Tracing the Footsteps of Las Posadas : Latino Holiday Processional Part of Southland Tradition

Attending a posada, the traditional procession that symbolizes Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem, is somewhat like stepping back a century and a half to simpler, less complicated times.

Throughout Mexico and many other countries of the Spanish-speaking world Las Posadas are an annual custom for the nine nights preceding Christmas. This year posadas are planned at several historic adobes in the Southland. For many years they have been celebrated at Olvera Street, Los Angeles’ oldest thoroughfare, where they are a project of the Olvera Street Merchants’ Assn.

The Los Angeles Photography Center is planning a candlelight procession through the MacArthur Park neighborhood near downtown, followed by a dramatization combining the pageantry of Las Posadas and Las Pastorelas, the Shepherds’ Story, another Latino Christmas tradition. It will be acted out utilizing movie sets from MGM that have set up behind the center. Many churches in Latino neighborhoods welcome visitors at their posadas, which help parishioners recall their ethnic heritage. These will take place in the early evening from Tuesday through Dec. 24.

Origination Point

Cathy Bryant, site manager of the Olivas Adobe in Ventura, where posadas are planned next Saturday, says the processions probably originated in Spain some time around the 16th Century. Catholic missionaries brought the custom to the New World. In Spanish the word posada means inn . The nine nights on which the posadas take place represent the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy.

A boy and a girl dressed as Mary and Joseph lead the procession followed by musicians and possibly other children dressed as angels, shepherds and wise men. The Christ child represented by a statue or sometimes a live infant is carried in the procession.

Followed by candle-bearing pilgrims, the group stops from time to time, knocking on different doors of the adobe asking for lodging. Again and again they are refused entry, but at the final stop they are permitted to enter. The statue of Jesus is laid to rest in a manger as part of a Nativity scene.

Each night a party with traditional refreshments and a pinata for the children follows the posada . At Olivas Adobe the expected 500 to 600 guests will enjoy pan dulce or sweet rolls, chocolate flavored with cinnamon and sweet tamales prepared by the Guadalupana society at Mission San Buenaventura. The mission is co-sponsor of the posada along with the Department of Parks and Recreation for the city of San Buenaventura.

A Real Posada

According to Terry Rodriguez, a secretary at Old Mission San Gabriel where posadas are planned Tuesday through Dec. 24, “A posada without a pinata is not a real posada. “ According to Bryant, the breaking of the pinata on this occasion stands for breaking human ignorance with the birth of the Messiah. She says that symbolism abounds in the posada . The candlelight procession reminds participants of the star that guided the wise men to Bethlehem. The luminarias represent the fires that the shepherds lit as they kept watch on the hills of Bethlehem.

The posadas mean different things to the diverse groups of people who take part.

At a recent posada held for members of the Southwest Museum at the Casa de Adobe in Highland Park, guests expressed varying sentiments.

“I have Hispanic friends, and I want to know more about their culture,” Bonnie Graham of Los Angeles said. “This is my first posada, but it won’t be my last.”

Elaine Stewart of Palos Verdes said, “I just love the simplicity and the honesty, both of the children and the older people.”

“The posada has a sense of the early history and culture,” explained Amanda McIntosh of Los Angeles. “I do want my son Robert to grow up with an understanding that California history is older than the freeways.”

At Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights, “the posadas are an opportunity for people to remember the celebrations they had back home,” Father Greg Boyle said. “Although many things are different here, it still is a high point of the Christmas season. People come together in a spirit of cooperation.” Father Boyle said that although Dolores Mission is located in a section of Los Angeles that can be quite dangerous, on the nights of the posadas visitors should be able to safely accompany the parishioners and church choir that will leave the church around 6:30 p.m., after 6 o’clock Mass, to wend their way through nearby Aliso Village and Pico Gardens. The posadas are planned by the Basic Christian Communities, groups that meet as a nucleus to organize parish activities.

Second Oldest Adobe Home

At the Andres Pico Adobe in Mission Hills, the second oldest adobe home in Los Angeles (Avila Adobe in Olvera Street is the oldest), curator Elva Meline is getting ready for the 16th annual posada to be held tonight . The event, sponsored by the San Fernando Valley Historical Society, attracts several hundred people, about half of them Latino, half Anglo, according to Meline. Children from nearby Santa Rosa School will take the parts of Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds and wise men. A highlight of this posada is the real baby, representing the baby Jesus, who is carried by a madrina or godmother, an honorary role performed by a local woman.

After the posada and the breaking of the pinata, guests will be served pan dulce and chocolate. The members of the historical society have made cascarones , empty egg shells filled with confetti. According to Meline, during ranch days, from the Christmas season to Lent, cascarones were broken over the heads of a member of the opposite sex. “This custom was a particular delight to otherwise modest young women who could use the cascarones to flirt with young men.”

Cathy Bryant of Olivas adobe also attempts to create the ambiance of an early California home at Christmastime. “Our docents wanted to put a Christmas tree in the adobe. In order to tell them we couldn’t do that I had to write a documented paper on the actual customs of early California.” She adds, “It was worth it. On the night of the posada when I see the glow of the luminarias and hear the singing in Spanish, I get a tingle down my spine and I feel that this is what it might have been like here a century and a half ago.”