Allan Appel Photo
Wilmer Barzallo & son Alex.
Wilmer Barzallo may have given up teaching for waiting tables when he came to New Haven, but as he paraded around the Green with his fellow native Ecuadorians, he still couldn’t resist a teachable moment.
Barzallo marched Saturday in the third annual Ecuadorian Independence Day parade, which made a colorful and festive circumnavigation of the Green.
The parade followed a moving formal ceremony Thursday in which Ecuador’s flag was formally presented and flown for the first time on the flagpole on the Green. (Click here for a previous story about Elm City’s Ecuadorian community, Virgen del Cisne and their soccer league. Here for a story about the opening of the Ecuadorian consulate in 2008. And here for the story of last year’s parade.)
Parade Director Maria Alvarez estimated about 300 participants hailing from as far away as Hartford, and Old Saybrook attended Saturday’s parade. They gathered on Church Street in front of the Ecuadorian consulate.
Many of the participants, like Barzallo had stories to tell.
Barzallo was a social studies teacher in Ecuador. When he came to New Haven and taught several years in the city he found the contrast difficult to adjust to.
He and his son Alex arranged the Ecuadorian flag over the hood of their pick-up, displaying the image of 16th century Inca general Ruminahui (pictured at the top of the story). Barzallo explained that in Ecuador all the students in the classroom behaved well. It was a given. “Here is completely different. Kids don’t have respect for teachers.”
He said you have to be their friend, parent, social worker. The job wasn’t a right fit.
So he has become a waiter at a restaurant in Westbrook. Yes, a waiter can earn more than a schoolteacher.
But ever the teacher, on Saturday Barzallo wanted to make a teachable moment about the parade.
And specifically about Ruminahui.
“We forget about our Indian ancestors,” Barzallo said. He offered that Ruminahui was the greatest general in Ecuadorian history, even though what he did was lead a protracted retreat against the Spanish during their conquest.
He said that on Ecuador’s independence day all the talk is of Simon Bolivar. “We shouldn’t lose sight of the indigenous fighters against the Spanish conquistadors.”
When the Spanish general Francisco Pizarro killed Atahualpa despite the ransom of gold and silver paid, Ruminahui took over the resistance to the Spanish. He collected the remaining gold and hid it, Barzallo said.The Spaniards burned him at the stake; he didn’t reveal the gold’s whereabouts.
“People think there’s still a big treasure of gold” out there somewhere, Barzallo said.
A Dancer and Common Ground-er
Evelyn Gonzales goes to Common Ground High School. For years she was a regular dancer with Generacion Latina, the dance troup headquartered at St. Rose of Lima in Fair Haven. She used to go religiously to every Friday night rehearsal.
No longer, she said. “I had to drop out” in order to earn money for her family.
Now instead of rehearsing every Friday night Evelyn buses tables at Ludall’s restaurant in North Haven.
Wearing her pollera, the big double skirt, she was looking forward to a return engagement dancing with Generacion Latina on special occasions like the parade.
There in fact were several folk dancing groups in the parade.
Jose and Ximena Espin (center, front row in photo) and Pedro and Roxana Berrazueta (center, second row) were among the couples, along with relatives and children, that comprise Los Panas. Los Panas came from Derby.
The group accepts only married men — and single women, Pedro Berrazueta joked. When the entire group insisted on a group picture, the relatives and children set the record straight.
Espin estimated that 500 Ecuadorians live in Derby, Shelton, and other Naugatuck Valley communities. Many were at Saturday’s parade.
That was fine with Fernando Garcia. He and friends had traveled from the Bronx and Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan to the corner of Crown and Church to set up their wares. Flags were going for three dollars.
When told that an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Ecuadorians live in New Haven, he said he hoped they all came to buy flags.
