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HomeNewsArchivesV.I.–Puerto Rico Friendship Parade, Concerts This Weekend

V.I.–Puerto Rico Friendship Parade, Concerts This Weekend

Postponed last weekend due to rain, St. Croix’s 46th V.I.–Puerto Rico Friendship celebration will take place this Friday through Monday in Christiansted’s D.C. Canegata Ballpark, according to the VIPR Friendship Committee.
There will be four full days of concerts and festivities in the ad hoc Friendship Village set up in the ballpark, beginning with a ceremony at 6 p.m. Friday. Saturday and Sunday the festivities also begin at 6 p.m., and local and Puerto Rican bands will play until late.
The Friendship Parade (La Gran Parada de la Amistad) that was part of past celebrations returns this year, starting at noon Sunday at Estate Richmond and ending at the Friendship Village.
The last day of festivities will start Monday at 4 p.m., and the program will be more focused on younger visitors, with local steel pan bands and majorette groups performing, along with young local soca and calypso bands.
Puerto Ricans have been a significant part of U.S. Virgin Islands and especially St. Croix society for well over a century. Some celebrations and pageants occurred at least as early as 1960, when the first VIPR Friendship Queen, Nereida Santos, was named, according to information from the VIPR Friendship Committee. It became official in 1964 when Gov. Ralph Paiewonsky signed an act making Columbus Day into Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico Friendship Day.
The act calls for the territory to "observe the occasion with fitting ceremonies honoring Puerto Ricans residing in our midst and who have made substantial contributions to the advancement and progress of the Virgin Islands." The Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico Friendship Committee organizes and puts on the festivities.
When the territory’s first Hispanic governor, Juan Luis, took office in 1978, his wife Luz María Luis began commemorating Friendship Day with ceremonies in Government House on St. Croix. St. Thomas also had a luncheon.
What started as a luncheon, moved on to three days, then a week, and in 2005, spurred on by the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico Friendship Committee (VIPR), expanded to a whole month of pageants, concerts and festivities. Now it has combined with Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations nationwide, recognizing contributions of Hispanics of every origin to the national fabric.
In 2007 the celebrations were extended to St. Thomas. The first VIPR village was at the Christiansted waterfront and dedicated to the late Miguel Duchesne, first VIPR committee president. The village is always dedicated to an outstanding community servant and this year that honor goes to Stanley and the Ten Sleepless Knights, who are celebrating their 40th year together. Bandleader Stanley Jacobs is himself a "Cruzan-Rican," according to the VIPR Committee.

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