Windows were rattling in Christiansted on Sunday as the 3rd Annual Dominicanos parade roared down King Street. The rollicking party marked the 168th anniversary of the Dominican Republic’s independence from Haiti, which was more than enough reason for the assembled crowd to celebrate.
Christiansted was awash in Dominican flags—large ones, small ones, some attached to cars, and some waved enthusiastically by children. People wore the flag as shirts and capes and some even painted it on their bodies. The message from St. Croix’s Dominican community was clear: We’re here and we’re proud of where we came from.
The parade started formally with men bearing the flags of the Dominican Republic, the United States, and the Virgin Islands in a sign of unity. But just behind them, the party started.
The floats in this year’s parade followed a common theme. Most were simply trucks with red, white, and blue bunting and a set of speakers on the back. Behind almost every float, a crowd danced along to the merengue beats blaring into the street.
The floats tried to one up each other with the intensity of their celebration. Spectators were often caught between two competing waves of sound as the music from the next float in line tried to drown out the one ahead. Sometimes the drivers of the trucks would pound their horns in unison with the beat, adding one more layer to the joyous commotion.
The dancing wasn’t contained to the parade. Spectators joined in, turning King Street into one big dance party. A man with a microphone on one float exhorted the crowd, “Baile! Baile! Baile!”
The Dominican Republic was not the only nation represented in the parade. Several jeeps bore the Puerto Rican flag, and the Haitian community organized one large float. Men dancing behind it wore T-shirts bearing the Haitian and Dominican flags with the message, “We are one.”
The parade rounded the curve near Fort Christiansvaern and continued to the David C. Canegata Recreational Center and Sports Complex where it morphed into a carnival. Food vendors were already set up as the first revelers arrived and a large stage had been erected to keep the music and dancing going into the evening.
The crowd certainly seemed pleased at the end of the parade. Manny Alfonseca and his wife, Priscilla, who had attended the two previous parades, swore this one was the best. They said it was important to come out and support the community – but really, they said, they were just eager to have a good time.
“We just going to dance, drink, and have some fun,” Alfonseca said. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s a party day today.”