Thomas Breen photos
Downtown/Yale Alder Alex Guzhnay (third from left) with his family at Sunday's parade.
Sanjuanito dancers twirl their way up Church St.
Billowing yellow, blue and red flags and the panpipe-filled sounds of Sanjuanito dance music filled Church Street on Sunday, as the annual Ecuadorian Cultural Civic Parade returned downtown for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over 150 people turned out on foot and by motorcycle, car, and parade float for the event, which started outside of the Ecuadorian national consulate at 1 Church St. at noon.
The parade marchers wound their way up Church Street, across Elm Street, and down Temple Street, before ending on the Green for a ceremonial raising of the Ecuadorian national flag.
City Clerk Michael Smart, Alder Guzhnay, and state Dept. of Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno at the front of Sunday's parade.
Luis Morales, who lives in Wallingford and is the president of the Comité Cívico Cultural Ecuatoriano de Connecticut, said that this is the seventh annual Ecuadorian pride parade to take place in New Haven. It’s also the first one since 2019, thanks to a pandemic-induced three-year hiatus.
Elio Cruz with parade organizer Luis Morales.
“It’s to remember our independence,” Morales said about the parade, which typically takes place close to Aug. 10, which is when Ecuadorians celebrate their country’s independence from Spain in 1809. It’s also an opportunity to “celebrate our country, and to unite people” of Ecuadorean heritage who live across Connecticut.
The parade has special significance to Ecuadorean New Haveners, said Elio Cruz, whose family hails from Puerto Quito and who has lived in the city since 1994. “New Haven is a very welcoming city. It’s a sanctuary city,” he said.
As someone who has long been active in New Haven’s Ecuadorian community, which numbers in the thousands — and which was sizeable enough to inspire the South American nation to open up a consulate at Church and George Streets in 2008 – Cruz said he can still remember how hundreds of people turned out to https://www.newhavenindependen…. He said Sunday’s event was opportunity to celebrate the home country of many New Haveners and to bring their cultural heritage into public view downtown.
The Ecuadorian consulate and parade starting point at 1 Church St.
Many of those who turned out for Sunday’s parade expressed a similar mix of pride in both their past home country and their current home city as they draped themselves in the Ecuadorian flag and marched to the car speaker-amplified sounds of the rondador, a panpipe that is the national instrument of Ecuador.
First-term Downtown/Yale Alder Alex Guzhnay, who grew up in Fair Haven, said that both of his parents immigrated to New Haven 20 years ago from their shared home town of Ricaurte in Ecuador. He recalled growing up in a large Ecuadorian community in Fair Haven, and meeting many families with similar backgrounds at St. Rose of Lima church.
He said Sunday’s parade represented for him a celebration of “where home was originally, and where home is now. … Just showing that pride.”
Det. Freddy Salmeron (right) with his family on Sunday.
New Haven Police Det. Freddy Salmeron said he too grew up between New Haven and East Haven after his family emigrated from the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil when he was a young child.
“There’s a big Ecuadorian community” in this part of the state, he said. But, he said, pointing to his city police uniform, he’s one of only two Ecuadorians in the NHPD. “There’s not many of us in the police department,” he said. He said he showed up to Sunday’s parade in uniform and with his wife and daughter by his side in part to serve as a role model and try to recruit more members of New Haven’s Ecuadorian community to become city cops.
Klever Pinos (right) with son Derek.
Klever Pinos said that he’s lived in New Haven for 22 years, after coming to this country from the Ecuadorian city of Azogues. He said he had an uncle who lived in New Haven at the time, which is how he ultimately ended up in this city.
For the past 10 years, he said, he’s run a soccer league called Club Social Privado Ecuatoriano out of his home on Quinnipiac Avenue. He said that league has grown to include 68 different kid and adult teams over the years. He said he hosts soccer games at his Quinnipiac Avenue property on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.
“It reminds me of my roots,” he said about Sunday’s parade. “Of my people. It reminds me of where I came from.”
State Department of Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno.
Seila Mosquera-Bruno, a former New Haven affordable housing nonprofit leader who currently helms the state’s Department of Housing, agreed.
“I’m Ecuadorian,” she said when asked why she came out to march in Sunday’s parade. “I’m supporting my culture, my community.”
Posing for photos with a guinea pig parade marcher.
Along the parade route on Church St.
Dancing through Elm and Temple.
I wish there had been more publicity about this parade ahead of time, I would have liked to see it.
New Haven’s cultural diversity is part of what makes it interesting and unique. Immigrants from all over have made our little city home and I would love to see the NHI do an article on the history of the original inhabitants and the historical waves of immigrants who came here and their influences that shaped our city.