and the Virgin Mary was officially purified. As far as how Mexicans celebrate this day, on the day of, families take down Christmas decorations such as Christmas trees and lights. Then everyone dresses up as baby Jesus as they proceed to church to be blessed. Another common activity is the gathering of family and friends to celebrate this holiday together, particularly on “tamales.” During gathering many Mexicans also make a special dough called rosca, which is shaped like a wreath and contains a figurine of the baby Good Shepherd baked inside of it.
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I participated in this event with my best friend Maria’s family who is Hispanic. Since I knew I needed a cultural event to attend, I felt like that was the best event for me to participate in. On Candlemas night, we placed candles in all the windows to set off the spirit. The tradition of the Hispanic culture is amazing. First I’ll like to mention how good their spicy foods are. Maria's parents cooked one of their famous dishes from Mexico City which is called “Enchiladas”. It basically is like a Nacho bowl which is very good. The ingredient of the spicy beans made it much more delicious. It also contained shrimp in it and shrimp is a famous dish also from the African-American culture. The best food of the night was the Tamales. This type of food is eaten on this day because Tamales were part of the offerings made to the gods since they’re made with corn, which according to the Maya, is the food from which man was created (https://www.mexico.mx/en/articles/candelaria-february-tamales). When asked about their music preferences, they said that they love to listen to R&B Hip-Hop which is from the black ethnic group, but their favorite Mexico Artist is Mc Davo.
This event is very different from the African- American culture. This culture celebrates this event 40 days after Christmas, but in the African American culture, there’s no such day like this. La Candelaria is celebrated in towns and villages of Madrid with a variety of festivities. Clowns dressed as farmers push around fake young bulls made of wood with two horns while the bullfighters dressed in colored silk pants with lassos and paper flowers chase and perform mock bullfights around the town. In the evening, in the town center, the makeshift bull is assassinated, and the town celebrates by drinking sangria, categorizing the blood of the bull.
Maria parent’s religious beliefs were common and similar to other cultures even though Hispanics only celebrate that particular day. They grew up as Catholics and stuck to their same beliefs and values. They mentioned that they pray every single day and that they read the Bible at least once a week. There’s a Church in the United States that is worldwide and it is called, “Roman Catholic Church”, the place that I attended so that I could get the whole experience of celebrating Candlemas Day.
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